Taking on other people's stuff means thinking we have certain qualities that actually belong to someone else (this is called "introjection"), or thinking it's our job to rescue people from experiencing the effects of their own choices (known as "codependence"). Introjection is internalizing a negative quality of someone else's while mistakenly believing it is our own trait. This is usually done unconsciously. Codependence is thinking it is our responsibility to cover for someone else's lack of self-responsibility.

INTROJECTION is the process by which we become invaded or toxified by another person's wounds, unfinished business, non-self-responsibility or projections. Introjection is about absorbing something that doesn't belong to you and living as though it does.

For instance, as a child, Mary's mother was very undependable. Her Mom would tell her she'd pick her up from school at 2:30 and regularly wouldn't show up until 3:30 or later. Mary, thinking as most children do, was secretly very angry at her mother for doing this, but decided that her Mom was undependable because Mary didn't count. As an adult, much to her chagrin, Mary herself regularly found it hard to make it to commitments on time. On further exploration, she discovered that she did this because, since she felt she wasn't important, she believed she wouldn't be missed - that her lateness didn't have any impact on other people.

Mary had taken on a dysfunctional trait of her Mom's and made it hers. Only after she came to grips with this and learned how to turn this learning back to her mother could she discover and live in accord with her own relationship to time and commitments. Until we have healed enough to be authentic (technically called individuation), we remain susceptible to believing people when they project their negative traits onto us, or believing other people's opinions of us are more accurate than our understanding of ourselves.

CODEPENDENCE is feeling more anxious about someone else's life or choices than they are. Codependence involves making it your job to fix or compensate for someone else's traits, shortcomings, unfinished business, wounds or problem behaviors.

For instance, Frank was part of a team at work responsible for developing a new procedures manual. He regularly had excuses for why his particular tasks weren't done. Another team member, Dianne, felt sorry for him. She thought he was a nice guy who was just in over his head. So she started to do his tasks in addition to his own. What she didn't know was that he was a likable sort of alcoholic who was used to getting other people to cover for him so his alcoholism wouldn't become visible.

In trying to do a good deed in a codependent way, Dianne was unknowingly protecting Frank from experiencing the effects of his alcoholism, which contributed to his taking longer than he might have otherwise to hit bottom and begin his recovery process.

Canadian Quotes of The Day ... and more [on the lighter side]

Edition No.47
Insight EFAP International