What We’ll Work On . . .

     . . . Codependency

Do any of these sound familiar?

• The label “control freak” keeps getting hurled at you (like that is a bad thing?).

• You have a secret wish to be hit by a bus and severely hurt (but not permanently) just so you could get other people to take care of you for a change and finally see how much they have abused you with their dependence.

• You have tried to phrase and rephrase everything perfectly so that others will see that you really do know best and that they should change (now) and love/respect you all the more for it.

• You never ask for what you want, because you don’t want to be disappointed and certainly don’t want to call negative attention to yourself.

• You are physically sick worrying about other people’s illness.

• You read ‘self-help’ books, but you know they are really ‘others-hinder’ books and then proceed to generously share these books so that others will know what they should do to change (and thereby help you).

• You have been told you are enabling someone else’s addiction, for a while you believed you were being helpful and that sooner or later you would figure out exactly what to do to help them stop, but now you are not so sure.

• You feel proud (aka self-righteous) about how much you can get done in a day and are perplexed (actually, you are disgusted but you are sure that is not an acceptable emotion) when everyone else seems to be so incapable of achievement.

• Wish that other people would be more grateful for everything that you do. So what if you are cranky and snippy, you don’t have time or energy to sugarcoat everything; you need to Get. Stuff. Done.

• You are never satisfied, and attribute your success to your high standards of excellence.

• You are seriously questioning whether you have the right people in your life…wondering if you would be happier alone, in a different job, on a different planet (even though you have already tried changing the cast of characters and circumstances many times before).

• Even though you know that you should never admit this because you have watched Oprah after all, you still believe that if other people changed, or you fixed them you would be happier.

• Cannot quite figure out the difference between humility and humiliation.

• Find it difficult to receive praise and recognition (even though you crave it) because you know deep down you are a fraud.

• Have heard that some people are addicted to drama but in your case you don’t seek out the drama it just finds you.

• You are so busy working on everyone else, you have forgotten to work on you.

After reading the above, and seeing yourself in at least one of the responses then I am willing to bet you have experienced the

painful fallout from codependency and are probably reacting like this:

• Holy Crap…she knows me, I am so relieved!   Time to contact Sunny NOW.

• Holy Crap…I hate the label codependent.  Even though I see myself in this I don’t want to be defined by that

  Labels are a mixed bag of helpful and harmful and like all things the tipping point is in the intention.  Using a label on yourself with the intention of justifying staying stuck and miserable or using a label on others as way to criticize is obviously  (at least I hope it is obvious) harmful.  Using a label to provide a framework for clarity, to acknowledge pain in order to motivate change and feel a sense of connection and solidarity with others is obviously helpful.

  You can choose to take on the label or simply acknowledge the tendencies.   In other words you can be a codependent (noun) or you can behave codependent-ly (verb), or you can call it cheese whiz, it doesn’t matter, you can still make progress and I hope that is also obvious.

  Support Groups
  And while you are here, let’s get one thing straight…I am not here to push you into any support group.  However, I am here to let you know that coaching provides collaboration and accountability that is crucial to making progress with codependency (aka cheese whiz), so let’s do this!

  awful word.

• Holy Crap…she is describing almost every person on this planet and this reminds me of those medical websites where every

  Are you evil or misunderstood?  I genuinely believe having codependent tendencies is not a crime; in fact you probably developed these tendencies in order to cope with some out of control things.  And there are definitely aspects of codependency that are valuable, otherwise why would almost every single person I know have some of these tendencies?  The problems start when we overuse (abuse) these coping mechanisms out of fear, to the point that trust and acceptance are overshadowed.   You are not evil, you are out of proportion and probably misunderstand your own reactions and intentions.

  The goal is to get some of the other traits to take on a more proportional role in your life (professional and personal) so that you can choose your responses versus reacting and regretting. Notice I am not asking you to berate yourself or control your codependence, I am suggesting that you allow more than just fear to have a voice in your head.  

  rare and incurable diagnosis has the same symptoms of “fatigue” and “loss of appetite”.

If the thought of this work is pushing your buttons, here are some of the results you can look forward to when we work together.