34 - Diagnosing Codependency
Episode highlights:
The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd
God is a great garbage man; He wastes nothing in our lives.
God values His own creation;
He picks up what we throw away, and
He recognizes that some things need to be redeemed, repurposed, revitalized and resurrected.
Bring your child-heart to God and give Him your pain, suffering, and your struggle, and even your questions. God can deliver you. He delivers people through circumstances, prayer, His word, other people, and illumination of your heart.
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength,” Ephesians 1:18-19
Paul was a man who knew that to love, is to suffer. Therefore, he needed a place to take his suffering. Paul refers to God in this passage:
“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
So, we can either choose to believe that while God is good, we still suffer; yet we have a place to take our suffering. We can take it to God, who cares for us.
OR
We will stifle suffering unnecessarily, and just live miserably.
The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. ‘Eat and drink!’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you.”
Proverbs 23:7
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23
The story of The Boy & The Ogre is an allegory about a boy being raised by an ogre in a codependent relationship. The boy returns to how God made him and finds freedom from codependency by reclaiming the six freedoms talked about in episode 33. This short story is part of a workbook about codependency. The workbook is a great tool for individuals or groups.
The Six Freedoms are:
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.
The ultimate pain of anguish is love. When we truly give ourselves to love someone, we give up control. We love knowing there will be a price to pay:
I am going to have fear. (Will the person I love, love me back?)
I am going to have pain. (Will the person I love get sick and die?)
I am going to have loss. (Will the person I love go away and leave me?)
Every parent, couple, and everyone who deeply craves something needs to be good at anguish. Jesus experienced anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was in anguish for the love of the Father and the love of the people who he came to save, which is us.
We have to lay claim to the freedoms of imagining our lives being lived fully. This is scary because it’s much easier not “to get our hopes up” then we won’t be disappointed (or need to grieve.)
”You can be anything you want to be.” is not a good message to give your children because it isn’t true. Life has limitations. Examples: horse jockeys are small in structure.
Children come into life with two primary needs: to belong and to matter.
Children are also born with a bucket that is solid, without holes. This bucket contains their need to find the one who is looking for them.
Within this bucket is the child’s need to be affirmed and confirmed in a way that satisfies their need:
to belong and
to matter.
The bucket contains:
A rudimentary faith
Work ethic
Courage
Our Need for Belonging is met when we bring our unique selfhood to significant others and caregivers and they affirm how we are uniquely made with our own feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope. They affirm how God made me. They do not try to change me into someone who they can easily manage and control.
Every person brings their own unique, God-designed-self into the world with:
feelings
needs
desire
longings
hope
We come into this world feeling; we do not come into this world thinking.
We come into this world looking for who is looking for us, which is rudimentary imagination. It’s the image bearing of God within a human being (that isn’t thinking) that does that.
We come into life, with all our uniqueness, and a need to belong and matter.
Mattering is me trusting that you will help me, as I’m uniquely created and gifted, to be able to develop my gifts and utilize them for good.
Examples: Some people are born with the God-given ability to:
pick up languages quickly.
play musical instruments or write symphonies.
paint.
solve mathematical problems.
run fast.
lead others.
evangelize.
speak before large audiences.
be a great story teller.
We come into life made a certain way, with abilities that need to be developed. This becomes our sense of mattering, and it needs to be confirmed.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)
When a child is raised by caregivers who invest in helping them develop their unique gifts and abilities, the child will not depart from how God made them.
Children aren’t born into this world to follow “the rules” or “fit the mold” of their parents. They are born with a unique gifting and a purpose to fulfill in order to serve a world in need of their gifts and uniqueness.
We come into life needing to belong and needing to matter, which needs to be affirmed and confirmed by caregivers.
We also come into life with rudimentary faith. I’m sure of what I hope for and I’m certain about what I do not see.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
This rudimentary faith that we are born with has not been tested, and it’s not experienced, but it is present in us waiting for its ultimate reconnection.
We also come into life with a rudimentary work ethic. We come into life being unable not to give our hearts, our hands, and ultimately our heads to what we’re doing. Think of babies who begin to crawl, and they go all over the place exploring and experiencing their world. No one needs to tell a baby to explore; they just do it; that’s their work ethic.
We also come into life with rudimentary courage, a full-hearted participation. We are basically saying, “I’m all in, let’s go!”
We are ready to go and explore, participate, and find joy in our new life and :
“When are we going to go?”
“I want candy. May I have some candy?”
When are we going to go to Wal-Mart to look at the toys?”
“Let’s go to the park and slide down the slide!”
“When is Daddy coming home? I want him to play with me.”
“When can I go outside and play?”
“Let’s go to the store and get ice cream!”
It takes courage to live life to the full.
We are born with two primary needs:
The need to belong.
The need to matter.
We are born with and never outgrow our need for belonging and mattering.
