Struggling to change your codependent behaviors? It can be hard work!

Sometimes an inspirational quote can help you stay motivated and focused on what youre trying to accomplish and remember why its worth doing. Below are 19 quotes about overcoming codependency. They cover some of the most important components of codependency recovery: setting boundaries, being more assertive, ending controlling, enabling, and rescuing behaviors, self-care, self-acceptance, and knowing yourself better.

  1. When we begin to set boundaries with people we love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. They may feel a hole where you used to plug up their aloneness, their disorganization, or their financial irresponsibility. Whatever it is, they will feel a loss. If you love them, this will be difficult for you to watch. But, when you are dealing with someone who is hurting, remember that your boundaries are both necessary for you and helpful for them. If you have been enabling them to be irresponsible, your limit setting may nudge them toward responsibility. Henry Cloud

  1. Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others. Brene Brown

  1. We can say what we need to say. We can gently, but assertively, speak our mind. We do not need to be judgmental, tactless, blaming or cruel when we speak our truths. Melody Beattie

  1. When you say Yes to others make sure you are not saying No to yourself. Paulo Cohelo

  1. Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and wont accept. Anna Taylor

  1. No one changes unless they want to. Not if you beg them. Not if you shame them. Not if you use reason, emotion, or tough love. There’s only one thing that makes someone change: their own realization that they need to do it. And there’s only one time it will happen: When they decide they’re ready.” ?Lori Deschene

  1. Allowing others to suffer the consequences of their own actions, without enabling them, is the best motivation for them to undertake the difficult task of change. ?Darlene Lancer

  1. I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people’s lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life.?Melody Beattie

  1. As long as you continue to react so strongly to them, you give them the power to upset you, which allows them to control you. ?Susan Forward

  1. Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. ? David Levithan

  1. Self-care is how you take your power back. ? Lalah Delia

  1. When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. Jean Shinoda Bolen

  1. No more martyring myself. ? Sharon E. Rainey

  1. Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness. ? Deborah Day

  1. Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be. ?Audrey Kitching

  1. Most of our suffering comes from resisting what is already here, particularly our feelings. All any feeling wants is to be welcomed, touched, allowed. It wants attention. It wants kindness. If you treated your feelings with as much love as you treated your dog or your cat or your child, you’d feel as if you were living in heaven every day of your sweet life.?Geneen Roth

  1. The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. ? Ernest Hemingway

  1. Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think were supposed to be and embracing who we are. ?Brene Brown

  1. Compassion isnt some kind of self-improvement project or ideal that were trying to live up to. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we dont even want to look at. Pema Chodron

Codependency recovery is hard work and I hope these quotes will inspire you when youre feeling stuck.

2019 Sharon Martin, LCSW. Photo bymit BulutonUnsplash