#31 – The Hidden Patterns That Are Draining You as a Parent

In part 1 of this mini series on codependency in parenting, Mel and Dez explore the roots of codependency, how one’s own childhood wounds can affect our parenting style, and the ways it shows up in our day-to-day lives.

Resources mentioned in this episode are (not an ad):

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie

Dr. Becky on Instagram 

Eli Harwood on Instagram

Let's stay connected! 

The Road Back Podcast socials:

Instagram: @the.road.back.podcast

YouTube: youtube.com/@TheRoadBackPodcast

Transcript

Introduction to Parenting and Codependency

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Road Back Podcast. We're so glad you're here. I'm Melissa and I'm Desiree. We're two trauma-informed coaches and real life friends.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

If you're returning to yourself, your dreams, or your sense of belovedness, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

We'll pull from our own stories and hard-earned wisdom to support your journey. So take a breath and remember, you belong exactly as you are. Welcome back to the Roadback Podcast. We're so excited to do this week's episode. We were just laughing because there's so much that we have to talk about this topic, and we're we're gonna dive in this week, and it's gonna be a series. It feels really personal because as parents, as mothers, we are in the middle of unhooking our parenting styles from more codependent behaviors. We're healing the parts of us that felt like codependency was the way forward, the safest way for connection. We're right in the middle of it. And so one of the goals I know I have is just to normalize and create more shame resiliency around codependency because sometimes you can start to talk about it and be like codependency is the worst. But also it's so human. And so we're hoping to really build that shame resilience in and just create so much compassion for ourselves. As a lot of us are healing our own childhood wounds while parenting children at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yep. So welcome to parenting and codependency part one of who knows how many episodes. At least three, maybe more. And um, we can thank our listeners for this topic because we are actually speaking to this because of some feedback from you guys, right, Des?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yes, thank you so much, friends. So if you have ideas, if there are things that you're like noticing in your own roadback journey and you would love for us

Personal Contexts in Motherhood

SPEAKER_00 1:57

to speak to, feel free to reach out. And thank you for for the person who wanted us to talk about codependency. This is truly something I spend so much of my own money on in therapy and a lot of what I do with my clients.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah. And it feels like it's a topic that touches many, if not most of us, in some way or another, whether it's something that we're untangling ourselves from or it's something that we've seen in the way we were parented, our own relationships. Without further ado, let's get started.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Well, I thought before we jumped in, I would love for the listeners to kind of get context of where we're at in our motherhood journey. So, Mel, please tell us how many children do you have? What are their ages? The listener might see themselves in our in our current season.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah, we're we're in the thick of it ourselves. This isn't speaking from theory. Yeah. This is speaking from real life. So I have three children. My oldest is 18 and is about to graduate high school. So we're on the threshold of embarking into adulthood, which is its own process. I also have a 17-year-old. So my oldest two are boys, and my 17-year-old is finishing out his junior year of high school. And then I have an 11-year-old girl who's in fifth grade. So I'm getting a bit of a taste of parenting boys and girls, which is its own thing. And then you have the individual personalities of each child as well, which any parent of multiple children will tell you. Even if they're the same gender, it doesn't mean that you have the same parenting experience because everybody has their own unique dynamic. And I am learning so much as a mom, especially as a mom who lost my own mother at a young age, parenting through a season where I wasn't really parented myself. It has its own beauty, its own redemption, its own challenges. And it's shown me my own areas where I need to continue to heal and areas where I've seen the goodness of God show up for me in so many dimensions and capacities that I've really got to give credit to Jesus in this process too, because I do I do feel like not only is it the work that I am putting in, but it's also been just some good doses of grace that that have helped me. You've got to love that grace. You know? Yeah, gotta love the grace. Yeah. How about you, Des? Let's talk about your kids too. Tell us about them.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah. Um, my oldest is 20 and he is a sophomore in college, so he's been out of the house for two years. Um my oldest daughter, so my second child is 18, and she'll be graduating from high school next month, which is insanity. I know we both have graduates this year. And my youngest will be almost 15. I have two girls and one boy. And as you were sharing, I think motherhood has been a great mirror for what's inside. And I think that's what we're hoping to do, even in this episode, is just like to hold up mirrors to make sense of what's been going on. So much of this subconsciously, these are our adaptive, you know, responses. We can notice with the awareness, start to transform and heal and bring in the things that we've needed so

