Codependency Recovery: How Does Your Codependency Show Up?
If you value healing from codependency, but cannot recognize what codependency looks like for you, moving forward will feel like a steeper, uphill battle then it already is.
My students say that the journaling prompts in my course, Soul Centering After Toxic Shame, have helped them take the much-needed steps towards getting unstuck. That’s why I want to give you this journal prompt to reflect on:
What does codependency look like for you?
Grab your pen and paper and see what shows up.
When you’re journaling, I ask you to consider that…
We're all different. Even if you and I have the same value of "security," the way we express those values are vastly different. For me, security being demonstrated as a value would look like knowing how to live off and with the land, but to you, it might look like having a yacht and a fat retirement account. Same value; different form.
If you claim that security is your highest value but don't know what that looks like for you, you don't know what to look for to establish it within yourself.
The same is true with codependency (but in reverse).
For me, my codependency shows up as:
Obligatorily showing up despite not wanting to
Letting back in the people who consciously let themselves out (hu uhm, regarding their change of mind as evidence that if I were a good person, I too, would change mine)
Giving people who make me feel like shit more space in my head than a healthier version of me would
Hiding behind a friend braver than myself in the face of conflict.
Caring more about making other people comfortable than about being...comfortable
My grandmother’s codependency showed up as:
Smoking packs of cigarettes at the kitchen table nervously awaiting the mood of her husband
Coming back to said husband every time out of the hundreds that he beat her, and looking ridiculous to the hospitals who released battered and bruised her, back to the man who'd just put her there
Holding space for him when his girlfriend of forty years (who betrayed my grandmother deeply) died, despite him being married to my grandmother all forty of those years and him treating her like he wanted her to die for all sixty
But for you, codependency might show up as:
Having someone live off of you who doesn't contribute at all
Obsessively looking for what’s wrong with you instead of looking for what’s right
Feeling like it’s your responsibility to shield someone from the consequences of their own actions
Caring way too much about what people think
Allowing other people’s opinions about you determine your self-worth
Comparing yourself to others and allowing what they have to make you feel like shit
Mine and my grandmother’s patterns are on different ends of an extreme, and both may differ from the way that you express your patterns of codependency. I know that my life is NOTHING like my grandmothers, but my mind isn't too far off; just lighter shades.
The important thing to remember is that if you know your values, but don't know your self-defined expressions of those values, it's a bit more vague to demonstrate to yourself how you fit into them.
The same is true in codependency.
If you broadly say "I'm a codependent..." you're in deep trouble, because our work is to transcend what comes after the "I am" if it doesn't feel holy. To wrap yourself up in a faulty paradigm, and call it You, is a lie and a disgrace to Grace herself beating your bright and brilliant heart.
But to say...this is how my codependency shows up...as an expression of your paradigm and not a fact about You, softens the edge you'll inevitably use as a weapon against (yourself and) others who don't understand the feelings and beliefs associated with your codependency.
When I know that my codependency shows up as me, obligatorily showing up with a hint of resentment for forcing myself to do so; I don't drag myself there. I make a grounded choice. I establish boundaries within my mind or for my time, and I go by choice....or I don't...by choice.
Don't passively let your "codependency" get the better of you and repeat the victim-martyr tendencies without consenting with yourself about your inherent power of choice.
When you can see a pattern for what it is, and realize exactly how it shows up for you...you can claim it as yours so it stops claiming you first.
Knowing exactly how your very personal codependency signature shows up, gives you access to a clearer vision so you can see where your codependency begins and You end. That vision allows you to change course in the moment.
How does your codependency show up?