This is a brief summary of the concepts in the book No Bad Parts by Dr Richard Schwartz, and how these ideas from Internal Family Systems (IFS) relate to previously discussed concepts in the Updates section of this website. Anything in here that discusses "Parts" comes from me explaining Schwartz’s ideas that he has been developing for at least 40 years. I would highly encourage you to read the book for yourself. There are amazing guided meditations and transcripts of IFS therapy sessions to see how to begin to Reconcile with our parts. I have listed some page numbers from No Bad Parts to make it easier to reference.

There are many parts inside of us, though there are only 3 Roles these parts can play:

1. Managers (Protectors) [pg 76]. Managers take a ProActive approach to Avoid/ Distract/ Numb out/ Prevent exiles from getting triggered. Managers are the ones planning everything out. They are focused on Future thinking. Which in turn means the major emotional byproduct they create is Anxiety.

Managers “intentions are good, but their strategy is flawed.”
Managers are Protecting our Wounded Inner Child (aka. “Exile”) from being Emotionally (and/ or Physically) Hurt again. Managers do this by keeping emotional walls up. Lack of Vulnerability/ DISconnection is the Consequence.
The Overly Critical Voice (OCV) or “Inner Critic” is a Manager/ Protector that Shames our Parts [Neff refers to as the “Stick Method”].
Managers Caretake/ People Please

2. Exiles [pg 73]
Most of our exiles are Wounded Inner Children. Though some will likely be Tweens, Teens and Adult aged exiles.
Every Negative Record we have as our Default way of thinking comes from an Exile that has been stuck for many, many years, and has been protected by Managers and Firefighters ever since. “Managers are parentified inner children … They are trying to keep the world safe for our exiles while at the same time keeping our exiles contained (pg 77). [Think about the Shadow Monster Drawing].
*Schwartz explains Some Exiles could have been Managers or Firefighters: We used previously effective strategy, but then we hurt someone we cared about/ got in trouble, so we exiled this Part as a response.

3. Firefighters [pg 77].
Firefighters take a ReActive approach after an Exile gets triggered (aka. We’re Erupting) and Emotional Overwhelm ensues, Firefighters will do whatever it takes Contain the Emotional flames. This tends to be our go to means to numb out: TV, screens, alcohol, substances, sex, focusing on someone other than ourselves, etc.
Schwartz explains that is common for Managers to adopt Firefighters’ effective ReActive Unhealthy Coping Skills to ProActively Disconnect/ Numb out to avoid Emotional Overwhelm (an Exile) getting triggered all together [pg 86].

                                            The Pendulum analogy:
                                                          <——->
                           MANAGERS    <——-------—>    FIREFIGHTERS
         Overly Critical Voice     <——----------------—>   Overly Lax Voice / “I Quit!” Mode  
  Anxiety/ Shame           <——-------------------------—>              Hopelessness & Depression

Once a Firefighter is in charge, the Manager cannot regain control. The Pendulum (see "Learning To Parent Oneself" post from 7/1/2020) has fully swung to “I Quit Mode” and the Overly Critical Manager cannot do anything but wait it out. The whole time the Firefighter is running the show, the Manager is still  criticizing anything and everything, but that is all in the background (unconscious).
It is only when the Firefighter relinquishes control that we feel the physical and emotional pain from the Manager’s judgements. For me, this is being woken up before my alarm with a pit in my stomach. My Overly Critical Manager is back in control callously pointing out me of all the things I Should have been doing last night instead of watching hours of TV.

Kristen Neff would suggest at this point to have self compassion for ourselves by going in reverse order: III, II, I (see post below from 10/10/2023). This is a very effective way to ReActively get out of a shame spiral.
Shame is all Quantifiable (mental) energy, and the way out of a Shame spiral according to Neff is feeling the Pain the Shaming creates in our bodies and our emotions.
Richard Schwartz supports the same approach: reconciling with our Parts to calm them down, and eventually kindly and firmly have the Self affirm it is time for it to run things.

