pity vs love - Al-Anon Family Group

Rusty Angel · Member

pity vs love

SerenityRUS · ~*Service Worker*~

Alanon encourages us to not be focused on others there is a difference between selfish loving and unconditional love. I can kill someone literally with selfish love which is a co-dependent love. Literally love them to death by enabling them in their destructive lifestyles.

The God of my understanding wants me to take care of me .. I have to put my oxygen mask on first and then I can reach out to others. The bible also tells us that we need to love ourselves first.

For me .. I have to love me .. well, to love me I have to know me .. unless I can do that I can't accept love from anyone else.

That means I may need to say no from time to time in order to take care of me .. if I have never done that I don't have the tools to know how to take care of me.

So in some ways that's why this is called a selfish program. I have to learn how to say no.

Hugs S :)

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

Self seeking for me is to do something to get something back like love, approval or appreciation. Love gives because it gives. That is its essence to me.

ClearTheFog · Senior Member

This is a great question and topic. I used to be puzzled by that also. I think I have figured out over time studying a 12 step alanon or coda program, that if my gut is all churned up while I'm smiling and saying "It's ok, really, I don't mind!", or if I've slipped into some foggy funk on auto-pilot while letting someone else do something I really don't want, that's big time codependency. I would like to get to where I'm happily saying "Yes, it's fine, go ahead!" most, if not all, of the time while being genuinely happy and actually meaning it, rather than just giving other people permission to walk all over me all the time.

I can't come from a giving, loving perspective if I don't even have a 'self' to give it from, if that makes any sense. Same concept as Serenity said with the oxygen mask.

I'm still not out of the woods on this one yet. It's a good thing to get familiar with - the difference between being a weakly smiling doormat but dying on the inside, versus giving love or acts of love from an unwavering position of strength.

Beatrice · Senior Member

Without loving or liking me, there is no others.

There is nothing selfish about delving into the self, for the more I improve myself, the more I can give to others.

There has to be a balance there. For I cannot give more to others than to myself as I would be off balance.

I have a hard time understanding this question. As I believe we are put on this planet to be happy and being happy with ourself
requires a journey to the inside of our core.

Bettina

Rusty Angel · Member

Thanks for your reply. I have a lot of "heavies" going on....am reticent and shy about posting too much publicly......is there a way to private message?

neshema2 · ~*Service Worker*~

Rusty Angel wrote:
I get very confused trying to understand love. In the biblical description....love is patient, love is kind etc....it goes on to say "love is not self-seeking"......yet as a codependent I have fallen victim to negating myself, waiting on others only. Al-Anon encourages us to understand ourselves, our feelings, motives, needs, wants etc....is that not self seeking? Twisted, confused thoughts.

as one who does not buy into bible much, i can't comment on biblical ref., but I do put myself first, my needs first, and i set my boundairies....if i don't take care of me first, then i am useless to to my loved ones and other al anon folks needing my shares.......al anon is a save your own life program...if i don't put myself first then i end up abandoning myself for others needs/wants....not a good thing...all coda.....love is to discover self and love and accept self after learning about myself.......i am glad al anon et al is non denominational b/c my creator/higher power was program at first...now my hp is creator and creator is alll about love and positiveness...and that means being positive to me too....no...i am not saying me me me i am saying "me TOO" just saying...

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

For me it means love is not all about self. If we believe God is love, we know he loves and respects himself, however he gets great joy from helping his creation. He does for us.

An A generally puts theirselves first. If they have problems they are huge, ours are never that bad. self seeking is one is selfish, always looking for what they can get out of it.

Also it can mean they self seek truth, instead of believing in the creator.

Yes we help others, no question. But we do not help so much to be a detriment to them. We never want to do what one can do for themselves. We want to help in tough times but we must be careful or that person won't learn for themselves.

good question.

maryjane · ~*Service Worker*~

I can say that this "pity vs love" has bothered me ever since I read about it. It was in one of the readings that I read recently and I have probably read it before but it didn't hit me like this time that I read it.

