Codependency: The Addiction You Must Heal
I have consciously been on my spiritual journey for 4 years. I was pretty sure I had healed everything in my past. I had healed drug abuse, low self-esteem, mental health issues, an abusive childhood and abusive relationships. Then my last relationship appeared helping me to heal by triggering my issues. The relationship is over now but the biggest issue of all appeared. Codependency the issue that gave birth to all my other issues. The mother of all issues. The definition of codependency is:
Codependency is a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person’s drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.
Codependency is a learned behavior towards relationships that usually stems from childhood. When a child is abused or neglected. They are in survival mode. Always hyper aware of their environment and the people in it. More worried about how others in their dysfunctional environment feel to stay safe. They learn to ignore their feelings or even worse are punished for expressing their feelings. These children then disconnect from their feelings. Reinforcing the belief that other’s peoples feelings are more important than their own. They try and control other’s and their environment to feel safe and get the love and acceptance they crave. I was told from an early age to quit crying or I would be given something to cry about. That children should be seen not heard. This told me I did not matter and nor did my feelings. I carried this with me through all of my adult relationships.
Codependency becomes an addiction when codependents subconsciously seek out troubled individuals as a way to avoid dealing with their own problems and issues. Unconsciously trying to fix or solve another’s alcoholism, drug addiction or any other addiction of another person , a codependent can feel like a healthy person with no problems. Because they are comparing their selves to the person they are trying to help. Yet, if the person they are trying to help goes away, the codependent will unconsciously seek out another troubled person to fix in order to avoid painful feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy, and worthlessness. Like any addiction, codependency interferes with personal growth as the codependent uses it to avoid dealing with emotional pain just as an addict uses alcohol or drugs to avoid dealing with emotional pain. Codependents are very nice people. They are perceptive of others but not at all perceptive of themselves. If you are constantly thinking of someone else’s problems. Consumed with solving them you then don’t have to face your own. Codependents are master people pleasers and caretakers.
Ask yourself these questions if you answer yes, there is a good chance you are codependent and may be in a codependent relationship:
Do you keep quiet to avoid arguments?
Are you always worried about others’ opinions of you?
Have you ever lived with someone with an alcohol or drug problem?
Have you ever lived with someone who hits or belittles you?
Do you feel rejected when significant others spend time with friends or
family without you?
Are you uncomfortable expressing your true feelings to others?
Do you have difficulty taking compliments or gifts?
Do you have trouble saying “no” when asked for help?
Do you have trouble asking for help?
Do you suffer from anxiety, depression, guilt, and resentment? Do you see relationships as a lot of work almost like a fulltime job?
Is there an unbalanced giver/taker dynamic in your relationship with you as the constant giver?
How do we heal codependency?
The most important thing for a codependent to learn is that happiness comes from within. Trying to constantly make another person happy is unhealthy because you never can. You can’t ever do another person’s work for them. They are responsible for their own happiness not you. You are only responsible for yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings. Talking, reading and just plain being aware of feelings and thoughts will help a codependent free them self from these relationship patterns. By stopping your caretaking behavior and all the energy you are constantly putting in another person will free up your energy to put into more constructive things. Once I ended my last codependent relationship my life rapidly improved. I took all that energy I put in the relationship and put it into myself. My writing took off and my life balanced out. I was happy alone which is something I could never imagine before.
Make your recovery a the single most important thing in your life right now. Codependency is an addiction. Pinpoint your self destructive behaviors, find better behaviors and then use these new behaviors. Examine all your past relationships and how they led you to believe you must sacrifice yourself to make others happy.
Practice daily meditation, doesn’t have to be formal meditation but any activity you love going in nature, playing music, painting, writing, praying, exercise, being with friends, any activity that you love. This is important because for so long you focused on doing what someone else loved and enjoyed.
Stop managing and controlling others. This is hard to do but an important. You must stop telling another person how to live their life. You must stop trying to fix another person’s life. Stop intervening, helping, advising, trying to make things better, trying to fix it, trying to solve problems. You must allow another person to make his or her own decisions, whether you feel they are right or wrong and then let them live their own life. They must take responsibility for their own mistakes, their future, their life, their unhappiness, their issues and their own problems. And you must do the same things for yourself.
Become All About You. Put yourself first only by healing yourself can you truly help another person a healthy way. Practice self care and what makes you feel good. After the end of my last codependent relationship. I went for manicures, massages, I got my hair done. I pampered myself.
You recover from codependency addiction by increasing your self esteem. By gaining knowledge about yourself. What made me this way? Why do I place other people before myself? When did this behavior begin for me? When you look back and tackle the issues one by one you will eventually get to the root of the problem.
Learn to accept yourself. Learn to accept others as they are and not try to change them. Accept your faults and others with their faults. If you can’t accept another for they way they are. Let them go. You do not need this person in your life. Ask yourself, Is this relationship good for me? Will I feel better or worse by being in this relationship? Stop trying to bring someone else up to your standards. Find people that are already there.
Healthy balanced relationships are within your grasp. It will be hard and painful work but totally worth it. You will break the endless cycle of unhealthy relationships. You will no longer feel taken advantage of because you have developed healthy giving relationships in your life.
Take all that energy and passion you spent on one person and focus it on you. I started this blog site to help other’s heal but I ended up healing myself too. I redirected that energy into something healthy for myself.
You can not fix another person or their life. You can only fix yourself and your life.
So Do It!
Dawn Bailey
I am a magnetic energy worker, lightworker. My journey has taught me that there are many different energies available for lightworkers to work with on the Tree of Life. I have recently been guided to work with animals. I do energy work on animals especially abused ones. Which also leads to energy work on their owners. My mission is to help all life on beautiful Gaia. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.