Codependency

In this episode, Christy Dragotta explores the concept of codependency, defining it as an unusually intense emotional or psychological reliance on another person. She discusses various types of codependent behaviors, including controlling tendencies, caretaking, people-pleasing, and passivity. The conversation emphasizes the importance of recognizing codependency in oneself and others. She offers practical steps to overcome these behaviors, including setting boundaries and finding one's identity in God.

Transcript

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Hey, welcome to Get Honest, the podcast that's been designed to help you cultivate a simple yet authentic life of faith. If you've been coming for a while, you already know we get into all the topics. We are not afraid to talk about anything. Because as life comes, I want to help equip you with information and scripture that keeps life simple but real. So today what we're going to talk about is codependency. And just for my regular listeners, I just want to thank you for coming here week after week and giving me space to share. This is something that I feel like God has put in my path to do for the purpose of encouraging the body, for the purpose of encouraging believers and equipping them to walk a life that has an impact on the space around you and the people around you. And so just thanks for coming and listening and giving me the space to do this. It has been such a joy. And I don't take it for granted. So I want to I just want to say thank you. For those of you who are brand new, hang in there with me today. We're going to talk about codependency. And even if you're not codependent, maybe chances are there are people in your life who might have codependent tendencies. And so I just want to help in this area to shed light on what that is. Because I think a lot of people are codependent and they don't even know it, to be honest. I was definitely codependent and had no idea. You know, if I'd ever really heard the word, I probably would have known. But a good friend of mine at church, we were just discussing some things, and I was going going through a divorce, and she and I were talking about some common commonalities between our husbands, and she said, Oh, so you're codependent. And it really actually kind of took me back. Like I was like, Well, no, I don't know what that is, but I'm surely I'm me, I'm not codependent. What are you talking about? But I didn't know, you know, I just didn't know. And then as I looked into what codependency was, I was like, oh my goodness, I really am very codependent. And so I just think there's got to be other people out there that are like me. Maybe they don't, you don't have it have an intention to be codependent, but it it is the case. You are codependent. Or, like I said, you've got somebody in your life, and maybe they don't mean to be codependent, they just are, and they don't know what it looks like. So that's what we're doing today. We're gonna talk about it. So let's just start by defining codependency. It's an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on another person. And this is often your partner, so your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend, or it could even be on children or on parents. When you're codependent, it typically will manifest in more than just one relationship. Your primary relationship is going to tend to be your partner, your spouse, your boyfriend or girlfriend. But it shows up often in families where there is addiction present, and that can be with your parent or your sibling or your child. There are four different types of people or four different kinds of categories of codependency. And I'm there's probably more than this, but the four that I'm thinking of right now, the first one is somebody that really has the need for perfectionism or control. So you find yourself trying to manage other people, yourself and other people, so that things are perfect and they are under control. And so you can use manipulative or you can really be trying to manage other people. And your underlying need is that you fear unpredictability, and so you're trying to keep the situation from chaos, and so you just are trying to manage or control. And that often, you know, when we try to be perfect, it's because we are really trying to look for control over outcomes, and that's just not the way that life is. We can control our behaviors, we can control ourselves, we can even take captive our thoughts, so we can even control our thoughts. When a thought comes in, we take that captive and we make it obedient to what Christ says about us or about the situation. So we can control our thoughts, but that doesn't mean every thought that comes into your mind you had control over before it got there. You can just control what happens to it after it comes. And so we don't have we don't have control over every life situation as much as we would love to, and as much as we try to, it's just not possible. There's only one who is in control. And that leads me to another thing that I should have probably started with. You know, we were actually created for dependence. When God created us, he didn't create us to operate apart from him, to operate on our own. We're just, we gotta be on our own, we're abandoned, we're alone. No, when God created us, he created us to be together in community, but primarily the very first place that we are to be dependent is on him. It says that in him we live and we move and we have our being. We are not separate from him, we are in him, and so we were created to be dependent on him, and in fact, we were created to be dependent on only him, and he brought us community and other people because we will encourage one another and to uplift one another, and so we aren't to be independent of fellowship either, but there's a difference between needing the people that are in your life um in a healthy way and being codependent on those people