CODEPENDENCY: HOW TO CULTIVATE SELF-TRUST
Codependency can manifest in many ways, one being extreme lack of self-trust. This results in overthinking decisions about death, being afraid of choosing the “wrong one,” or becoming upset when someone doesn’t agree or are disappointed by a choice you make. You exhaust yourself with trying to collect everyone else’s opinions (in an attempt to people please) before finally settling on a choice.
As annoying at is it is, for you and everyone around you, you can’t stand firm in your decisions. You long to be more confident and decisive and don’t understand why it’s so difficult to simply make a decision and stick to it.
Many of us who struggle with codependency don’t have the opportunity and support we need to feel our feelings or let our intuition guide us. We don’t learn from our mistakes. Mistakes equal blame, shame and criticism.
As a way to protect yourself, you learn that if you placate and strive to please, others will be happy. And because you become so good at dictating others’ needs, feelings, and wants, you never learned how to build your own muscle for confidence and good decision making. You become terrified that if you make a decision, you will be wrong.
Feelings and emotions are not welcome in the world of the child who becomes codependent, which results in them learning to disconnect from feelings all together. At an early age, you feel responsible for other’s mood swings and emotions. You learned that sharing your own needs or opinions was triggering for others and you aren’t born with the skills to navigate through negative emotions. Slowly you become to look outside of yourself for advice from others to the point it never occurs to you stop and check in with your own wisdom and opinions.
When you are reliant on other people’s opinions and guidance, you become a feather in the wind – susceptible to any small or big gust that comes along. You aren’t in control of your life and you give others way too much power over how you feel.
HOW DO WE BUILD OUR SELF TRUST?
One of the best ways to begin to build self-trust and heal from codependency is to begin feeling your feelings. Moving from our cognitive thinking brain to the wisdom of our bodies. We have to learn to trust our own feelings. This takes building a sense of awareness around why you might be codependent in the first place.
If you were programmed from an early age not to trust your inner knowing or intuition. This results in low self-worth, and this happens for a variety of reasons:
o You were abused or neglected (physically and/or emotionally).
o Your feelings and needs were minimized.
o You were judged, shamed, or mocked for your feelings, maybe even called “too sensitive.”
o Your feelings and needs weren’t as important as other people’s feelings and needs.
o You didn’t have atleast one parent or caregiver validating your feelings and sense of worth. You didn’t have someone mirroring back to you your value and ‘enoughness.’
If you experienced any amount of neglect, or had emotionally unavailable parents, you probably learned to suppress your feelings in order to survive. And what we resist persists so those feelings that we try to shove down only intensify.
3 TOOLS TO BUILD SELF TRUST
When you learn to trust your inner wisdom, you can make decisions from an empowered place.
TOOL #1 – Daily check in of your feelings.
Pausing and checking in with yourself to notice what you are experiencing is the first step to slowing down and loving ourselves. It may be helpful to set alarms on your phone so you remember to check in. In these moments ask yourself two questions. “What am I feeling, what am I experiencing right now?” We do a lot of things every day and rarely slow down and check in with ourselves.
You can also do this by journaling. Keeping track of your feelings can be a way to better understand, process and look back on your experiences. Here are some journaling questions that may be helpful:
o What do I need to hear from myself that I’ve been avoiding?
o What in my life am I excited about?
o What do I love about my life right now?
o Today I woke up feeling _______.
o Am I living a life aligned with my values?
TOOL #2 – Reparent your inner child
Reparenting your inner child is a beautiful way of giving your inner child the things that he or she needed and never received in childhood. You become the parent you needed when you were a child. And by giving yourself what you didn’t receive as a child, you free yourself from the past. It’s never too late to give yourself the childhood you never got.
You have the ability to take care of your own needs. So much of reparenting is about making choices everyday in your own best interests. It’s becoming aware of your patterns and behaviors, understanding why you do what you do and making time for yourself to give yourself what it is you really need. This includes telling yourself the things you never got to hear as a child. Words like:
o I love you
o I hear you
o You are perfect and complete
o You didn’t deserve that
o I see that really hurt you
o What do you need right now?
o That must have been very difficult for you.
o I’m so sorry that happened to you.
o You are smart.
o You did your best.
TOOL #3 – Creating Safety Within
Codependents have a distorted view of the world. Because they are raised by either emotionally unavailable or narcissistic caregivers/parents, they develop a "hole in the soul.” A parents’ responsibility is to mirror back to us what our worth and value, but when they fail to do this, we will look to someone or something, outside of ourselves, to show us our worth and in essence, feel safe. It’s an endless battle to try to fill that hole. Low self-worth, self value, self-esteem, and self-regard are very typical for those who consider themselves to be codependent They look outside of themselves for safety and approval, becoming dependent on the next hit or rush. However, that safety is only temporary.
For many codependents they find themselves fixating and engaging in some kind of compulsive behavior. With this behavior comes a lot of shame and anxiety because you know on some cognitive level this behavior isn’t healthy. Yet it feels unstoppable – almost compulsive. Guilt is part of this cycle. Underneath the surface, the inner child is seeking connection and safety which these compulsive behaviors appear to temporarily provide. The codependent adult continuously breaks their own boundaries and continues in relationships despite not having their needs met. The unmet need of the inner child creates chaos in the adult.
While this doesn’t change overnight, practicing the feeling of safety within yourself (through trauma counseling, meditation, proper nutrition, speaking up for yourself) and recognizing how that codependent behavior shows up (shopping, addiction to certain relationships), SLOWLY seems to cause the maladaptive behavior to disappear. When you learn to trust yourself and offer yourself what you truly need, you no longer rely on old strategies.
One way to visualize this feeling of internal safety is to think of a place that makes you feel at ease. This could be a real place or an imaginary place. Notice how you feel in your body as you think about this place. Notice a sense of internal peace or calmness. Sit with this feeling and notice it. Consider this your calm or safe place.
Each time do you do this exercise, you start to release the belief that you are not safe and that you must create this sense of safety outside of yourself. The more you do this, the more you will begin to release the maladaptive coping behaviors. As you begin to create more structure in your life and respect the boundaries you set for yourself, you start to build evidence that you can in fact trust yourself. It is incredibly empowering and freeing to feel you can control yourself.
Every time you do this practice, you connect with yourself and prove to yourself you can create internal safety. We slowly release the push to hand our worth over to something or someone and we begin to release our codependent nature, therefore creating a deep well of self-trust and acceptance within.
Click here for more information on Codependency Therapy.