HELP YOURSELF

The Home page tells a story about the journey we're on -- how it shapes and sometimes refines us with fire. 

No, I don't drive around with a CONOMO license plate on my car. When Codependent No More first came out and I still lived in Minnesota, I received the above picture and a letter from a man in California.  He said if I ever moved out here, he'd gladly turn the plates over to me.  Showing how little we know about the future, I thought the idea of me moving out West was absurd.  But in 1994, after my son's death, I needed a fresh start and the healing that the sun and ocean would bring.  I doubt the man is still driving around with the plates any more.  Like I talk about in one of my recent books, The New Codependency, we've come full circle.  At first we were excited.  Discovering we weren't crazy -- we were codependent -- was a relief.  Then the pendulum swung the other way.  It became an embarrassment to admit that we'd once been so obsessive, so controlling, and so needy. We didn't want to remember being that way now that we'd connected with our power.  That other person -- the doormat -- wasn't really us.  Times are changing again, though.  The pendulum is swinging back the other way.  In The New Codependency, I no longer see codependency as maybe 90 percent family of origin behaviors, and ten percent grief.  Now, I'd switch those numbers around. Codependent behaviors are normal responses to life.   In most circumstances, we're doing what anyone would do.  We're trying to save our marriage, our child, and if we look deeply enough, we're really trying to save ourselves. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being loving, nurturing, and kind.  Those are important qualities.  We're not healthy until we can trust ourselves to give, love, and nurture others.  The challenge is to give some of that good stuff to ourselves.   I wrote that new codependency book to set the record straight -- to talk about the new things I'd learned about codependency since 1986, such as boundaries  -- a subject I knew little about back then.  I knew I didn't have any but where they came from, I didn't know. How did you enforce them, make them stick?  I didn't know that, either. I've found the answers to those questions and more, and put them in the new book.  There will be some about codependency on this site, some on the grief site, and then (neither last nor least) another site will go up at www.MelodyBeattie.org about how to stand up for ourselves when the rest of the world wants us to sit down, connecting with our true powers, and other non-codependent behaviors. 

This is the umbrella site.  It introduces me, my work, my books, and the subject matters I'm familiar with and have included in my books.  The site changes frequently, something important to me.  One blog goes with this all sites -- Living in the Mystery.  All archived posts articles were lost when we were hacked, so I'm starting the blog over from scratch.  In it, I'll cover material that applies to all sites, but if people have comments about grief they want to make privately, they can do that in the grief site (if they're registered). Ot comments can be made for anyonen to see.  The blog will be on a "feed" which means you can have it sent to you.  It'll be a month (or at least three weeks) before I begin blogging again, as I'm rushing to finish my writing commitments to my publishers.

I'm building the sites myself (but with needed help for cleaning, rebuilding, and guarding the sites' doors. I don't want a "perfect" site that looks like everyone else's.  I know my sites have that home-made touch.  That's what I want -- living sites that represent me and make the visitors feel comfortable and at home.  Now, they'll be as safe as a site can be.  I had professionally-built sites for years.  Content rarely changed; I found them boring.  I like my sites, even though they don't have that "profesionally done look."  I like what i created, and plan to continue building my sites myself (with help from profesionally-inclined friends). 

The song by Elton John on the Home Page, where I have the license plate of CoNoMo, me skydiving, a card (produced by Hay House and based on Language of Letting Go), and a shot of Bryce Canyon, a magnificently beautiful place to hike, give a taste of this site and the journey we're all on.  We never can tell what's next but in the end, it turns out to be our story.  

I hope you feel comfortable here, and find this (and the other sites) safe places that encourage youu to help yourself to life. Welcome to this site.

I'm a functional photographer (barely), but I consider this photo of a girl in Tibet to be my best.  I was drinking Yak butter tea with her folks that cold afternoon halfway around the world on the karmic journey of my life.  Making the journey to Mount Kalesh in Tibet was the cumulation of months of travel to China, climbing up thousands and thousands and thousands (okay I'll stop) of steps and touring monastaries where the monks warmly greeted my hiking partner and me, and stranger laid out the welcome mat to make me feel at home.  From the trip, Choices (HarperCollins) was born and like the Phhonix, I rose from the ashes and the dust.  After Shane (my son) died, I finally became happy again--only it was a different happiness now. 

We each need to discover for ourselves what that happiness is.  For me, it became another word:  Peace. 

The "About" page encapsulates the mission of this site; it also talks about what's different here (everything) from the site I had before, and explains some changes I made.  So come with me.  Journey to the top of a mountain in Tibet.  Better yet, climb your ownn mountain--the one in your path.  See what's at the top.  We all have a burden to bear, not in that "codependent martyr" way, but as every spiritual leader explains--the way we all have something--a problem, illness, shortcoming, pain, thorn in our side--that we have to be happy in spite of instead of living without. 

This site's mission is explained and shown here by a photographer far more talented than I am.  A big hug to that beautiful little Tibetan girl with the wind-blown cheeks, so bundled up she could barely move.  She symbolizes the spirit of love and peace that many of us pray to the God of our understanding for this world.