Understanding Attachment and Codependency

SPEAKER_00 5:03

that we could be more autonomous and need our codependent parts just a little bit less.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

So and it's great. Even the language you're using, I love that you're talking about it in this context. And if you've followed us for any length of time, you know that we'll pull some emotional health, some psychology, some different therapeutic models into the language that we use. And today we want to talk about some of the roots of codependency and why it shows up in our parenting, because it just felt important to really set the table with compassion when we look at why we get entangled in some of these unhealthy dynamics with not only our kids, but just it can be with people in general. And then zooming out, when we look at our own childhood and the way that we were raised, the context, the culture that we were raised in, our current behavior, it makes so much more sense when you're able to step back and go, okay, well, why am I showing up this way? And so we really wanted to set a scene by sharing a little bit about the root causes behind it and then just some general overview of then how does that start to show up? And then we'll dive into more detail in future weeks too. Great. So, Des, yeah, kick us off. Were there any kind of therapeutic frameworks that you want to set the scene with first?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

To begin, let's go back to the very beginning. Attachment. It feels important to talk about attachment because this is a biological core need that every human has. We are made and designed by God to need connection for survival. This helps me make so much sense of why you're like, well, how in the world did I get so much codependency? Because this is such a core human need. This way people respond and adapt to meet that need often can look like codependency. We there's so many different ways, but that is a very important beginning. Because if you think about an infant and its mother, if it doesn't have someone to care for it, it will die. Its survival is very dependent on it. And naturally, as that infant develops, it begins to learn things like autonomy or agency. But for months and years it's lended. The sense of child and the sense of mom is sort of one. And that's one of the complexities as a mom, and it gives me a lot of compassion, is that part of my job is to attune so well to my baby, to anticipate, to read his or her emotions and their needs, and oh my gosh, that's the thirsty cry, or oh, they're tired. I know that that feeling. And those things are important at the beginning, but with time, the child has to create a sense of themselves and have agency. I remember my baby's like crawling and then turning around and looking back and be like, is she still there? They're sort of making sense of, wait, I'm here and mom's in the kitchen. I am in a different place than her. I'm not her. And so that development is really needed. And I like to describe those as emotional containers or inner boundaries or a sense of that's where you begin and I end. And those are so core. Um, and so many things can blur that or prolong that.

Defining Codependency

SPEAKER_00 8:17

There's several familial contexts of reasons why sometimes that uh detachment or that the agency phase that's so vital can get interrupted. The parent could have their own trauma, they could have their own ameshment, they could have their own issues that they don't know how to let that completely happen. So autonomy and agency in an infant or a developing child as they become a young adult and an adult is so important because without the containers or those inner boundaries, a sense of like what is me and what is you, it can cause emotional enmeshment. What you feel is blurred with what I feel. No, I feel what you feel. And I think that enmeshment is a precursor to codependency. I don't even know if you can have one without the other. Well, what is codependency? A lot of people talk about it in partner relationships, which so valid, so valid. Me too, but also a general definition could be when your nervous system ties a sense of safety, worth, identity to your child's emotions or to another person's emotions, their choices, the outcomes. And parts of us step in to manage those feelings of another person in order to somehow create the illusion that we have connection to them. So, in that core need for connection, I've now blended or adapted it to think connection equals me leaving myself and being in your emotions, feeling your feelings and managing them, trying to take care of them. How would you define it?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah, I very, very similarly. I would say it's like an over-responsibility for how someone else feels and tying my sense of emotional safety to your reactions, your emotions, your highs, your lows, your behavior. We talk about enmeshment a little bit, which is kind of like the unhealthy element to attunement, even like being a mother, it's really important for me to be able to empathize or attune with my child, understand their emotions. Where it gets weird sometimes is when I start to lose my sense of self and become overly influenced and concerned about how are you perceiving, how are you behaving, what are you doing, how are you feeling? I can't be okay unless you're okay. Those kinds of things where my my own sense of self, my own boundaries blur so much that now I am on the roller coaster of your emotions rather than being able to self-regulate and be able to manage myself.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Love that. Yeah. Some of the language that I use in my own sessions with therapy, like, is that I underattuned to self, it's a misattunement. So I underattune to self and over-attune to another. I

