172: What is Codependency: How to Know if You're Codependent

Do you have a hard time feeling ok when others around you are struggling?  Do  you find yourself constantly managing the emotions of others or abandoning your own needs in the name of “keeping the peace?” If so, you may be struggling with codependency. Today we’re going to explore what codependency actually is, how it often hides under the mask of kindness, and how to start reclaiming your emotional freedom. 

Many recovering people pleasers have adopted the belief that “I’m only okay if everyone else is okay.” But that belief, while rooted in self-protection, becomes exhausting and unsustainable in adulthood. It forfeits our own emotional regulation and makes our emotional wellbeing conditional upon our ability to emotionally comfort/control others.

In this episode we uncover how this pattern develops, why it keeps you stuck, and how to start shifting from emotional control to emotional regulation.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why recovering people pleasers are often codependent 
• How hyper-vigilance, self-neglect, and resentment can be signs of codependency
• The emotional cost of codependency & trying to “keep the peace”
• Real-life examples of codependency & emotional caretaking (and how to spot it in yourself)
• Simple steps to shift from people-soothing to self-soothing
• How to build emotional resilience and reclaim your inner peace

Challenge for the Week

The next time you feel the urge to fix someone else’s emotions, pause.

1. Notice the urge without acting on it.
2. Ask yourself: “Am I doing this because I can’t tolerate their discomfort? Or because I know it's what's best for me?”
3. Choose to self-soothe instead of people-soothe.
   Breathe. Journal. Ground. Repeat. You’ve got this. 💛

Work With Me

Ready to stop walking on eggshells and start building emotional resilience?
I’m currently booking for Fall and would love to support you in breaking the cycle of people pleasing, setting guilt-free boundaries, and finally tending to your needs.

👉 Apply now at https://maryannwalker.life/contact-me

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📞 Want More Support?

If you're recognizing patterns of toxic empathy in your relationships and you're ready to make a change, I’d love to support you.

✨ I'm currently offering 6-week 1:1 coaching packages where we’ll dive into your specific situation and build a more empowered, balanced way of showing up in your life and relationships.