In the Virtual Mall, you'll find everything from too good to be true prices on designer clothes, to furnishings for your home, to online resources for tuition and a school to get your High School Degree.  Sixty advertising affiliates make this a varied shopping experience where you'll find what you need, when you need it, at prices you can afford. 

If we're not carrying a product that you want, ask.  It is with gratitude that I list treatment centers that remember the way it was "way back when" chemical dependency treatment first began.  The beds aren't posh; the food isn't gourmet.  But if you want to save  your life, they'll show you the way.

Books, books, and more books.  You can read to your hearat's content.  Barnes & Noble is going up very soon (and I don't believe in using the word very), but if you're looking for a Mother's Day gift before they go up, they're offering a Mother's Day Gift special.  You won't find just my books here--although mine will be available from various sites. You'll find recommended reads, new reads, and the latest best sellers from the New York Times.  You'll be able to choose from fiction bestsellers to recovery books--everything and anything you could possibly want to read or have read to you--is available to you here.  Choose where you want to shop:  Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, BOOKSAMILLION.COM, eBooks.com, Hazelden for people in reocvery or Hazelden for treatment centers and recovery groups.  The same way books can "fly off the shelves and into your hands" at a real bookstore, you'll be guided into buying what you need here.  Have fun!

For the price of two stamps, get your book (or books) personalized. Send a ... well, it's all in here. simple, easy, inexpensive. Please don't send your book. Bookplates are "stickers" for adults.  (See picture in section.)  It's the new-wave of booksignings.  I think we're on to something here.

Just what the name implies, this is a virtual room to remind us of that real place we go inside--peaceful, quiet, still--to hear the voice of God--however we define our Higher Power.

A record of the past and a list of events to come, News and Events is exactly what it says. 

New question in FAQs about letting go. Keep the questions coming--this is your page.  The one question almost everyone has been too polite to ask, I'll give the answer first and you see if you can guess what it is.  "By clicking the x in the upper right-hand corner or by clicking on the stop instead of play mode."  The question?  How do I turn those annoying little people off?

A link to a video made supporting Proposition 8 kicks off the "links" page.  Expect anything and everything here.  It's a page that will grow, change, and develop--especially when I start the Blog.  From Alzheimer's Disease to Pain Management, resources, information, and networking only some of the reasons for this page.

BRAND NEW ADDITION TO THIS PAGE.  IF YOU WISH, ATTEMPT TO ENGAGE EMILY THE ANGEL IN A CONVERSATION.  TYPE YOUR QUESTION IN THE BOX.  SHE JUST MIGHT ANSWER YOU!  This page tells you who was handling media (Megan Beatie); how to reach my assistant Sharon, which means it tells you how to reach us.  Contact us with questions or comments, but be nice, keep it clean and respectful.  Please, no request for speaking events.

At the bottom of each page is a link to our Privacy Policy and Disclaimer.  One important part of that is we will never contact you unless you ask us to--to send you an autographed bookplate, news of an event, or to respond to an email you sent to us.  Emily the Contact Angel is here for you to give us any information you want us to have about you, and to include what--if anything--you'd like us to contact you about.  When Melody is writing, Sharon will probably be responding to most of your requests.  As much as possible though, Melody will take care of communicating for herself, herself.

This isn't as much a place to go and chat now as it will become a place to hold speaking engagements from the comfort of my home to the comfort of yours. What else can be said about chat rooms?  They're a place to connect.

The complete Privacy Policy & Disclaimer for this site is monitored and enforced by a third party.  Links to it are located at the bottom of each page; a short version and more links is on the Policy Policy & Disclaimer Page.  Read it, because it's a legal and binding agreement.  If you feel your rights are violated, report this.  We'll do our best to see that never happens but if it does, we'll then do our best to straighten it out.  Technology is great but so is keeping our personal business to ourselves.

A guide to this Site (as if you need any more after this Welcome Page.)  Still awake?

It's impossible to tell the story of a life without talking about the other people in it, so I figured this was as good a place to name-drop as any.  Michael Rapaport--father of my grandchildren and star of the video in the clip on Proposition 8 in links, is a good friend, great father, and talented actor.  I loved True Romance and could recite the dialogue by heart before my daughter ever knew him.

Playing It By Heart published by Hazelden is the closest thing to an autobiography I wrote.  It tells something I often forget that many people don't know because I glossed over it in a few sentences in my other books:  not only did I climb the mountain of codependency, I climbed the one of chemical dependency too.  But as time passed, it became time to forgive myself (see Welcome to the Club, by Hazelden too) for that.  By age 13, I was a practicing alcoholic.  I wasn't bad.  I was self-medicating feelings too big and too much for me to feel.  It's not an excuse; it's an explanation.  But the cure became a disease.  A doctor did an informal survey and discovered that many chemicallly dependent people began using drugs or drinking to medicate physical or emotional pain.  The drug of choice almost killed us, but it may have saved our lives, too.

Playing It by Heart