Exploring Roots of Codependency

SPEAKER_00 11:03

feel myself getting kind of sucked in. I call it the crazy train or the emotional. Just like, whoa, whoa, I'm riding it. I'm riding it with her, you know, or him. You're kind of riding that wave now where their emotions are now mine, and I don't really know how I'm feeling about it. Yes. And I think that's a really important distinguisher because attunement is not wrong, but it's this adaptation where you lose that guidelines, those in inner boundaries, those inner containers of self, of your own emotions, and you're inside another person's.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah. Let's dive into some of those maybe root causes because we want me and my child, or me and whoever whoever the person is I'm in relationship in to have a healthy sense of self.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

So one of the the reasons, or like one of the core things that you might have noticed, especially if if you hear us talking about misattunment, is that perhaps in your family context or in your childhood, you did feel misattuned. And sometimes it's the wound of misattunement that will create an hyper-vigilant, overreactive attuning experience towards other emotions because your system's saying, like, I've needed this so much that I'm going to actually do this now for another person. I'm going to be the thing that I think I've needed for myself. And I think it's so complex in the context of growth. A child brain is very black or white. It doesn't easily hope nuances. And so oftentimes those are very young wounds of misattunment in some degree of like, oh, there was a lack of emotional attunement or a misattunment of my emotions. Maybe there were emotions that were acceptable to your family and emotions that were unacceptable. That's that's a great thing of misattunment.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Do you do you relate to any of that? There's two things that I think are great that you're touching on. One is what emotions were allowed in my family and what weren't. Or did one person in the family have all the emotions and so there was no room for anybody else's emotions? So maybe mom or dad had really big emotions about certain things, and so everybody else felt like, okay, there's no room for me, that can be a form of a lack of emotional attunement because everybody's focus is going on the loud person or the person who's who's taking up all the emotional oxygen in the room, so to speak. Also, in that, if there's a lack of somebody showing you how to regulate your nervous system, which is part of that attunement process as well, is when I am upset or when I do have an emotion about something and I don't know how to calm down again. Has anybody demonstrated to me, well, this is what it looks like if I've been upset? This is what it looks like if I've been angry, this is what it looks like if I'm sad. How do I come back into a place of letting that emotion be processed rather than maybe just bottling it up? Maybe if you weren't allowed to feel that way, then maybe you learned to suppress it. Or you maybe you had an outburst, but you never really learned, like, oh, I'm feeling a certain way. How do I then process it back into a place where my nervous system can calm down again or regulate in that respect? What what would you add to that, Des?

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Well, I I just so agree. I just wanted to highlight one one thought. Uh why is co-regulation important? I think it helps in childhood, especially. Now the kid understands they have the ability to feel a more difficult emotion in their body and that they're gonna be okay. They gross emotional resiliency. And it gives the child a sense, oh, in this emotion, I can tune in myself, just as my parent is co-regulating with me and showing me I'm attuning to this emotion, we're gonna be okay through it. I'm gonna help you understand it, you can get through it. So many of these experiences that we were sort of overwhelmed. Misattunment could also mean like we were overwhelmed by an emotion and we didn't think we had what we needed to get through it. And if nobody showed us how, exactly. Which is why co-regulation is such a vital part, which is what you know, we do a lot of. We actually sit with people and we co-regulate through some of their hardest emotional experiences, rewiring that experience. Honestly, I would love to hear from you too. Having had that trauma of losing your mom at the age you did, like what has that been like for you in a family context? Like, I imagine so many people had big needs at once.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Well, it's just interesting looking back over my childhood. I was the oldest and I felt like I didn't have a lot of space. I was the one who didn't have a lot

