The Journey From Co-dependency To Independency

This week’s topic is very similar, in fact it is the next level of becoming a source to yourself.

Leaving behind your dependent self and becoming an independent self allows you to start trusting your Inner Being. 

This means you have access to your own inner truth, and the ability to back yourself and create your own wonderful life.

This allows you to be true to yourself rather than trying to be everything that other people want you to be. Then you have the self-belief, confidence and inner joy to start imagining, creating and manifesting the life circumstances you wish to enjoy.

Before I get into this week’s exercise, that is going to allow you to start identifying and releasing the co-dependent parts of yourself, I want to talk a little bit about why it’s so important to make the journey from co-dependency to independency and what it truly feels like to FINALLY be free from co-dependency.

As young children we were incredibly co-dependent. We were powerless to look after our own security and survival needs. 

We were emotionally immature, because we had no ability to separate ourselves from the messages we received from ‘the outside’. 

We did not have the maturity of a cognitive mind which could objectively view what other people were or weren't doing, without subjectively absorbing these messages and personalising them.

As we get older we often don’t realise that it is the young and wounded parts of ourselves that feel unsafe, unprotected and emotionally vulnerable.

Unfortunately what usually happens is we keep playing out these fears from our childhood which causes these painful patterns to keep controlling our life.

Often in love relationships how this plays out is: we subconsciously seek a ‘parent’ rather than a ‘partner'. The unfortunate thing is that we usually end up with people who don’t rescue us from our childhood wounds. Instead they rip them further open for us.

It is incredibly important that you work on evolving yourself, so that you can heal your painful inner parts which feel lost, empty, alone, fearful and unsafe.

In order to create your dream life after narcissistic abuse you need to take responsibility for your own life, create a relationship with your Inner Being and make decisions that are going to serve you, rather than continue to act out from the energy centre of the co-dependent child, and keep handing your power over.

As we all know, suffering a narcissistic relationship was a MASSIVE wake up call.

There is no way we want to keep living out those painful patterns.

We want to be liberated in such a way that we are no longer attracting our fears so we can be free, confident and self-assured in life. Knowing we can create our own happiness, look after ourselves, lay healthy boundaries and trust ourselves to make empowering choices.

Our past is the best indicator of how we allowed disempowering circumstances to occur and also how we co-created these circumstances.

I’ll give you some examples.

I used to be extremely sensitive to people’s opinions of me, especially within my close intimate relationships. I had grown up with a critical (conditional) father and mother, and therefore if people criticised me I would be triggered into becoming defensive. I would justify and over-explain myself, and without knowing it I was in fact energising the problem. 

After deeply discovering and healing these co-dependent parts it became so much easier to allow people to have their opinion – even about me – and not take it personally and feel like I was being attacked or rejected.

The next area in my life which required a great deal of focus and healing was 'the need to fix or change people in order to feel safe'.

This had presented even in my friendships. I used to feel so uncomfortable within people’s anxious, disjointed or upset energy that I would immediately go into ‘healer’ mode trying to sort it out for them.

I thought this was just me being a healer, but the deeper truth was I was being triggered into doing this to try to feel safe.

The reality was I wasn’t healing them, I was disempowering their responsibility to themselves, and I was becoming sicker and sicker by believing ‘if you are okay, I am okay’.

By healing this very young and inner wounded part of myself, I was able to allow other people to ‘be’ and retain myself in the process.

Ironically I was then able to empower these people by example from my own position of inner empowerment.

Upon deep, deep inner investigation of myself I discovered a great deal of my co-dependency was from the subconscious beliefs that I didn’t believe I had the power to provide myself with my own life, and as a result wanted someone else to grant me my happiness and life for me.

Because I had outwardly appeared very capable of creating my life, this came as a big shock to me, but truly it explained so much.

It explained why I would cling to abusers, hold them responsible and try to force them to rescue me from the horrible circumstances and my personal torment no matter how much they were hurting me. 

When I healed the inner parts of myself which didn't believe they had the power to create my own life, an incredible shift happened. No longer was I flung into needy emotional powerlessness trying to force someone to step up and look after my emotional or practical needs. I was automatically capable of looking after my own needs.

My co-dependent parts used to feel that I was ‘not enough’. That I wouldn't be accepted by life and others unless I looked a certain way, had a certain level of security or a particular measure of success.

