Code of Honour
Hello! 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 taught not to. Instead I was taught that to give 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 not to love themselves.
I’ve had enough. By not loving myself I have treated myself and others badly. No more.
I now practice self-love.
Code of Honour
Human beings have many beautiful concepts. At present I am engaging with the concept of HONOUR.
Over the years I have lost faith in myself. I don’t trust myself. I don’t know what my values are. I don’t know how I want to show up, for myself, in the world. I don’t know how I am capable of showing up for myself.
Creating an honour code - a code of conduct for myself - seems like a pretty good place to start with figuring some of this stuff out, so I’ve been chewing on who I want to be, how I want to behave and how I want to treat myself.
Wikipedia’s entry on honour only talks about honour from an individual towards society. It doesn’t touch on personal honour, which I think is a shame. I believe personal honour - how we show up for ourselves - deserves to be a main character in our psychological make-up and not some extra waving at the camera from the sidelines. It deserves to be in the limelight.
The Power to Choose
Honour, to me, is about VOLITION which is defined as the power to make one’s own choices or decisions. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for free will.
Acting volitionally is the behaviour that results from being in a state of volitionality:
Volitionality is a state of non-reactivity.
When I act upon my own will instead of reacting to stimulus:
I am acting according to my own ideals and values
instead of being influenced or manipulated by external forces.
My honour code enables me to induce, maintain and return to a state of peaceful volitionality. It’s the reset button that clears the ghosts and allows me to move forward with clarity of mind, lightness of heart and a peaceful spirit.
Choosing Empowerment
I am not cola in a bottle destined to blow my top when a mentos is dropped in my world. I have free will, and I can act on my own volition. I can’t control the world, but I am able to choose my experience of the world, Insha’Allah. My behaviours don’t have to be pre-determined as reactions to my past experiences. Rather, my behaviours can be pre-meditated according to my code of conduct.
I don’t have to REACT.
I can act on my own volition.
The Value of Self-Regulation
In her ground-breaking book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown talks about the fact that self-love requires practicing abstinence. Abstinence from vices such as junk food, yes, but also abstinence from self-defeating thought patterns, beliefs and behaviours. I have been practicing abstinence and it’s not easy! (Bravo, Catherine, for doing it anyway and not beating yourself up for making mistakes along the way. Don’t give up - you’re worth the effort.) It’s not easy, but it is necessary and meaningful and when I approach it with curiosity and playfulness, it’s fun, inspiring and fulfilling.
When I abstain from emotional and mental self-flagellation and instead run my honour code I feel lovable, worthy, valued and appreciated by myself.
When I abstain from immediately reacting to external stimulus and instead practice pausing and running through my honour code I find that I am collected in my thoughts, I am composed in my behaviours and I am conscious of myself as a spiritual being.
When I abstain from measuring, judging and resisting and instead run my honour code, I find myself acting with acceptance, grace, forgiveness and compassion.
When I abstain from wanting, resentment and self-righteousness and instead employ my honour code; I find that I don’t ache after apologies, vengeance, amends or justice.
My honour code brings me peace. It allows me to self-regulate.
It is helping me to grow my peace garden within myself. It is a set of ideals that I have created for myself to nurture my self with. I am sharing it here on my blog and it’ll probably turn up in my store in one form or another at some point because it is too valuable to not share with the world. I may not keep it to myself. It is from me and for me but it is too; from you and for you, and from All and for All.
It has great value to me, and I hope that it will have great value to you too. You may absolutely use Catherine’s Code of Honour in your own life, and you may absolutely adapt it to your own needs. Make it your own. Put your name on it.
We’re in this together. Let’s enjoy our selves together. Let’s honour our selves together.
I’ve previously introduced my Code of Honour in The Meaning of Pain here on my blog. You’ll see that since then I’ve added “Hope and Pray” to the list because while practicing my Honour Code I discovered that after I was done, I would pray and offer my hopes and blessings, every time, and so I’ve decided that prayer and hope belong in the code too.
Like me, it is a work in progress and ever-evolving.