The Self = Our Parts are blocking our True Self from coming through [the “Carrot” approach]. Schwartz cites Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff in No Bad Parts and supports it. He disagrees with one thing though. He says Neff’s approach views self-compassion as a skill or muscle that we must build up. For those of us with a very strong Overly Critical Voice (OCV) or Inner Critic, this can be a very daunting task because we have a long road to undo our default to criticize and supplement it with self-compassion. Schwartz says that The Self naturally has love and compassion for ourselves. We just need to reconcile with our parts, and the self compassion will flow naturally.

How to Reconcile and Join with our Parts:
Self-Compassion and Love is the Goal.

Schwartz explains our Parts are blocking our True Self from coming through to lead us. We have ignored, neglected, abandoned, hated and tried to cut out our parts for decades! They have very good reason not to Trust that we now are able to run the show. If we join with our parts by reintroducing ourselves to them, apologize and explain that we want to build back Trust, we can allow our True Self to flow through us naturally.

Schwarz is very clear: Never bypass a Protector. He explains in the book how he and clients learned the hard way what happens when you work with an Exile without getting permission from Managers and Firefighters. We must slowly build back the trust with all parts at their pace.

The LOVE ECRonym is a way to rejoin with our UnTrusting Parts.
We must Earn back their Trust. [The 5 Apology Languages by Chapman may be helpful strategy to properly apologize to our Parts as well].
L
O
V =
E
C = “Your intention is good, but your strategy is unfortunately flawed. QUANTifiable attempts will never solve this QUALitative Solution.”

R

Here are some takeaways I recently had from going through Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff for the 4th or 5th read (anything without italics are her words):

Self compassion =  “We stop to recognize our own suffering.” (p 10)

I of course have to be like everyone else and take something terrific and make it more complicated... In this process for myself, I found the most effective way to break my shame spiraling in the moment is by reversing the order she identified to be self-compassionate. I think the reason for this is because a shame spiral is all Cognitive (QUANTifiable) and we are lost in overwhelming, critical thinking. In order to break this thinking pattern, we must connect to the QUALitative realm by feeling our body parts that are hurting. This is what Neff calls Mindfulness:

III. MINDFULNESS (p. 80)
Clear seeing and Non-judgemental Acceptance of what’s occurring in this present moment. (No Denial/ Avoiding/ Distracting)
**Our mind tends to focus on the Inadequacy/ Failure itself, rather than the Pain caused by the Failure. ["Doing my Part" for Future Unknowns]
“We are surprisingly brusque toward ourselves when the more general circumstances of life go wrong through NO fault of our own.” (p.81) [Beyond my Control for Future Unknowns]

Neff's Mindfulness Strategy is to have Awareness of the Physical and Emotional pain my Thoughts are creating:
“I’m feeling ____ because ________.”
“This thought/ judgement about ______ is creating ______ in my body.”**

II. RECOGNIZE COMMON HUMANITY (p. 61)
Recognizing that this physical and emotional pain I am feeling for my mistakes is just like the pain other people have from their own judgements is CONNECTING myself instead of isolating. Shame isolates.

“Feelings of inadequacy and disappointment are felt by all.”
“Everyone suffers: the pain I feel in difficult times is the same pain you feel in difficult times.”
“Failure is a part of the shared human experience” (p. 65)

Recognizing our shared experiences of pain and suffering from her quotes above CONNECT us to the world.

"Self-Pity VS Common Humanity"
Neff refers to "Self-pity" or “woe is me” thinking as to what I think is really Shame. She warns that "Self-Pity" leads to feeling isolated and alone, and "Common Humanity" is the way to remain feeling connected.

Our Overly Critical Voice (OCV)  is beating ourselves up for the mistakes we are making and all the things we Should or Should not be doing. Aka. We are shaming ourselves. This leads to our Not wanting to be Vulnerable, so we shut down/ Disconnect, isolate (We never share our shame), and eventually we feel alone and stuck.

Common Humanity creates Connection by recognizing we are Not Alone:
“Every human fails.”
“Every human feels not good enough at times.”
“Everyone is mad at themselves for making the same mistakes over and over.”
“Everyone goes to I quit mode.”
“Every human wants to put up their emotional walls and not be vulnerable at times.”
“Everyone wants to disconnect and hide sometimes. This is shame.”

