My Life As a Border Collie
My Life as a Border Collie: Freedom from Codependency (Central Recovery Press, 2012) takes a serious and fun look at twelve behaviors associated with codependency. The book began by Johnston noticing behaviors in Daisy, her border collie mix, that resemble the behaviors associated with codependency which she had been working to moderate through her recovery. “Daily I am struck by our tendencies to attend to others, to herd, to over-react.”
This book examines specific behaviors associated with codependency rather than the broader concept of codependency. Looking at behaviors associated with codependency - such as helping, giving, serving, and pleasing - on a continuum from "okay" to "going too far" invites the individual to see that behaviors associated with codependency are not necessarily bad. We can just carry them too far. The too far end of the continuum is where rigidity, compulsivity, and addiction set in. Recovery of self is then necessary in order to balance self in relationship to other(s) and improve total health.
My Life as a Border Collie examines twelve identified behaviors associated with codependency on this continuum from “okay” to “going too far":
Smart: I can learn new tricks.
Devoted: All I want to do is watch you.
Hard-Working: Keep me busy! Keep me busy!
Serving: Is there anything I can do for you?
Pleasing: I want to be good.
Sensitive: Please don’t be mad with me.
Compliant: I want what you want.
Herding: What’s everyone doing? Are you all ok?
Reactive: Woof! Woof! What’s going on?
Determined: I know you want me to stop, but I don’t want to.
Delighted: I can be quite pleased with little things.
Big Hearted: I love you dearly and will follow you anywhere
The book offers a chapter on each of these twelve behaviors with Tales Told about Johnston and Daisy as well as Lessons Learned from those Tales. Through the Tales, the reader can see the range of each behavior from "okay" to "too far", and through the Lessons, they are offered a number of ways to moderate their own behaviors so as to not go too far and lose themselves in someone else.
Learning to notice and moderate our behaviors associated with codependency is a dynamic, on-going process. “In the same way that we actively re-establish our balance in numerous ways over the course of a day - for example with eating or exercise or work - so must us border collies learn to moderate the extent to which we are driven by things outside of our self and then give our very self away.”