The Formation of Identity and Emotional Needs

SPEAKER_01 15:45

of needs, and I was very focused on other people's needs. So back to that over-responsibility. Um, I know one way that codependency can be formed in childhood is when emotional roles are reversed. That can be parentification, when a child ends up taking on the emotional caregiver role because the parent either relies on them too heavily or the parents not coping, so the child actually learns. I wouldn't have said that was so much with me and my parents. It was probably more me and my sister. I think I took on a lot of responsibility because she had some significant medical needs and stuff when she was young. So I learned a lot about being the easygoing, low maintenance child. I don't have any needs, I just do really well. You know, I'm I'm the one that's you don't have to worry about. I drew a lot of identity for being the helper, being the good girl. Again, that can tie into performance or feeling like love is conditional when you're growing up. That can be a big thing because you learn to be good, helpful, not a big problem. And that helps you feel safe. That helps you feel secure. And if you feel those things and you're like, okay, my emotional needs can be met because, well, for me, I learned not to have any. It makes me feel safe because I've kind of found my role. So managing other people's emotions became my focus at times. And that's how it can then flow into even your own parenting, because all of a sudden now you're like, my job is I manage everybody's emotions around me. I don't have needs. I can put all my emphasis and focus on the needs of the people around me. And I mean, that's a classic recipe, I think, to I mean, how many moms can be relationships?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Yes. Yeah. Because again, you're under-attuning to yourself and overattuning to others. And ultimately, we think if we can actually take care of them, we can somehow get some connection needs and some safety that uh is our core need. And it's really an at adaptation. In our in our core woundies as kids, we've adapted in order to get the thing that we need, which is connection equals survival. I need safety, safety equals survival. And on a human need, like I was just thinking, probably one of the larger things that marked me is my older brother had cancer when he was a teenager. And that was another thing. He was like, okay, there's a lot of needs. Everybody has a lot of things going on. And it's similar. Like, we gotta need very little. And then you're maybe praised or rewarded for that in some way, weren't you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my mom had five kids, you know, at the time she was single and had five kids and school and work, and taking my brother to chemotherapy. So in a way, it was very beneficial and praised. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

I don't know anybody ever necessarily overtly telling me, oh, this is great, but somewhere along the way, subconsciously, I picked up that having low needs equaled good.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah. This is pretty much every Enneagram, too, ever. Which is, you know, part of these protectors and things that we mobilize in order to survive. To me, this brings so much common humanity of of course we want to feel beloved. Like we want to feel good. Like the adaptation is a really well-intentioned thing. And so that's why it gives me a lot of ability to have compassion on those parts of me. Because remember, these parts that are active in my current relationships with my these kiddos that I named, they're my younger parts that are really scared and they're trying to meet their connection needs through this same activity, which is like emotional enmeshment or that blending or codependent behaviors. And so I'm like, oh, well, now I have my adult authentic self who can soothe those younger parts that are scared and, you know, doing what they know to do as a protector, just adapt, staying in that adaptive flow and heal them so that I have more space to show up a little bit more and more in my authentic self and my parenting.

