Stop Taking Everything So Personally: Codependency Recovery

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

So today we're going to be discussing codependency and why codependents learn to take everything so personally,

And also why they can be so draining.

Thank you so much for being here.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano,

And my books on codependency are award-winning.

They've been voted some of the best books of all time on codependency.

And I don't say that to brag.

I say that because I don't think that you could write a book on codependency unless you've lived it.

And codependency to me,

Understanding codependency that is,

Really helped change my life.

Because if you are codependent,

You are someone who doesn't want to be codependent.

And those of us with codependency versus narcissism,

We don't like making people upset.

Our agenda is to make people happy.

It's to fix people.

It is to be a peacekeeper.

It comes natural to us.

However,

There are situations in which we have blind spots.

And unless we awaken to those blind spots,

Then our nature to give and to caretake and to fix and to help and to be peacekeepers,

It begins to merge into the narcissistic waters even,

Dysfunctional waters,

And toxic waters.

And so codependency,

I'll try to explain it so that many people can understand it.

Because there are some people who think,

Oh,

I'm codependent.

That means that I care too much about your feelings.

And the answer is to just not give a crap about your feelings.

No dear one.

That is not what codependency is.

When you are codependent,

You are someone who's been raised to think that you are powerless and that the way to regain that power is to remain hypervigilant,

To keep your focus on mommy and daddy,

And to feel over-responsible for what is happening outside of you.

Now when you're a child,

What happens is below the veil of consciousness,

You think everything's your fault.

And when children feel powerless,

They try to control what they can.

And what can they control?

They can control whether or not they smile or cry,

Especially after about three years old.

After about three years old,

A child has the ability to look outside of themselves and know when mom and dad are upset.

And then what a child will do is they will try to control how they're showing up to make mommy happy.

I saw my two-year-old granddaughter just do this recently.

My daughter was upset about something.

My granddaughter was in her own world.

She and I were coloring,

Which is where I want her to be,

In her own world while she's figuring things out.

I don't want her to worry too much about what's happening outside of her because that will interfere with her ability to develop a healthy sense of self,

A healthy who am I.

But my daughter was upset.

And naturally,

My little one turned around and she looked as she saw that my daughter was upset.

And she went up to her and tapped her on the leg,

Mommy,

You crying,

You crying?

And she smiled and she tried to do a little dance.

That was my granddaughter's attempt to control how her mother was feeling,

Which is very natural.

Now,

In unhealthy homes,

That goes on consistently and consistently,

Consistently.

And the mother or the father or the adults in the home are not attuned to what's happening.

Thankfully,

My daughter was able to say,

Yes,

Mommy's a little upset,

But she's okay.

Go play with grandma.

In other words,

You don't have to worry,

Little one,

About mommy's feelings.

I've got this.

So that allows the child to detach and say,

Okay,

Mommy has it under control.

I can go play now.

I can go back into my little world.

So that's what happens when it's functional,

When the home is functional.

It's not realistic to think that moms are not going to get overwhelmed or dads are not going to get overwhelmed or that moms and dads are not going to get into it once in a while.

That's unrealistic.

And it's not even healthy to live this stoic,

Sterile life and pretend that things aren't going on in the home.

It's how you deal with it.

It's conflict resolution.

It's what you're modeling for your child that matters most.

Now,

In the case where a child becomes codependent,

Because codependency starts when you're really young,

When you have parents who are a bit narcissistic,

Immature perhaps,

Are not emotionally regulated or who falsely presume that they are going to be the perfect parent,

They are going to take care of every one of their spouse's and child's needs,

And then everyone's going to be happy.

And then the codependent can rest.

Then the codependent can be happy.

And so when you're a child and you're being programmed to believe this,

That's generally a sign that people weren't honest in your household,

That you sensed that something was wrong,

But the communication was very poor.

It was very passive.

No one really addressed issues.

And so you felt like something was wrong.

You were reading the room correctly.

Here you have a little being who can only measure their environment by how they feel.

And they're getting the sense that something's wrong internally,

So their internal guidance system is 100% on point.

