Are You A Codependent Part 3

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. Thanks for being here today. I have to tell you, there are so many, so many incredible things happening right now. It's so exciting. I can't wait to share everything with you. Today's episode, first of all is part three in talking about codependency. Are you a codependent? Our topics today are are codependent relationships always bad? The next little topic is going to be how can I overcome codependency? How codependency even started in your life. So we're going to wrap up today's series with those three topics. But first I have to tell you two things. First of all, my self care mastery course is going to start again on April 12th. If you have not registered yet for April 12th, you have to, have to, have to. I will post a link for you in the comments. It's exciting, friends, starting it again because people have asked and people want it and need it. So I'm so excited for that. The second thing is huge announcement that I just announced a couple of days ago. I have started a health and wellness division with a new life coaching. My goal and desire is to create a well rounded place where women can come and be served from all aspects of their life. I just can't wait to get this started. I can't wait to share more details with you. I'm plugging all of those in and we'll get those get that information to you as soon as I am ready to roll everything out. But it is coming. It is coming and it is going to be fantastic. And I have to tell you this quick little secret. It's not a diet. Who wants to be on a diet? No one will raise their hand. If you asked a crowd of a hundred people who wants to be on a diet? Nobody does. But who wants to be healthy? Who wants to get off medication because of their diabetes by changing their health plan and their lifestyle? I think you can have people raise their hand to that. People will sign up for that. So it's not a diet. It's all about healthy thinking for your body, healthy consumption. It's very, very awesome and I look forward to sharing that with you. Very exciting. I've added to my merchandise store which that's another thing that is just all the parts coming. And today, today, the day that I'm recording this, this podcast, I had an incredible conversation with another coach that I am collaborating with to get a conference, a women's conference in person together where we can all be together and connect. Coming up this fall. So get that on your radar. Who doesn't want to get together? I mean, I cannot wait to be in a room of women who all have the same goals and aspiration of changing their life and living their best life, going after their dreams, creating that good, healthy lifestyle from mind, body, soul, spirit, all of the above. So that's very exciting. So a lot of amazing things are happening and I'm so grateful and thankful that you are here to be part of this incredible journey. All right, so let's get to it. So I'm going to start today. I hope you've enjoyed this series of Codependency. It is such a self aware attribute that when you are self aware, whether you are codependent, and I beg to say that most women probably are in some way, shape or form, it's important that you have an understanding that there is a healthy codependency and there's a very unhealthy codependency. And part one and two, we really talked a lot about what the those attributes are, and I'm sure you may have seen yourself in some of those. But I want to talk a little bit today about are codependent relationships always bad? Well, even if you're not trying to be a codependent, every relationship has some level of codependency in it. And it's reasonable to a point because it's normal for one person to ask another for advice about major decisions. But I want you to be aware of there's a fine line where that can be crossed and where, you know, if you're not careful, you become so dependent on another person and their voice speaks louder than yours does. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. But there's definitely a fine line that you don't want to cross. And it's really important to ask yourself, is my relationship healthy? Now when I say relationship, this, this can be your spouse, your boyfriend, your significant other. And if you're seeking out, maintaining or feeding off of a relationship that is not healthy, you could be codependent if you know that there are attributes in your relationship that are not healthy that you are feeding off of that unhealthy dysfunction as a codependent. So it's important that you're able to discern whether or not your relationship is truly dysfunctional and unhealthy or if it's just you know, hiccups and speed bumps that every relationship goes through from time to time. A true codependent. That codependency comes from a place of anxiety. And if you suffer from deep anxiety where you question everything that happens around you about yourself, you really, really want to consider getting help for codependency. It can become a serious problem when one person in a relationship starts to feel suffocated. And it can turn really, really bad really, really quickly when you are the person that is sacrificing your own needs, your own well being, your own value system and morals in order to make the other person happy. And I'm going to say that again one more time. If you are the person who is sacrificing your needs, your well being, your moral compass to make the other person happy, that's when codependency becomes a problem and a very, very dysfunctional aspect to a relationship. So how can you overcome being a codependent? So one of the first steps to take is being honest with yourself and honest with your partner about your needs and your desires. Stop doing the things that you don't want to do, because all that's going to do is breed resentment. Later. You will resent so much all of the sacrifices you made for that other person. And honestly, you're putting that relationship in dire straits. The relationship will have a hard time turning around when resentment and anger and bitterness is at the core. Change negative thoughts and patterns into positive ones. Codependents often find it hard to think positively and it will take some practice for you to get a grasp on those negative thoughts, to get to wrap your brain around your negative thoughts. Negativity is really such a breeder of dysfunction and nobody wants to be around a negative person. If you've ever had that person in your life that every time you get together, man, everything they talk about is so negative. Gosh, that is hard. That is a soul sucking attribute. So change that negative thought pattern into positive ones. And friends, you are in charge of what you think. You're in control of what you think. And I've said this before, what you think affects how you feel. How you feel dictates your choices. So you've got to start with having a better control over what you think and stop the negative