I. SELF-KINDNESS (p 42)
1. Stop my constant self-judgement
2. Understand our ongoing Mistakes instead of condemning them.
3. Understanding how much we harm ourselves with relentless self-criticism (OCV)
4. Actively Comfort ourselves:
“This is really difficult for you right now. How can I care for and comfort myself in this moment.”

As I have previously discussed in my 01/01/21 post, the strategy to keep the Overly Critical Voice from running us into a Shame Spiral is to PRAISE ourselves for our "Wins," or whenever we do the Harder thing. The purpose of saying, "I'm proud of me for _________" or "I love me."

QUANTIFIABLE VS QUALITATIVE (a quick review):
QUANTifiable —> Doing & Thinking —> DISconnected/  over investment in the Physical World / Consumerism/ Comparing Self to Others
(Focused on the Past or the Future)

QUALitative —> “FEELINGS”: Emotions & Body Sensations —> CONNECTION / SPIRITUAL WORLD/ INTERCONNECTEDNESS (being PRESENT and in the moment)

QUAL Problems can ONLY be solved w/ QUAL Solutions
QUAL Problems are Emotional Problems. For example, SHAME (“I’m not good enough”) and HOPELESSNESS (“I’ll never be good enough”)

QUANT Problems can ONLY be solved w/ QUANT Solutions

***The mistake all humans make is that we try to solve QUALitative Problems w/ QUANTifiable Solutions.*** QUANTifiable attempts to solve the QUALitative Problem will NEVER work to Heal the Emotional Wound.
This is what Brené Brown calls “Contingent Self Worth:” checking off the boxes [QUANT] to finally believe I am Good Enough [QUAL].

SOLUTION: Praise Myself for the QUANTifiable AND QUALitative harder things.
After having practiced praising my wins for about a year, I had become very good at praising myself for doing the things on my Checklist [QUANT harder things]. But even though I was doing all these great things AND Praising myself for what I was doing, the energy of checking off all these harder things on my list created, an uncomfortable, Future-Focused energy of, “Ok what’s next!?! Keep going!” ...My Overly Critical Voice found a way to negate my "enoughness."

This is like how connecting Happiness [QUAL] to Focusing on losing weight/ how many Pounds I weigh/ what size I wear [QUANT] will unfortunately not work.
The solution lies in the real goal: Me being happy with what I see when I look in the mirror [QUAL]; not focusing on the numbers.

Strategy: “I’m proud of me for __________.”  (when I do the harder thing).
1. Keeping praising my QUANTifiable Wins:
“I’m proud of me for __________.”
A. What I DID.

2. Find the QUALitative Win(s) within the QUANTifiable Win:
“I’m proud of me for __________.”
B. Not Avoiding
C. Facing my fears
D.  Leaning into the pain, not avoiding it
Not criticizing myself
E. Praising myself
F. Praising myself even though I was not very happy with the outcome of what I did
G. Gathering the Evidence (identifying how I did the harder thing in the moment)
H. Being Present and in the moment
I. Being Connected
J. Not looking at it as “all or nothing.”
K. Being fair to myself
L. Listening to my Body
M. Forgiving myself
N. Not Isolating
O. Being Vulnerable in front of someone
P. Setting my Healthy, reasonable Boundaries
Q. Enforcing my Healthy, reasonable Boundaries
R. Using a Healthy Coping Skill to lower my lava level
S. Not comparing myself to others
T. Not comparing myself to an idea
U. Getting out of my comfort zone
V. Finding the Qualitative win
W. Taking care of my mental health / actively working against my depression or anxiety
X. Working towards my goal of being happy w/ what I see in the mirror.
Y. Not giving into distractions.
Z. Not feeding my compulsion
ZZ. Admitting I am not in control

“For every Action there is an Equal and Opposite Reaction.”-Newton's 3rd Law.

The logical view of Resentment would be that 1 person is objectively much more in the right, and therefore the other is in the wrong. Aka, the person in the Right has a justified High resentment level, and the person who has objectively been doing Wrong should have a Low resentment level.
 
I visualize the Scales of Justice or a Seesaw:
Resentment is High on one side, and the person who did wrong would have Low Resentment on the other.

Trust  is a very similar situation:
The Person who betrayed my Trust should still have high Trust in me. But my Trust in them would logically be low.

