Codependency includes whatever you think you depend on, or are independent from. Codependency is what you expect from other persons or things. Codependency is the chief element in the story people tell themselves about their support system. Codependency includes the attitude of denied dependency, demanded dependency, entitled dependency, hostile dependency, cynical dependency, rebellious dependency, etc. In other words, you cannot be a human without dependency. It is impossible. Even those who claim to be independent, self-sufficient, and radically autonomous are also dependent in the sense that we belong, we are one. We may have a story about isolation, autonomy, separateness, and frustrating painful dependence or independence, but we are one. We belong. There is no separateness, except in our storyline, in some script we have written for ourselves. In this spiritual universe, we are one, we are interdependent, we are not independent. No one is autonomous. That is a fiction. People who are "dependent" want to be independent, people who are "independent" want to be more involved. Unity in diversity is a paradox which transcends the opposites of dependence and independence.

Codependency is a painful fiction which everyone experiences. We are disappointed in our dependency experiences and so we opt for independence, which is an illusion. Independence is just a painful and illusory form of dependence.

Without spiritual awareness of our oneness and wholeness, we are like a cat dancing on a hot tin roof. There is no comfort for the unaware.

We get attached to someone or something, and then that attachment is broken, lost or given up. If our attachment is broken or lost, we experience grief. The symptom of grief remains until we consciously and voluntarily give up our attachment. Dependency habits are necessary, but releasing them is also necessary if you want to grow beyond just survival. Releasing attachment to dependencies is not the same as rejecting them.

Spiritually, we must learn to unconditionally love everyone and everything , but not to trust anyone or anything unconditionally. Trust means to depend on. Trust in form is always broken, and that is why we always experience betrayal. We are to trust God. We are to trust spirituality. We are not to trust form unconditionally. All trust in people and in things is to be conditional. Codependency is the attempt to have unconditional trust in the conditional.

We must exercise unconditional trust in the unconditional, not in the conditional. Codependency is unconditional trust in the conditional.
Codependency is the source of all of our frustrating painful symptoms and suffering. Infinite trust in the finite is our main storyline, and accounts for the necessity for awakening. How can an infinite being put ultimate trust in the finite? What a conundrum! What a ridiculous dilemma! What an impossible task. It can’t be done!

James Hillman

When we are codependent, we will experience tragic betrayal sooner or later. Unconditional trust in the finite always leads to disappointment and betrayal. Such trust is naïve.

What is wrong with trust? Isn’t trust one of the greatest virtues? Isn’t trust the basis of all human relationships? All legal contracts? How can we speak of naïve trust? How can we say that "naïve trust" is part of the "tragic betrayal" experience? Can we say that if one party has to be responsible for the "tragic betrayal", the other party has to be responsible for the "naïve trust" part of the transaction? Can we say that "naïve trust" and "tragic betrayal" are both parts of each person?

"Naïve trust" is a nice phrase for co-dependency. This trust factor in the trust-and-betray system is a conforming addictive dependency. The "trustor" has not taken responsibility for self, but is still depending on some person, substance, role, group and unconscious belief system. The naïve trustor is covering up the fact of dependency on an ego strategy for security and control, and this "virtue" is rarely ever questioned or challenged until betrayal occurs.

• trying to be "good" , conforming
• avoiding radical insight and change
• expecting to be taken care of because of being such a good caretaker
• being able to fix or change others
• avoiding risk and clinging to what seems safe and secure
• the right to expect appreciation due to dependability and self-sacrifice
• being accommodating and unselfish
• manipulating others through guilt

• over-eating and shopping
• rescuing and caretaking
• sacrificial giving and doormat behavior
• mistreated victim, poor me perception
• passive-aggressive, procrastinating behavior
• somatizing, psychosomatic illnesses
• emotionally or physically disabled, handicapped, disease prone
• compulsive parenting and over-responsibility toward others
• inconsiderate of self

I have described an ego scenario about trust or dependency. Trust, itself, however is the essence of life. Trust is inherent, ontological, and inevitable. Trust is a God-given ability and talent that is involved in every human thought and transaction. Not one thing in this universe exists without trust. What then is the problem with a "trustor?"