that you can't exist apart from another person, that is that is codependency. I would define it if you are afraid to exist without another person, that's pretty much codependency. And we're gonna talk about it in a lot of ways, and I'm super familiar with it because, like I said, I although I didn't know I was codependent, really my whole life I was codependent, and it started back, you know, I don't I don't know exactly when it started, it might have started whenever I was younger, and my sister was sick, and I got jealous of how much time my parents were spending with her. Maybe at that point I started some of this codependent behavior, but I really attached to my mom so that when my mom became ill with cancer, I really just attached myself with her. And when I was 17 and my mom passed away, I had no idea who I was. My identity, my worth, everything I knew about me was wrapped up in her, and so that was definitely codependent, although I didn't know it. And that was the second type of person, and that's the caretaker or the rescuer. And the way that God wired me is with a lot of empathy. He also wired me, like I could have been a nurse. I love to take care of people, and I love to offer solutions when people are in trouble or in a situation where they don't know how to get out of it. It's really just part of the way that I'm created to want to help them solve those problems or to fix it, right? So a caretaker or a rescuer, and again, that doesn't mean that if you are someone that likes to take care of others or likes to help others get out of a bind, you are automatically codependent. No, it's just it can be taken to levels where you get your worth and identity from rescuing other people or from taking care of other people. So that's when anytime your worth and identity is tied to it, to where if that's taken away, you feel like you lose it yourself, that is when you know it's gone codependent. This is definitely the beginning of what I recognize as codependent behavior in my life, was when I lost my mom, and I lost really truly my entire sense of identity and who I was. So a third type of codependent person would be the people pleaser. And this, we've already talked about this in several episodes, but I am definitely wired again to be that people pleaser. I love it when people are happy with me. I really do. And I for a long time was a peacekeeper, not a peacemaker. I love peace, um, so I do love to be a peacemaker, but there was a time when I was younger where I really would have done anything for the sake of keeping the peace. So I would deny myself, I would deny problems, I would deny all kinds of things just for the sake of keeping the peace. I just didn't want conflict, I did not want there to be any trouble. It made me very uncomfortable and I hated it, and so it was peace at all costs. And you know, people think being a peacekeeper is good, but really being a peacemaker is good. Bringing peace to a situation where there is conflict, but all parties are considered is good. That's beautiful. God says, blessed are the peacemakers, but peacekeeping when you will do anything to get peace, including deny truth, that is not a healthy biblical thing to do. And so that can be a sign of codependency. And so that's often you're gonna adapt your behavior. We've talked about this before, where I just changed who I was so many times in a day to try to become the person that my husband would love and approve of. And so I often denied my own feelings or just kind of neglected myself in order to become who I thought he wanted me to be. And so when you will say yes to avoid rejection, is a that's a sign that you are a people pleaser and potentially a codependent person. And then the fourth person is is the one that's more passive, and you just kind of don't even know who your identity is. You're lost, right? You don't you don't know who you are, and so because of that, you kind of take on what everybody around you tells you, and so you you're just you lack a clear sense of who you are, and you struggle to make decisions. Another part of that would be you you try to become like whoever you're with, so you just kind of take on the identity of the person that you are with, and the underlying need in that is that in in order to define yourself, you need somebody else so that you can get your validation and your identity from somebody else, and so that's definitely a codependent type behavior. So if you see yourself in any of those four, don't panic. It's okay. I didn't know this about myself for a really long time. I mean, I was I just said I was going through a divorce, and that was when I was in my late 30s. So it isn't like, oh well, time's out. If you're just now discovering you're codependent, it's too late, nothing to do about it. No, if you are kind of hearing some of these things and you're like, oh my gosh, maybe I am codependent in some ways, this is great, it's brilliant, it's just the right time to start doing something about it, and you can really change your behaviors and even have conversations with the people in your life that you've been codependent with. And it's it could be uncomfortable, it can create some uncomfortable conversations, but it can be so beneficial for you and for the people around you just to discover that there are some unhealthy ways you have intertwined yourself with them. So, just to revisit, I want to kind of go back and say we were made to be dependent on God, and if we're not, then often what we can do is we will attach our dependence on somebody else, on another person. And that really is idolatry because we we aren't to set someone else in that place that they are able to name us or give us our identity or give us validation or who what we're worth, right? They don't get to tell us our value, our worth. And so when we are doing that, that is idolatry. So we want to stay away from it, but if we don't have the relationship with God where we're really letting Him name