A woman reached out to me this week, saying she’d read my post about betrayal and codependency, but she hadn’t been betrayed, so she didn’t understand why she felt all those same things.
I get it. So many people have sat in my space with that very dilemma – living all the codependency symptoms, but never had anyone in their life with addiction or substance dependency. That’s what we believed was the culprit in the old days, but I’m here to tell you – it’s not. (ugh, the ’80s are “the old days” now😒)
Codependency is just a set of beliefs and behaviors we learned to do to feel safe, connected and loved when there wasn’t a secure attachment forged early on. We learned to people please, caretake, rescue, enable – we learned to be perfect and be what others needed. We tried to control outcomes so we’d feel safe. We abandoned ourselves so we wouldn’t be abandoned by others.
And honestly, it kinda worked. Until it started working against us.
There are a LOT of reasons others are emotionally unavailable to us when we’re young – some they can’t help. It’s the beliefs we form about what that lack of connection or feeling of abandonment means about us that roots codependency. Addiction and alcoholism don’t cause codependency and neither does betrayal, but they definitely exacerbate it. Especially betrayal – it’ll trigger the hell out of every belief you have about yourself before you know what hit you.🥊
In fact, it was THE catalyst for finally getting all the way to the root of it for me, so for that I’m grateful. (and grateful I can say that now without throwing up in my mouth a little bit)
I always say: We’re not codependent because of relationships with toxic people. We end up in toxic relationships because we’re codependent. So many people don’t understand how they got there or why they feel the way they do, because they can’t trace it back to anything that makes sense.
That’s why I love doing Breakthrough Blueprints™. I will make it make sense for you. I will trace it back to the root and give you a personal map of where it started, what’s keeping it running in the background, (unconsciously – that’s key!) and the steps you need to take to unravel and release it for good.
You’re worth the investment in yourself, Love. It’s far less than what it’s costing you not to know.
