hey there everybody welcome back to the codependency Series this is week three
and today we're talking about recovery from codependency I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes
one of the important things maybe not the first thing but one of the important things to do in
any recovery process is to Define your rich and meaningful life you've already identified the
symptoms of codependency and the impact they're having on your life so it's important to think
about when I am no longer codependent what will be different when I no longer use those
behaviors when I no longer feel unsafe and the need to protect myself what will be different
who's important in my life what's important in my life what experiences are important in my life
physically so let's just talk about this rich and meaningful life physically think about how
will your your health like your blood pressure and Immunity and stuff how will that be impacted when
you are no longer using those behaviors what about chronic pain and that can be muscle tension or
even chronic pain from autoimmune issues how will that be different when you are using your energy
to work towards your rich and meaningful life what about your energy in general are you going
to feel more energized or are you going to feel drained or is it not going to make a difference
what behaviors will you do differently and I put this under physical because behaviors
like sleeping all day or drinking too much or smoking too much are often responses to
distress that people use when they are feeling unsafe and disempowered so are there behaviors
that you're going to change that will help you move toward your rich and meaningful life
and then what about our good old friend hyper vigilance how will that change in your rich and
meaningful life how will you feel differently when you go into when you're in relationships when you
go into public places whatever how will that hyper vigilance change when you are no longer fearful
affectively how will your emotional awareness and your ability to identify your emotions and what's
triggering them how will that change remember we talked about people with codependency are
offer often unaware of what's going on inside them and they are so focused on people pleasing
so how will you become more aware more able to identify your emotions when they happen
how will your ability to regulate and your emotions and tolerate distress change that
means moving away from dysregulation that tsunami and being able to experience different grades of
emotions like content happy ecstatic or irritated angry enraged instead of
being either flat or irritated to enraged and jumping over everything in the in the middle
how will your guilt be when you've processed what's going on in your rich and meaningful
life do you see yourself being somebody who's riddled with guilt or not in your rich and
meaningful life do you see yourself having more instances of positive emotions and if so what's
going to cause those what are you hoping you're going to be able to start doing and
enjoying either for the first time or again if you don't know what makes you happy then maybe
that's part of your rich and meaningful life you start figuring out hey this is what I like
cognitively again Vision envisioning that rich and meaningful life when you are
in your recovery how are you going to be more aware of uh coping strategies for trauma triggers
in the present how are you going to be more aware of your traumas from the past and able
to differentiate them from what's going on in the present so you're again so you're
not constantly feeling like oh this again you're able to look at each situation in context and go
this person at this time is safe or this person at this time ain't safe and I need to get away
when you're in your recovery State of Mind how will you be able to
more effectively used balanced fact-based reasoning remember fact-based isn't just
looking at the good or what you should do quote unquote it's balanced you're looking
at the good and the bad aspects because everything has positives and negatives
so how are you going to be more able to move out of emotion-based reasoning or fear-based
reasoning and actually look at the facts in context and make a decision in your wise mind
how will your thought accuracy improve when you are experiencing distress or codependency you
may be more likely to use cognitive distortions like extreme thinking and personalization and
mind reading and jumping to conclusions so in your recovery State of Mind in your rich
and meaningful life how much more accurate are your thoughts how much more um on point are you
in this rich and meaningful life what is it like in your head that inner critic that is probably
really loud and obnoxious right now what's your relationship with that inner critic in your head
they're not going to go away so you got to figure out what that relationship's going to be like
what about ruminations these are thoughts that get stuck in your
head and just play over and over and over again like a stuck record
um for those of you who remember records but are you going to have as many ruminations and
in your rich and meaningful life how will you handle ruminations these thoughts that get stuck
are you going to evaluate them in terms of the facts in the current context are you going to
get support from others to help you uh figure out how to deal with it how are you going to deal with
those thoughts when people are experiencing codependency they ruminate a lot usually
about what if what if this person did this or I wonder what they're doing and they get on this
catastrophic thought role so it's important to figure out how are you going to handle
those ruminations in the future and what's your outlook going to be are you going to
continue to be somewhat pessimistic or are you going to have a more balanced
Outlook recognizing that sometimes people are going to do bad things sometimes bad
things are going to happen you know we want to be tragically optimistic as they say but are you
going to be able to have a more balanced Outlook so you can actually notice the positive things
environmentally when you're in your rich and meaningful life what's it going to be like
to be in your house to be around people is it going to still be as tense are you still
going to be on edge on pens and needles all the time or is it going to be more relaxed and less
tension and less second guessing are you going to have improved organization a lot of times
when people are so worried about controlling another person other stuff falls apart because
they don't have enough time and energy in hands to do everything so how is your environment going
to improve just the energy in the environment as well as the organization and cleanliness and
that sort of thing and is there any other way that your environment's going to be impacted
and then finally relationally how are you going to feel about yourself in this rich and meaningful
life are you going to continue to feel about yourself as you are right now which is probably
not a hundred percent good or are you going to be able to be more accurate in recognizing
your strengths and your contributions and your goodness as a person even if you make mistakes
are you going to be more aware of your relationship needs are you going to have
a stronger connection with your inner child that little voice inside you that wants to come out
and play sometimes or that little voice inside you that gets scared and says tell me it's okay
are you going to have improved assertive communication in codependency people tend
to vacillate between being passive whatever you want just don't abandon me whatever you
want too aggressive and trying to control everything and you know kind of Stomp all
over other people's boundaries but there's no assertiveness and remember assertiveness says
your thoughts wants and needs are equally as important as my thoughts wants and needs
assertive communication can be really scary because it means telling people what you think
your thoughts wants and needs which can make you feel vulnerable to rejection but it also means
allowing them to have their thoughts and wants and make their own decisions without trying to control
them and that can also be terrifying are you going to have a reduced fear of Abandonment well
hopefully in your rich and meaningful life you're going to start feeling better about yourself
you're going to start recognizing the people in your current context and being able to more
effectively develop trust with them and recognize which people are safe and which people aren't
and are you going to be able to identify boundaries set them and then maintain them for
yourself as well as respect other people and that goes along with assertiveness but it's more than
that and if you're not familiar with boundaries I've got multiple other videos about boundaries
on the YouTube channel but it's important to recognize that in codependency it is likely
that you were trying to control other people and violating their boundaries telling them what they
needed to do or what they had to do so thinking about all of these things about all of the ways
your life is going to change once you start addressing the symptoms of codependency and
developing healthier ways to help you feel safe and empowered and trusting yourself and others
so the activity review this presentation and develop a Clear Vision of what you hope will
be different when you've healed yourself and your relationships Envision this new you and
new life every morning which is why I really like the um vision board because you can wake
up open your eyes and it's right there and then reflect on your progress every evening