What is codependency / codependence ?
What is codependency / codependence ?
“Codependency at it’s core, a dysfunctional relationship with self. We do not know how to Love our self in healthy ways because our parents did not know how to Love themselves. We were raised in shame-based societies that taught us that there is something wrong with being human.” “This dance of Codependence is a dance of dysfunctional relationships - of relationships that do not work to meet our needs. That does not mean just romantic relationships, or family relationships, or even human relationships in general.” “Codependency a particularly vicious form of delayed stress syndrome. Instead of being traumatized in a foreign country against an identified enemy during a war, as soldiers who have delayed stress are - we were traumatized in our sanctuaries by the people we loved the most.” “Codependency is a dysfunctional emotional and behavioral defense system. . . . . .Traditionally in this society men have been taught that anger is the only acceptable emotion for a man to express, while women are taught that it is not acceptable for them to be angry. If it is not ok to own all of our emotions then we can not know who we are as emotional beings.” “Codependency could more accurately be called outer or external dependence. The condition of codependence is about giving power over our self esteem to outside sources/agencies or external manifestations. We were taught to look outside of our selves to people, places, and things - to money, property and prestige, to determine if we have worth. That causes us to put false gods before us. We make money or achievement or popularity or material possessions or the “right” marriage the Higher Power that determines if we have worth.”
On this page is a column in which codependency is described from five different perspectives by codependency counselor/Spiritual teacher.
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996 thru 2015 by Robert Burney PO Box 98 Fallbrook CA 92088.
(This column originally appeared on the Inner Child/Codependency Recovery page that I edited for Suite101.com.)
Originally published at https://joy2meu.com/codependency1.htm