Right or Wrong, this is not how Resentment or Trust works.
 …This is also why “Resentment eventually will destroy any relationship.”
[See "Caretaking and Emotional Caretaking" for a refresher]

The Law of Resentment is simple. It is Illogical, but it is incredibly simple:
However resentful I am towards a person, that person is at least as resentful towards me.

This is also why we falsely think a relationship can handle more resentment that it can.
"Resentment cannot be clearly gauged: we may think we are fine one day, and the next we are furious; we never know what will be the last straw that leads to the end of the relationship ('detaching out of anger')."

It does not matter that I just helped my friend pack up their house, moved all their boxes down two flights of stairs, loaded the Uhaul, then drove with them in the Uhaul across town in rush hour traffic, unloaded the truck, AND THEY DID NOT EVEN THANK ME.
...I clearly deserve to be resentful.

According to the Law of Resentment, this does not matter. However resentful I am, for whatever reason, they are basically as resentful at me (for some illogical reason).

For many years, I have prepared people (usually teens) who are trying to build back trust that, "Right or wrong, It will always take longer to build back Trust than you think it should." And I have observed countless times the person working very hard to build back trust get frustrated that Trust in them is not coming back; and in turn, stop trusting the person(s) they were working so hard to rebuild Trust with.

As "Caretaking and Emotional Caretaking" says, Resentment is to be avoided.
The best strategy to manage Resentment is to keep it as low as possible by addressing it as soon as it comes up.

Being honest with ourselves about the illogical nature of "The Law of Resentment" is a great thing to keep in mind to help talk ourselves into doing the the harder thing and Have an Honest and Direct Conversation with someone.

Brené Brown speaks of “Enoughness” as the counter to Shame-Talk (for example, “I’m not good enough.”)
Initially, I was skeptical about using “I am enough,” or “I did enough today” as my positive replacement record because my Overly Critical Voice has plenty of evidence to point out how this is untrue.
When I introduce Positive Self-Talk, I explain that “The first rule of a positive skipping record is that you have to believe it. Otherwise, it won’t work.”
To counter my default Shame record of “I’m not good enough,” I just didn’t think I would believe the "good enough" replacements. Fortunately, I had already come up with a way of  “Gathering Evidence” to  believe my “enoughness.”

I figured out how to believe “I am proud of me“* by asking myself:
"What was the Easier thing to do?"
...Say I am enough? Or, criticize myself for the 10 things I haven't done today?
"What is the harder thing to do?” 
...Walk for 5 minutes today? Or walk for 0 minutes today?

*I definitely believe there is a great value in Being able to say and repeat, “I am proud of me for ________ (whatever is the harder thing I am doing in the moment).” So I still stand by this practice. -Eventually I want to get into the importance of distinguishing the Quantitative from the Qualitative wins.*

...back to "enoughness."
I have been successfully practicing “I did enough today” by gathering all of the harder things I have done in the day.”

“I am enough” seems to be trickier
If nothing else, the cheat is always putting “I’m allowed” in front of the desired Positive Skipping Record. “I am allowed to believe I am enough” “I am allowed to be enough,” “I am allowed to know I am enough.” This of course is just the replacement thought.

To fully heal, “I am not enough,” we must LOVE ECRonym our Shame Record.

L isten to “I am not Enough.”
O bserve the Context this was created:
    “I’m being triggered in the moment by ____. But, ‘I am not ___ enough’ was one of my original
    Negative Records (Fears, Worries, Insecurities).”
V alidate “I am not Enough.”
E mpathize w/ the Shame created from this record.

E mpower by:
Challenge by Gathering the Evidence:
“What does ‘good enough’ even mean??”
“What are the traits of someone who is ‘good enough’ VS ’Not good enough’??”
“Is it about Who I AM? Or what I DID?”   
&
Replace with the believable Record:
"Yes, I continue to make mistakes. Yes, I am not learning as quickly as I think I should. But, I want to learn from my mistakes, and I am slowly learning from them."
“I am allowed to be enough,”
“I am allowed to believe I am enough,”
“I am allowed to know I am enough.”
“I am enough.”