Catherine’s Code of Honour
Acknowledge
Accept and Own
Apologise and Promise
Forgive
Love
Thank
Release and Embrace
Hope and Pray
Example One:
Acknowledge - I acknowledge that I have neglected to love myself in the past. I acknowledge that I have neglected to nourish and nurture my body, mind and spirit with self-love.
Accept and Own - I accept that I, and I alone, am responsible for taking care of myself. I accept responsibility for myself in every way, on every level. I own my mistakes and I own my will to improve.
Apologise and Promise - I apologise for treating myself so poorly in the past. I will do better.
Forgive - I forgive myself for neglecting myself and treating myself poorly. I didn’t know any different. I let go of any regret, shame or anger towards myself for how I have treated myself.
Love - I love you Catherine. I love all my past selves, all my future selves and my present self. I love myself in my entirety. I love all of myself.
Thank - Thank you for always giving yourself your best, Catherine. Thank you for moving into a space of self-love and self-care, so that your best becomes even greater than before. Thank you for loving yourself. Thank you for creating new hope for yourself. Thank you, All, for my beautiful, enlightening journey.
Release and Embrace - I release myself from any negative emotions regarding my past treatment of myself. I release others from the burden of being responsible for me. I release my self-defeating thoughts, emotions, behaviours and beliefs. I embrace my greatness. I embrace my lovability. I release myself and others from my habit of creating self-serving attachments and instead I embrace the process of creating mutually beneficial connections with others.
Hope / Pray - I pray I will enjoy my self-love for the rest of my days. I hope I will practice my joy, my gratitude and my hope each and every day. Bless you, girl! What a stellar babe you are…
Example Two:
Acknowledge - I acknowledge that I became dehumanised.
Accept and Own - I accept and own myself as I am now. I accept that only I can heal myself. I accept that I am not responsible for how others behave. I accept that I am not responsible for healing others, and they are not responsible for healing me. I own that I became resigned and allowed myself to be treated poorly. I own that I came to believe that I had no other choice but to accept others’ mistreatment of me. I own that I became dehumanised. I own that I gave up on hope.
Apologise and Promise - I apologise for not setting and maintaining strong boundaries. I apologise for staying in an unhealthy, harmful situation. I apologise for my part in creating the dysfunctional dynamic. I apologise for allowing my mind to become corrupted. I am healing. I am evolving. I am releasing my past. I am re-humanising myself. I will continue to do so. This I promise myself: I promise that I will practice loving, caring and honouring myself for all of my days.
Forgive - I forgive myself and others for being fallible and imperfect.
Love - I love myself. I love my determination to let go, heal and move on. I love my hope, my joy, my gratitude and my grace.
Thank - I’m grateful to myself for doing the best that I could. I’m grateful for all I have learned, am learning and will learn from this experience. I’m grateful to myself for getting back up and moving forward. I’m grateful for the joys that occur in my life when I surrender myself to God. I’m grateful for the peace that comes from releasing myself from trying to control outcomes.
Release and Embrace - I release myself from self-defeating emotions. I release myself from resentment, blaming, shaming and dishonouring. I release myself from attachments to my past. I release myself from attachments to others. I embrace my whole self. I embrace emotions, thoughts, beliefs and behaviours that serve me. I surrender myself to God and embrace my higher power.
Hope / Pray - I hope I will take only what serves me from this experience and leave what doesn’t. I hope I will treat myself gently and kindly during my healing process. I pray my higher power will guide me into a future made fertile with self-love, self-care and self-honour. Bless you, Catherine, you beautiful, bizarre beauty.
Tweaking the Machine
My father was a software engineer, and I’ve now spent fifteen years of my life living with a web developer. The idea of programming and coding my own organic computer - my body and my brain - is an idea that naturally emerged from within these past environments. I have spent four decades observing how a set of instructions causes a machine to behave in a certain way, and that the code could be edited or even replaced. The organic machinery of my human being works the same way. I have been coded and programmed by social conditioning and past experiences to behave in certain ways and I am now editing and replacing those sets of instructions with new ones; ones that I choose; Insha’Allah.
I have no idea what I’m doing, but my Being says it’s cool; I’m learning how to reset myself to factory settings, you know, being myself as God intended me;
A work of art.
Art is self-expression.
I am an expression of God.
So are you.
And what stellar babes we are…