I don't want to have a pity relationship. I don't want anyone to pity me, but I have realized that my hubby does want to have me pity him. He says things to encourage my feeling sorry for him. I didn't even notice that until I read that reading. Now I notice it. I think it is his way of putting himself first and manipulating me.

So do I react to it? Yeah, I always have, but now it bothers me. I even mentioned it to him the last time he used it . "Oh, you're playing that card now?" is what I said to him. He did not acknowledge what I said.

Pity is manipulation. Love is not about self. It is about the other.

Understanding yourself is not self seeking. It is growing up and being an adult, (no matter how old you are.)

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Top right hand section of the page is your "Logged in as" name...you will see a message there if there is a PM waiting for you...which there is. (((hugs))) smile

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

I see self seeking as trying to get attention from others, trying to always be right, demanding my point of view be heard, seeking sympathy, feeding my ego and inner spoilt child. This was me before alanon. Seeking out outside approval or looking for my needs to be met by others. Since alanon, ive learned to look at my motives for all this and look within for my own needs, identify them and then mak3 improvements to my own life, take care of myself instead of believing that job belongs to every other person in my life. So no im self searching, self improving, ive already been self seeking.

Rusty Angel · Member

Thanks for your replies. I got some good answers into understanding pity vs love. Realize I am horribly codependent. Is there a similar message board for CODA. I need to understand myself better.......hardly feel I have a SELF to give from.....how do I cultivate it at this late stage?

ClearTheFog · Senior Member

maryjane wrote:
but I have realized that my hubby does want to have me pity him. He says things to encourage my feeling sorry for him. I didn't even notice that until I read that reading. Now I notice it. I think it is his way of putting himself first and manipulating me.

My way around that one (as I am in a similar situation with a couple of different people in my daily life), is to say "Oh, I'm sorry you're feeling that way". I want to be kind, but I definitely don't join in with the pity parties. This works with the one person who needs validation, and for the other person who I'm convinced doesn't even know he has gone off on another pity tirade about everybody or everything else on the planet, I usually change the subject and he doesn't appear to even notice.

But "I'm sorry you're feeling that way" acknowledges that I heard him, that I understand he is upset about something, but I am not obliged to agree or disagree with the existence of perceived evildoers. This is much easier on me, and provides me a way not to take it all on to myself. I can stand next to him and not take any of that on. It's a good temporary solution but I'm slowly deciding I can't really be around that kind of mentality all the time. It's toxic and draining. Energy vampire.

Rusty Angel: One thing at a time! One day at a time. Don't worry about it being a 'late stage'. You have made the step of knowing that there is something not right in how things are, and you're taking the next step in how to start dealing with it. I have read many helpful books about codependency (Melody Beattie/Codependent No More, and then Beyond Codependency are great ones to start with) and have learned SO much from just reading the threads here. The common theme is for us to work on ourselves and let the other person (alcoholic in this board's case) do whatever it is they are going to do. All we can change is ourselves.

I'm not sure where you are located but you may find some codependents anonymous meetings in your area, if addiction and substance abuse isn't part of the picture. But many of us have either had alcoholics in our past that we never really dealt with, or have them around us now. Even though my contact with alcoholics is much less now than it was, they still do affect me and I still need to arm myself with my al-anon 'toolbox' of slogans, phrases and sensible, healthy habits. So I still get tons of help from the threads on these boards, whether they are my threads or someone else's.

You do still have a self! I think you are on the right track here towards finding it again.

-- Edited by ClearTheFog on Saturday 21st of June 2014 09:17:48 AM

missmeliss · ~*Service Worker*~

I was thinking about that question- the difference between love and pity just this morning after reading some stories from codependant women; I realised that I expect very little from my ABF and also had virtually no expectations of my A father because I pity them for having been raised in abusive homes with no decent role models. I think that pity has allowed me to tolerate far more from those men than I would ever allow from someone who didn't have a sad childhood and I've used it to excuse their behaviour over and over instead of demanding better from them. I realised this morning that this is pity, not love.
It's a really interesting topic.

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