us, and last week I was able to talk with my sweet friend Jen Becker with identity exchange, and because we did a really long podcast on that, I'm not gonna really bring a lot of that into this, but I would suggest if you didn't catch that one and you're really like, I don't know my identity, I mean, my identity is in Christ, yeah. But what does that mean? Has God named you? Because the answer is yes, he's named you. If you don't know the name God calls you, I do suggest you go back and listen to that podcast because it's really valuable information and visit Identity Exchange to just learn more about finding your true identity. And once you have your established identity in God, it's really foundational for the way that you're gonna live the rest of your life. If we let others define who we are, we're gonna hurt them and we're gonna hurt ourselves. And we aren't we're living out of a false identity, which is just not gonna help anyone. But your identity is God's gift to the world. Who He created you to be is his gift to the world. So that's the first step would be finding out who you are, and there's a lot of good source material for that. So I'll put some more things in the show notes here. So let me just give you some practical examples. I wrote down a lot of examples of what it may look like to be codependent. Um, you never want to do anything by yourself, it makes you very uncomfortable to be by yourself, whether you're at your house or anything else, like you wouldn't even consider going to a movie alone, or you wouldn't consider going out to dinner or lunch by yourself. You just always have to have someone else, and especially if there's one person, like this can look like you get invited to do stuff, but you say no because your significant other can't come with you. That there's it makes you uncomfortable to go places, they're your security blanket. You don't want to go somewhere without them. And it's we are made again for community and for fellowship and to be together. And so some of some of you are introverted and you're like, yeah, no, I have no problem being alone. I kind of prefer it that way. That's that's great, but maybe you're just introverted. But there's other people who are not introverted, and they would say, Well, I'm not an introvert, and that's why I always have to have somebody around me. But it's a little unhealthy to not be comfortable just to be with yourself. And I can say, I mean, I love to be with people, so I enjoy going to a movie with someone more than I enjoy going to a movie alone, but there have been times when I'm just like, you know what, I want to go see this movie, and so I go do that, and I'm by myself, and it's okay, and I'm totally fine sitting there by myself watching that movie. I actually find it quite enjoyable, and I didn't used to love to be alone at all, whether I was at my house or anywhere, I would call somebody to come over or be with me. And again, I am a very outgoing person, and so I really thrive when there are people around. I love that, but as I've gotten more comfortable with myself and being alone, less codependent, I've realized there's a lot of space that I need for time just by myself. And Jesus modeled that. I mean, he was very extroverted, he was constantly out and with other people to the point of exhaustion sometimes, because he was constantly with big crowds of people and he always had his small group of people with him, and he was teaching and giving and pouring out all the time. But you'll see in the scriptures, even though he was all the time pouring himself out and in groups of people, it will say, and Jesus pulled away to be by himself, he went to a solitary place, and so it's important that you don't say that it's because I'm an extrovert that I don't want to be by myself. Look at it and see, are you comfortable being by yourself, or do you kind of always need to have another person with you? And so, never wanting to do something alone. Another is having your emotions directly tied to somebody else's emotions, and that's where we talked about this a little already. You just take on the emotions of the people around you. So, for example, you let somebody else's emotions dictate how you feel, and you don't know how you feel apart from them. That's not a healthy, not a healthy thing. You're compelled, that's another one. Are you compelled to keep the people that you love from harm at any cost to yourself? So you'll do anything, and sometimes at the cost of other people, to keep somebody that you love from harm. And I think, I mean, as a parent, I I feel like we spend a lot of time here where we would do anything to keep our kids from making the same mistakes that we have done, or maybe even making mistakes that we haven't done, but that we know are to their detriment. So I think there's a healthy parenting thing that says, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep my child from harm. I guess this really presents itself a lot of times in anxiety. If you can't sleep because your child is at home and you don't know where they are, and your emotional well-being is tied to that person. And depending on what the circumstances this person is in, that defines whether or not you're good, whether or not you are in a good mental space. So that can be codependent, and that happens a lot in in families where there is addiction, and that happens a lot because you really you don't know if your loved one is making choices that are going to really, really hurt them, really, really cost them a lot. And so another would be do you feel empty or unvalidated if you're not receiving applause or gratitude for the things that you do? So, for example, like I used to tell my kids this because one time we made cookies, and when we made the cookies, there were some workers outside doing some things. And I don't, it was workers with the city. I don't know if they were working on an electrical pole or if they were digging something, I'm not