Thanks to the incredible book Daring Greatly by Brené Brown, I have found a much clearer understanding of how a direct discussion of Shame is the missing ingredient to all the concepts that I have written about up to this point. Shame is the glue that has held all of our Default, Unconscious and Unhealthy patterns in place. It is incredible the correlation between Shame, Codependent Traits and being run by the Overly Critical voice. If it is not clear, I highly recommend you read Daring Greatly, as well as Codependent No More. Both books are applicable to everyone because we all carry shame, and we all have some codependent traits.

The goal that I am proposing is to turn our Shame into Guilt.

As Brené Brown explains so clearly, the difference between Guilt and Shame is:
Guilt = my ACTION
Shame = my Character Flaw

Guilt: What I do.
“I messed up.” “What I did was really bad.”

Shame: Who I am.
“I am a mess up.” “I am bad.” “I’m not good enough” (Aka “Imposter syndrome.”). “I’m a failure.” “Something is wrong with me.” “I’m broken and cannot be fixed.” “I’m a loser.” “I don’t belong.” “I’m unlovable.”

Mistakes:
Guilt operates under the belief, “Everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn. Am I learning though??”
Guilt leads to recognizing our Mistake in Action, and correcting it when we are Accountable.
Accountability = learning from my mistake and accepting the consequences for my mistake.

People “hard-wired towards Shame” do not understand that the error was in their Action. When they make a mistake, they are immediately triggered to their original Shame self-talk (“I am bad.” / “I am not good enough.”/ “I am a failure.”).  As  Brené Brown explains, a person hard-wired towards shame is not going to authentically admit they made a mistake due to the fact that they do not understand that this is even an option. They have been trained since the beginning of their lives to (mis)interpret a mistake as a character flaw. So instead of facing their deepest wounds when an error occurs (“I’m a mistake!”), they minimize it, blame someone or something else, give an INauthentic apology, avoid addressing it by ignoring/ hiding, or “Gaslight” you: Lie that it happened and attack you (“I didn’t do that! Are you losing your mind?!”)

Let me be very clear: I am not condoning the above behaviors of a person who is hard-wired towards shame and refusing to be accountable and learn from their mistake.
Everybody can rewire themselves from Shame. They may need to seek professional help, but they are capable of learning how to learn from their mistakes. (Sound familiar from Caretaking and Emotional Caretaking?)

When we can recognize that our Action was bad (not we are bad), we can break our Default thinking, face our deepest fears and free ourselves from the shame spiral we consistently fall into.

We must first Catch ourselves in our Shame-Thinking to break ourselves from our Unconscious patterns.
Then we need to remind ourselves this is not who we are, but what we DID.
Correcting one's actions warrants forgiveness. If I am learning from my mistakes, "I am allowed to forgive me/ I am allowed to be forgiven."

Caretaking, Mind Reading, Walking on Eggshells and Emotional Caretaking all thrive when Indirect Communication is present.

It is certainly not easy to break our unconscious codependent traits. Being consciously aware of our default traits and the traits of those who we care about, makes it much easier not to give into our default behaviors. Though, that is still really tough! The easiest way to break the pattern is to do what does not exist in codependent traits/ relationships: Be Honest and Direct. I know that it does not seem like the solution should be so simple, but it really seems to be. Let’s look at it:

Emotional Caretaking involves Mind Reading and Walking on Eggshells.
Caretaking involves doing something for someone that I will be resentful about.

Mind Reading cannot exist if I express all of my expectations. There is no guesswork. People know exactly what I am thinking and wanting.
Yes, they may not be able to or want to meet my expectations. But if they are brave enough to be honest and direct with me about their expectations, then at least our disappointments will be minimized. Expectations cannot always align.
Even if my expectations conflict with yours, at this point, we can (1)compromise or (2)we may  be at a legitimate stalemate. Disappointment is inevitable at times. But, how much disappointment is within our control: The longer we wait to express our expectations, the larger the disappointment (aka. resentment) will be when our expectations are finally expressed.

Caretaking is not the same thing as helping. Helping has no expectations. A Caretake involves unmet expectations.

For example, let’s say that my friend wants to vent about their very frustrating boss; something they do regularly and is getting pretty old for me because they are consistently talking about similar situations with their legitimately difficult boss. I finally realize that I will be annoyed to listen to my friend vent again because I spend my time and energy listening, but they don't seem take my great advice on how to solve their problem.

