What codependency can look like

​

• Strong emotional responses that may be considered by others to be disproportionate. 

• Fear and avoidance of criticism by trying to become perfect at tasks or in your behaviour.

• Giving advice and getting frustrated or upset when others seem to not follow it.

• Being generous with others who are happy to take and never appreciate you.

• Taking care of everything for others and never having your needs met.

• Difficulty expressing your needs and using passive aggressive communication to try to have them met.

• Difficulty asking for what you want or need and feeling hurt when others aren’t thoughtful towards you.

• Knowing that you love others more than they love you.

• Wanting to be seen as helpful and loving by others.

• Saying yes to things you don’t want to do so that you don’t disappoint others.

• Feeling the need to make decisions and resolve issues immediately.

• Doing things for others that they didn’t ask you to do.

• Always going above and beyond what is reasonably expected of you.

• Needing your work and generosity to be validated by others.

• Stress and worry about feeling or becoming disconnected from others.

• Overexerting yourself and taking on too much.

• Experiencing anger and resentment towards people who get "special treatment".

These behaviours are likely very normal in your family of origin and a lot of these behaviours are reinforced in our society. In order to live the life you want and be able to experience purpose and freedom, these patterns need to be healed and released.​

​

The root of codependency

 

As a child, you didn't consistently feel loved, safe, and nurtured. Maybe your primary caregiver was dealing with mental health issues, active or "dry" addiction, had narcissistic traits, was emotionally immature, or you suffered at the hand of outright abuse and neglect. The fact is that sometimes you were able to receive the care and connection that you needed as a child and other times you weren't.

When this happened, you began to create rules (a program) for who you had to be and how you had to show up in order to have your needs to feel loved, safe, and nurtured met. These rules were created out of shame and fear. When you felt shame and fear you had no choice but to find a way to ease the pain. You found that by focusing on other people that you could learn how to have your needs met. In doing so you inadvertently got sucked into their drama and found that it eased the pain of your shame and fear. This created blind spots because you are always focused outside of yourself. You navigate through your life looking for distraction from your own suppressed pain that lives just under the surface and end up exhausted.

​

I'm fine... Why do I need to care about codependency?

 

F.I.N.E. Fucked up. Insane. Neurotic. Emotional... That sounds great. 

Codependency is an addiction to drama. The "co" to the "dependent". When you're avoiding shame for yourself, you're dealing out shame to those you're in relationships with and justifying it to yourself as coming from a place of love. There is no doubt in my mind that you're a brilliant and loving person, that's not even a question. But when we're focused on others instead of allowing them to live freely, we're inflicting harm on them and on ourselves. We are harming ourselves physically by constantly flooding the body with wave after wave of stress hormones, mentally by playing mental gymnastics trying to piece together what the other can do to change their circumstances for the better, emotionally by navigating ourselves to situations that throw salt on our wounds and refusing the acknowledge the pain, and spiritually by showing up in ways that aren't true to who we really are. 

​

How does Mind The Gap work?

​

Mind The Gap is an objective healing intervention that illuminates the blind spots and shifts the worldview. This is a method of deprogramming that combines active, passive, and neutralizing healing methods to create a container around the codependency. Once this container is created and light can shine through to illuminate things, the lessons and skills can be integrated and you will have a new lens through which you view life.

​