sure. But there were workers outside, and our kids were there, and we're like, oh, well, let's do something kind for them. Let's just make them some cookies. They've been out there working a long time. So we made some chocolate chip cookies, and the kids went out there with their chocolate chip cookies and gave them to the workers that wanted them, and then they came back. And some of the kiddos that went, we sent, I believe we sent six of our children. It was my friend and I, we each had three at the time, and we sent all of them out there with those cookies. And a couple of the kids came back and they were really frustrated, they were really disturbed, and I was like, Why are you upset? And they're like, Well, we made these cookies, and then these people said they didn't even want them. And so there were some people that took the cookies and were happy about it, and then there were others that were like, No, thank you, I don't want your cookies. And I told them, You shouldn't be sad or frustrated or angry that they didn't want your cookies because did you do it for the response that you were going to get, or did we give them the cookies because we just wanted to be generous and give? And so you can tell a lot by your motive, and you may not even know your motive when you do something until somebody doesn't receive what you were trying to give, and then it hurts your feelings, or maybe they aren't thankful for it, they don't have any gratitude for it. You don't feel like they have expressed a gratitude for something that you did in an appropriate way. That kind of reveals that your motive wasn't just to bless somebody, your motive was, I want to bless you and I want the thank you. I need the validation for what I've done. And um, that's a codependent behavior to need validation for your kindnesses. And again, don't get me wrong, human nature, we want, it is human nature to want to have somebody say thank you when you do something nice. And the appropriate thing to do when someone does something nice for you is what we teach our kids. Say thank you. If somebody tells you you look pretty, say thank you. If somebody tells you they like your artwork, say thank you. You know, it's just kindness and it is polite to say thank you when someone offers a compliment or does something nice for you. I don't want to minimize the fact that it a courteous person is going to say thank you. And I don't know, I didn't go out with the kids, so I don't know. That the person that didn't want them may have said no, thank you, and maybe they're on a diet or whatever else, right? We don't know that people's reasons for doing stuff sometimes. We just we just don't know. But if you take offense because someone wasn't polite in a way that you expected them to be polite, you're giving too much control to the outside world, right? You're just giving other people control over your well-being and your emotions. So that's not it's not a healthy thing. So if you're not receiving the applause or the gratitude that you think you should be receiving, and especially if it happens often, that is most likely an indicator that you're pretty codependent. And then another would be do you sometimes feel unseen, like you've disappeared in the relationship? That you're in. You've so sacrificed your own once needs desires to meet the needs of another person. God calls us to submit to one another, to hold each other in reverence, to be honoring of one another, but he never says disappear into the other. He says love one another, serve one another. But he doesn't say become one another. And then another would be, do you have a hard time saying no? When someone makes demands on your time or your energy, do you have a hard time saying no? I really just don't feel like that's the right thing for me to do right now. I'm sorry that I can't do that, but that I just can't do that right now. If you have a hard time saying no to people, that's kind of a that's another signal that you're getting your worth from being a yes man, from saying yes. Um, do you constantly, oh man. Okay, this is a big one. Do you constantly worry about what other people think of you? Are your choices that you're making, the decisions you make in your life every day, based on what you feel like is the right thing? Or is it based on I'm really worried what that person's gonna think of me if I do this or if I don't do this? That's codependency, okay? Um, do you stay quiet even when you're feeling something strongly because you're trying to avoid a conflict or an argument? Okay, another one. Do you blame others for your problems when something goes wrong and things go wrong all the time? Is it always somebody else's fault? Is it always, you know, if they just would have, or if this person or if this situation would have, or is it always somebody else's fault? Your problems that you're going through in your life? Because that's not realistic. You make choices, your choices have consequences, and sometimes other people make choices that affect us, and we can only react to the situation that's at hand. But if you feel like your whole life is one big consequence of somebody else's decisions over you, that's not healthy because no one again, no one should have that much control over your life, and so if you're blaming other people for your problems more than you're accepting responsibility for what's going on in your life, that's a red flag, okay. This is one that's it's kind of like when you hear it, you go, What? But is it hard to for you to receive from others? Are you a person that loves to give and loves to do for others, but you have a hard time if somebody's trying to give to you, or you just have a hard time receiving? And this is important, it makes me think about Peter, right? Because in the Bible, Jesus was going to serve them, to wash their feet. And Peter was like, No, you're not gonna wash my feet, I'm not gonna let you do that. And Jesus said, Man, if you don't let me wash