Are you codependent? You may have heard the term “codependency” mentioned in many recovery and self-development circles. What does it mean and how does it apply to narcissistic abuse?
Today, in this article, The 7 Signs You May Still Be Codependent And How To Change This Fast, I will explain what to look out for. As you go through the article I want you to check in and rate how many of these 7 signs are still present in your life. (Let me know in the comments below!)
What It Means To Be Codependent
I believe codependency is about “trying to seek self from outside of self”. It means positioning someone else as our authority, as our source to love, approval, security, and survival rather than being whole adults generating that for ourselves directly and safely with the healthy aspects of life’s people and resources.
Codependency is the leftover, unhealed, unfinished wounds of our past, significantly our childhoods, where we did not develop enough on the inside to feel safe, whole, and self-generative. This leads us to position others as “the parent who may do it better” and stay attached to them, even when they are treating us badly. Rather than being able to let go and look after ourselves – we stay.
As a previous codependent, I used to be shocked that while I was intelligent, strong, and extremely capable, when it came to relationships, I would so often feel empty, powerless, and defeated. I would cling to abusers and keep handing away more and more of my already scanty boundaries and rights to try to make them change and love me.
It wasn’t until I underwent my Thriver Healing transformation, from the inside out, that I learned exactly what had been going on with me.
Related: 5 Things To Do When Someone Needs You Too Much
In this article, I explain some simple signs that will help you understand if codependency is insidiously sabotaging your ability to have safe and healthy relationships.
Knowing these 7 signs will allow you to understand the codependent parts of you that are still susceptible to handing your power away, and how to challenge the old notions of how you were trying to get your needs or love, approval, security, and survival met.
Please know that the following traits are common – many people have them! We may even assume that these are nice, caring human traits. However, they are not serving us. Please know that you can be empathetic, caring, and functional in relationships without suffering from codependency.
If you have already been working with Thriver Healing and releasing and up-leveling previous traumas, this will be a great opportunity for you to check-in and see where you are presently at in dissolving away your codependent parts.
7 Signs You May Still Be Codependent And How To Change This Fast
#1. Obsessing About What You Said
If you find yourself going over and over prior conversations and wondering how other people have received your words, thinking, “Did I say the wrong thing? Maybe they won’t like me because I said that …” then this is a sign that you are suffering from codependency.
It means that your identity is attached to what other people think of you. This is a sign that you don’t as yet have a healed and solid “self”. Maybe you came from a childhood where the level of love and safety you received was linked to how other people thought of you at the time.
This can be common. You may not yet know what it is to have YOUR truths and be able to live aligned with them and risk not always fitting in with what other people may wish you to be and do.