patterns and stop taking things personally. This is difficult because when you're in an intimate relationship, you want that other person to love you, to believe in you and all of those things. And you need to work on accepting those things without taking them personally. It's not a personal attack you are not personally responsible to fix them. You are not personally responsible for anyone else's happiness but your own. And if you stop taking on that personal challenge, that I can fix them. I have the tools, I have the education, I have the sense, I have the life experience to show them how they could live their life better, how they could think differently. That's not your responsibility. You are only in charge of you. You're in charge of your happiness. You're in charge of your mindset. You can't fix somebody else's mindset. You can't fix someone else unless they want to be fixed. And that's a lot of time where that conflict comes from. And that's where a codependency becomes dysfunctional, because you were trying to fix people in places and ways that they simply do not want to be fixed. I have been guilty of that in the past. I will own that and confess that. Take breaks from your partner. Honestly, if you are in that codependent space and you're in a relationship that is just really, really dysfunctional, sometimes it is good to take some time out and go out with your friends or go spend some time with family members. Just don't. I'm not suggesting that you leave a relationship, but just take a step back and catch your breath and breathe. If you do this correctly and not out of hate or malice or haste or anything negative, this can be so helpful in mending and bridging a gap. It's really important that you just take a break. And when I say take a break, that doesn't mean moving out. That doesn't mean selling out. That doesn't mean any of those things. That just means taking a step back from your codependent tendencies. Take a step back from trying to control. Take a step back from trying to fix or change a person that doesn't want that. Just take a deep breath and take a step back. Go see some friends. Go take a weekend and go shopping with a close family member. Just take a deep breath and pause. Consider going to counseling or getting a coach. It can be helpful to talk this through with an unbiased third party. Now, if you think that talking to a close friend about this who is in the relationship with you, if that makes sense, if you know what I mean, a family member, a sibling, if that person is too close to your situation, they can't help you. They are not unbiased. They have a biased opinion on everything. They can't help you. They can listen. They can be a great listener. But as far as helping you repair a relationship, it's best to work with an outside party, someone who doesn't have anything at stake. So go to a counselor, hire a therapist, find a coach, find someone to keep you accountable and find someone that can help you do the work on you. Join the Course Join the course coming up April 12th that helps you do some soul searching. It helps you retrain how you think. It helps you become happy with yourself before you can try to start making other people happy. As I said earlier, codependency comes from a place of anxiety. And if you are working, thinking, operating out of a place of anxiety, then friend, you need to fix that. You need to fix you before you have any room to try to fix other people. So consider going to counseling and getting a therapist. It's very important that you do the work on yourself before you can mend and create a good healthy relationship with someone else. But be transparent with where you're at. Talk to your partner, talk to your spouse, talk to your significant other, have a good heartfelt conversation and be healthy, clear and transparent. So let's talk about something next that really is so important in the coaching that I do. I'm a big believer in understanding why you are the way you are. You know, you're not born a codependent. You're not born to not love yourself. You're not born to think a certain way. You are the way you are because of situations, because of how you were raised, family dynamics. There's a lot of reasons what makes you who you are. You're not born with any of that. So it's so important to dig back into that past, into that past self and learn why you are the way you are. Because you can't change or fix those things unless you have a better understanding of where you've come from. So that's what we're going to talk about next. Codependency may have been caused by several different factors, and here's I'm just going to list and talk about some of those. So if you grew up in a home where your emotions were punished or even ignored altogether, this can result in you having feelings of low self esteem or shame. You may believe that your needs are not worth tending to as a result of feeling like your emotions, your thoughts, your what, what made you tick was not important. That can result in codependent tendencies. The next thing is being in a relationship with someone who has an addiction. This can be addicted to alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, pornography, or any other addictive behavior. The codependent what ends up happening as a result. When you are dealing with someone who has one of one of these addictions, the codependent becomes the caretaker. And out of a desire to help, and that is out of the goodness of your heart, you know truly to become a caretaker of that person who's dealing with a drug addiction or whatever the addiction is, you are the caretaker. Then you want to help because you love them and you care about them. But what ends up happening is you take a backseat to your own needs in your desires. So anything that you want for your life or anything that is important to you becomes unimportant because you're so focused on caring for that person that has the addiction, which of course, at the time the addiction is more important than you because you want to take care of them and make sure that the addiction does not become a serious problem. And let's face it, any addiction, whether it's food, overeating, under eating, drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, pornography, any addiction, workaholic, working too much. There's so many different types of addictions. None of them are good, none of them are healthy, none of them serve you. So if you're in a relationship with someone who's suffering from an addiction, it is going to cause dysfunction, period. It will happen. The caretaker, the you, you will become a codependent. It is a cause and effect. So when you know and recognize that, you then can be on guard and you can help create some good, healthy boundaries to prevent this from spiraling out of control. Another cause is if you live in a household where abuse is common. This can be emotional abuse, physical abuse, any type of abuse cause codependent tendencies. When you've