Codependency Archives

Healing Yourself

Healing yourself emotionally, is key to your peace, your health, and your whole being. If you do not work on yourself first then every decision, intentionally or unintentionally, will be influenced by the broken side of you. Not deciding, is deciding. You decided to not decide or choose. You give others your power of decision. In other words, you give your power away. How do you feel valued and how do you indirectly or directly control the situation or people? Do you really want to change or stay in your comfort zone? Most people will stay in their comfort zone. You are a rare breed if you choose to change and follow through.

If you are a co-dependent then every decision will be influenced by your need to be loved, accepted, to be the peace maker and to please. If you are a controller then every decision and reaction will be in a protective mode to guard your ego and defend who you think you are. The mind protects the ego. Since the ego must be protected, you may be hostile towards anyone you feel is a threat to your sense of self, the ego. The need to be right is extraordinarily strong. The need to be in control is also extraordinarily strong. How deeply do you want change? Are you willing to face the ugly truth? To face yourself, accept personal responsibility, and do the hard heart work?

You cannot change anyone but yourself. So Why do you still try? Think on that. The definition of insanity is “keep doing the same thing, expecting different results”. Does that definition fit your life? What are you going to do about it? How are you going to change? That’s right, it’s all about you. You can only change you but are you willing to accept “personal responsibility” and work on yourself instead of trying to change others? Until you are willing to face yourself and accept personal responsibility, life will be as it is, nothing of significance will change. Wherever you are, your problems follow you. No matter how many relationships, you have the same problems. Because the problem is you or how your allowing others to treat you.

Healing is within, so look within. Education is key to changing your mind and outlook. The real question is do you really want to change? No matter the consequences? Loss of family who are toxic, loss of friends, starting over on your own, a new job, new friends that are emotionally healthier? All those scenarios can be good, depending on your outlook. There is a grieving process for what you thought you had but was not real. I cannot go into details like a book does. But feel free to write with your questions and I will try to answer them. Do you want to sit in peace by the still waters? or continue in the insanity?

Leave your email and questions below in the form

Read books or listen, as I do, on Audible to learn faster. “Take Control of Your Life” by Dr. Jim Richards, the best book I have read on Co-Dependency. These two are not on Audible.

“Verbally Abusive Relationships, How to recognize them and How to respond” by Patricia Evans.

“Safe People”, “Necessary Endings”, “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend. Cloud and Townsend have many books on Boundaries with different focuses. The basic Boundaries is good to start with, then there are Boundaries in Marriage, Boundaries with Teens, Boundaries in Dating, etc.

“Never Go Back” by Dr. Henry cloud.

“Alone with God” by John MacArthur.

“The Divorce Phoenix” by Honoree Corder.

“The Human Magnet Syndrome” by Ross Rosenberg, explains why we are drawn to the wrong people. I have others to recommend if you are interested, let me know.

Safe People

Do you know a safe person when you see one?

Do you know the signs of an unsafe person?

Do you have someone in your life who is always telling you what you should or shouldn’t do? Telling you How to be, How to think, what to say, How you should feel? Who should be your friend and who you should not hang with?

If you think about it, do you really know what you like and don’t like? Let’s try something simple. Do you prefer square or oval shaped? Are you a water person or prefer the gym? If you had to think hard about it, that is a sign that you have lost yourself and have allowed someone else to have control over you. You may feel like a victim but let’s face the fact, you GAVE your power away. You are ALLOWING them to control you and You CAN at anytime take your power back. There is something stopping you, a secondary benefit.

What is a secondary benefit? Only you can decide that. Here are some possibilities. If your mate is the main provider then it could be financial. If you’re the main care giver of children and don’t really have a skill or education, then you may be concerned about how can you support your children and yourself financially. Maybe you are so co-dependent that you emotionally think you need their approval and what you perceive as love. People pleasing is a sign of co-dependency. Controlling, manipulating people are not giving you real love. It is called Love bombing, where they act like they love you to get what they want, to get you to do what they want. Playing to your weak spots and they know all of them.

If family or friends, are putting you down, pointing out the negative, most of the time. That is not a healthy relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mother, husband or Grown child. You need to set HEALTHY boundaries. Boundaries that protect you emotionally and physically. Emotional turmoil can cause you to be sick in many ways. If you find your health keeps going downhill, your emotions and the emotional abuse you’ve suffered may be at the bottom of it all.

Safe people WILL Listen to you and Not tell you what to do. They may ask questions to help you think it through but they do not tell you what to do or not to do unless you have given them permission to. Safe people don’t put you down, they support you and try to help in a Positive way. Safe people will listen more, so you can talk yourself, your feelings, through and figure them out.

Safe people are there for you when you call and let you cry on their shoulder but will guide you to solutions. As a rule, even with a counselor, you should only spend about 15 min. talking about the problem, then move on to solutions.

Don’t dwell on the past, learn from it and move on. Like Lot’s wife you can turn into a pillar of salt…a heart of stone. Become an angry bitter person. Forgiveness is for YOUR sake not the offender.

Don’t look back, Your not going that way!