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Transcript

0:17

Well. Hello and welcome back. My name is Marianne Walker and I'm the life coach for recovering people pleasers, and today I'm speaking directly to those who are constantly scanning the emotional climate of the room in an attempt to keep everybody else calm. And peaceful, hoping that by extension then they will start to feel calm and peaceful as well. Because essentially somewhere along the way they've learned I am not okay unless my people are okay. And while that belief may have helped you to feel safe growing up, it is exhausting and completely unsustainable as an adult. So today we're going to be talking about how that belief shows up for us, what it's costing you, and how you can start to shift from controlling other people's emotions to regulating your own emotions. Because let's be honest, trying to control everyone and everything outside of you is not only impossible, but it might actually be exactly what is keeping you stuck. So first, why do people pleasers, feel personally responsible for other people's emotions? There may be several reasons, but a few reasons might be that maybe as a child you were praised for being the"easy one" or the"helper." Maybe you were the comedic relief. Maybe you were the"good kid". You probably learned at an early age that being calm, agreeable, pleasant, and highly accommodating is what earned you love. Affection, or at the very least, it helped you to avoid conflict, to not be the target in the home. Some of us were raised in homes where big emotions, they felt really dangerous. Maybe our parents didn't know how to regulate their own emotions, and so it was kind of scary'cause we didn't know what was going to happen. We couldn't trust that mom or dad could keep their cool. We knew that if they had big feelings, it was going to be impacting us. So naturally we learned how to manage other people's emotions. In a way to keep ourselves safe. That's how the false belief gets planted, that if I keep everybody else happy, then I'll be safe, then I'll be loved, then I'll be enough. But here's the problem with that is it doesn't actually make you feel safe or loved. But it actually keeps you constantly walking on eggshells and makes you feel personally responsible for other people's wellbeing. And this leaves you feeling really burned out and possibly even resentful. Now, not only that, but you might also be experiencing a lot of frustration in your life as you're learning that number one: you can't actually control how other people think or feel, or show up no matter how accommodating you are. And number two: you might actually be perpetuating their immature behavior as you are personally taking on the emotional load and essentially choosing to adopt the role of regulating their emotions rather than managing your own emotions. Now there is a big cost to living this way, and so we're gonna talk about a few of the things that this pattern costs you. First then there's the hyper vigilance. It feels like walking on eggshells. It feels like constantly scanning the room and attempting to read everybody else's body language, adjusting yourself and the environment in an attempt to keep the peace for everybody. And that can feel a lot like emotional, whack-a-mole. Because you never get to rest. You must be hypervigilant in order to be safe. But here's the thing is then you're actually perpetuating your lack of ease because you have to be on high alert, so you're on high alert, constantly scanning the room so that you can be at peace. But at the same time, you're not experiencing peace when you're doing that. Make sense? Alright, so second then there is the suppression of your own needs. You have become so focused on how other people are doing that you might not even notice when it is that your own cup is empty. In fact, you might even envy those around you as their needs are being met. For example, maybe you see them stretching their body or maybe going to a sauna for their aches and pains, and you might find yourself wishing that you could have that same opportunity. Newsflash, you can, but you have trained yourself to delay getting your own needs met until everybody else's needs have been met. But then you find yourself silently resenting that, ah, I wish that I could have that. I wish somebody would show up for me in that way. I wish that my needs could also be met. And then third, then there's that resentment. Once you realize that others are not going to the same lengths for you that you're going to for them. And honestly, how could they, because you've never actually given them the chance. So let me share a few practical examples so you can kind of see what this might look like in real life, and of course, apply this to your own life. There's a million examples of this, so just kind of get curious about how it might be showing up for you. Example, number one, maybe you notice that your partner's quiet and withdrawn after work, and rather than just asking them what they need, then maybe instead you're jumping into action. You're making the dinner, you're cleaning the house, you're keeping the kids quiet, you're trying to cheer them up. And it's not because they asked you to do these things, but it's because you are feeling anxious when they are upset. All right. Example number two, a friend is going through a really hard time, and so you drop everything. You cancel your own plans, you're skipping your own rest so that you can be their emotional support system. And when you do this, like it's okay to do this once or twice, but this has become a pattern in relationship, and you're starting to notice that you're feeling drained, but you keep going and you keep showing up because you don't want them to feel alone. Meanwhile, they're not showing up for you in the way that you would like. And you might discover that while you are technically not alone, because you're spending a lot of time with them, you're actually feeling more alone than ever, and you're recognizing that this is becoming a pattern in your relationship. All right. Example number three: at work, you notice that your coworker is really stressed out, so you choose to stay late to help them with their project, even though your own deadlines are suffering. And maybe you're even telling yourself that, well, I'm just being helpful, but really then you're trying to manage their stress so that you will feel more at ease. So you're choosing consistently to take on a disproportionate amount of work. Now, if any of these sound familiar, I want you to know that you're not alone. When we make our wellbeing conditional upon other people's wellbeing, we are keeping ourselves in limbo. It's like waking up each day and saying, well,"I don't know what kind of a day I'm going to have because I don't know what mood they're going to be in." It's forfeiting your own power. It's making you a victim of other people's moods. It's shrinking yourself, and this is crazy making because there's honestly no way to predict what mood other people will be in or what it is that's going to set them off that day. This is why so many people pleasers actually become empaths, and yes, I truly believe that you can train yourself to become an empath. And many people do because of trauma, right? People pleasers believe that,"okay, well, if I can just become hypersensitive to everybody around me, if I can predict the mood, the want, the desire, the frustration, if I can meet all of those needs and wants before there's an emotional upset, then I will never experience an emotional upset. So they attune themselves to others in an attempt to keep themselves safe. But as you know, we can't actually control other people. And while we may be somewhat accurate in our assessment of a situation we cannot possibly do so with 100% accuracy. There's a lot of wild cards when you're hanging everything on somebody else, right? The other person, how they show up is out of our control and placing our wellbeing in the hands of others, it actually keeps us more on edge rather than helping us to actually regulate our own emotional wellbeing. So what do we do instead? I'm gonna share a few tips with you. First, recognize the pattern. Start by noticing when it is that you feel the urge to fix someone else's emotions, and ask yourself, am