4th Stepping
Hi, my name is Catherine and I am a recovering codependent.
Codependency is an acquired mental health disorder, based on social conditioning and upbringing.
At its core, codependency means that I don’t didn’t love myself. I was not taught to love myself. Instead I was taught that to give all of myself to others made me a good person, and keeping myself to myself made me a bad person.
I was taught that self-love is shameful; by people who themselves had been shamed into not loving themselves by their own social conditioning and upbringing.
I’ve had enough. By not loving myself I have treated myself and others badly.
No more.
I now practice self-love.
4th Stepping
In April of 2023 I separated from my husband by moving into a penthouse in the same building. I placed my green reclining chair - my meditation chair - in the lounge where I could look out across the island at Big Jesus on His Little Volcano. I went to therapy. I attended online 12 step meetings for codependency recovery. I read books on psychology and watched talks by people in the field. I adjusted to my new situation of being separated yet remaining in Malta and in the marriage until I was granted citizenship. I prayed. I meditated.
I meditated…
Seeking Connection
I’d start a meditation by sitting in my comfortable chair and covering my body with fabric. I’d settle my gaze on Big Jesus and incrementally let go of my desire to control.
My body seeks comfort, I would acknowledge, as I adjusted my butt in my seat so that my hips felt settled, supported and safely surrendered. I allowed my awareness to flow effortlessly throughout my body, experiencing, observing, accepting and comforting. After a time I allowed myself to recognise; My body is relaxed.
With my tongue snuggled into my palette, I breathed only through my nose; quietly pulling the air into my body by gently pressing the muscles deep within my gut downwards into the welcoming chalice of my hips. I would release this action slowly, enjoying the hug of my diaphragm and belly muscles on my vagus nerve as I exhaled.
Initially, because I didn’t know what I was doing with this meditation practice and I was just merrily winging it, I would set my blinks on automatic - blinking in rhythm with my breathing; 1-blink-in, 2-blinks-out, none-in-the-dip. I believed I needed to either blink or close my eyes to prevent my eyes from shrivelling up like raisins.
My mind seeks answers, I would accept, as I recognised my mind’s cheerful eagerness to prove its worth by being engaged and helpful. I thanked each thought as it arrived and handed it over to my higher power - in the faith that All always provides my mind with the answers it seeks, eventually, and I don’t have to figure it all out for myself in this moment. After a time I would allow myself to recognise; My mind is calm.
At this point I would allow myself to step back from the construct of Catherine and then to step back from the construct of the world. I would perform a kind of Trust Fall - letting go of the “me” construct and allowing my Being to just Be.
For long, blissful moments, Being would just Be… The Catherine construct would enjoy the relaxed sense of surreality and deep calm that comes when everything surrounding the focal point begins to swim in and out of existence and I’d just hang out there - safely out of control and courageously in faith.
And then I’d realise I’d stopped blinking, time had gone weird again and I’d panic slightly, blink a bunch of times, draw figure eights or trefoil knots with my eyes and start the whole process all over again, determined to keep my blinking on automatic to protect my eyes from the perils of desiccation while I enjoyed that sweet, sweet nothingness; the vacuum that exists in the wake of everything emerging into being.
Step Four
Two weeks ago I completed Step Four of my program. I’d done this work in the comfort of my green chair, between meditations. I’d written four pages of loving self-acknowledgement. I’d owned my values and vices - as many as I could uncover at that point in my life - along with a short description of how each behaviour, attitude or belief affected my life. I sent off my work to my sponsor who responded with congratulations and said, “You can move on to Tradition Four.”
Not yet, Being told me, I’m still busy with Step Four.
The previous steps of my program had played themselves out in my life in the most fantastic and surreal ways, whereas my completion of Step Four had occurred without all of this cosmic playfulness and synchronicity. I’d been looking forward to Step Four; I’d expected I’d be throwing fireworks in my soul to flush out my demons and what happened instead was that I sat down and took stock of myself in a mature and responsible, self-loving and self-accepting manner. It was all a little bland, really. I didn’t feel like I’d gained much. So when Being said she was still busy with Step Four I was content to wait for what interesting epiphanies she might bring me.
It was around this time that the inspiration struck; to have a go at filming myself while drawing. I’d been wanting to do this since I moved out, but between my therapist at the time telling me not to spend (waste) my time on that activity and the incessant construction noises in and around the building; I’d never gotten to the point of actually doing it. During the intervening months I continued to gather the gear I’d need to do this, without telling my therapist, because Being had brought me an experience of my future self joyfully creating such videos and so I did what I do best:
I followed my intuition - find the joy, follow the joy.
