Healing Your Relationships: What Is Codependency Really?

If you’ve ever felt like you’re losing yourself in relationships—saying yes when you mean no, staying silent to keep the peace, or feeling invisible even with the people you love—you’re not alone.

Today, we’ll explore what codependency is—not just the textbook definition, but the deeper truth: Codependency isn’t who you are; it’s something you learned to survive. I’ll share how these patterns often begin in childhood, how they shape our nervous systems and relationships, and how we abandon ourselves to avoid loss or rejection.

You’ll hear a piece of my journey, and I’ll offer reflection questions to help you see where you might be leaving yourself behind. This work isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about remembering who you are beneath the patterns that once kept you safe.

Transcript

Welcome everyone,

I'm Marisa,

Healer Transformation Guide and someone who's spent over 17 years learning how to come home to myself.

And this is Healing Our Relationships,

The podcast.

Alright,

So episode 1,

Let's just start at the beginning.

I want to offer you a little bit of insight into my own story and how I came into the space of awareness around my codependency and how I began my healing journey and then offering you an opportunity to check in with yourself to explore and to maybe better understand what codependency is.

So I've been sober since January 7th,

2008,

So a little over 17 years now.

And I had a pretty heavy addiction to alcohol was my drug of choice and you could probably throw in anything else including relationships,

Love,

Food.

But what I knew about myself from the very beginning of my addiction was the reason that I drank and used was because I was so uncomfortable with who I was.

That from a very young age,

The way that I felt about myself was contingent upon how you,

Royal you,

Or whoever was in front of me felt about me.

And my discomfort in my body and in my mind and just the amount of fear and anxiety that I felt all the time,

This true inability to be in my authenticity was really heartbreaking and painful,

Especially at such a young age.

And I didn't really understand why I was like this,

But drugs and alcohol helped soothe that part of me.

And when I introduced drugs and alcohol into my life,

It became a medicine and this way that I could step more into my authentic self.

That when I was drinking and using,

I felt more free.

I cared less about what people thought of me.

I felt that I could be in a place of more expression and freedom.

And so as many of you know,

If you've been on any kind of journey,

Those substances only last so long before they become the thing that is really killing your soul and your spirit.

So I had a very short drinking career.

I was 23 years old when I got sober,

But my journey of hating myself,

I would say started a lot earlier,

You know,

Around eight or nine years old.

So without going too deep into the story and I'll weave it in,

I just want you to know that since January 7th,

2008,

I've been committed to my healing.

I've been on a journey of spiritual exploration and trying to understand how for so many of us at such a young age,

We can feel so disconnected,

So less than,

So not a part of.

And that so many of us struggle with anxiety and fear and self-hate that so many are in an abusive relationship with themselves.

And so there are huge pinpoints on my journey that have got me to where I am.

So I just want you to know that I'm coming from a place of the wounded healer,

The one that has experienced what you've experienced and who has learned how to be in the fires of transformation in the discomfort that it really requires of you to heal.

And I just want you to know that it takes a lot of courage to witness yourself,

To come into a place of radical self-honesty,

To be willing to do the work,

To even say yes to listening to this or coming to a gathering and showing up for your healing.

It's not something to be taken lightly.

I think,

Especially in the world we live in now,

There is a lot of quick fix meme,

Spirituality and healing work and are the dopamine hits that we get constantly from scrolling.

And just,

There's a lot of quick fix,

And this is not a quick fix space.

This is going to be a space where what I'm going to ask of you is to be patient with yourself.

And as linear as you want this to be,

And as much as you want to see the solution,

The solution,

The healing,

The freedom comes from every single moment that you continue to step into awareness.

Every single moment that you continue to grow.

Every single moment that you continue to stay open and stay curious with yourself.

And it's going to require you this codependence recovery work.

It's going to require you to be uncomfortable.

Boundaries for those of us who are boundary lists are uncomfortable showing up in our authenticity.

For those of us who may struggle with that can be uncomfortable,

But I want you to imagine that you're working a muscle.

You're working this muscle of deep love and reverence for yourself.

And I know it can be really hard when you come into this work and you don't feel that most women come to me inside of this codependency container,

But also inside of the healing work I do in a place of disconnection from themselves.

They don't trust themselves and often they don't feel like they know how they got here.

So I just want to share that with you,

That if you are in a place of desperation,

If you're right at the beginning and it's super painful and uncomfortable and you don't understand,

I just want you to know that that's normal.

It's a normal place to be.

And you're not alone inside of that.

So wherever you are,

Whether you're at the very beginning or you've been on this journey for a while,

There is going to be something here for you because like any type of recovery,

Soul recovery,

Addiction recovery,

We constantly need to be in a place of remembrance to help us stay in awareness.

And what I really want to offer you in this first episode is the concept of coming into awareness,

Of deep awareness.

And typically awareness comes from a deep place of suffering.

