33 - Codependency, Parenting, & Healing
Episode Highlights:
Codependency is the loss or the sacrifice of:
God-created true self.
self-trust.
self-awareness.
self-worth.
self… in terms of assertiveness.
Codependency is not being able to:
say what you feel.
say what you need.
say what you desire.
trust that your own feelings have validity or accuracy.
We are made for love; we are made to be connected.
In order to be accepted and loved by our significant caregivers, we often end up hiding our own needs. Examples: If I don’t like sports, my dad will not love me. If I don’t make good grades my mother will be so disappointed. If I have opinions that are different from my teachers, they will reject me. If I’m not artistic like my older brother, I won’t be as loved.
We end up acting a certain way or pretend to be someone we are not in order to be loved. We eventually begin to “believe” in the pretending rather than being our true selves. We slip into denial.
We perform for love instead of being ourselves.
God designed for us to:
be who we are made to be;
so, we can do what we are made to do;
then, we will have what we are made to have.
In a codependency environment we end up:
doing what we’ve got to do;
so, that we can have what we’re made to have;
and hopefully, if we do enough, we will become somebody.
Codependency becomes the belief that I can perform enough and do enough so that I can finally rest, trust, be believed, have my worth, and be valued.
Codependency is a disorder of distrust. You trust the anxiety. You don’t trust listening to your own fear and exposing it.
Sadly, if a codependent person stays stuck in their past and sOll believes feelings are the enemy, they will, no matter how much they are loved, never trust the love.
Codependency is bringing your “bucket of desire” into life, and your caregivers poking holes in the bottom of it so that in your future, no matter how much love gets poured into it, it goes right through it.
There’s not enough love; there’s not enough approval, there’s not enough trustworthiness because it all slips right through the holes in the bucket.
Codependency recovery is about repairing, or healing, the holes in your bucket (revision).
Codependents are always trying to find their fulfillment externally by withholding what’s happening in them internally.
The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
Parents need to know what’s happening in their own hearts and be responsible for it.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
We have to give our eternity over to God and let God lead. In other words, let God set guardrails, and then we turn around and set guardrails for our children.
Because we are genuinely made for connection, there are 3 things that the mind and heart are always seeking.
Regulation
Resonance
Revision
Healing occurs through regulation, and codependency is living in dysregulation. Regulation comes through asking questions.
Once we are regulated, we end up having resonance, which means “We’re good.” There is joy, comfort, pleasure, a sense of security and well-being. This leads us to be able to be our true selves.
When we seek codependency recovery through regulation that leads to resonance, we end up revising the story of our lives. This is called revision. We are writing a new story.
You can’t change your past, but you can pick up from where you are and actually change your future; this is revision.
Codependency sickness is an anxiety disorder. It’s a distrust of how I’m made, which leaves me in anxiety.
Anxiety is a fight, flight, freeze, or appease to survive behavior.
If you are a codependent, you ultimately cannot thrive as you were created to thrive. You simply survive over and over and over and over again, which leads to addiction, burnout, depression, lack of boundaries, excessive anxiety (to the point of panic attacks.)
Codependency is a distrust of feelings.
We distrust feelings because of trauma. Trauma means when you had your feelings, they didn’t bring you what they were made to bring you.
Healing from codependency sickness means doing the very thing we’re ashamed of doing, learning to have our feelings, what to do with them, and how to manage them.
The core feelings are always true. They’re always right. But what you do with them can be really wrong.
What does revision really mean? It means:
reliving again.
recovery of.
going back and getting what you thought was worthless and claiming the worth of it.
claiming your heart.
learning to feel your feelings. (This is the solution.)
The Boy & the Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd
The Boy & the Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency is a story of:
reclaiming the 6 freedoms.
revision.
dysregulation.
reregulating.
re-attuning.
revising your story and living again.
In codependent environments, our significant caregivers have the expectation for us to “stand in nice, predictable, tidy lines.” They demand that we don’t “rock the boat.” This allows them to maintain control and manage us. This need for control stifles our God-given freedoms. Our struggle is to hold onto our 6 freedoms and remain willing to grow and live beyond the “status quo” that our significant caregivers demand.
We were born with these 6 freedoms:
I have the freedom to see what I see.
I have the freedom to feel what I feel.
I have the freedom to need what I need.
I have the freedom and safety to talk about my heart’s experience.
I have the freedom to trust my heart with others.
I have the freedom to imagine myself living fully.
1. I have the freedom to see what I see.
I can actually trust the recognition of my perceptions.
When we see something, we are going to have feelings that go with what we see. (When a child sees their mama or daddy, they will feel differently than when they see a stranger.)
