Codependency
Codependency is not a disorder.
Despite being kicked out of consideration as a mental health disorder for decades, people love to throw the label around.
Codependency is a dance in mutual dysregulation. It represents an entangled web of unspoken rules between two people attempting to stay regulated.
It feels good initially. You’re helping. You’re needed. It’s like a magnetic attraction. Drawn into autopilots.
Unfortunately, it’s a self-destructive autopilot. You don't want to and you feel like you have to! And it becomes of intensifying cycle with no off ramp. Resentment builds.
Codependent patterns develop naturally.
It is an artifact of a life lived.
At normal gestation, a newborn has lungs and a heart that can mechanically operate independently. However, the nervous system responsible for regulating them (the autonomic nervous system) has not yet developed. It develops the necessary feedback loops to upregulate and downregulate through interactions with caregivers.
Until full development occurs, babies are dependent on the response of adults to regulate. Receiving self-regulation from others can carry over into adulthood.
For some, getting help to regulate was impossible, and they learned to tune out to themselves from necessity, still waiting for the biological coregulation to happen.
Many varieties, same roots.
The original codependent dance between an addict and an enabler has spawned other patterns such as a rescuer and victim, which typically involved a perpetrator with people shifting roles over time.
Regardless of the pattern of over-functioning and under-functioning, or a giver with a taker, the roots lie in emotional and autonomic dysregulation – two people who cannot be responsible for their own autonomic needs.
Their lack of adequate self-awareness and self-regulation makes them dependent on upregulation or downregulation by others.
For example, person A feels overly responsible for person B. B despises A getting in his business, but without adequate childhood development, isn’t equipped to step it up.
Break the loops.
Be getting to the autonomic nervous system where the survival patterns naturally developed as a child, we can lift the imprints and fill developmental gaps.
It starts by setting a course for seeking fresh, healthy relationship dynamics where you can fully show up, allow your partner to show up, with each owning their junk fully.
No blaming. No shaming.
If you are committed to your current relationship, we’ll chart a course of interconnected individual growth and relationship growth. Close the gap in your emotional development and shift into a chapter as you’ve never experienced before.
It’s about both of you mattering. Forget competing with each other; forget needing your partner to be a certain way.
Truly WANT each other, love each other for who you are and who you are becoming. Be with each other through highs, lows, and everything in between.
Grow together, not apart.
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With individuality and togetherness, you’ll find harmony in your rhythms.
With emotional wellness and autonomic regulation, you’ll be grounded together and live out your highest vision for yourselves, your family.
It’s about growing together, together.
Let me work with you to eliminate codependency so you can gain a harmonious relationship.​