your feet, you don't have any part with me. Our response to the gospel is only that of receiving. When we receive Christ, we are in a position where all we can do is receive. There's nothing we can bring to the equation to make ourselves right with God. All we can do to be right with God is receive the payment that Christ made on our behalf, and so if you can't receive, you can't be saved. I mean, that's you have to receive from God Jesus' payment on your behalf to be saved and in a right relationship with God. But you also we are meant to give and receive. We are meant to do that. So if you have a hard time receiving, that may be a flag of codependency. Are needy people attracted to you? A lot of times, people who have great needs are attracted to people who are codependent, and again, needy people are also just attracted to people that have empathy. So it's okay if you have needy people that are attracted to you. Needy people were attracted to Jesus, to David. Um, when David went and hid out in the cave, it says at the beginning, it was like, I can't remember if there's 400 or 600 men, but there he started at this huge band of people, and it says the people that were needy and destitute and in debt, they came to him. That's who came and hid with him in the cave. They were attracted to him. And so it's not just if needy people are attracted to you, oh, you must be codependent, but if you notice a pattern in your life, the real telltale sign would be are you constantly emotionally depleted because you are giving and giving and giving and giving. There's so many people in your life who are needy, and you never take the space or the time to get replenished and to fill yourself up emotionally before you continue to spend yourself. We are to spend ourselves on behalf of the other, we are, but you're not called to do that to the detriment of yourself. You have to take care of yourself. That's why Jesus, Jesus, who is himself God, had to pull away and take space to replenish with his father. Sometimes angels attended to him. All kinds of different scriptures point to the fact that Jesus, because he was a hundred percent human, even though he was a hundred percent God, needed time to sleep, to rest. He became tired, he became hungry, he became all the things that we become. And so not having the emotional bandwidth to deal with stuff because you're emotionally drained might be a might be a sign that you're codependent. Let's see. All right, do you have difficult times setting boundaries? That's a big one. We talked about that a few weeks ago. Um, do you feel guilty when you stand up for yourself? If there's a situation that happens and you say, I really don't like it when you do this, does that make you feel guilty? It should not. Are you afraid of losing your relationship if you don't do the right things, act the right ways, like you're terribly afraid? Well, if I don't do this, then my partner's gonna leave me. I can tell you for sure a lot of problems that stemmed from my side in my marriage was that I was very codependent and I found my worth for a really long time in my husband. And when he was not happy with me, I was unhappy. And I was afraid at any given moment he was going to leave me if I didn't do just the right things or act in such the right ways. Um, do you try to control others' behaviors to feel secure? And do you try to avoid criticism by making sure you're perfect? So that's it's a long list, right? That's a lot of things to think about. But if you heard any of those and you were like, oh, I kind of do that, okay, that's okay. It's this is common. It is very common. And I think in our culture nowadays, people are super codependent because everybody has been, you know, on that lookout for number one, they you've they've isolated themselves from God and from church communities and have gotten more what they think is independent, but really what they're doing, because we were made to depend on God, they're depending on other people. And so this cause gives them their identity. This thing they're fighting for in the name of justice is actually where they get their identity, which is why when someone seemingly opposes their view on that thing of justice, they get so emotionally in turmoil because it's it's not just for the sake of this justice, their identity is wrapped up in that. It has become an identity, and so that's a codependency. So it's important to ask yourself those questions and just kind of have a check-in with yourself after I read all of those and see which areas do you struggle in and which areas don't you struggle in. Or if you really don't feel like you struggle with any of those, which would be totally crazy for me personally, just because of the way that I was created, I feel like I have a lot of tendencies towards codependency, and then just the trauma in my life brought it out even more. But if that's not you, if you're like, no, I really I listened to that list, I don't I don't feel like I need to be thanked when I do something nice. I really just love to do things that are nice for people, and I don't care if they respond in any certain way, or I don't really feel like somebody else gives me my worth or my value, or I'm really fine just being by myself, I don't need this or that. That's wonderful, but surely you know some people in your life that struggle. So now the question is, what do I do now? Right? If you've recognized in yourself that you do have a tendency to be codependent in one or two areas, then what we do is we just want to recognize it. We want to admit it, okay? I can see where I'm I may be a little or a lot codependent in my relationships. So just kind of owning it, right? Admit it, okay? I confess that I am definitely codependent in some areas. Okay, that's great. Don't go to shame. Okay, don't go to a place where you're ashamed of all these decisions that you've made. What's done is done. We can't change what's been done in the past. All we can do is