Are You A Codependent? Part 1

Welcome to A New Life podcast with Pamela Jean where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello friends and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. I'm so glad you are here joining with me today. It is the full week of March 2021. I'm not really sure how that is possible. I feel like this year has starting to fly by so quickly. The first quarter is almost coming to a close. It's hard to believe. Time flies I guess when you're having fun, right? This is also week number two of my Self Care Mastery course. If you have signed up for the course you will be getting your module dropped to today. So check your email. You should have module number two going for you. And if you would still like to get in, I know we've already started, I will go ahead and accept a few more students. If you would like to get into that Self Care Mastery course, just send me a DM and I will get you the information that you need. The really awesome thing about this course is that it's self guided and you can do it on your own time frame which is really nice. Everything is recorded and preserved so if you don't are not able to keep up or you don't have time on a particular day, you can always catch up later. So it's a self guided course and you do not really want to miss this because it will be life changing for you if you are ready, I mean ready for things to be different in your life. This course will get you on your way and you will be supported through the whole thing. Also, this coming Friday, March 26, the blue tie Gala is slated for the Demand Project. We interviewed Kristen Wise last week and she gave you all of the details on the Demand Project and the efforts that she and the organization are working towards ending sex trafficking and undercover work with foiling pedophiles and online predators. It's an incredible organization. I really really hope that you make the decision to get involved. You can get involved as a volunteer. You can get invol financially. There's so many ways to plug in if you would like to attend the gala. The last I heard there were only like four to seven tickets left. So go to thedemandproject.org to see how you can plug in and if you are able just to make a $20 donation and whatever number amount that you can make, it is greatly appreciated. It is a nonprofit and that Money will go to very, very good use. So without further ado, let's get onto today's podcast. So today I'm starting a series, Part one in a three part series and our topic is codependency. We are going to discuss today and discover, hopefully discover if you are a codependent and talk about some of the characteristics of a codependent and try to identify those characteristics within yourself. And first of all, I want to refer to a book that I read several years ago that quite honestly was a game changer for me in understanding codependency and identifying myself in that role. And it is a book by Melody Beaty. Melody is like a song. Melody M E L O D Y Beady is B E A T T I E. The title of her book is Codependent no How to Stop Controlling and Start Caring for Yourself. Pick up that book. I'm sure it's on Amazon. I will post a link to the book in the description of this podcast because it's an incredible resource. So please, please do yourself the biggest favor ever and order this book. I have read it probably four times already. It's so good. So I want you to ask yourself these questions. And my goal for you today is that you would be able to identify whether or not you are a codependent or if someone close to you is perhaps a friend, a sister, a mother, a coworker. So question number one, do you avoid confrontation? Do you avoid confrontation if you are in a situation where you know that there's a conflict and you know that if you brought up this particular conflict, you completely would start a World War II in the household? You just don't want to go there. You just don't want to have to fight about it. Do you avoid confrontation? That's question number one. Question number two, do you neglect your needs to attend to another's? First, if you are a codependent, you are going to find that your needs are so far pushed on the back burner that after a while you don't even know what your needs are. That you have been serving everyone else in your world so deeply and so automatically that honestly, you don't even know what your needs are because your purpose is strictly from serving the needs of other people. Their happiness, their expectation, is bigger and more important than your own. So that is question number two. The third thing I want you to think about and I want you to ask yourself, and this is really important, do you accept verbal or physical abuse by others? Now, if you're in a situation where you are accepting physical abuse that is absolutely not okay. And friends, it is so important that you get help and you get out because physical abuse is absolutely not okay. But if you're accepting verbal or physical abuse by others and just tolerating it, that would be a very, very good sign that you are codependent. The fourth question, do you take responsibility of others? So if, let's say you're in a spouse situation and your spouse decides not to go to a family function and you are left to go to the family function, but you take responsibility and you take and you make excuses for them not coming, you cover for them basically, that you are constantly in this cycle of covering for them because you don't want them to look bad. Do you take responsibility for the actions of others? The next question I have for you to ask yourself, do you feel shame when others make mistakes? When someone makes a mistake in your life, someone who's close to you, do you take on their shame? Do you take on their guilt? That's a really, really good question to ask yourself. Are you taking on the guilt and shame of others when they make mistakes? The next question is, do you do more than your share of work at home or in organizations? So in your relationship, who is the work on the home front? Is it split? Is it shared? Or do you simply do everything? The next question this is a big do you ask for help? Do you ask for help? I'll be the first to admit I am not very good at asking for help. I learned and was conditioned a very long time ago to be very independent, to not need other people and just to handle things on my own. And it's okay to ask for help, friends. It really, really is. And it doesn't mean that you're weak. It doesn't mean that you're needy. Trust me when I say it is okay to ask for help. But that is a question to ask yourself. Do you ask for help? And the goal out of today's podcast is for you to start the process of identifying whether or not you are codependent. And like the subtitle of Melody Beatty's book, Codependent no More how to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself. That's the key. When you are practicing codependent behavior, you are not caring for yourself. And if you are following me, you are going to know that self care and mastering self care and loving yourself is my absolute mission in life. Codependency and identifying codependency and healing from codependency is a key element to Start caring for yourself. So the next question I want you to ask yourself, do you need others validation to feel good about yourself? Do you seek affirmation and validation from other people for you to feel good about you? Or do you just wake up every day and feel great about yourself and who you are and what you are and what your mission is? If you are seeking your friends, your spouse, your co workers for