We cannot prevent someone we love from experiencing pain. Sometimes the very thing another person needs to change and grow is to be left on their own to face the challenges of life. We are not abandoning them. Rather we are allowing them the opportunity to stand on their own two feet because if someone is always there to pick up the pieces or make the decisions or pay the bills they cannot learn to depend on themselves.

No matter how hard it is to witness, in my experience, it is often when we are at our lowest that we rise up and grab the rope to save ourselves. Having the courage to let someone do this for themselves is a part of loving them. In fact, one of the greatest ways we can love someone is to let them go because codependency is not love. It is ego’s desire to control, or fix, or change disguised as love.