Codependency in Parenting: Recognizing Patterns

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Let's talk about some of the ways that codependency then shows up in our parenting styles. We've looked into some of the ways it forms in our lives. What does that fruit look like once it's been kind of left to run for 10, 20, 30 years? And we're like, oh, look, this is how my trauma is showing up in modern day in my parenting. And you might even see this in across other relationships as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, this is really true. Um, it's not just parenting. This codependency could traverses lots of different relational lanes here. Some ways codependency could show up is when my kids have a certain nervous system setting or maybe they have a certain mood. And that experience really affects me. I I start to feel that mood. Or I'm almost don't have a sense of I'm allowed to even feel a different way if they're feeling that way. So that could be a good indicator of some codependency.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I think when I feel overly responsible for that mood, that's a huge tell of, oh, okay, I'm feeling overly responsible for my child's emotions right now. That can look like lots of things. Sometimes for me, it will look like me shame spiraling, triggering into like my own shame thing of like, oh, they're acting this way. Especially I can think of times when it was in public, they would have a certain mood or a feeling about something, and I'd be like, oh my goodness, this is reflecting on me because my self-worth and my identity were tied up to their behavior. Oh, they behave well, I'm okay. They don't behave well. Oh my goodness, what's this saying about me? Um, now I need to manage it and I need to control it. I'm freaking out because I'm trying to maintain perception, that kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

That's been a big one. Same. I I think it's important to name shame is somehow you are bad because they're having that experience. They're having that feeling, they're having that emotion or something happened. They didn't make the team. I mean, anything, anything. If you're spiraling, like I failed them. This is pointing to some identity about me. There's probably a good chance that you've been blended into this codependency of you are their emotion, right? I mean, I spent so So many years parenting, feeling like this. So, so, so relatable. Sometimes when I see my kids or other people having some discomfort or challenge, I feel so uncomfortable about it. I don't want them to have a challenge. Like I just sort of activate, and this is maybe like helicoptering, or I I'll sometimes impulsively go and do something that's theirs to do. I need to sort of not feel so uncomfortable about their discomfort. So that could be a good indicator.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

And I trigger into fix-it mode or management mode, got to fix it all. Jumping back to what we were talking about at the beginning, what emotions were you allowed to experience as a child? If I never learned to sit in uncomfortable emotions, disappointment, sadness, anger, fear, if I didn't have space to feel those as a child, my capacity doesn't suddenly miraculously expand as an adult. You're talking about the mirror. If I can't handle my child experiencing a certain emotion, disappointment, frustration, whatever, that is a very good indicator as to what I don't feel comfortable allowing myself to feel.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Exactly. And I love that we brought it back because again, without the co-regulation in the beginning, we don't have containers. We don't have the the ability to feel that emotion. So it feels intolerable to us. And we're like, oh, we got to get out of this feeling.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

And I need to get my child out of this because vicariously it's intolerable for me for them to experience it.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Oh my gosh, he or she's rejected, and that's an intolerable feeling from my life. So then I'm like, oh God, I have to make that feeling stop inside them. And it's really not even about them, really. It's a lot about just making me feel better. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

And we stunt their natural emotional growth if we get overly hung up on, oh, I can't, I've got to put them in cotton wool or, you know, wrap them in emotional blankets so that they don't experience anything. I've got to like put a bumper around everything so that they don't bump up against anything spiky or sharp or uncomfortable for them, which, like you said, we see it a lot in parenting styles today, which is really just an expression of our own inability to be able to process and regulate through it ourselves. Yes. So glad you said that. I think this is a beautiful place to interject when we are parents who are embracing our own emotional health journey. This is something I've had a conversation with a client about recently, is remembering that just because we understand attachment theory and just because we are going on the journey of healing ourselves doesn't mean that one, I have to switch into counselor mode and therapist mode every time my child has something. Because hello, I mean, hand raised here. Like I actually get to be their mom. And even if I understand some of the reasons behind things, it could be a double-sided coin because on the one hand, it's like, oh, I do have some context and I can provide some framework. And the understanding that I have does help me to parent better. And in that, I also don't need to use that then as a fix-it mode for them of like, oh, well, I understand from a therapeutic reason why this is this way. Oh, I need to dive in and actually turn it into a fix-it opportunity again, when sometimes they actually just need me to be their mom. And if I'm not careful, it can even become another source of fear of like, oh my goodness, I do understand attachment theory. And what if I didn't do it properly? And have I hurt their attachment? And now are they going to be anxiously attached because I didn't actually handle this properly? Um, that could be sometimes where my knowledge isn't always helpful. Sometimes I've had to step back and go, this knowledge is great, but I don't want it to become a detriment where now I'm obsessing about am I going to screw them up because I do understand the ramifications if I don't attune properly. You know? It's too much. It's too much information.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