make a decision to do things differently in the future. So that's it. Don't go to the place of shame or guilt. Just say, okay, I recognize this and I don't want to continue these patterns. So I'm gonna make different choices in the future to go to go forward, okay? And if you aren't really sure, ask God to reveal it to you. Ask Him to reveal the places where you are codependent, the relationships that you have that you are most codependent in. And I think everybody is probably a little codependent in some places, okay? But if you really don't feel like you are, then I would just again, like, I really would say pray for those of us that do struggle with these, this battle in codependency where we let others define us and define our worth. We need prayer to not allow the fear of man and the validation of others to dictate who we are or how we feel about ourselves. And so please just pray for the people in your life. And if you notice that somebody has codependent behaviors around you, then you set boundaries, healthy, loving, grace-filled boundaries with the people in your life that are codependent. So maybe what that looks like if you're let's just go to spouse, husband and wife, okay? And so if you if your partner is somebody that has a tendency, they're always trying to keep you emotionally happy. So they're doing this and doing that, doing that, and they're always trying to fix things that maybe aren't even broken, and it just gets on your last nerve because you didn't ask for them to go to this extreme and taking care of you, they're just caretaking you to death. Set a boundary there and just say, it's really important that you set a boundary with grace and truth. I see that you are just trying to be loving to me, that you're trying to help me take care of this situation, but honestly, I would really like to take care of it on my own. And if I need your help, I will ask you for it. You can be loving and set a boundary that says, please stop doing that. I can do it for myself. And you can say that in a very nice way. Communication is absolutely key. Boundaries are key when you've got people who are codependent in your life. So just set loving boundaries and don't be afraid to establish your boundaries. Um, and but don't do it in a mean way either. Like just be kind, be gracious. Um, yeah, but keep your boundary. That's really important. Um, and again, if you're if you are the person that is just addicted to the approval of people and you really recognize yourself as codependent, ask God for forgiveness. That's start there. Lord, I am sorry that I have put my need of approval and validation and worth on somebody else. Please forgive me. Forgive me for the idolatry of that and help me to set my dependency fully on you. That you're the only one I would look to for my worth and for validation. And just help me, Lord. And some scripture that can help there. Proverbs 29:5 says, the fear of man is a trap, but whoever trusts the Lord is safe. And so I love that because the fear of man is a trap. It's just not a good thing to be fearful of man, but when you trust in the Lord, you're safe. And then Galatians 1.10 says, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. And so that's a pretty big emphasis that if your your priority is to please man, that you aren't a servant of Christ, that you're a servant of man. And that's not, once you get that new identity in Christ, you live to please God alone. And when we live to please God, it always affects the other with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. It's the fruits of the spirit. God Himself is love, and all of his actions are loving. And so our actions will be loving towards the other when we have that alignment, right? When we are living in a way that pleases God, it will automatically benefit and bless the people around us. So just ask for forgiveness, right? And his grace is sufficient. His grace is sufficient, he will help you, and you can cry out as many times as you need to for his help and not being a codependent person. And he gave us the Holy Spirit. I love this. You know, when Jesus was on the earth, sometimes I think about it and I'm like, man, I just wish Jesus was still on the earth, right? Like, what would it have been like to be right next to him when he was teaching those parables or when he was cooking fish with the boys, right? Like, what would that have been like to be a part of that? Amazing. But Jesus himself said, it's better if I go, because he was one person, and whatever town he was in was blessed by his being there. But then when he left that town and went to another town, all the people that were in that town no longer had the benefit of his presence. But with the Holy Spirit, we have his presence within us every day, all the time. There's never a time that we are separated from the love of God. Never. So it's important that we see God gave us the Holy Spirit, and when we don't have wisdom, we can ask, and we don't have to be afraid that He's going to rebuke us for asking. Even if it's we ask 6,000 times, it's okay. Ask again. I'll never rebuke you for asking me for my grace and for my mercy. Never. And for wisdom, right? Yeah. So we acknowledge it that we are codependent. We ask God for forgiveness. We ask him for his help to go forward and to create new patterns. And then that's where you start creating new patterns, you start making different choices. You create a little space for yourself and you don't have to feel guilty about it. Like I really challenge you. If you're a codependent person and you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no denying it, I'm codependent. This week, tell your husband, tell your wife, tell the person that's in your life that you are codependent with the most, I am going to do something very intentionally by myself this week. And if it gets sunny somewhere and you can go lay out and just enjoy the sunshine, go do that without that partner, without that person with