Free Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud Page B

is probably not news to you, but it is very important in terms of endings. You have software that tel s you how to negotiate virtual y every aspect of life as it plays out in relationships, and the maps order how you think, feel, and behave.
    If these rules come into conflict with any particular ending, then you wil be stuck. I worked with a business owner one time who began under a mentor who launched him and brought him up in the business. This mentor was a great gift to him, and without him he probably would not have even gotten started. They worked together in the business for about a decade.
    But then, the student grew past the teacher, and it was time for a launch. He had great opportunities before him and needed to take a step, but the mentor relationship was holding him back. He had formed a rule in his head that said to grow up and move on was being disloyal and ungrateful. He could not see how he could separate his business from his mentor and be anything other than a real jerk. So he stal ed. He missed opportunity after opportunity. His misplaced loyalty had put a ceiling on his personal potential as wel as his business potential. He felt he owed his mentor so much that he could never leave him.
    After a lot of awareness, focus, and internal “remapping” he got to a place where he was conflict-free enough to move forward. He could final y see how leaving, moving on, and becoming al that he was meant to be was real y a validation of his mentor and that he could be loyal and keep a good relationship with him even if they were not partners. It was rocky for a bit, as most endings are, but with the new map, he could negotiate it wel . As a result, he became enormously successful, but about three years later than he should have. One wonders how much he left on the table in those stuck years in terms of money, achievement, growth, and even contentment.
    In other instances, the map about the other person can have different content. As we have said, some people, like El en, often feel that they wil harm people if they hurt them. Or such a person may feel that she wil destroy someone’s life if she makes a decision that is good for her but requires the other person to take some responsibility for the outcome. This is common in both business and personal lives. It is just one of the truths about life: sometimes we need to do something for ourselves or our business that is not good for someone else, at least not in the short term.
    Our decisions might take business away from others or force them to deal with some rejection or loss. But ultimately they are responsible for their own lives, as adults have to be. But if your map says that you are responsible for other adults as if they were your children, then something is wrong with your map, and no doubt some wel -needed endings are not taking place.
    The map that makes people feel responsible for other people is one of the most ending-delaying maps there is. It usual y comes from having been parented in a way that makes the child feel guilty for choices that did not make parents or other members of the family happy. As adults, such people need to learn a new map that says, “I am not doing this ‘to you.’ I am doing it ‘for me.’ ” There is a big difference.
    Loyalty is important, one of the most important character traits we can have. But loyal love does not mean infinite and/or misplaced responsibility for another’s life, nor does it mean that one forever puts up with mistreatment out of inappropriate loyalty.
    Codependent Mapping

    Another relational map is feeling responsible for another person’s pain when the enabling is ended. This topic has been so wel discussed in addiction and self-help literature that I almost did not include it. But I can’t ignore it, as it is one of the deepest, almost pathological y archetypal behavior patterns in the human race. It is as though we are “enabling” as a species. It seems it goes that deep into our imperfect