This is my expectation:  I am happy to listen to you vent if you will finally take my advice.
If you are going to just vent, not listen to me and come back with a similar story in a week, then I am going to be annoyed.
                    [This is a Caretake because I can see the resentment around the corner.]

Explaining to someone my expectation and what is going to lead to my frustration (annoyance/ eventual resentment), leaves no room for confusion. Again, my friend will likely not be happy with me when I explain, “I want to, but I’m sorry I cannot listen to you vent today because I will be resentful if I take my time listening to you and you do not follow my thought out advice.”
But this is clear:
I want to, but if I do it, it is a caretake; caretaking creates resentment and resentment eventually destroys all relationships. Your friendship is too important to me to destroy it.

People get resentful when we do not Caretake them. We get resentful when people do not Caretake us:
“I do things for you I don’t want to do all the time! How are you not going to help me out!?” = “I caretake you all the time! How are you not going to caretake me right now!? You’re not being fair!”

People get resentful when we do not Emotionally Caretake them. We get resentful when people do not Emotionally Caretake us:
“I am always thinking about how you will feel, and you never think about me and my feelings!” = “I am always mind reading you, and you never mind read me!” = “I am always walking on eggshells around you, and you never walk on eggshells around me!”

This is not healthy! This may be the unspoken rules of our relationship, but it is not healthy; and it will eventually destroy the relationship.

Being Honest and Direct allows us to break our unconscious, unhealthy patterns by realizing what we are doing.

The more and clearer the information we give when we say "No," the more a person can understand why we are saying “No.” They are still allowed to be disappointed when we say “No,” but they are more likely to understand that our intention is not malicious or that we are not just trying to get even with them. If we are clear and direct enough, they will understand that the intention behind our "No" is good.

I created the LOVE Ecronym to teach people to Empathize with themselves in order to heal all emotional wounds. However, the LOVE ECRonym can be practiced on others as an Empathetic Response; which will enhance our ability to Empathize with ourselves.

L isten to the negative thought (i.e., "You never listen to me.")
O bserve the context in which it was created
V alidate the negative thought (i.e., "You never listen to me.")
E mpathize with the Emotion(s) created from the negative thought
E mpower: Challenge the negative thought and Replace with a positive thought.

Our explanation of how we did not mean to hurt the person's feelings is the Challenge and Replacement we are trying to give them.  [Empower]
If the person is pushing back/ is not listening to our explanation of how we did not mean to hurt their feelings, then we have not Validated their words and Empathized with their Emotions that were created from their words/ experience in which their feelings were hurt.
This may be a simple misunderstanding, but a person must feel that we truly understand their experience before they are calm and ready to listen to our explanation.

Explaining our reasoning/ intention (not making excuses) too soon to the person whose feelings we hurt  will lead to the person feeling invalidated. There is a time and a place to explain to the person that we are sorry and we did not intend to disappoint them, but we must first make sure they feel heard and understood [Validated and Empathized] by us; that we know what we said or did that led to them feeling hurt/ being upset.

Emotional Caretaking in Arguments:
Emotional Caretaking is sitting there while we are still hurt [we do not feel heard and understood by the person] and letting the person explain to us what their reasoning was/ how they did not intend to hurt our feelings so that they feel better.

I used to refer to this as “sitting there and taking it” in an argument with partners. I did not feel Validated or Empathized with how I was feeling that led me to speak up and express my upset, but I was to sit there and take it as they “made excuses” as to why they did/ said what they did. [Do you hear my resentment??]

I could understand the person’s perspective eventually, but I consistently walked away feeling as though they did not understand mine. ["It's not fair!"]
Every time this happened, the resentment got higher due to my Emotional Caretaking them.

So what do we do instead??
1. Put our needs/ wants ahead of the other (capable of learning) person. = Assert our Healthy Boundary

2. Have Clear, Direct communication:
    A. Explain how we are feeling
    B. And Why.
“I understand you are just trying to explain yourself, but I am getting more and more upset as I listen because it does not seem to me that you think my experience in this is valid. I am happy to talk about this later when we both have some time away from it.”

