At the core of Codependency is the need for validation from other people. One of the best ways to combat this is to feel a sense of worth and value on your own. This is a muscle that needs to be exercised regularly. It is a misconception that codependency is being dependent on other people. The dependency is on having people’s approval or acceptance. Consider the idea of taking care of people’s needs to feel worthy of their love. Aren’t we worthy of love just by being? There are several ways to work on increasing your self-love. The idea of loving yourself or putting your needs first isn’t organic to who we are as humans. It is important to unlearn the negative connection between taking care of yourself and being selfish. It will be vital to look at you’re feeling around receiving help. Learning what you like, want or need is going to be vital to the journey of self-love. Making time and space for those things will become a practice. Once you master identifying what your needs are, you will do more things to prioritize them. You will start to do things to protect them. You will see the value in defending the peace that comes from loving you.
In my work with clients, many of them spent a great deal of energy trying to get approval from family members, coworkers or partners. They would often sacrifice themselves by over committing or doing things out of obligation. When we started to break down their motivations for doing these things, it would often come down to wanting to feel worthy and deserving of love or acceptance. The first step would be to see what you get from doing things for other people. What is the pay off when you say yes to staying late at work on taking on that extra task? What feels good about doing those extra things for your partner, family member or even your kids? There are likely to be small rewards or even big ones. The smile on your little one’s fact when you send them with an extra snack. Your partner or family member gives you attention or shows their appreciation. These are good things and feel nice. Now think about How many times you, even unconsciously, expect those things back. Consider how it feels when they expect those extra things. Evaluate what you are doing and what you get from doing them. If you are doing them out of obligation or build up credit for doing them, that is a sign you are creating some resentment.
Taking a step back and just observing how it feels not to do those things. Are you still loved and appreciated? Do you start to worry about how the other person will feel? Are you concerned that they will not feel the same way about you? Do things still get done in the same way? All of these questions will help you identify if you are doing things because you want to or if you’re doing them for validation or acceptance. When you stop doing extra things and over committing, you might feel guilty or shame. Those are acceptable feelings but not the healthiest. If you enjoy doing things, keep doing them. If you start to feel resentment or anger about having to do them, take a step back. Consider what you are sacrificing to them. Are you still able to get things done for yourself? Are you able to get your own tasks accomplished? When are you making time for your thing?
Taking care of you is just as important as taking care of other people. What do you even need? When we are consumed with meeting other’s needs we start to forget that we even have needs. We have the same needs as our children and loved ones. We have the same needs as our bosses and coworkers. We need to eat, we need to rest, we need to move our bodies around. We need affection. We need space to cry, laugh, think and process. When was the last time you did errands for yourself? When did you get your nails done or took yourself for a treat? What do you like? What do you enjoy that you haven’t given yourself? There are lots of questions in this chapter because it is important to reorient your brain to thinking about just you. Many of us are thinking about the needs of others so often we forget that there are things we enjoy or need.
Once you know what you like, need or want, you will be tasked with making those things a priority. Many of us have to do lists because we will forget what needs to get done. When you consider what is on those lists, either physical or mental, how many of those tasks are about you? Grocery shopping, carpool, dinner, meeting, appointments, get stamps, yoga class, phone calls and emails. This is just a sample of things that might be on your list. Now which of those is solely about you? Now think about if you had a day just to yourself, what would be on the list? Eat food, workout, watch a movie, read a book, meet your friend for lunch, maybe go dancing. How often are you having a day just for you. Or even just a couple of hours. Are you making your needs and wants a priority? These things are part of how you love and honor yourself.
Prioritizing your needs and taking action to meet them will be hard at first. It will feel indulgent and certainly selfish. They are. But should they be? Who is meeting your needs? Is your partner or are your kids? They have their own needs. Are you asking for your needs. Are they asking things of you, is it reciprocal? Now with children it’s a little more challenging, especially when they are small. Its fun to watch them assert their independence. They get very confrontational when you try to do things for them. That’s normal. It’s a good opportunity to let them assert independence, safely of course. Now think about how you can use that same level of confrontation when someone tries to help you. Are you getting defensive or frustrated with those close to you when they try to help? Is that part of the resentment you have for doing things for other people? What is your self-talk around having help from other people? Are you under the impression that you are the one who helps but doesn’t need help? This is a trauma response. It’s actually pretty typical for people who are helpers and doers to be defensive about receiving help. You can’t have it both ways be someone who always takes care of others and not have people take care of you.
Taking care of yourself will start to shift how you spend your time. When you look at the to do list and you start to make the cut, you might use that same level of defensiveness to protect that time for you. If there are four things on the list, at least one of those should be about you. If you’re not on the list, why? What can you add that will be about taking care of you? Can you take yourself for coffee or a lunch. When you’re running errands, do you have time for a walk or can you make space for journaling? Can you ask a friend to meet you for dinner? Would it be helpful to text your partner and ask for cuddle time and movie? It will be helpful to evaluate when you are making time and space in your calendar for yourself and your needs. You don’t have to do it perfectly, but you can start by just putting yourself on the list. Once your get used to doing that, you will want to protect that time. You will start to look forward to those things. You can manage your anger and resentment of other people when your needs are being met consistently. You will start to feel valuable and worthy of your own time. You will increase how you feel about you.
Recognizing that you are a good person and worthy of love isn’t a default setting for most of us. It will take time to unlearn that your worth and value comes from how other people see you. Once you start to stand up for your own needs in a healthy way, you will see that those people around you will still love you and appreciate you even if you’re not doing extra stuff. If they don’t, they were benefitting from your sacrifice and maybe their needs get to be a little lower on the list if not off the list all together. It will get easier to manage the list when you are taking care of you things and not all the extra things for the people who aren’t making you a priority. You aren’t capable of meeting everyone’s needs all the time. At some point they will need to either meet their own needs or find other people to do the extra work. Even your children will need to meet their own needs on some level. We want them to feel the pride and sense of accomplishment when they do things for themselves. That is the feeling you will have when you make your own needs important.
Things to think about:
What do you like, need or want?
Who benefits from you doing extra stuff?
What do you gain from doing extra work?
How are you spending your time? Are you doing things for other people or are you doing things for you?
How does it feel when your needs are met?