Sight and feelings are inextricably connected. You don’t see with your eyes; you see with the connection center of your brain.
You see with your feeling center, and you feel before your eyes actually form a complete image.
Seeing leads me to feel.
2. I have the freedom to feel what I feel.
Growing up in a codependent world, we are told that what we see isn’t real. So, we have to deny what we feel. This is called suppression.
Examples: My father’s face looked downcast and sad, but he said he was “fine.” My mother said that she loved my dad, but she was never affectionate with him, and she didn’t smile or seem happy when she was around him. I got a trophy at the end of the soccer season, but I never got to play, and I know I didn’t earn it.
Suppression codependency is living in an environment of suppression, which is disconnection, which is dysregulation.
By allowing ourselves the freedom to see what we see and feel what you feel, we begin to break free from the bondage of codependency.
Seeing leads to feeling — feeling leads to needs.
3. I have the freedom to need what I need.
Feelings lead to needs:
If I am sad, I need comfort.
If I am hurt, I need healing.
If I am lonely, I need friendship.
If I am feeling fear, I need help.
If I am angry, I need a purpose.
If I am feeling guilt, I need forgiveness.
If I am feeling shame, I need help.
If I am glad, I need expression.
4. I have the freedom and safety to talk about my heart’s experience.
I have the freedom and safety to be able to express, with my mouth, what is happening in my heart.
When you feel safe enough and free enough to express what you’re seeing, feeling, and needing, you are able to reach out and engage with others as you fulfill your need for healthy relationships.
5. I have the freedom to trust my heart with others.
I trust that the person I share with will care about me and care about what I have to say.
In my freedom to trust others with my heart, I need to find safe, healthy people who can tolerate me expressing what’s going on inside me.
In a codependent environment when we express our hearts and try to connect emotionally, significant caregivers often:
turn us away,
reject us,
shame us,
withdraw from us,
punish us, or
attack us emotionally or physically.
Because we are created with the need to belong and matter, we are hungry to connect relationally with our significant caregivers, and we will try to become what they want us to be. In doing this we:
suppress our hearts,
go away,
hide,
neglect our hearts,
we lose ourselves,
become puppets,
we try to take on new, acceptable identities,
deny how we are created,
anesthetize or numb our hearts, and
we barely survive.
We deny the experience of how we are created because how we are created was rejected.
This rejection becomes our greatest fear.
Our fear tells us that if we expose our true hearts, we will be rejected. This fear of rejection drives us to codependency.
So, we become a people who are driven by our performance. We must perform a certain way in order to be accepted and get our needs met.
You have to:
say what you’re expected to say.
act the way you’re expected to act.
think the way you’re expected to think.
do what you’re expected to do.
feel what I’m expected to feel,
behave the way I’m expected to behave, etc.
If I perform the way I am expected to perform, then I can trust that my needs will be met:
I will be loved
I will be accepted.
I will make others proud of me.
I will be favored.
I will belong.
I will matter, etc.
Codependents rarely tell the truth. They learn to say what is expected of them rather than tell the truth. They often do not even know what the truth is anymore.
6. I have the freedom to imagine myself living fully.
I can joyfully imagine myself living in a world where I am highly connected to myself, others, and God. (This leads me to gratitude.)
I don’t have to live believing that the universe is cold and calculated and apathetic.
Instead, I can live truthfully and freely, believing that there is a power that cares about me. This power is God, the creator who cares about me and all that He has created.
I can believe that there are other people in my world who care about me, one who God has created.
We revise our lives by reclaiming our 6 freedoms and breaking through denial, and through this, we revise our stories.
When you reclaim your 6 freedoms and revise your story, you go from denial to freedom:
I don’t see — I do see
I don’t feel — I do feel
I don’t need — I do need
I can’t talk about my heart — I can share my heart
I can’t trust my heart with others — I am able to trust others
I am unable to imagine living fully — I am able to imagine myself living fully
I see what I see, so I can feel what I feel, so I can need what I need, so I can talk out loud about what’s happening in my heart, so that I can end up trusOng that others care about me, so that I can imagine myself living a full life in gratitude.
“Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” Deuteronomy 30:11-14
If we use our mouths to claim how God made us in our hearts, we can connect with the God that made us and others around us so that we can thrive.
We have a God who wants us to acknowledge how He made us. He made us to see, feel, need, express what is going on in our hearts, trust others, and imagine living a full life.
The book of Psalms, in its totality, is full of expressions of the heart’s struggle and its gratitude. We bring our 6 freedoms to God, and He receives us.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10
The thief takes us away from the freedoms we were born with and leads us into the isolation of pretending.
It is our responsibility to reclaim these 6 freedoms so that we live non-codependently.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center