ENABLING IS NOT LOVE

People claim they do many things in the name of love. Love gets a bad wrap when it comes to people who enable. I believe those that enable, intellectually believe that they are taking their actions from love, but emotionally it is about control.

 Enabling is not a selfless act but a selfish act. It is all about what the enabler needs, and nothing of what their “victim” needs. Yes, I said victim, because those who are targeted by enablers are victims.

 They get their lives stolen just like a murder victim, the only difference is they are still breathing. But they still have had their lives stolen from them. Their connection to spirit is high jacked by someone who doesn’t believe there is a higher purpose to life and only they can save them.

 Enablers are predators. I know that seems like a hard thing to say,  but it is true.  They are drawn to people with low self esteem, or personality traits that lends them to taking the ‘easy path.” Perfect pray for enablers. In many cases, enablers groom their victims over time, especially in close relationships, like lovers or family, but saving the day so many times that the person doesn’t notice that they are losing their personal power.

 Enablers have lost their faith in a “greater power.” They have somehow had their personal experience with a greater source stolen from them. Somewhere in their lives they have felt like a failure, and inside still do,  and the only way their can validate their lives is to “save others,” only the saving requires that the other person lose their life.

You simply can’t save someone who is empowered and doesn’t need saving.

 It is imperative to the enabler that the person they target never gets a sense of their own power by their own means. They may become empowered as a direct result of the enablers actions, but at some point that will slip away and the cycle will start again. For example, they let addicts live their lives without change instead of getting some sort of therapies for addictions or rehab help, such as Delamere Rehab or others that you can see when you click here at their website: https://cocainerehabcentre.co.uk/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-for-addiction/ for more information.

 Enabler’s personal disconnect from spirit causes them to believe that those they target need them. That without them they couldn’t survive. That they are the only one that “loves them” and if they don’t step in and “take care” of them, no one will. For the enabler, there is no greater plan at work. They believe that their lack of faith in spirit extends to their targets: that they are not loved by spirit either.

 If you are an enabler you always find fault in the other person. They need to be flawed, useless, unable to provide for themselves. You need to be able to justify taking over their lives and stepping in between them and their higher power in order to “protect them” and exalt yourself.

 Enablers deny others the right to their karma, to their life experience. They isolate others from the very things that empower them and give them strength of character: life. They deny others the right to have their own life experience, good or bad.

 Enablers manufacture a false, limited life for their victims and all paths that lead away from the enabler are buried beneath the carnage of lies, failures and lost dreams.

 Enablers are cruel and selfish. They ruin lives. They corrupt love. And the sad thing is: they still never find any peace for themselves. They live within a nightmare that they have created.

 Their life becomes trapped in the lie that they create in order to justify their own existence and reasoning for their actions.

 And the really interesting things about enablers, and maybe the most ruthless part about is:  most enablers know that they are enabling.

They see the damage they are doing. They get told by others. They see it in their subjects life and the fact that they are not changing. But they don’t seem to care, or from my experience, want to care. What they need is more important. Their personal struggle with a ‘greater purpose,”  drives them to have to prove that only they can step in and save others.

 Enablers are not stupid people. They are very aware of what they need but they somehow get lost and instead of focusing on what they need to change in their own lives, they zero in on others who are not as strong: isolate them from the world, position themselves as sole provider and live out their need to be right or effective through the scenario that is created, unfortunately, not only at  the expense of the other person, but also themselves.

Enabling is not a full  filling life condition.

I see it as a lonely one,  a haunted one.

Regardless of how this article may sound I sincerely feel for those who are compelled to enable.

I pray for anyone who does not know that they are loved for who they are by a greater force than human kind.

But that does not excuse the choices enablers make.

Being an enabler is not a death sentence. There are ways to stop.

 The first one is to reconnect with spirit. With something higher than yourself.

The next step is find someone else to take over as care taker of the person you are enabling.

This will be a hard, but if you don’t do it you won’t be able to help yourself or the the other person.

 These are only a couple of steps. There are many more. There is also the dynamic you have created with the people that you have been enabling that needs to be addressed. After having lived in the “fish bowl’ you created for them, they are not going to be able to just break free.

 It takes time. But it is doable.

 But the most important step, in my opinion anyway, is really learning to trust that something greater than you is the solution to not only their lives but also your own.

4 comments

  1. Cher says:

    Hi Shanon
    Used to do this myself once upon a time but no more, not for a long time. Didn’t realise it was about me, thought it was helping “them”.
    Thanks for a well written article explaining what “enabling” is. Most people would not be aware of it and probably, quite understandably take offence. I pray they will find their way also and break the pattern.

  2. Hi Cher, I really had no person in mind when I wrote this. I was more moved by seeing the effects it was having in my clients and friends lives as a whole. Thanks for commenting!

  3. Hi Shanon: I’ve just finishe a book about my enabling behaviors with my addicted teen: YOU CAN’T LOVE THEM INTO SOBRIETY. and would like to use a line or two of the above blog. I am a recovering codependent and a lot of stuff is working, but slowly. Thank you
    Dr. Lou

  4. Hi, that is fine, thanks for dropping me a note on it. best Shanon

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