I set myself up to film. I dragged my green meditation chair across the apartment and placed it between two desks in another room. I set up my SAD light and clip light to give controlled lighting to the scene. I used a desk-clamp-mount to set up my GoPro (with its non-official 15X “macro” lens) in a position to film ASMR close-ups of the drawing taking shape on the drawing board on my lap. Beside me I had my pencils set up to be within easy reach and I set about exploring the experience of being this person who goes to bed feeling satisfied that I’ve spent my time peacefully doing something I am meant to be doing and therefore I can let go of any judgemental attachments to the day - part of my definition of happiness.
It was fun. I had fun. I’ve deleted all of the videos because of the construction noises and the fact that I haven’t yet discovered what I am to draw, or in which style or what purpose the finished images will serve and so I didn’t finish anything. I was just playing with possibilities and pencils and exploring who I am becoming. I also chose to delete the footage from the camera as part of my practice of letting go of my attachments to my past selves, something I am doing so that I can be authentically present in the most beautiful moment of All.
I believe there’s no such thing as a waste of time.
I win some, I learn some.
I can’t lose because there is nothing to be lost.
All is available to me.
So I had fun sitting in my green chair and playing make-believe but I was constantly distracted by the fact that I couldn’t seem to achieve the same level of focus in my meditations while sitting in the uncomfortable office chair that I’d replaced my green chair with in the lounge.
Also, a construction crane had moved into the neighbourhood between my apartment and Big Jesus. The concrete blocks at the back of the crane arm stops in its swing in exactly the right position to block my view of Big Jesus. I’d tried focusing on the top of the crane instead of on Big J but the movement of the crane arm, as well as the swinging load it carried, roused my curiosity about pendulums and arcs and gravity and momentum and my helpful brain would cheerfully erupt with curiosity and questions, seeking answers instead of letting go.
Altogether I was frustrated and annoyed that my fun had been disrupted by outside factors which are outside of my control. I’d been leaning heavily on Step One to deal with this - accepting my powerlessness over anything outside of myself - but it continued to be a painful knot in my chest that I couldn’t untangle. Putting my meditation chair into another room, facing the wall, was as much a result of sulking as it was a result of inspiration.
I was being childish.
Childishness and Immaturity - I view the world as having more power over me than my true higher power has or I myself have over me. From a lack of self-worth; I seek to control the world in order to get my needs and wants met.
Until recently I was unaware of the truth: All is available to me. Now, with my higher power's guidance, I am learning how to meet my own needs and enjoy being a happy, healthy adult.
I don't need to worship worldly higher powers, aka False Gods, to survive life any longer. I have faith that I am on my most prosperous path. I can let go of my childish beliefs and fears and thrive now.
From (the still-growing) My Vices section in Catherine’s Step Four work
I prayed and meditated, asking for a solution to the rope puzzle that my thinking has become over the years. I recognised that my thoughts and beliefs were at odds with my reality in some way but I was yet to understand how.
Aha, said Being one day, as I deleted the footage from the camera to practice my non-attachment to my past-self. I’ve found the path that led us to this moment.
“Yes,” I replied with amusement, “It’s called the past, Being. Everything is clear in retrospect; it’s the future that’s full of uncertainty.”
So she handed my ass to me for being cheeky and dumped the epiphany on me all at once.
Step Four started playing itself out in my life.
Papa Europe
When I was ten years old, my country changed. The apartheid system of racial inequality that had ruled the country for decades was quite suddenly dismantled. All the adults in my life were in a panic. I was given a little booklet called “The New South Africa” which explained in child-like terms that the adults had been arguing but it’s okay, it’s all over now; all that’s going to happen is that everything is going to change. No biggie.
I witnessed entire families of white folks pick up and move - pets and grandparents included - to countries like Australia, Canada and England. Kids who were older than me got on a plane for Europe the moment they graduated. During my teens; at school and at parties, people talked constantly about their friends and family members who had moved abroad and how much better life is over there.
We South Africans enjoy complaining. We’re also a jealous, childish and blameful bunch. Maybe I’m just arrogantly sitting here taking the inventory of an entire nation, but let’s face facts: arrogantly taking other people’s inventory is a trademark South African behaviour because we’re judgemental too.
We South Africans have a lot of vices but we have many values too.