• We trust what we know. If we have very limited awareness, we will have very limited unhealthy trust. I recall one time when a Spanish Christian layman said to me "The Bible teaches that we are to love everyone unconditionally, but it does not teach that we are to trust people." I made a study of the Bible on this subject and found that what he said was true. In fact, the Bible directly teaches that we are not to put our trust in the human sphere:
• "Don’t trust anyone, not your best friend—not even your wife." Micah 7:5
• "Trust not in princes" Ps. 140"3
• "Trust not in weapons." Ps. 44:6
• "Trust not in wealth" Prov. 11:28
• "Even my best friend turned against me, a man I completely trusted." Ps. 11:28
• "A man is a fool to trust himself! But those who use God’s wisdom are safe." Prov 28: 26
• "Trust not your neighbor, nor your brother." Jer. 9:4
• "You trusted in your wealth, therefore you shall perish." Jer 48:7
• "You trusted in your own beauty; you thought you could get along without me." Ez. 16:15
• "You trusted in your own goodness." Ez. 33:13
• "You trusted in a lie, that the military and great armies can make a nation safe." Hos 10:13
• "How hard it is for them that trust in riches to get into the Kingdom of God." Mark 10:24
• "It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in men." Ps 118:8
• "Though he slay me, yet shall I trust him." Job 13:15
• "As for me, I look to the Lord for his help." Micah 7:7
• "The Lord says: Cursed is he that puts his trust in mortal man and turns his heart away for God….blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and has made the Lord his hope and confidence." Jer 17:5, 7
• "We felt that we had received a death sentence, but that was meant not to place reliance upon ourselves, but on God who raises the dead." 2 Cor 1:9

The trustor has entered into an idolatrous belief that the human ego system is real and trustworthy, and has set himself or herself up for initiation into the Truth. Then we discover many underlying deals and expectations which make trust such a shaky enterprise:

• You take care of my unhappiness and I’ll take care of your happiness, maybe
• I can’t believe you went out on me, I’ve never done that to you.
• I can’t believe my mother died
• You don’t put me first
• I won’t accept my parents’ divorce

We have spent most of the time so far on the naïve trust factor because the betrayer is not significantly different from the trustor. The betrayer is naïve also in that he just looks for another object to depend on. He decides that his last ego scheme was a mistake but the next one will be better. The betrayer is no more aware than the trustor. The betrayer is just a disillusioned trustor. Both remain within the mediocre, "safe", fear-driven, self-seeking world of ego perception. Neither the illusioned trustor nor the disillusioned trustor (the betrayer) know the Radical God or the Radical Self. Both are stuck in the world of habit and consensual reality. Real trust cannot be placed in any ego scheme, mine or yours or someone else’s, nor in any belief system.

• Alcohol, drugs, pornography
• Workoholic, sportsoholic
• Spoiled child, self-indulgence, take care of me
• Denial of dependence and addiction
• Inconsideration of others
• Neglect of caretaking of children, others
• Rationalizes stealing, lying, cheating, and feels entitled to self-indulgence

The addictions of both the trustor and the betrayer are nevertheless a symbolic search for dependence on the Infinite. Addictions are misguided steps of Real Trust which remain stuck in the mediocre illusory ego world, falling short of the radical nature of reality.

When the very rational debate of Job and his friends about the cause of the suffering of such a good man was finished, the Untamed Radical God appeared out of a whirlwind and showed them what true reasoning was. This Wild God blew their minds, stretching their imaginations beyond their earth-bound trust-and-betrayal addictive mentalities. All of our concepts of God and self are so limited that we become addicted to trust-and-betrayal idols. Addictions are the inevitable precursors of trust-and-betrayal experiences.

We are addicted to belief systems which produce fear-driven self-centered behavior, which in turn leads to the life crises of trust-and-betrayal. Then we feel victimized, angry and self-righteous. Like Judas, we have set ourselves up in a no-win situation and all we have left is thirty pieces of silver.

Stress and Trust

Stress is said to be the major cause of health problems. In our busy society, we live on "adrenalin rush." Our sleep is restless. Our cells do not get enough deep relaxation and rest. We often run on "half charge." That is, our battery only gets half charged before we begin to be active again. Activity itself is not the major problem per se, but our constant mental and emotional strain. This constant sense of strain has become "normal" or habitual. We wouldn’t know what a deep sense of wellness feels like. All of our immune system components are on near constant alert due to the lack of quietness and the continual presence of a stimulating noise level from radio, television, play station, and computer. Stimulating foods, drinks, substances, entertainment, activities, and diversions are used as a remedy for boredom, inner conflict and even from stress itself.

General background hyper-activity and hyper-stimulation sets the stage for added stress arising from personal problems. Don Colbert. M.D. describes "unenforcible rules" as one of the chief causes of stinking thinking. Unenforcible rules are those habits of thought which involve "shoulds", "musts", and "have to’s" Our expectations and rigid, perfectionistic, thought patterns set us up for a constant experience of stress, frustration and anger. Our cancer epidemic, along with other chronic immune system dis-eases(such as back pain, skin disorders, hepatitus, prostate problems, irritable bowel syndrone, arthritus, etc) are fueled by our chronic and acute stress levels, especially from our expectations and other unenforcable rules.