It's too much information. Oh, I love it. I think that one of the ways I have definitely noticed this is codependencies looked like I struggle to maintain my own relationships and my own sense of identity and my own goals. I'm like, I have a life, actually. Especially when my kids were young. Like, there's so much nuance to this. When you're in the thick with littles, like it's legit that you this blended the sense of them and you are is still forming. So we have so much compassion that we're not trying to say, like, if you have like two-year-olds that this is, but you know, we have a lot older kids. I have a lot older kids now. But I think that this is a really important indicator, things that you might want to notice because sit with many middle-aged women, their kids are leaving home and they're like, Oh, who am I? So relatable. It's like, wait, I am you. I am meeting your needs. Like, that's who I am. And I'm like, well, they're 25. Maybe over time we've been able to progress and adapt to those new roles, but oftentimes it doesn't happen until the kids leave.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

So you're saying where your role and your identity kind of become one. I am a mother, therefore that is who I am, and losing sight of some of the other things that make us who we are as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah. Like you're a daughter, you're a friend, you're a lover, you know, you're a business woman, or you write books, or you, you know, bake bread, whatever it is that you're doing.

Navigating Identity Beyond Parenting

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I think having that separation and a sense of self is really healthy. It's really safe for the kids too. I agree. When kids leave and they see their mom be like, my mom's gonna be A-OK, it helps them launch. We'll we'll get into that, but I just want you to know this is so healthy. And we're not just saying this, like, go women, you know, have a sense of you. It is very safe for our kids to see us have a sense of ourselves outside of them.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah, that's great. Uh, I think a great way to tell if you do struggle with codependency is if you don't know what your needs are. If somebody were to say, okay, apart from your parenting, what are your interests? What are your needs? What do you love? And if you struggle to even identify that, sometimes that can just be a gentle indicator of like, oh, maybe my identity is more wrapped up in other people than I might have realized. Especially if the thought of your child leaving, of course, there's the transition and sometimes there's that bittersweet ending of a season where there's some grief and there's joy and kids are launching and it's hard. And also in that, if there's a huge sense of I'm lost now and I don't know who I am, that's a great invitation to begin to lean into and go, okay, where might I want to start healing and disentangling so that I can regain that sense of self?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

I mean, I just saw myself planning vacations. I can think of everyone's need in a vacation setting. Do I even ever think about what I might need in a vacation setting? This is a great idea of like, what are your needs? Do you consider your needs, do you even know what they are? Great indicator. One of the most supportive reframes for me is are you parenting from fear rather than trust? That has helped me grow so much shame resilience because I would shame spiral, like this thing's not okay. Like the meaning, it's telling me I can't handle that. This is an example. He's quitting swim. The meaning I attach is like he can't finish anything. He's not gonna have what it takes to be like, I mean, the story that and then having a check-in on like, oh, I'm just really afraid. Like I'm actually afraid. And do I really want to parent from fear? So this is a really good indicator of like if you're just feeling really scared and you're trying to manage your kids and parent from that place, it's it's a really good spot to notice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Because fear can sometimes masquerade itself as wisdom, as care, as concern, as love, even. Uh, I was having a conversation with somebody recently who some other people in their life were commenting, like, wow, you're so patient with your kids, and you're just, you know, you you could put up with so much. And diving into it a little bit, what we discovered is underneath is the patience was not coming from a place of regulation. It was like a coping mechanism of because she didn't want to do a knee-jerk reaction to the way that she had been parented. It was like she had swung the pendulums to another extreme of just going, okay, I'm gonna put up with anything. And people are going, wow, you're really patient underneath the surface. It was like, you know, the little duck where the, you know, the feet are going all the time. They look calm on the surface, but underneath, there was actually a lot of dysregulation and uh fear-based energy driving her decisions. Sometimes things can look a certain way on the external level. But what we really want to dive into, and you touched on that, is is fear driving this? Is trust driving this? Is love driving my decisions? And often it's a mixture. It's not 100% one thing or 100% another, but noticing what is the predominant factor, the more I've learned to tune into my own nervous system, that has been a big indicator. If I'm feeling panicked, but I'm looking calm on the external, then my nervous system state is affecting the environment around me. I don't have to do that from a self-deprecating or shaming thing, but noticing, okay, I'm maybe I'm even getting praised. That's another thing. Sometimes if you've grown up in a culture where certain behaviors were praised, your child's good behavior, whatever it is, the pressure can be to have a certain appearance of things. And taking this step back to unpack what is driving this, I think is a very important question that we can be asking ourselves. Because I've seen people who have perfectly behaved kids, but behind the scenes, things were actually a big mess. And there we're talking about connection being the point. There was actually a lot of disconnection in the relational dynamics in the family, the home, because appearances were prioritized and connection was not. So it's just a little indicator to say sometimes things can look good, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're creating long-lasting fruit that you really want to see in your life.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