We’re creative. If something we want isn’t available, we make it. My grandmother taught my mother to crochet and my mother passed on this knowledge to me. In my childhood, myself and many of my friends were dressed in home-made clothes. Nowadays Cape Town appears to be stuffed to the brim with artists and craftspeople; my generation is full of self-starters because were raised to do for ourselves what the government would no longer do for us - provide.
In Cape Town, we understand that life is for living. We dance, we enjoy all the myriad offerings of our ocean and our mountains, we appreciate fresh, healthful food from our local farmers and we’ll turn up in our hundreds to stand on Chappies and watch the whales mating in Hout Bay bay. Joburgers sometimes accuse us of living for the weekend but we Capetonians pride ourselves on working to live instead of doing as we judgementally perceive our cousins in Johannesburg as doing; living to work.
We’re inventive. We even have a phrase, ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan which translates to A farmer makes a plan and it refers to any clever out-the-box thinking that results in a desirable, or at least functional, solution. It is because of this phrase that I view “problems” as puzzles that can be solved through inventive play. When I start seeing problems I can’t see solutions because all I can see are problems and then round and round I go; orbiting the problem and never moving past it or moving it off my path. With a puzzle I have faith that there is a solution to be found and the only thing standing between myself and that solution is my own thinking.
Change my mind = change my life:
Where am I?
I dreamed I was in the darkest, lowest cavern of my soul, a place of deep silence and stillness except for the occasional shriek or cackle of laughter, the crazed scurrying of frantic footsteps and the drip drip drip of tears that seep through the subterranean layers of my shame to soak me even there, where none but one ever come to find me.
One found me and said, “Come.” I followed.
They took me into the timeless, spaceless dimension outside of the construct of my known reality - the same non-place I go when meditating. From nothing we two called forms of fizzing, fuzzy indigo outlines made of a million tiny pixels of awareness; his tall and male, mine small and female. He reached out and made a motion of turning a doorknob and pushing open a doorway, miming movements that were symbolic rather than actual.
“Look,” he said.
I stepped up to the imagined doorway and looked. Beyond, I saw every part of him. No sinner or saint refused to present themselves to me. None hid from my gaze. I observed these aspects, neither admiring nor recoiling; just accepting. I fathomed the entirety of this person in an instant that lasted an eternity.
“Thank you,” I said. I transformed the nothing around us so we were facing each other once more.
“You’ve always welcomed me in every part of your soul,” he said. “I recognised that I hadn’t even begun to open up mine to you.” There was no shame or blame in his words, simply acknowledgement.
“I welcome you,” he said then.
I expanded my consciousness, by creating space between the fizzing sparks of dark light that made up my form in this realm. I reached for him, gently seeking his matter with my own. In response he did the same, expanding the spaces between his sparks of consciousness. As our forces passed through and into the others’ we created light. The parts of ourselves that were reflected in each other found their match and connected.
In a flash, something inside of me unravelled.
Something knotted returned to its true state of being; an unknot.
Dazzled and dazed I returned to my body and spent the rest of the night in a state of not-sleeping, not waking, just being…
On the Eve of Change
I met with a friend for lunch on Christmas Eve. I told her about my decision, that had been three months in the making, to let go of getting my Maltese Citizenship, start the divorce process in January 2024 and move to Cape Town - hopefully in either April or May of 2024.
I begged her to forgive me if I make a concerted effort to convince her to come with me because I have come to love and admire her determination to own her authentic state of being from one moment to the next. I have developed a great love for this wonderful soul. She’s raw and beautiful and fierce and fragile; a truly extraordinary person.
After lunch she led us through a grounding meditation. Afterward I told her about how I’d been enjoying meditating while staring at Big Jesus on his hill across the “city” and chuckled about how my fear of raisin eyes kept snapping me out of my meditative state and back into the construct of reality.
“That’s beautiful,” she said after I finished sharing my experience. “In yoga that meditation practice is called trataka, or stillgazing. You fix your gaze and meditate with your eyes open, without blinking. Eventually tears will form and fall down your face. You don’t have to worry about your eyes drying out. I’ll send you a link so you can learn more about it.”
I had such a wonderful laugh with her about the fact that I hadn’t even questioned my belief that my eyes would shrivel up. I’d just taken my belief as a fact; that if I don’t blink I’ll damage my eyes.