Something's wrong here.

But when they look outside and they see mommy and daddy and they try to figure out what's going on,

Mommy and daddy act like everything's okay.

And so this sends a very confusing message to a child internally as their psyche is being developed,

As their faith and trust is being challenged in the self.

So there's a lot of confusing messages.

And so what ultimately happens when my inner reality is being denied by the outer reality,

Mommy is daddy drunk?

Is daddy drunk?

No,

Daddy's not drunk.

He's just tired.

Mommy are you sad?

No,

I'm not sad.

Mommy has a bug in her eye.

The consistent lying to a child,

Thinking,

Falsely thinking that if I lie,

It's better.

If I lie,

I'm sparing my child.

You're not sparing your child.

You might not know how to deal with it.

You might not know how to deal with strong negative emotions.

You might've been taught that strong negative emotions were bad,

They were wrong,

And you need to suppress them,

Thus you are codependent and you don't know what's wrong.

And so you walk through life thinking,

All I have to do is be perfect.

All I have to do is take care of my wife.

All I have to do is manage her emotions.

All I have to do is keep giving her money.

All I have to do is keep my husband happy.

All I have to do is anticipate his needs.

All I have to do.

All I have to do.

All I have to do.

And in that process,

You are abandoning the self.

We have got to stop thinking,

Especially at this day and age,

As conscious thinkers.

And as people who want to believe that we are awakened or enlightened or spiritual,

We have to stop assuming,

Because it's wrong,

That anything goes unnoticed in the universe.

Everything gets registered.

If you're irritated,

It's getting registered.

If you're annoyed,

It's getting registered.

If you're frustrated by your partner,

It's getting registered.

Nothing is hidden.

What I'm trying to say is that you're not going to escape the emotions that you're running from.

Now,

The problem that you'll have as a codependent is that you won't know what you're running from because codependency is a detachment of self and an attachment to what's happening outside of you.

You literally do not realize when you are codependent,

This hit me between the eyes,

That my happiness,

Literally my sense of self,

Was dependent upon things and people I could not control.

So I walked through life believing it was my responsibility to make sure that everybody was happy and that everybody liked me.

Because as a child,

The message that I got was that you are unlovable.

We don't like you.

There's something wrong with you.

You are not good enough.

And so as a child,

When you don't get that positive reinforcement from the outside due to alcoholism,

Where one parent is an alcoholic and the other parent is the co-alcoholic or codependent and pretends that nothing's really happening with mom or dad,

And your needs are going ignored.

So it's the parent who is codependent is enabling the alcoholic parent and thinking that I'm doing everything right,

But you're not.

By enabling the alcoholic and by ignoring the emotions,

The energy,

And the neglect in the child or the neglect of the child's emotions and their internal reality,

What they're perceiving,

By pretending that nothing's happening,

You are hurting your child.

You're teaching the child that it's not okay to be authentic.

And so now I have to choose as a child.

So to maintain a relationship with my dad,

Who's enabling my mom,

I have to ignore how I feel.

I have to ignore that dad is actually making the situation worse,

That mom needs accountability,

And that accountability will help her more than enabling her.

Now what happens when you're codependent as a child is that you are detaching from the self and you've gotten the message that it's your job to take care of everybody.

And this is especially true with older children.

And when it's a female,

I have seen differences.

I've been doing this work for a long time.

I see it in my own family members and myself.

When you are a codependent female,

You will deny the self and oftentimes you implode emotionally.

And so you might end up with an eating disorder or you might start fantasizing about having an affair.

And what happens is in this situation,

You're presenting with these symptoms and you don't even realize they're symptoms of codependency,

That you are denying the self,

You're not being authentic,

You have taken on the role of caretaker,

And you are trying to anticipate the needs of your husband who doesn't know how to make you happy.

If you've married a narcissist,

That person will take advantage of your need to be validated.

They will withhold on purpose.

They will stonewall you on purpose to frustrate you because they don't think you're ever going to leave them.

But if you're married to someone or your partner is someone who is not narcissistic,

Then you are partner will be exasperated by your needs.