And I'm I'm really glad you mentioned that this evaluation of what energy am I doing this? Am I doing this in fear? Am I doing this in control? Yes. Am I doing this in religious spirit? Am I doing it in like fill in the blank? I can still have some fear, but I can make a decision that's not like a hundred percent fear. It's only 49% fear. I don't know, like 51%, like more my authentic self. Because again, fear will cause our nervous systems to get into our adaptive, self-protective ways. And you know, codependency is one of those ways. That is one of the ways we've we uh get into to survive. And we're wanting to, for one, bring awareness. Yes.

Resources for Healing and Understanding Codependency

SPEAKER_00 33:21

When am I feeling really afraid or at threat or wanting to do some adaptive? These parts of me are going to kind of respond and cope with this experience in one way, so that we can bring in that authentic self and take care of it, but also bring it in and help us move forward with parenting more in our authentic self, more in our adult self, not those those fearful adaptive ways that saved us when we were kids, but totally.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

In case they see themselves in some of this behavior, or they're really wanting to gain a greater understanding, or maybe get some tools. What are some of the resources you'd recommend?

SPEAKER_00 34:14

So there's um a couple books or people that you can follow. Codependency No More. I read that in like two days or something. I was like, this is me. It's Melody Beattie. You can find that on um Amazon. I really appreciate Dr. Becky. You could follow her on Instagram, good inside. She's amazing. And I have one of the books of this next gal. Her name's Eli Harwood. She's amazing in attachment. She's helps make so much sense of why these core wirings are happening and really promotes us as parents to take the initiative and to own the healing process inside of us so that our kids aren't having to deal with all these anxious parts of us or the anger and all of our self-protection that happens, which we're humans. We are we will have some levels of self-protection, but we don't want it to run the entire parenting show. So she has several attachment books and a new one that just came out. So feel free to follow her, grab those on Amazon. We can maybe put them in the description of the podcast too. It could be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Sounds great. Folks, this is just part one. Next week, we're actually going to dive in to what codependency looks like in parenting different age ranges of children. I think because it shows up slightly differently, but still driven by some of those same core fears. So thank you for being here. We are enjoying this conversation. We're going to get into a lot more. So if you see yourself in any of this or you know somebody who is maybe struggling with some of their parenting, feel free to pass it along. None of this is ads. We don't know any of this people personally. So we're just sharing from our own personal recommendations, just things that have helped us or blessed us along the way. So tune in next week. We've got more to the conversation and just know you're doing a good job. We we believe in you. And wherever you are in the process, where you're feeling like you're drowning or you're thriving or you're somewhere in between, just know that we're cheering for you along the way, walking with you as we all go on our own road back. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

All right, friends. See you next week. See you next week. Bye.