3. Repeat our Broken Record that asserts our Healthy Boundary (aka. Do not engage
    with a person who is wanting to argue).
“I am happy to talk about this later when we both have some time away from it.”
“When I calm, I am happy to continue this conversation.”

4. Only repeat our Broken Record if the try to engage us.
“I am happy to talk about this later when we both have some time away from it.”
“When I calm, I am happy to continue this conversation.”

5. After a reasonable amount of time has passed, Follow through with what we said we would do and finish the conversation. = Be accountable.

Caretaking and Helping are easily confused. Both have the same intention: we care about someone and we want them to feel better. But, there is a very clear way to figure out whether we are caretaking or helping: look to potential future resentment. If we can see resentment around the corner by helping them (because we have a lot to do today), then it is a caretake. Or we will be annoyed if they do not take our great advice after we listened to them vent about the same person yet again, then we are caretaking.

Resentment:
Resentment starts off small, but grows exponentially larger over time. Resentment may be a mild annoyance or irritation, that we can shrug off, or talk ourselves out of being annoyed by understanding the other person’s perspective [Emotional Caretake].  Over time, the residual annoyances pile up and turn into full on anger or rage.
Resentment is to be avoided.
1. Melody Beattie warns Resentment eventually will destroy any relationship. This is due to what I call "The Law of Resentment." It is Illogical, but it is incredibly simple:
However resentful I am towards a person, that person is at least as resentful towards me.*
2. Resentment cannot be clearly gauged: we may think we are fine one day, and the next we are furious; we never know what will be the last straw that leads to the end of the relationship (“detaching out of anger”). This is also why we falsely think a relationship can handle more resentment that it can.

In the "Detachment" chapter of Codependent No More Melody Beattie says the solution to avoiding resentment is to have healthy boundaries and to “Detach. Detach in love, or detach in anger, but strive for detachment."

I have described arguments in a relationship as taking a sledgehammer to a brick wall. Depending on the intensity of the argument/ the regrettable words spoken, it can be a tap to the wall, or several furious blows. With enough hits, any wall will come down. Resentment is the same. After all, what leads to yelling and arguing other than built up resentment?

Caretaking and Emotional Caretaking:
The simplest way to define Caretaking is to do something for someone who is capable of either doing that thing for themself, or they are capable of learning to do that thing for themself.
Caretake = “I have to do this for them b/c they can’t do it/ they’re not able to LEARN to do it.”

Emotional Caretaking is the idea that a person is either not capable of managing their emotions, or not capable of learning to manage their emotions.
Emotional Caretake = walking on eggshells to avoid dealing w/ their strong emotional response/ words. *This involves Mind Reading.
       “I have to watch what I say to them because they cannot handle the truth / they cannot (LEARN TO) manage their emotions.”

Mind Reading is impossible. Some people can be quite accurate at times. But no one is a mind reader, and mind reading is never more accurate than the person explaining what they are thinking and feeling. To expect someone to mind read us is to set ourselves up for disappointment. Expectations can only be met when we explain to another what it is we want or need from them. If we say, “They should know what I want by now,” (no matter how long we have known them) we are expecting them to mind read, and setting ourselves up to be hurt.

I know that it does not feel this way, but I promise you that there are few adults in the world who are not capable of learning to manage their emotions. OR, who are not capable of learning to do things for themselves. I also know that there are capable people (teens and adults) in our lives who will fight us and demand we (emotionally) Caretake them. But, this is not empowering them to grow. It is enabling them to stay stuck. If we love someone, we want them to be the best they can be.

Why to stop CARETAKING & EMOTIONAL CARETAKING:
1. It DISempowers the person to learn and grow: Ask yourself, “If the person cannot do it, can they not learn to do it?” If they can learn, then we are caretaking them if we do it for them.
                                 
2. I AM PUTTING THEIR NEEDS/ WANTS AHEAD OF MY OWN. This is not healthy to do for any capable person (child, teen or adult).

3. #2 Breeds Resentment, and Resentment eventually destroys all relationships.* The challenge with resentment is that it starts off small, but grows large much quicker than we expect it to because of the "Law of Resentment:" However resentful I am towards a person, that person is at least as resentful towards me.

*[See "The Law of Resentment" for an in-depth explanation]