you. Yeah, go to a movie by yourself, go to the mall by yourself, go on a walk by yourself, go and do just anything where you have some space to just do something you enjoy. And if you don't know what you enjoy apart from other people, really sit and spend some time thinking about before this person was in your life, what were things you enjoyed to do? Do you enjoy cooking? Do you enjoy painting? Do you enjoy coloring? Do you enjoy watching a TV show, a certain sitcom, or a different movie? Do you enjoy reading? Or yeah, what things do you enjoy working out? What is something that you really enjoy that you haven't done in a long time because you've been so tied in to that other relationship? Carve out space this week and do it. Make space in your schedule, even if it's just an hour, to do something on your own. And then we'll talk about this in another episode. This isn't the episode four, but if you're always alone and you never do anything with people, that's a really dangerous place to be too. And so we can talk about that again in another time, in another space, but both extremes are bad. Never doing anything by yourself and always doing something by yourself, never including other people. Another thing you can do is to make sure that you have different friends that you can hang out with. So if you and your partner are always together and you're constantly looking for things to do together, and you're saying, Well, I'm not gonna go to this if he can't come with me, or I'm not gonna go to this if she's not there, or I'm not gonna spend time with this group of friends because I'm too involved in this relationship. This happens a lot in teenage relationships. They they start to like each other, so they hang out constantly every day. They're face to face with each other all the time, and they start excluding their family or excluding their friends, and they're constantly just wrapped up completely in this other person. It's just not healthy. So make space in your relationship to go hang out with a set of your girlfriends by yourself or a set of your guy friends by yourself. Like go and and make space for your partner to be able to do that too, to have time to just hang out with the guys or to just hang out with the girls. That is really beneficial and very necessary in relationships that girls get to spend time around other girls and guys get to spend time around other guys. It's just a super healthy thing. So create the space and give the space for your partner to be able to do that too, or your child, or your parent, or whatever, whatever relationship, it may be your best friend, maybe you're codependent with your best friend, and maybe you guys need to spend some time away from each other and you need to do some things on your own or spend time with other people in a friend group. And the last thing I'll talk about, the most important, is to go on a journey to discover who you are, to discover your identity, the person that God made you to be. And I mean it, there's nothing that's going to benefit you more than knowing your identity in God. What name has He given you? Because once you discover that, your purpose will become more clear. The things that you are built to do will come from who you are. It's not let me do things that define who I am, it's let me define who I am so I know what things to do. And that's just it's really gonna be a place of peace and fulfillment once you know who you are. And so that's my biggest exhortation to you is go on that journey and find out who you are. What do you like? And really make space to tend to those things, to tend to who you are. Okay. And if you know, again, that you've you're really you recognized yourself as codependent as I was going through some of this today, there is a book called Codependent No More by Melody Beatty, B-E-A-T-T-I-E, Codependent No More. And I've heard wonderful things about it. The book has great reviews. I'm gonna be honest with you, I've never read the book. And probably as I was recording this episode, I realized, you know, I should probably read that book and find out, you know, some of the things that I haven't presented here that a psychologist and somebody with more experience would be able to come and speak to. And so I may just very well get a copy of that book myself. But um, there are resources, great resources out there if you struggle with codependency. And so if you need some more of those, feel free to reach out and message me. I will do a little homework and try to have some things available. But I can definitely tell you identityxchange.com is going to be a place where you can help find your identity, and codependent no more would be a good read just to get an overview of what codependency really looks like in some ways that you can start making new choices, new develop new patterns. I know this is a Little interruption in the current podcast, but I noticed upon editing that I hadn't mentioned one very important thing, and that is somebody else's happiness is not your responsibility. So if you are feeling the pressure in any of your relationships, or especially if it's in several of your relationships, that their happiness is dependent on what you do, that is a surefire red flag of codependency. I know we've talked about a lot of different things, but people are responsible for their own individual happiness, and it cannot be on you to keep someone else happy all the time. That's very codependent. So I didn't want to end the episode without saying that. Thank you for being with me today. I'm really grateful that you joined me, and I hope that you go and have a wonderful week and that you do something, at least one thing, where you create time for yourself, you create space for yourself to do things that you enjoy, and you don't feel guilty about it. And you don't make your partner feel guilty about it either when they take space to do things that they enjoy. And yeah, go and have a great week. See you next week.