43 - Recovery from Codependency: Eight Myths About Boundaries
Episode Highlights:
The reason I do this podcast is because we want people to have more life, more fulfillment. The things we talk about here and the materials we refer to are about what knowing your heart can do for you. It won’t stop pain, but helps you know what to do about it. It certainly doesn’t promise perfection or even happiness, but helps people develop the ability to live life on life’s terms with all of its heartbreak and heartache that conflicts with our craving for life without tragedy.
We want people also to experience time in this life as Kairos, which means to experience your life emotionally and spiritually, fully participating in living, rather than Chronos, which is actually the movement of time, as on a clock.
If we don’t allow ourselves to live emotionally and spiritually connected, then we have to find an escape, or addiction. We have referred throughout these episodes to addiction as being a counterfeit experience of being fully alive or fully connected to yourself, others, and God.
Without living in Kairos, we are simply living our lives until we reach our graves.
Codependents are not what we think of as classic addicts, such as the alcoholic or the drug addict. But the codependent is addicted to control and enabling other people. They become self-destructive through the addiction to control over their feelings and the avoidance of vulnerability.
Whether it is a CEO billionaire addicted to control or a “run-of-the-mill” drug addict, these sick people are on a race to the grave, daily missing an opportunity to truly live as they were created.
Codependency recovery ultimately is getting back to ourselves, being able to be connected to others without losing one’s self, and being able to be truthful with God. We profit when we live how we are created and how we are created to live.
For us to have recovery from codependency, we have to realize that those people we have been around historically may not support our new found freedom and hope. Therefore, we need that Circle of Security that we refer to in episodes 6 and 7.
Living With Heart Podcast, Episode 6, “The Need for Security”
Living With Heart Podcast, Episode 7, “Forming a Circle of Secure Relationships”
To get recovery requires that we reclaim our own identities. We become responsible for our own recoveries, regardless of the past experiences. This requires that we learn to establish boundaries.
Think of boundaries as a fence that surrounds a plot of land. The land is yours. You have fencing around your land. You have a gate at the front that you can exit and enter through. You decide who comes onto your land and who doesn’t. You are responsible for your land. The gate needs to lock from the inside. That means you are in charge. Fences and boundaries are not walls to be used to block yourself from being known. Boundaries allow you to be known because you have the ability to take care of yourself, without being controlling of people. You are making choices.
Being responsible for your own land means that you are trustworthy to be responsible for your choices, your behavior, your values, and the needs, feelings, and hopes that go with being responsible. You are congruent.
Being trustworthy means you can set boundaries. When you begin to set healthy boundaries it can be scary because it is a new behavior for you as a new recovering codependent, and other people will have feelings about you being truthful about “where you are” with any given situation.
Setting boundaries is often difficult because of the common misconceptions that surround them. There are 8 common myths about boundaries.
Henry Cloud’s well-known book about boundaries is very helpful.
Boundaries are not only a form of being responsible. They are actually treating others as you would want to be treated, with truthfulness and with respect.
Boundaries are not walls that prevent a person from being known.
Boundaries do not communicate a demand to have things “my way.” Some people attempt to use what they are calling boundaries to demand that other people behave the way the one setting the “boundaries” demands.
Boundaries are not what keeps a person from having to face, feel, and deal with real life and relationships. They are a form of being truthful and respectful.
The Eight Myths about Boundaries:
#1 I am being selfish to say, “no” or to have a boundary.
Because of toxic shame, many of us have been taught that telling the truth about our feelings and needs is being selfish.
Having a boundary by being truthful about your own limits and wishes related to what you can and cannot do, is not selfish. In fact, it is actually self-caring, truthful, and respectful. It truly is giving to another what you would wish they would give to you. It will feed a long-lasting relationship, even though a boundary may create some “bumps” along the journey. Having a boundary communicates trustworthiness and personal responsibility.
In codependency, a person will often see themselves as selfish because the person has been influenced to believe that they are:
Responsible FOR the other person’s feelings.
Responsible FOR the other person’s thoughts and moods.
Responsible FOR the other person’s actions.
Responsible FOR mind-reading the other person’s motives or needs, so that they will not be disrupted.
Codependency recovery is about me being responsible TOWARDS you, but not FOR you.
The recovering person takes responsibility for their own feelings, thoughts, and actions. Instead of mind reading, the recovering person asks questions.
Your feelings are your feelings; my feelings are my feelings.
Otherwise, we are making demands upon others to “fix” us, as if we are victims again.
We must not have a list of “shoulds” for how other people need to behave in order to keep ourselves from having to feel what we don’t want to feel.
Codependency is ruled by toxic shame. People who are codependent generally try to keep things “under control” by maintaining the status quo. Boundaries do disrupt the status quo. The person who is setting a boundary will be disrupting their expected role. They may influence others to be uncomfortable or confused because they are being truthful!
#2 I will be belittled, mocked, or rejected if I don’t “go along” or if I disagree.
Because of our very real need to belong and matter, many codependents will be too afraid to take care of themselves. The tendency is to simply “shut up” or tacitly agree, for fear that if they open up, they will be controlled by being shamed.
This behavior is actually passivity. Our need to belong and matter “matters” so much that we can continue to sacrifice the truth and practice passivity instead of recovery.
This passivity is actually a form of being controlling.
Codependents have a painful history of:
fearing others’ feelings.
fearing the expression of other’s feelings.
“If I have an identity, I will get in trouble,” is the thought process. Guess what, when we do start to “rock the boat” by having an identity, it does unmask feelings that we have been trained to believe will get us rejected or humiliated.
When we give up trying to control others and actually have genuine boundaries, others who are used to us “cooperating” in their control efforts will be exposed. Their inability to tolerate the identity of another person is a sign to have more boundaries with that person, not less! Again, having a circle of security to go to is an imperative to be able to sustain one’s new recovery. We need the strength of other recovering people to persevere in our own recovery.