So, we come into life with a bucket that contains:
A rudimentary Faith
A work Ethic
Courage
When we live our daily life, we pour from our buckets over and over again; therefore, we need to have our buckets refilled. We need our courage restored; we need to be encouraged.
The contents of our bucket is limited. It must be refilled.
Our buckets are refilled through encouragement and relationship.
You are encouraged when someone:
affirms your risks
values your hopes
replenishes your hopes
When we pour out the contents of our buckets and we’re not refilled, we become discouraged.
If we don’t have our courage encouraged, we become discouraged, loss of courage.
Once you lose courage:
You can lose work ethic.
You can lose faith.
You can become more and more isolated.
You can become distrusting.
Once you lose courage, you have to find a replacement for how you’re made, which is ultimately codependency.
When a child brings their unique God-created self to their parents or caregivers, and they are not affirmed and confirmed, holes form in their buckets.
Sadly, no matter how much approval they receive through their achievements, they will always wonder if they matter or belong.
The needs of the parent or caregiver become more important than the developmental needs of the child. This creates an insecurity in the child that develops into an attachment issue. Instead of the child developing a healthy attachment for their parents or caregivers, they develop an anxiety-oriented attachment.
The two primary needs are belonging and mattering. A child is going to have the need for belonging and mattering, just like all human beings, one way or another.
The Needs of the Heart by Chip Dodd
“Living With Heart: From Life to Death” Podcast
Episodes 2-16 address the Needs of the Heart
Episode 3 “The Need to Belong and Matter”
We come out of the womb needing our parents or caregivers to care and the influencers to pour into us what we need.
If a child has ease of attachment with their parents and caregivers, they are comfortable bringing their unique, God-designed self to them, because they receive affirmation and confirmation. The caregivers can tolerate the child’s uniqueness and needs. They are able to tolerate the pain of parenting without running away, attacking, shaming or rejecting the child. They are places of safety and security. The child’s needs are met.
On the other hand, if parents and caregivers cannot tolerate a child’s uniqueness and they do not affirm and confirm them; they cannot tolerate the child’s needs; they are not able to tolerate the pain of parenting without running away, shaming belittling, criticizing, and rejecting them, then the caregivers try to stop the child from being like they are made.
In a sad way, the child becomes a threat to the parents and caregivers.
Because the need to belong and matter is so powerful, the child becomes anxiety-oriented. Instead of ease, they become “dis-eased.”
This “dis-ease” is the beginning of codependency.
Codependency is a condition of the heart. It is a sickness of the heart.
Once this anxiety begins to develop, the child is only at ease when they believe they made their parents or caregivers faces express approval. They are only at ease when they have behaved appropriately; when they have not rocked the boat; when they have not attracted any negative attention; when they have performed well; etc.
Sadly, we become good at reading faces. We need to read faces in order to see if we are okay. We need to know if we are safe. Am I still loved? Do I matter? Do I belong?
So, my personal, internal world is regulated by attempting to control my external world.
Our fear of being rejected and no longer belonging and mattering, causes us to behave in a way that pleases our caregivers so that we will be okay.
We are willing to give up our unique, God-designed selves in order to have our unquenchable and powerful need for belonging and mattering met.
We somehow begin to believe that if we perform well enough and act right enough, we can finally get to be ourselves, be secure, be loved and accepted.
You cannot ever perform perfectly enough to make yourself whole.
When our performance becomes our identity, and we are only valuable when we successfully perform, we have given up being a human being and have become a “human doing.”
In a family setting, children’s performances become a series of roles. For example:
You become the hero of the family. You’re the one who brings a sense of pride to the family with your stellar athletic performances, high grades, musical talents, or dynamic personality.
You become the mascot who breaks the tension and brings humor into the family dynamic. You’re the family clown.
You become the lost child who nobody has to worry about. You stay to yourself, don’t have any needs, you don’t rock the boat, you find contentment being alone, and often live in a fantasy world.
You become the scapegoat or black sheep of the family. Your negative behavior takes the focus off the problems in the family.
You become the little people pleaser who runs around being the mama to the mama and daddy to the daddy.
The children perform their roles, and look to their parent’s faces to see if they are better or okay. Are they happy now? Is their anxiety better?
The children begin to ask their parents if they are ok. Parents often don’t tell the truth or they communicate that they would be better if the child/children would only:
Do more
Help out more
Make better grades
Stay out of the way
Not be such a difficult child
act more like your brother or sister
These communicated expectations become the rules that the children live by in order to belong and matter. In order to be loved and cared for. In order to be accepted and not rejected.
You are only as good as your last performance. The expectations never end and your need to belong and matter never goes away.
Codependency takes you away from living in the present.
Codependency takes you away from your presence.
Codependency takes you away from feeling, needing, desiring, longing, hoping, and from getting encouragement for the day, faith for the day and maintaining a work ethic for the day, and keeping your heart.
In codependency:
If you’re not okay > then I’m not okay.
If you’re happy > then I’m happy.
= You lose your unique, God-created self.
“Pitfalls of Leadership” free resource
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center