I trying to make them feel better so that I can feel better? Because this is the beginning of self-awareness and this awareness, it gives you a choice when you are fixing so that you feel better, then you may inadvertently be prolonging your own discomfort. For example, when you're constantly jumping in to help out your frazzled coworker, then they may never actually learn how to complete a task on their own within the given timeline. This means that in an attempt to keep yourself comfortable, then you may actually be creating even more discomfort for yourself as you find yourself stepping in for just one more project again and again and again leading to you feeling drained rather than peaceful. So recognize that you are stepping in, it may be a pattern that is causing interference, and then work to break that cycle so that you can have true peace. Allow them to experience discomfort so that they can learn and grow through it, and also practice allowing yourself to experience that discomfort and learn how to regulate for yourself so that you can also learn and grow. All right. Number two, allow discomfort without trying to control it. It is okay if somebody else is upset. Their discomfort does not necessarily mean that you are unsafe, and it definitely doesn't mean that you are unlovable. Yes, your brain may tell you that it's not safe, but that's just your brain's way of trying to keep you safe. Your primitive mind equates discomfort with a lack of personal safety. But just because you're uncomfortable, it does not mean you are unsafe. Instead of rushing to smooth things over, try sitting with the discomfort and practice self-soothing instead of people soothing. So that might mean taking deep breaths. It might mean grounding yourself with one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. As you do those breaths, it might mean journaling on what you are actually feeling. Now, just for funsies we're gonna take a few deep breaths together. Okay? So as long as you don't need a hand on a steering wheel right now, I want you to put one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. We're just going to take three big, deep breaths, okay? And notice how it shifts your own energy, okay? All right. Here's breath number one, all the way to the belly and let it go. Breath number two, and let it go. Breath number three, breathe it in. And let it go. Now, just notice how much more grounded you feel, and that was just three breaths. So practice doing things to come back into your own body, to practice regulating your own emotions and allow other people to do the same. All right. Tip number three is investigate what it is that you need. You've become highly attuned to what everybody else might need. I want you to take a moment to check in and discover what your current need is. Shift the spotlight from them back to you. What are your emotions right now? Can you give them a name, and what does that emotion feel like in your body? Are you using somebody else's discomfort as a distraction from your own? That's what a lot of people do, is we're so uncomfortable with our own emotions that it feels safer to manage other people's right? But then we become detached from our own emotions. So now not only can we not identify the emotions, but when you can't even identify the emotion, it makes it really hard to actually fill the true need that you have. So let's just say for example, that your child is really worked up about an assignment that is due the next morning and they haven't even started on it yet. You might feel the need to jump in to get all the supplies last minute to help them to get it done, and maybe part of you believes that, well, you know what? It might reflect poorly on me as a parent if it isn't done on time, and if it isn't done to my standard, we might be making it mean something about us. But really think about what it is that you really, truly want. Okay? Initially we think, I wanna look good. I wanna look like a capable parent. But underneath that, what might you want even more? More than likely than you want a little bit more from this situation, right? So ask yourself, what is it that I really want right now? Do you want this particular assignment to be done on time into your standard last minute? Or do you want your child to learn to be responsible for their own assignments and for their own timelines and ultimately become a more responsible adult? If that's what it is that you truly want, then stepping in and doing the work for them and getting yourself all worked up about it, it's actually going to get you further and further from your long-term goal. I mean, yeah, it's always uncomfortable to watch your child struggle, to watch them not succeed in the way that you would've liked. But it's also a very valuable lesson when we allow people to experience discomfort, that's when we allow them to experience personal growth. And the same is true for us. So let yourself experience that discomfort. Now, I'm not saying abandon your kid, I'm not saying that at all, but I do want you to practice the mantra of"I can be present for them without absorbing or being overly responsible for their emotions." All right. Tip number four, nurture yourself with self-compassion. Remind yourself I am allowed to feel okay even if other people are not feeling okay right now. You're not being selfish, you're not abandoning anyone, but you're just working to find that peace within yourself. So a few affirmations that you might want to try are,"what's mine is mine and what's theirs is theirs." Allow yourself to differentiate what is yours and what is theirs to own, and stay on your side of the line. Right? Another affirmation is"I am responsible for regulating my emotion. They are responsible for regulating theirs.""I can support others without losing myself in the process.""My safety and self-worth are not dependent on other people's moods," and I'm gonna read that one again because it's so powerful, really feel into this one."My safety and my self-worth are not dependent upon other people's moods." Okay, so here is your challenge for the week First. Next time you notice yourself trying to fix somebody else's emotions, just pause. Okay? That's your goal. Just pause before jumping in, we're breaking the cycle of immediately jumping in. Okay? So just notice it right now. I feel an urge to fix it. And second, ask yourself, am I doing this because I can't tolerate their discomfort or because they truly need my help? In other words, is this really going to be helping? Or is this going to be enabling and perpetuating my own discomfort? And then step three, practice self-soothing instead of people soothing. Stay with you. Breathe journal. Ground repeat. Okay. Breathe. Journal, ground, repeat. So I know that this work is not easy. Breaking free from people pleasing to self-regulate, it can feel terrifying at first because you are finally confronting your feelings. Your own feelings. Feelings that you have bottled up for a long time. Feelings that you've never wanted to address before. And so yeah, that can feel a little bit scary at first, but every time you choose to tend to your own emotions and your own nervous system instead of managing everybody else's, then you're taking a huge step towards getting your own power back. You do not need everyone else to be okay in order for you to feel okay. Regulating others' emotions is emotional dependency. It is not peace, and you are allowed to build something that is much stronger and much more in your control, which is emotional resilience. If you would like help and support as you learn how to regulate your emotions as you work to build up this emotional resilience, as you work to set boundaries and reconnect with your sense of self. I would love to help you. I'm currently filling up my schedule for fall and I would love to work with you so you can either come to my website, www.maryannwalker.life or click the link in the show notes to apply to work with me now. I would love to work with you. And as always, if this episode spoke to you, please share it with somebody that you think would also benefit from it. You never know who's trying to hold it all together just waiting to hear that they can finally let go. All right, well, I hope you have a great week and let's talk soon. Have a great one. Bye now.