Little did I understand that the conditions I believed life and others were imposing on me were actually the versions of conditional love that I had subjected myself to. 

After suffering disastrous loses from narcissistic relationships, I had to heal these parts of me that felt like a failure, not good enough, and the regrets about how my life looked at the age I am.

This meant releasing my own brand of conditional love and accepting myself right here, right now for who I am, without conditions.

This of course led to a profound opening of my heart to myself, and others as well as experiencing greater levels of connectedness with all of life.

By letting go of the past disappointments (held by these unhealed inner parts) I was able to open up to and start imagining my dream life after narcissistic abuse.

Co-dependency Exercise

You know how painful it is to hold onto co-dependency and you know that in order to create your dream life after narcissistic abuse you must make this journey from co-dependency to independency.

The following exercise I am going to share with you is an extremely powerful exercise and it is definitely one of my favourites.

It is going to allow you to identify the most painful co-dependent tendencies you are still holding onto and start releasing them so you can make the journey from co-dependency to independency.

Remember these exercises are never about shaming and blaming yourself, but taking responsibility and accepting yourself right here, right now warts and all. 

Step 1.

Go through the following list and identify the 5 biggest dot points that you have an emotional charge on. You might have seen this list in my recent article The Co-dependency Checklist. If you have I would still like you to participate in this exercise as you will get a lot out of it.

• Do you spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think about you?
• Do you try to impress other people and make them happy so that you can be happy?
• Do you often analyse other people’s lives?
• Do you get distressed by bad things that happen which are out of your control?
• Do you say and do what you think other people want you to say and do?
• Do you try to control other people’s behaviour so that you can feel okay?
• When an interaction with someone goes ‘wrong’ do you spend time analysing their actions, what they said and what they might be feeling and thinking?
• Do you find it difficult to speak up and confront an issue when you feel uncomfortable?
• Do you blame other people for the way you feel?
• Do other people’s moods bring your own mood down?
• Do you immediately think of someone else who needs this information more than you?
• Do you seek and listen to other people’s opinions rather than seeking and listening to your own?
• Do you obsess over saying the wrong thing or hurting someone else’s feelings?
• Do you hang on to people and situations even when it hurts, hoping they will change into something better?
• Do you often feel selfish, guilty or ‘what a waste of time’ when you do something nice for yourself?
• Do you often say ‘Yes’ when you really want to say ‘No’?
• Do you struggle to listen to your own feelings and go along with other people’s feelings?
• Do you give a lot of yourself to other people, even if they don’t ask, and then get upset when they don’t do the same in return?
• Do you try to fix or change other people to be who you want them to be?
• Do you try and help or fix others who don’t take responsibility for themselves?
• Do you tend to put everyone else’s needs before your own?
• Do you avoid taking charge of your own life, and / or creating your own happiness in the hope that someone will provide it for you?

Step 2.

For the next 7 days keep a journal with you whenever possible and write down when these 5 things are being triggered. Try to write what happened and describe the feeling of the pain and the fear that is connected to the trigger.

Step 3.

When you are at home or in a comfortable and secluded environment, take out your journal and feel into each event that occurred.

Take your own awareness inside yourself and identify where the pain is stored inside of you. It might be in your heart, your stomach, your throat, your solar plexus, etc.

Take your awareness into that part of your body and ask yourself "How old is the part of me that is holding this emotion?" You might get an answer like 10 years of age, 5 years or even 2 years.

Ask yourself "How I would react differently if my loving inner parent was in charge rather than the wounded child?"

Write your answers in your journal.

Please note: You can use this exercise for any trigger or unhealed wound you are carrying! It is incredibly powerful… I hope you find it as useful as I have.

Truly isn’t it amazing that we can heal, we can evolve and we can breakthrough to becoming the True version of ourselves? 

I LOVE sharing these emails with you – because I know how incredible your life can and will be, when you do lean inwards into your own development!

Now that you are establishing a solid relationship within yourself and a healthy foundation of independence, you are ready to evolve into an interdependent being who is capable of building rich, fulfilling and long lasting relationships with others.

I look forward to sharing this information with you next week. 

Much Love xo

Melanie Tonia Evans Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Expert, Author, Radio Host www.melanietoniaevans.com