He won't know how to give you what you need because quite honestly,

Dear one,

The hole is inside of you and there's nothing anybody outside of you can do or say to make you feel good enough.

That's an inside job.

And so your partner will be frustrated.

You will do things for your partner expecting the partner to pat you on the back.

And when the partner doesn't pat you on the back,

You will be or feel eternally wounded.

Now what you don't realize is that that's not the wounding that you feel or the wound that's been activated has less to do with your partner not recognizing that you trimmed the rosebush the way that you did and it's such magnificent work.

It's not about your partner not recognizing that you got a haircut that day or it's not about your partner realizing how hard you work to make his favorite meal.

It's about this idea that you have a dysfunctional unconscious belief system running that has you believing that you need approval,

Affirmation,

And you need to validate your existence by doing things for other people.

So you have what is known in Buddhism,

If you will,

As an attachment cross psychology,

We call it an attachment issue.

But in spirituality,

It's known as an attachment.

You have an attachment to an outside experience that you can't control,

But you don't know it.

What's really below the veil is that on an unconscious level,

Your sense of happiness and self is tied to that other person's reaction to you.

So now,

Whether you realize it or not,

Your person,

The person that you've attached to is responsible for your happiness.

If they approve of you,

You're happy.

If they don't approve of you,

You're not happy.

If they make a face,

You take it personally.

If they have a bad day,

You take it personally.

Why?

Because below the veil of consciousness,

You're having anxiety because something is happening in your person that causes you to believe that they're unhappy.

And as a child,

You learned that it was your responsibility to make people happy and that when a parent that you love was a little disgruntled or just showed evidence,

Maybe their face,

Maybe their body language,

Whatever they said to you,

Their tone,

You knew,

Uh-oh,

Chaos might happen.

Something bad's going to happen.

So a little child learns that I better get out ahead of that.

I better start making mommy happy.

I better start doing this.

Now,

You will be frustrated.

Your ego self,

Your adult self will be below the veil and not know that's what's running the ship.

So you'll get nasty at your husband.

You'll get nasty towards the person that you love.

And you'll think it's their fault.

They're ignoring you.

They don't appreciate me.

And that's very dangerous waters to be in.

And so it's hard to hear that when you are codependent.

If you don't explore that and if you don't gain the conscious objectivity you need to explore that within yourself,

You're never going to know,

Is it him or is it me or is it both of us?

Do we both have some codependency tendencies?

And am I draining this person because I have not enough stuff going on?

Am I the adult child of an alcoholic?

Am I the adult child of a narcissistic mother?

Am I the adult child of a narcissistic father?

Have I grown up feeling not good enough?

Did I grow up in a toxic home?

These are ideas that we want to explore.

So when it comes to a codependent man,

What happens with at least what I've seen in my practice and in my personal life is that when a man is codependent,

A man generally,

And I am generalizing,

Generally men want to make their partners happy.

That's my experience.

And they can become frustrated when they can't make their partners happy,

Whether they're codependent or not.

It's just worse when they're codependent.

A codependent man will try to do things for their partner.

So their partner is upset.

They notice it and they get in there and then they try to fix whatever she's trying to fix.

So let's say you have a car issue and you're just annoyed at the car.

The windshield wipers aren't working.

You're really frustrated.

You had a lot of parking issues today.

You had to go food shopping.

You had to take the baby to the doctor.

You had to go to the bank for some reason.

So you have had a really stressful day.

So a codependent man comes home from work,

Let's say,

And he sees that his wife is like struggling to get out of the car with the groceries and she's huffing and she's puffing and he will take that personally.

And so he'll go over to try to help and he'll say,

Go in the house.

I'll get the baby.

I'll get the groceries.

And the woman who is not codependent,

The partner in this situation who is not codependent is just having a bad day.

Now a codependent husband will come in and say,

Just let me do it.

Let me do it from a very frustrated place,

A place of being activated.

His abandonment wound is being activated.

His coping skills from childhood are being activated.

He is trying to control the situation really to control himself because as a child,

When mommy was upset,

Bad things happened.

