It’s uncomfortable to talk about but you might be codependent if:
👐You have a strong desire to fix/save people and feel needed.
👐You put others' needs before your own.
👐You struggle with confrontation and decision-making.
If you see those signs in yourself, or in your relationships, it’s time to unanchor yourself and fortify your own relationship with your Self.
Your sanity, your well-being, your relationships will flourish when you do. Alas, it will all suffer greatly if you don’t.
I was raised to be codependent. So was Husband. Imagine the disarray when both of us needed each other’s support desperately, actually needed strength and help from the other, but there was nothing that could actually help, plus no emotional energy left to give because each of our parents were sick and needing us at the same time.
And being open & honest, those parents very codependent on us. This isn’t to confuse times of vulnerability or empathetic love with codependence. Codependence is more like you feel there is not enough love & help you can offer that person to fix everything and that receiver, not intentionally, is impossible to fill or fix or even notice how much your draining yourself to give.
We cannot fill or fix another, and truly the more we try the more we steal the opportunity for them to learn to find those reserves within themselves. And in turn the more we distract ourselves from tending to our own needs.
This isn’t a pity party either. Like every great challenge this is a transformative learning. I’m still learning. I’m a giver, a helper, a healer, a teacher. But I’ve learned it’s not all selfless. I also love to receive the gratitude back. It fuels me to be seen, appreciated, supported. Of course that’s typical to a degree.
But these past 2 years when the people I depended on most, for filling-me-up, were focused on more vital needs, and when I realized there was in fact nothing I could do to help them either, I had a reckoning. Life is really only about how I perceive things. It all starts and ends with me.
I have to know me! You have to know you! What fuels us, drains us, excites us, angers us? More importantly can we allow those feelings to be within us and notice if we don’t attach stories to them, they’ll flow through just as they arrived? We temper it all, no matter what someone else is doing, feeling. Having that wisdom helps us relate to people for who they are, not what they are to us or what we are to them.
Yoga is the easiest, truest, most productive way to get to know your Self better. To be comfortable being you.
I wish that for you too! 💕🙏
Namaste,
Melanie