An unenforcable rule would be our belief about how life should be, how people must act, what life ought to give us, and what we have to do. In other words, we set ourselves up for failure to control, and a resulting loss of self-esteem.

It is not life that causes us stress and anger, but our expectations about life.

Toxic emotions and beliefs fuel our poor health and relationship problems.

One in eight women have breast cancer. When you trust in your expectations, you will be disappointed. You will experience the pain of rejection, helplessness, anger, inner seething and bitterness.

Some people explode outwardly and some people implode inwardly. Dominant aggressive types tend to yell and bully. Passive imploding types tend to internalize and somatize their frustrations and anger. But both types push the self-destruction button. The stress-response button gets stuck. Harmones and other immune system chemicals such as adrelalin are on constant alert. The energy that would ordinarily be used for cell repair are demanded for stress-response.

I am diagnosing the cause of this stress epidemic as mis-trust. That is, we are trusting and depending in a toxic and inflamatory manner. Codependency is rampant. If we do not learn forgiveness, unconditional love, spiritual trust, and deep inner rest, we continue unknowlingly to feed our stress response cycles.

What do we ordinarily trust in? What everyone ultimately trusts is their own view of reality, their own story about who and what they are. The only thing we ever experience is our own imagination about life. That is why we get stuck in

a stress-response cycle. "You can’t win for losing" because we cannot control the outer world. The only reality for us is our interpretation of the outer world. Unknowlingly we are the victims of our own belief system in which we implicitly trust. The trust that the world is what we think it to be is the source of our mis-placed trust.

Mis-trust is good news, because only a change of mind is required. If we had to muster up enough effort to control the world to fit our picture, it would be bad news. Unenforcable rules are the bad news. Awareness of our unenforcale rules is the good news. Control of the world to make our trust workable is impossible. You cannot control even one other person, as married people find out through many battles and bruises. No one wants to be controlled and yet everyone tries, either openly or secretly, to control others and to control the world. The belief that we should or can exert such controls, is mis-trust.

If we do not trust in the basic goodness of the universe, we are stuck with mis-trust and its inherent stress; If we do not know our own spirituality, we are stuck with mis-trust and its inherent stress. Mis-trust is essentially trust in our story. Mis-trust is trust in form. Mis-trust results in the painfulness of the victim experience. If you do not know your infinity, you will live in the fear of the victim experience. You live either in the stress of mis-trust in the finite, or in the peace of trust in the infinite. This universe is infinite and so are you.

Forgiveness is the essential practical method for handling mis-trust and its toxic emotions. If you feel the pain of imagined victimization, you must learn to forgive it, to cancel it out, to let it go. You are not a victim. There are no victims. There is no necessity for fear. You are an infinite spiritual being. Any loss that you may fear is based upon the judgments of mis-trust. Just realize that the "other" person is also under the same system of mis-trust that you are. He carries your shadow and you carry his. All pain arises from our beliefs in the shadow world.

Forgive your enemy because it is just your shadow self. As Pogo said "We found the enemy and it is us." You are hurt because someone disappointed or betrayed you? It is only self-disappointment and self-betrayal. The blame and shame game is over. "It is finished," cried Jesus. The victim game is over. That is why you can forgive 70 X 7. Infinitely. You can forgive infinitely because you are infinite. You can love infinitely because you are infinite. You trust infinitely because you are infinite.

You are not a victim and you cannot victimize. Guilt is over. Victimization is the only possible basis of guilt. Fear is over. Victimization is the only possible basis of fear. Shame is finished. Victimization is the only possible basis of shame. Grief is over. Victimization is the only possible basis of grief. Blame is over. Victimization is the only possible basis of blame. Pain is finished. Victimization is the only possible basis of hurt.

Forgiveness is just the realization of reality. Forgiveness is not correcting you for hurting me. Forgiveness is realizing that all hurt is self-inflicted. Forgiveness is realizing that hurt never happened. Forgiveness is realizing that victimization and guilt are totally imaginary in the spiritual consciousness. We experience guilt, fear and victimization in our stories, but not in our spiritual consciousness.

The Good News is that we can shift into our spiritual consciousness in the now. We do not have to wait on a new marriage, a new job, a new body, a new world, or even an addiction-free mind. Paradise is here now.

Some say that fighting leads to divorce, that power struggles are bad. But the awareness of what we are mis-trusting can take the juice out of fighting and the impotency out of power struggles. You can learn to use fighting and power struggles as signs that you are into victimization fears and stories. You can use fighting and power struggles to remind you to shift out of attack-and-defend ego stories and into your infinite consciousness where there is no lack, no separation and no entrapment.

You want joy, you want peace, you want unity, you want abundance, you want power? Go where it exists, inside of you at your infinite core. And once you get there, you can see that infinity is everywhere, inside and outside.