Do I feel worthless, hopeless, or frequently beat myself up?

So the focus of attention shifts from our unhappiness to the actions of others, therefore it moves away from us to focus on the wrong activities of others which, sometimes wrongly, sometimes rightly, will always find themselves responsible for our emotional state. Understanding this is essential to tune in to a codependent who wants to stop being codependent. Taking for example the mother-daughter relationship. Imagine that in this relationship the favorite daughter decides to move to another city, therefore moving away and limiting the possibility of spending time together. This is a typical situation that seriously undermines the mood of a codependent mother. It is a situation in which her unhappiness cannot be silenced, and which will result in blaming her daughter's decision to leave as an ungrateful and cruel choice. From the moment this dynamic is activated, the possibility that the reaction of the codependent mother is linked to internal motivations that do not allow her to manage the detachment with serenity is eliminated. Once activated this narrative the only thing to decide will be whether or not her daughter will have the right to move, if she decided that autonomously or if somebody else convinced her (clearly in a case will be more guilty than in the another one. Whatever the result is, whether the daughter leaves or not, it will be very difficult that the next step does not sink into guilt. The guilt will result in a sentimental noose that will follow the daughter regardless of the choice she will take: If she renounces to leave, she will do so in the name of the guilt that has been infused in her, so the noose will tie her to the hardest knot. Machiavelli had such high hopes for this guy. It was in 1499 when the French king took Milan from Sfroza. However, Louis' clutches on Naples was not strong enough. He appointed his cousin, Frederick of Aragon as a dummy ruler at first. Meanwhile, he had a secret agreement on the side with the Spanish King, Ferdinand. The two agreed to divide the kingdom of Naples amongst themselves. Ironically, Ferdinand went back on this arrangement and instead, pushed the French out of Naples. Okay, so what exactly did Cesare Borgia do to merit this kind of admiration from Machiavelli? For one thing, he slaughtered his rival families, the Orsinis and the Colonnas. That went well with Machiavelli's primary teaching:

The scientists measured their subjects' baseline level of brain activity and then left them alone to meditate in a private room. When a meditator felt like he was approaching a moment of transcendence, he tugged on a long piece of string that Newberg and his colleague Eugene d'Aquili were monitoring in another room. The researchers then injected a radioactive substance into the meditator through a long intravenous line and, once the meditation was over, led him into a special high-tech camera that took a snapshot of his brain activity. The radioactive substance allowed researchers to see the amount of blood flowing into various regions of the brain: the more blood flow, the more activity there is in that part of the brain; At the peak of the mystical moment, Newberg and d'Aquili found, the meditators had decreased activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe--an area of the brain that Newberg calls the orientation association area, because its main functions are to locate the self in space, keep track of physical boundaries, and distinguish the self from the not-self. The orientation association area is usually highly active, taking in sensory information from the world and using that information to perform the crucial function of helping us navigate space. When neuronal inputs to the orientation association area from our senses decrease precipitously, as was the case with the meditators, the brain can no longer separate the self from the surrounding environment. Individuals feel connected with everyone and everything--they feel a sense of unity. In a new line of research, Newberg has peered inside the minds of meditating Sufi mystics. The work on Sufis is in its early and exploratory stages--Newberg has studied only two thus far--but it may shed additional light on the neurological underpinnings of mystical states. Then a deeply experienced realization occurred. Each spark of life was complete unto itself. It was beyond beautiful. Everything was (and is) one incredible expression! It is eternal and it is indestructible; I dropped to the ground on my knees, large flowing tears of profound gratitude streamed down my face. I felt that, as a human being, I had certainly done nothing to deserve such an incredible experience. It was a feeling of gratitude beyond gratitude. Here I was nothing, and yet, I was given the miraculous gift of being this life itself. I felt I had been leveled;

If instead, she moves to any other city, the noose will follow her as a sense of guilt and will be the main point of connection with the codependent mother. For her part, the mother will have solved two problems according to the unconscious laws of codependency. First problem: although in the case of not being able to sabotage the departure of her daughter, she will have maintained a bond with her distant daughter through guilt. Second problem: She will have somehow removed her unhappiness by focusing her attention on the guilty behavior of her daughter. Regardless to the distressing situation created, codependency has been saved, attention to others has been preserved, the bond with the daughter seems to be under control. From the codependent perspective, the mission can be considered accomplished as this seems the best result possible. We Are Empathetic People and Difficulties Attract Us Difficulty and complexity constantly accompany codependent relationships. The difficulty comes mainly from intimate relationships: couples, family members, colleagues, or simple friendship relationships. Outside these contexts, complexity will be related with problematic social environments. Get rid of the people who have the power to compete with you. Another thing that Cesare did was to convert the previous supporters of these families so they end up supporting him. This went well with another one of Machiavelli's ideas: Take advantage of the powerless. Cesare also eliminated the mercenaries. As an alternative, he gathered his own armed forces. Again, this agrees with another one of Machiavelli's teachings: Avoid using supplementary forces and private armies. Cesare safeguarded his new state, Romagna, by obtaining it through cruel means. Afterwards, he bestowed independence upon it.

During meditation, the brains of the Sufis showed a decrease in activity in the frontal lobe, which is responsible for conscious decision-making and giving an individual a sense of control over his environment and actions. If the frontal lobe has dramatically less neuronal inputs than usual, then the logical, controlling part of our mind shuts down, and we feel a sense of surrender. Though the transcendent moment, as William James pointed out, will eventually end, it can leave an indelible mark on the psyche. People can fundamentally transform after the experience of self-loss. Consider the story of the former astronaut Jeff Ashby. Jeff was just a kid when the first American, Alan Shepard, flew into space. It was May 1961. NASA had been created three years earlier. The Soviets had sent the first man into space just a month prior. And Ashby, at the tender age of six, started dreaming about going into space himself. I was humility itself. Whatever remained of a me then, began to give constant thanks and praise. It is beyond words. I can reach for words to describe this experience like one might reach to pick fruit in an effort to describe a bountiful tree. It is not possible. Still, the Spirit that came to fill up this body was fresh, new, and eternally alive. It was beyond birth. It was beyond death. It just is. It is the free, loving essence of life.

For example, voluntary works aimed at intervening in very complex social realities. Being immersed in certain realities means that those realities also follow us at home. When it happens (it happens quite often) this ends up breaking into the codependent's family too. Those who experienced it firsthand will have examples of single-family homes that suddenly look like reception centers. All in all, this type of complexity is not necessarily dysfunctional, it can indeed contribute very positively in the social contribution, not only of the codependent persons but of their family too. Some of them often receive recognition and commendation for the activities carried out in the social sphere and it can be considered a noble activity. The complexity that interferes the most with the quality and well-being of codependent relationships is the one that interferes with parenting and the relationships of couples. The feeling is often like a dense hood manages to wrap our main relationships, converting them into an explosive mixture that is difficult to handle. Serene relationships and the joy of simplicity seem to be an expensive extra reserved for others. This is often because empathy leads us to immediately identify the emotionally complex situations of the people we know. He may have been merciless beyond words, but one thing that he did correctly was to pin it all on a fall guy, then he murdered the fall guy. This is extremely advantageous for him because after he did that, he did not only had the people's deepest gratitude; Once again, this fits in perfectly with two of Machiavelli's strongest ideas: After that, seem kind. Instead, place yourself in a position that will evoke fear. All of this, Cesare was able to do over a span of five years only! The young man also formulated a plan, which he intended to follow after his father's death. He plotted to slaughter the local rulers. He intended to gain the support of the Roman nobility. Moreover, he planned on achieving control over the individuals who had the power to select the new pope.