grown up in an abusive home, the codependent may find themselves feeling responsible for the abuse and for the abusive person, things like if I as a child, if I do all the right things, mom or dad won't abuse me, they won't yell, they won't yell at each other because I'm doing everything I can to be perfect. And let me tell you, that just opens up another can of worms of dysfunction. The codependent may attempt to make them feel better by caring for them more. So if I do more, the abuse isn't going to happen. If I'm a better person, the abuse isn't going to happen. The person that grows up in that abusive home ends up trying to fix the abuse by putting all of the responsibility on themselves, when quite honestly, the contrary, they have nothing to do with the abuse. But because their emotions have been put on the back Burner. They don't even identify themselves with having cares and needs. That is a reaction that will happen, is that codependent will try to fix the abuse by caring for everyone else involved and will stop caring for themselves. Codependent parents may attempt to protect their children from experiencing problems and hardships in their lives. They may attempt to control them in a way that will result in the child never meeting that parent's expectation for success. Have you heard the saying helicopter mom? I know you all have. And as a parent, man, we don't want our kids to suffer. We want them to have life better than how we had life to the point of trying to control bad things from happening. A healthy, healthy relationship with your child is to allow them to fail, allow them to have hardships, allow them to not have everything go their way. Because as a parent, it's your role to console, to teach and help them learn that, you know what, sometimes bad things happen and it's no fun when it does. It sucks when bad things happen, but to be there to pick them up and teach out of those failures, teach out of those disappointments. But codependent parents, and I know you all know who that parent is, you can look at your children's friend's parents and see codependent parents because they hover, they helicopter. They don't want their kids to fail. They don't want their kids to experience hardships. But friends, that's where we learn. That's where we learn how to become good adults, is the hardships that we experience as children. And I'm not talking hardships that are abusive, but hardships that are normal, that you're going to fail tests, you're not going to make the team, you're not going to get on, you know, debate. You're. You're not going to win first place all the time. You know, simple things, that disappointments are healthy, hardships are healthy because it's in the messy parts of our lives that we learn and grow the most. And you get to see your children grow and learn through the hardships. Make them work for their first car, make them go to get a job and have to work and earn money and save and invest in themselves. It's important that you allow your children to fail. And when they fail, when they're still living under your roof, that's when you get to be the parent that nurtures and teaches and shows them how to be good failures and how to learn from those hardships. Because truly, in the messiest parts of our lives, that's where you learn and grow the most. Taking care of someone with a disability, chronic or terminal illness, many caregivers find that they put their lives on hold and your life will become revolving around that person you're caring for. That's your identity, is that you are the caregiver for so and so who has this illness. Their own needs and wants will become second or not at all. Now that doesn't mean obviously if you have someone in your family that has a need, that had a surgery, that is going through cancer, that's great to be there to support them. In fact, that is your responsibility. Responsibility as a family member and just to love other people and love them through those things. But not to lose yourself in the process. Not to lose yourself so much that, well, when so and so is no longer sick, then I'll focus on myself. When my kids are no longer at home, then I'm going to focus on myself. When my spouse gets a job, then I'm going to focus on myself. Friends, you are a codependent. If you any of those last three things that I said to you, if you have thought that you're a codependent, if you are going to put your own needs, your own basic needs on the back burner for other people in your life, you are a codependent and you need to get help for that. There's a healthy balance of caring for other people and letting yourself fall to the way back burner. So codependents tend to have one sided destructive relationships with other people. Oftentimes codependency is based on some type of addiction. So you know that addiction is never good, it's never healthy. Whether it's shopping addiction or something more serious than shopping. Hoarding is an addiction. There's so many different types of addictive responses. If you're in a relationship with anyone, it doesn't have to be a spouse, but with anyone that is centered around addiction and you becoming the primary caregiver, the primary support person for someone with an addiction, be very careful, be very careful of where the codependency line is. Be able to recognize that in yourself. Be able to recognize that, that wow, I have become codependent because I'm taking care of this other person and I'm sacrificing myself, ultimately sacrificing my soul to care for this other person. I hope, friends, that this helps you have a better understanding of codependency. And my goodness, if you have any questions or concerns or comments, send me a DM on messenger. Reach out to me on Facebook or Instagram. Send me an email. I would love to have a deeper conversation about codependency because I think it's so important. I know I recommended the book Codependent no More by Melody Beatty. If you have not gotten your book, please please get the book. It's so important. It will change your life. It will change your perspective. Friends, I am so grateful that you're here on this journey with me. I cannot wait to share all of the incredible things that are coming from a in person women's conference coming up that is in the baby stages of planning. It will be epic. It will be absolutely epic. The new Health and Wellness division that I've added to a new life coaching. Cannot wait to dive into that. Life Coaching, the online course of learning to love yourself as well as the one on one coaching for life and business mentoring. Life is good my friends. I am telling you. Life is so good and I am in such an incredible place and space and I'm grateful for each and every one of you because you are all part of that space. Make it an amazing week. You can make it any kind of week that you want. Today is Monday. Get out there and make it a great week. My friends. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next time. Sam.