Christian Codependency: 10 Things Codependents Must Do to Change

There are 10 things Christian codependents must do to change the patterns that keep them reacting codependently in life and relationships. If you are a codependent, you live your life focusing on other people. In order to change, you must take the focus off others and put the focus onto your own life by doing the following 10 things:

1. Get out of your isolation. Whether it is joining a support group, Twelve Step group, meeting with a friend, or going to professional counseling, you have to be honest with people about what is going on in your life.
2. Focus on yourself. Pay attention to your feelings, needs, and wants. Figure out what you need to do to live your life how you want to live it.
3. Accept your powerlessness over others. Recognize all the futile things you have been doing to try to control others and how they haven't worked, but have robbed you of the time and energy you need to live your life instead.
4. Turn your life and your loved ones over to God. When you admit you can't control other people, you will need to turn them over to God. When you recognize you haven't run your own life well, you will need to surrender your life to God too.
5. Draw boundaries. You need to learn to say no and learn to say yes (and mean it). You need to be clear on what you will and won't do and what you will allow others to do and not do to you.
6. Learn to be good to yourself. When you can treat yourself well, you will expect others to value you and treat you respectfully also. Clear up any Scriptural misconceptions that would make you think you don't deserve good things.
7. Stop enabling. Allow others to make their own choices and experience the consequences of them. Don't cover up, lie, excuse, bail out, or rescue. Stop feeling responsible for other people and let them be responsible for themselves, as God expects them to be.
8. Learn to detach with love. You learn to treat your difficult loved ones with compassion and respect, because they deserve to be treated with dignity as human beings regardless of what they do. If God can love sinners, so can you. At the same time, you can detach from them and live your life as they live theirs.
9. Speak the truth in love. Find your voice that communicates your truth, even if others don't agree. Don't let others discount or invalidate your truth and don't invalidate your own truth.
10. Accept the things you cannot change. As long as you are fighting reality, you won't be able to decide what you want to do about it. Acceptance gives you peace and allows you to take the next step.

You don't have to continue to be enslaved by your Christian codependency. You can live your life in a way that cares about yourself and others rather than caring for others and not caring for yourself. Jesus said he came so you could have an abundant life (John 10:10). You can have that life by doing these 10 things that codependents must do to change.