What is Codependency?
Codependency is the act of participating in a defended, conditional, and transactional form of love.
At its core, codependency is about controlling and manipulating your own or someone else’s feelings in order to avoid vulnerability.
Ever find yourself working harder at someone else’s life than they are? That’s codependency. Ever notice that you say yes to a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t want to do, especially out of fear of disappointing others? That’s codependency. Ever felt like you’d explode into flames if you actually told the truth about what you need and want? Yep, codependency.
It hurts, huh?
And it keeps us small and scared and disconnected from ourselves.
When we start healing our codependency, we start getting sober about love. Love is not conditional, nor does it rely on you violating your boundaries and shoving yourself to the side in order to get to have it. Uh uh. That’s not love, folks. That’s something else that we’ve learned through hundreds of years of organized religion, racism, colonialism, misogyny, and other forms of institutionalized oppression. What do all of these forms of oppression have in common? They are fear-based relationship practices.
Our lives change - more accurately, our lives get unimaginably better - when we are willing to release these codependent shapes and patterns. If I can do it, anyone can do it.