When we move into recovery and begin to set boundaries, it really does disrupt the false relationships we have when we were not able to take care of ourselves because of the fear of being rejected or humiliated.
Boundaries do threaten the status-quo. So, in many ways the myths have been our reality!
#3 The recipient of my boundaries will resent me, never forget, and the future will be filled with tension.
Setting boundaries and sharing our feelings of disagreement is scary. However, if we will ask questions to follow up afterwards, we most often find that resentment is not the guaranteed outcome, as it often was in our pasts.
After a boundary is spoken, asking questions after a period of time allows us to heal from the past. Healthy confrontation is how a relationship stays healthy, especially if we are able to check out if any lasting problems exist. A healthy confrontation is no more than me sharing my feelings and needs related to another person’s behavior.
As we begin to recover from codependency, we begin to trust self-worth, self-awareness, self-trust, and develop an inner circle of security. Any self-expression with a boundary is difficult, or simply scary.
Connection and trust in the ultimate inner circle of security, of course, is God.
#4 I will be perceived as difficult and demanding.
The irony is that until I am willing to be honest and say things like, “no,” or have an opinion, I am actually not trustworthy. So, rather than being “difficult” by having boundaries with my identity and being honest, I actually am being dishonest when I don’t acknowledge the truth.
It is certainly important to be honest with anyone who:
you are responsible towards.
you are in a healthy relationship with.
you care about.
In being honest, we must be caring because all of us who are honest need to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The Golden Rule in recovery is vital; it is a marker of courage and love for yourself and another. If I say I care about someone, the Golden Rule is of great value—that is why it is referred to as the Golden Rule!
The Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12
Dangerous, manipulative, and transactional peers, parents, people, and leaders will always see others or describe others as difficult or demanding if they are truthful. Those people will not be tolerant of boundaries, and we need to protect ourselves from them, using our survival skills.
Those people who will not participate in truthfulness, also will not face the truth of our sameness and embrace that it is actually a small world:
“It’s a world of laughter and a world of tears. A world of hope and a world of fears.
There is so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware,
It’s a small world after all.”
Disneyland Children’s Chorus “It’s a Small World”
#5 I will be put in a position of fighting, fleeing, or freezing when my boundaries are not honored.
When we set boundaries, as in simply being truthful, tension will occur, no doubt. Our “survival lives” are historically controlled by the anticipation of something negative happening if we express ourselves truthfully because in the “old” days, the negative did happen!
Anxiety, the fight, flight, or flee mechanism within us is triggered by being truthful. This experience is quite normal. But in the codependent, anxiety, which is always anticipating trouble, becomes the control mechanism of our environments. We actually become as controlling as the people we are anxious about.
Our toxic shame will continue to shove us towards control because of the anxiety (tension).
When we have a boundary, we really are giving up control of another person. We actually are taking control of ourselves. We are being “response-able.” This new behavior is scary, and we need help in gaining skills. However, being ourselves, or having boundaries, will not always flood us with anxiety as we gain trust and confidence in recovery.
We have to develop skills we never were taught:
Our need to learn is simply a reality for everyone.
Our willingness to learn is an essential ingredient of recovery.
Our willingness to admit our needs lets us gain strength and sets us up to experience good things.
Toxic shame is no easy “beast to defeat,” and the anxiety that says, “bad things are going to happen,” triggers that “beast.”
#6 I will feel overwhelming toxic shame about revealing my needs.
Toxic shame is our enemy; not our feelings. But, in our childhoods whenever we had feelings that “rocked the boat,” toxic shame followed. Toxic shame eventually takes the lead. Every time you have a feeling, you have toxic shame. Instead of dealing with your feelings, you develop the codependent focus of not having to experience toxic shame.
Toxic shame tells you that if you have feelings, you are inadequate, incompetent, rejectable, or even unlovable.
We really do have to get with others who are healthier about feelings than our past teachings and survival skills. These people will help us practice being normal, rather than shame-bound, by accepting us as feeling beings.
Feelings are not your enemy. Feelings are your friends.
We really do have to do the work of recovery to recover trust in this truth.
#7 The boundary will be permanent.
For someone who has toxic shame, boundaries are a great insult. We who are codependent see a boundary literally as a rejection of our very selves. When someone has a boundary with us, we need to know that our history of toxic shame will “kick in.” We have a tendency to experience self-rejection, rather than a person simply not being emotionally or mentally available at a certain time or place.
We need to continue to grow in our ability to ask questions, ask for help, and have people to go to for wisdom about how to “handle life,” because some relationships will end because of the other person’s intolerance of you having an identity. They treat a boundary as total rejection, and they decide it is permanent.
#8 I will not be free to change boundaries as I process, grow, or decide differently.
This myth is closely connected to the one above. Change is difficult and life is full of change. Growth, in and of itself, is change. Therefore, as we grow, we change, and with that we mature—hopefully become more understanding, more tolerant, more merciful, and more forgiving as we recognize that we are all in the struggle of living.
With change, what was once a boundary doesn’t have to remain a boundary.
Codependency recovery gives us the freedom to be ourselves, and the freedom for others to do the same. It is what love does. It is also what we do when we trust another person’s love. Trusting someone to tell the truth, respectfully, is expression of care for another person, and an expression of personal integrity.
Recovery allows us to earn trust, in our own selves, and trust from others—because we value being true to ourselves, which is integrity.
Boundaries, as scary as they are at first because of all the myths that surround them, actually set us free to be trusted, to have integrity, and to love better than we ever have before.
We practice boundaries until we rediscover that myths are not reality, and they are not the truth.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center