validation, if you are seeking other men for your validation, you are probably a codependent. Because when you care and love yourself enough, you will not need the validation coming from other people. All right, my next question. Do you suffer from low self esteem? What is your self esteem meter? If it was a scale of 1 to 10, are you a 2 or are you a 9 or 10 on the self esteem calendar? Or what is the metric for you? Do you suffer from low self esteem? If you are a codependent, it's very likely that you do suffer from low self esteem. And the last question I'm going to ask you is do you think everyone's feelings are more important than your own? So when you're in a situation and you know, let's say you're simply trying to make a decision of where are we going to go out for dinner as a family or as a couple and you really, really want to go to a certain place, but then someone else suggests something else, you just say, oh, okay, that's fine, we can do what you want to do because you want them to have their way more than it matters for you to have yours. So to recap those questions, I'm going to read them quickly. Do you avoid confrontation? Do you neglect your needs to attend to others first? Do you accept verbal or physical abuse? Do you take responsibility for the actions of others? Do you feel shame and guilt when others make mistakes? Do you do more than your share of work at home? Do you ask for help? Do you need outside validation to feel good about yourself? Do you suffer from low self esteem? And the last question is, do you think everyone's feelings are more important than your own? So friends, it's important to identify first of all if you are a codependent. And one of the questions that you might be wondering is how did I become a codependent? Because if you answered yes to any of the questions that I mentioned earlier, you most likely are a codependent. And as a codependent, you are going to find yourself scrambling all of the time because everyone in your world, you want them to be happy. You're trying to make them happy. You're trying to control all of these situations to make everyone else happy. You're going to find that if you are codependent, most likely your relationships are not healthy. Your relationships typically are very dysfunctional. And you may even find that you are in a relationship with someone who is suffering and battling addiction. And that addiction can be anything from drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography. It can be any type of addiction. And if you're a codependent, you are oftentimes in a bad relationship. And I may have really struck a chord with many of you that are listening today. But it's important to identify codependency, and if you are codependent, because if you do suffer from codependency, you will never, ever truly learn how to love yourself, care for yourself, because you'll be wrapped up in the dysfunction of codependency. Codependency becomes a serious problem when one person starts to feel like they're being suffocated. And when you are working so hard to create happiness in other people's lives, you will never, ever be happy in your own life. So, I know, friends, this is a difficult topic, but it's such an important topic. And I want to talk a little bit today also about what causes codependency. You know, you weren't born codependent. That's not. You weren't born that way. But oftentimes, if you grew up in a home where your emotions were punished or ignored, that can cause those feelings of low self esteem and shame. And then you end up believing that your needs and your feelings are not worthy as a result. And oftentimes that will lead to choosing a relationship with someone who has addictions. Like I mentioned a couple seconds ago, this can be again, drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, pornography. The codependent becomes the caretaker, the caregiver, out of that desire to help the person you're in the relationship with. But that. But as a codependent, you will put all of your needs on the back burner. Your needs will not even matter. So, friends, this is a tough topic and I want you to be encouraged that if you find that through listening to this podcast, that you are a codependent, that you are, this is sucking the life out of you, because codependency will do that. You will start to feel so small and so insignificant. It's important that you start to turn this mindset and shift this around. So first of all, grab the book that I told you at the beginning of the podcast, and I am going to have it in the show notes. So Definitely order that book and start reading. Get out your highlighter, get out a notebook in your journal, and start writing as you are reading this book, because it is a game changer for you. After you identify if you are a codependent, it's not hopeless. Friends, there is absolutely hope you can overcome this. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of retraining and rethinking. Retraining your brain is such a big topic because it starts there. And I want you to remember that happiness truly is an inside job. You cannot make someone else happy. No matter how hard you try, no matter how great you are or how much you sacrifice, you cannot make another human being happy. Happiness is an inside job. So I want you to step back from that and give yourself a break from trying to make everyone else happy in your life, because you are not that powerful. You don't have that kind of control. You just don't. But I do promise you, if you find that you love yourself, you can be there to support another person who is going through a hard time or suffering from addiction, but you will not take on their pain, and you will not take the responsibility of their actions. That's what's really important. So, friends, I'm going to wrap it up there next week. We're going to dive deeper into codependency. I'm excited to cover this topic with you because I feel like it's so very important. So get out your journal, start writing. I know you can get through this. And I'll be honest with you. I'll just be very transparent here. When I learned that I was a codependent, I never in a million years would have thought that was me. I never would have believed that. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I was a codependent, I would have argued with you until I was blue in the face. I never would have believed that I was a codependent, but I absolutely was. And when you are a codependent, you do have a tendency to try to control what happens around you. And controlling what happens around you is not always a bad thing. That can be done out of love and compassion and care. However, doing it from a codependent place means it's very dysfunctional. And that's the part of it that I want you to identify. And that's the part of it that I want you to try to overcome and understand and work really hard at breaking that cycle, that dysfunctional cycle. So, friends, thank you again for joining me. You have no idea how much this community means to me. I have a mission to empower women, to empower more women. And the more you tell your story, the more you speak from your past, the more you can help other people. And I heard a quote, and I cannot remember off the top of my head who said the quote. But your story, what you went through, is somebody else's survival guide. Your story is very valuable, and your story happened so you can help someone else. So, friends, make it a great week. The last week of March 2021. Thank you so much for joining me. Take good care and we'll talk to you next week.

Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next.