“Since I started this meditation practice it’s like my eyes are opening on every level and I’m seeing more clearly,” I told her. “I’m seeing other people as they truly are, myself as I truly am and I’m even seeing the construct of reality as it truly is. I’m seeing all the ways that my mind has played tricks on me, how my fear-based ego trips me up. I’m seeing how much of my thinking and my beliefs are counter-intuitive. My ability to accept All as All is has grown phenomenally in such a short time and I’m able to simply observe myself and others now. It’s like I’m discovering the light of love after living in the darkness of fear all my life.”
Love and Light
Through the article about stillgazing that my friend sent me I discovered that the practice can be done with a candle. This has been as much of a gamechanger as the reassurance that I don’t need to blink. It’s the vacuum at the centre of the flame that fascinates me so; the dark pulled into being by the light, the complementary blue at the heart of the yellow, the contrast between the something of the flame and the nothing at its core.
Yesterday I made myself a piping hot cuppa of cocoa and coconut milk and settled in to stillgaze with a candle. I stepped back from my body, back from my mind and I let go. I didn’t just hang out and observe the construct of the universe, I… Well, there are no words that adequately describe nothing, so no words will just have to suffice. Try it for yourself.
When I blinked myself back to reality; Being was purring like a cat. I sensed she did some valuable work for us during the time I was nothing. I thought only a couple of minutes had passed since I’d started but my cuppa was nearly ice cold and it was getting dark outside.
I recall that while meditating, I blinked occasionally and my focus adjusted from time to time while the world surrounding my focal point swam in and out of reality, but I honestly believed I’d been aware of time passing and how much time had passed. As it turns out - I was not aware and not being aware was kind of wonderful; a relief from the linear continuity of time and memory.
I slept well last night and woke up at 04:44; with the understanding that my day had been hijacked by the inspiration to write this blog post. After stillgazing in bed with a candle in a jar, I started to write.
Cognitive Dissonance
After that stillgazing session yesterday; I found I had gathered enough courage to share in a meeting that I’d had a rough day with anxiety. I shared that I am experiencing overwhelming cognitive dissonance as a result of working my Fourth Step.
I shared that I currently have two conflicting belief systems about who I am and what I’m capable of and they are duking it out for superiority. My old sense of self is based in what others have told me about myself. My old sense of self believes that I am incapable of taking care of myself and therefore I need a worldly higher power like a husband or a government to take care of me.
My new sense of self is based in the reality of my authentic self as my higher power made me. My new sense of self believes I am definitely capable of looking after myself in the world - just look at all the mature, adult behaviours I have been successfully practicing lately. I’m already taking care of myself and I have the time and both the internal and external resources at my disposal to continue doing so. All is available to me.
I shared that this experience of cognitive dissonance, while scary and uncomfortable, is also very interesting and beautiful. I shared that I am using prayer and meditation to help me step out of my subjective experience of this phenomenon and simply observe my healing process without judgement. I’m using positive self-talk and self-affirming actions to reinforce my new sense of self while acknowledging - with some sorrow and pity - that my old sense of self is literally fighting for her existence as I detach from her in each new moment.
I became somewhat distressed when I expressed that I have fear - dread, even - about organising an international move all by myself with just a few, precious connections to support me, while recovering from a lifetime of Shakespearean-level drama and a recent divorce. Then I started laughing with relief and enjoyment as I acknowledged aloud that I swing back and forth between that sense of dread and a feeling of blissful, love-filled rightness about letting go of the EU passport, finalising the end of the marriage and making the move. I expressed how thrilling it is to be learning to do all these self-loving, adult things by doing them, even though I know I have no control over the outcomes. I shared my joy that I had recognised one of my core codependent beliefs that had been tripping me up all my life; the misguided belief that I need a worldly higher power to take care of me.
At that point I realised I was talking with my hands and I lowered them quietly into my lap and paused while I gathered myself. Then I looked directly into the lens of my webcam and said, “Even though I’m having such a wild time at the moment, and even though I’ve lived such an intense story; I wouldn’t change a thing. I love being in recovery. I love experiencing myself changing. I’m so grateful for what this fellowship has done for me and I’m grateful to you all for holding space for me. I’m not alone anymore. I’ve found my people.”
My Being chose that moment to speak aloud a sentiment that had been with me, unexpressed, all my life; “I define happiness as the freedom to do what I want, when I want, the freedom to be who I want to be and the freedom to be with who I want to be with. With each self-loving decision I make, and each self-loving action I take I am finding the joy and following the joy. I am affirming my new sense of self as who I truly am. I am free, and I am happy.
I’m going to where my heart is. I’m going home.”