Who Are You

Do you know what you like and dislike? Lets start with some simple things. Do you like round or square shapes, water exerciser or a gym work out? Gardening or reading a book? Cooking or crafting?

Have you been told what you like or want? So much that you don’t know what you like or who you are? You may have been so suffocated by a controlling personality and expected to be an extension of that person that you no longer really know who you are. You were told, pressured, or slowly convinced to be what they want, like what they like, do what they want. Yet they are not interested in anything you want to do. They try to keep you from family and friends, even to the point of cutting all ties to everyone.

You will need time, maybe alone, to re-discover who you are. How many years you have been in this controlling relationship will determine how long it will it will take you to discover What you want, like and who you are. It could be months or years. That is why you should not date for 2 years after any long term breakup. You want to allow yourself time to to heal and work on things like codependency and people pleasing. Or you will end up with the same person with a different face and a different name. Don’t rebound looking for comfort and the familiar. That is the kind of behavior that got you in this mess.

You are where you want to be. Think about that for a minute. If you didn’t want to be somewhere or with someone, you would leave.Take that in and accept personal responsibility. Life is a matter of choices. You can change your life is you wish.

Yes there will be sacrifices and changes. It is normal to be uncomfortable with changes. People stay in bad relationships because they are comfortable. Better the devil you know than the one they don’t. Would you rather be miserable OR strike out and start over. Many will stay miserable even in an abusive relationship than to give up the familiar. There is always a secondary gain to stay. It may be money, children, Fear, something you are getting out of that miserable situation. Yes there will be withdraw symptoms and Stockholm syndrome.

First you have to decide enough is enough. Are you are tired of being devalued and put down? Decide. Will you listen to your mind and not your emotions, now and in the future. Decide there is NO turning back, NO going back. You will make it on your own!

Write on index cards or paper and tape it on your mirror, sayings like.

Where there a will there’s a way.

If one Man/Woman has gone before me, why can’t I?

One Day at a time…Don’t borrow problems from tomorrow.

The bible says ‘Do Not Be Afraid’ 365 times, one for everyday of the year!

The problem is we focus too much on the problem instead of the solutions. Learn to re-focus each time you find yourself thinking of the problems and the past. Re-focus on the future and solutions. How are you going to overcome?

Answer… one step at a time! Don’t get overwhelmed by the whole.

Think what is the first step, then the second step. One step at a time.

It all comes down to what do you want? Do you want it bad enough to make it happen? Do you want to Settle or be more than a survivor. Be an Overcomer!

Victim or OVERCOMER ?

If you are blaming others, you are a victim and have a victim mentality. The first thing you must do is accept PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. You are wasting time and fooling only yourself. The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results! How many times do you have to “try harder, do better, make excuses for the other person, live in fear” before you wake up and smell REALITY?

Face your fears, make a plan. Your life is a matter of choices. Face it, take responsibility. You make a conscience choice or by default, not making a choice, choosing to stay in the life your in. Either way your making a choice, even no choice is a choice.

Fear keeps us from doing things we should and Fear is at the core of bad decisions. 365 times the Lord says do NOT Fear. One for each day of the year. Yet too much of our lives are rooted in fear. We fear change, that alone keeps us from moving forward.

Decide right here and now that you will make NO decision out of Fear.

That you will not let Fear Keep you stop you from doing things that are need or good to do. That doesn’t mean stupid things like jumping off a bridge.

Leaving a bad situation, dropping negative and bad relationships, and moving forward are good things to do. As the song says Fear is a Liar.

A Victim blames everyone else including God or Satan. That is a slave mentality.

An Overcomer conscientiously decides to face reality, not wishful thinking. Overcomers faces their bad choices and and learns to see others as they are NOT as they want them to be. Overcomers take off their Rose Colored Glasses.

An Overcomer makes up their mind that they will have a life BETTER than ever before. That they will come out ahead not behind. Yes there will be struggles and loses up front but you don’t have to stay there, IF you decide not to stay there and to move forward and upward. Yes, you will cry and grieve your loses, which is needed to move on. If you don’t let it out, you will get stuck and not be able to move on. Grieve what I call the loss of the dream, what should have been, could have been but never was. See people as they are, Not as you want them to be.

Bottom Line…Face your Co-Dependency and Find your true identity and worth in God. Stop looking for approval and Love in people. Stop being a people pleaser and caring so much about what everyone else thinks. As long as everything is good between you and God, as long as you have nothing to apologize for, then Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks or says. Don’t give them power over you by caring. Of course we like people to like us BUT if they don’t that is their issue. Don’t let them make it your problem! Don’t take everything personally. Don’t let them push your buttons. Be like Teflon and don’t let it stick. Let it roll off your back like water. Get the idea?

“Take control of your life” by Jim Richards is the best book I have found to see truth on the matter of Co-dependency. Available on Ultimate Impact.

“Verbally Abusive Relationships, How to Recognize them and How to respond” by Patricia Evans is an eye opener. Listen on Audible or Kindle to learn faster. I listened five times and bought the book to highlight and make notes in.