Or when daddy was upset,

Bad things happened.

And so he is taking on the role of this little child who feels powerless,

Doesn't know what's happening.

So he goes into the situation trying to control it.

The wife can stand there being stupefied like,

Just let me be upset.

It's no big deal that I'm upset.

I said,

Just go inside.

Let me take care of it.

So the let me take care of it can sound aggressive.

And so now what happens is from the codependent man side of the equation,

He's been activated.

He's really frustrated.

And so he's coming at this with anger and he may even sound aggressive,

Whereas women tend to implode.

Now this could be draining for a partner because a partner in this situation to a codependent man just wants to have the freedom to have a bad day.

But when you're a codependent person,

Man or woman,

When your partner is upset,

That's a trigger for you because it upsets you,

But you don't realize it and you actually gain your self worth from how happy your partner is and you take on that responsibility.

So imagine below the veil how confusing that is on a psychological and emotional level when you are programmed.

That's why I'm always talking about your subconscious programming.

It's neurological,

Dear ones.

It's not your fault.

It could be no other way,

But the only way to escape this is to recognize it consciously because you cannot fix a hole in the wall that you cannot see.

It's impossible.

It's just impossible.

You can't shift what you don't see.

You can't change what you don't understand.

If you don't have the skills or the awareness,

You can't escape it.

So you're going to feel frustrated.

You're going to frustrate people.

You're going to feel like a victim and you're going to make things worse.

So this is why I always try to tell my clients that when you are married to someone who's codependent or you are codependent,

You have to be really,

Really careful about what is the rudder in your life.

And so if you're a codependent man and you're feeling like I'm doing everything for my wife,

I'm taking on an extra job,

I help so much with the kids,

I'm so helpful around the house,

I do things that most men don't do,

And from your perspective,

If you're the doer and you're the helper and your wife is not responding to you the way that you want her to,

You might get angry and you might start to feel wounded and you might start to feel like she doesn't appreciate me.

This is why it's dangerous territory when you're codependent.

It doesn't mean that you're narcissistic,

You are a narcissist,

But it can become a narcissistic situation in which you start to feel sorry for yourself and then you start to demonize your partner because they're not fulfilling this wound inside of you that was never their responsibility to fill in the first place.

And so if you are codependent,

You have this,

I am not enough wound.

You are looking outside of you for your partner to validate your existence.

You don't know that you're doing it.

You will take on the role of helper and fixer.

Everybody from the outside will think this person's amazing,

But what people won't see is that the partner now has become responsible for the codependent person's happiness.

Now,

What's the difference between,

Because I get this question a lot,

So how is a codependent different than a narcissist?

Well,

A codependent person is coming at this with the desire to make the other person happy.

And yes,

I understand there is a crossover.

So it is narcissistic in the sense that if I'm doing something for you,

I want to pay off,

Right?

But it's coming from a place of anxiety.

It's coming from,

I feel unworthy and I need you to help me feel worthy and I will lay down my life for you.

However,

While we're alive and while we're conscious,

I am aware that I would lay down my life for you.

I would absolutely do anything for your happiness.

When it comes to narcissists,

In my humble opinion,

Narcissism,

Someone who is narcissistic could not care less about the other person's happiness.

They only care about their own.

It's not about doing nice things for you because they want you to be happy and that benefits them.

It has nothing to do with your happiness.

They don't even see you.

And so a narcissist expects you to be drained.

They enjoy that you're drained.

They enjoy that you're unhappy.

Codependents don't enjoy when other people are unhappy.

They're happy when everybody else is happy and they ride the sail of that,

If you will,

Or the wind of that.

Oh,

You're happy.

That's great.

Then I can be happy.

I can be settled.

But generally they want other people to be happy.

They will sacrifice so that they can keep the peace in their homes.

They will deny their own feelings as long as you're happy.

Not so with a narcissist.

A narcissist,

If you listen to a narcissist,

It's all about them and what you haven't done for them or the fact that you're not listening to them and you're not taking care of them.

And God forbid you take care of yourself.

A codependent will say,

I'll stay home.

I'll do everything.

You go out with your friends.

You go have a good time.

And they're hoping that in doing that,

Letting you go or suggesting that,

Not letting you go,

But suggesting that you go and being okay that you go,

That you're going to come home happy.

But also that you're going to pat them on the back because they were so malleable in this situation.

So there is a payoff and we have to be aware of that as codependents and adult children of alcoholics and grandchildren of alcoholics,

Because this is generational.

Now when it comes to a narcissist,

Like I said,

Narcissists are not concerned with your happiness.

It is literally all about them.

They are not concerned with being peacekeepers.

As a matter of fact,

They enjoy moving into a situation and creating chaos.

Oh,

Everybody's wondering why I left the party abruptly.

Codependents won't do that.

Generally,

They won't do that.

Everybody's wondering why I'm angry.

Everybody's wondering about why I'm brooding.

Everybody's wondering why I won't sign the documents that are going to allow my parents' estate to be released as they wish.

Everyone's wondering about why I'm so annoyed.

A narcissist loves being the person that everybody focuses on and they drain you that way because they are insatiable.

But there is no concept of your happiness.

Their agenda is to take and to take and to take and to take because they are so bottomless.

They have such a false sense of self.

Their sense of self is grandiose,

Where a codependent's sense of self is,

I'm unworthy unless you validate my existence and I'm going to sacrifice my needs so that I get that payoff.

Codependents can be draining.

Codependents take everything personally because the way we have been raised,

And I'm guilty of it myself,

I have been literally programmed at the level of the subconscious mind so it could be no other way that I am responsible for how you feel,

That it is my job to make you happy.

Parents do this to children all the time.

One of the things that I would like to say in this session is that if you are a parent,

Be very mindful of rejecting your child because they don't perform or act the way you want them to.

This is a very narcissistic place for parents to be,

And parents do it all the time.

And if we're not aware of it,

We can't change it.

So you have a child and she's in daycare,

And you get word that she threw a playing block at,

Or playing brick,

At one of the other kids.

And you take it personally.

That means that,

In your head,

That means that the director of this daycare is going to think you're a bad parent,

Or the director of the daycare center,

Or the other moms,

The other dads,

Are going to think that you're a bad parent.

Suddenly,

The shift is on you.

You're focusing on how this has affected you.

You're taking this very natural and normal situation,

Which does have to be dealt with.

We want to make sure our kids aren't the kid that are throwing things around the room,

And they understand that they could hurt other people.

But it's about the child.

It's about correcting the behavior.

So codependent mothers and fathers take everything personally.

So if your kid's in school,

And they're not performing well in school with their grades,

You make it about you.

So you get the kid a tutor,

So you don't have to feel the anxiety of what other people think about you.

When you're codependent,

You are consumed with what other people think about you.

And you will sacrifice yourself to make sure that other people don't think unwell of you.

But that doesn't mean that your intentions are pure.

It means that you're misguided.

It means that abandonment trauma might be activating your wounds,

And that your decision making will be clouded by these coping skills that you learned when you were a child that are just maladaptive.

Most parents,

I think,

I believe,

Most parents are very good parents,

And most parents have very good intentions.

But that doesn't mean that we're all up on child psychology.

That doesn't mean that we're all self-actualized.

That doesn't mean that we don't make mistakes.

That doesn't mean that we're not learning as we go.

We know more about our cell phones than we do about a three-year-old's needs,

Or a two-year-old's needs,

Or a five-year-old's,

Seven-year-old's,

16-year-old's,

Or a 20-year-old's needs.

We know more about social media,

And how to post to TikTok,

And how to make videos,

And how to take really cute selfies.

We know more about that sometimes than we do about what is appropriate.

How do I deal with a two-year-old that is acting out?

How do I deal with a 16-year-old that is dealing with so many pressures?

How do I not take what my husband,

My wife,

Or my kids say personally,

So that I can show up authentically in their lives?

How can I do that?

Those are the questions that we should be asking ourselves.

Thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it.