That moment that I had with myself literally on the floor,

On my knees,

Praying to whoever and whatever and every aspect of my higher power at over a decade sober in recovery,

Doing the work,

Going to therapy,

Helping other people and hitting a bottom and realizing that I have completely abandoned myself in the name of love for someone else.

That I had to get to a place of complete desperation and pain to become ready,

To become willing.

And often awareness comes from pain,

From the deepest shadows,

From the darkest parts is often where we can see the light.

And so for me,

What happened was as I was on my spiritual recovery and healing journey,

While I had spent a decade in 12 step recovery programs and therapy,

And then moving on to doing profound healing and transformation work with shamanic teachers and Don Miguel Ruiz and Jose and Miguel Ruiz Jr.

And going on retreats and practicing the four agreements and unlearning,

Doing apprenticeships while I was doing all this amazing,

Beautiful work and really learning to love myself,

Really learning to be in my authenticity,

Really becoming free from the voices in my head.

I spent all this time and I felt so good,

So amazing.

I left a marriage that was not in alignment with who I was.

And then I got into a relationship with someone that I probably had been loving for over a decade.

Love at first sight,

Twin flame,

Cosmic connection,

All the stories that I told myself about this deep longing for this person.

And we entered into a relationship from a place of being pretty grounded,

Both in recovery,

Both having tools,

Both feeling very emotionally available for one another.

And the long of the short of it is within three months of being in this relationship,

I completely fell in on myself like a dying star.

Every part of who I thought I was or what I knew about myself,

The self love,

The all the work I did was not transferring into this relationship.

That what I know now that I didn't know at the time was while both of us had done a lot of inner work,

We were living from our adaptive child.

Our family of origin woundings were crashing up against one another.

And while we might've entered into the relationship as the best version of ourselves,

We began to deteriorate from a honeymoon phase.

And the amount of pain and suffering that I think we were both experiencing in different ways became very great.

And my response to my partner being more walled off and emotionally unavailable,

My response was to dive deep into anxious attachment.

And I began to shapeshift myself in every single way possible for love.

The way I talked,

The way I dressed,

Even just entering into a room,

The hyper vigilance and hyper awareness,

It physically made me ill.

Like I physically began to have symptoms in my body that I had never had before.

And I stayed in this relationship in a place of codependency,

Not knowing what was happening.

I was very confused.

There was a part of me that loved this person and felt like we were meant to be and felt this connection.

And then there was this other part of me that was like,

Marisa,

What are you doing?

Get out of here.

And I was in this battle for years with myself,

Desperately asking my partner to change,

Believing that if he changed,

Then everything would be fixed that I was available.

I was loving,

I was here and he wasn't seeing or appreciating me.

My attention was constantly turned outwards towards my partner from a place of obsession.

And I lost,

I really did truly lose myself.

And I have wonderful friends that would listen to me,

A sponsor that would listen to me for years navigating this confusion and uncertainty.

And part of what made me confused is that I knew on a core level,

And even in my conscious awareness,

I knew that I was part of the problem of this dynamic.

I knew that this discomfort that was playing out,

This dance,

This dynamic that was playing out,

I knew a part of it was mine.

And I think that's why I could never actually just leave because there was a part of me that knew that I wasn't in my power.

I wasn't in my authenticity.

And I wondered,

Gosh,

Could I be in a relationship?

Would my partner show up differently if I was coming from a place of love and authenticity?

But I had no idea how to get there.

I had no idea.

And in recovery,

You know,

My sponsor had been telling me for a long time,

Go to Al-Anon,

But that was hard because with Al-Anon you had an alcoholic qualifier.

And I never had an active alcoholic qualifier.

So it was not something that was really lining or lining up for me to drop into.

And I had read parts of Melanie Beatty's Codependency No More multiple times.

And it was also really hard for me to lock into that.

I just,

I didn't get it.

And so the word codependency was swirling around for a long time in my life.

And then it wasn't until I started doing shamanic breath work with Linda Starwolf and Venus Rising.

I went on my first two week intensive with them and I was in this new practice of coming into my body for somatic healing.

So for so long,

I'd been moving from head to heart with the Toltec path and all these other ways that I was healing myself and doing really powerful transformational work,

But I hadn't come into my body yet.

And my body,

My physical container,

As I mentioned,

Was shot.

I was in fight or flight constantly inside of my relationship.

And I also want to note here,

This is not just in my romantic relationship.

My journey started with my beloved in romantic relationship,

But my codependency ran through all of my relationships with the world around me,

With anybody.

So,

But what I'm sharing with you now is just how I hit this bottom and it was in the romantic relationship.

So your codependency may be with your parents,

With your family,

With your friends,

With society,

With your work,

With your boss.

So just see if you can take the similarities here and not the differences.

So when I went on this first two-week training,

I'm all the way across the United States away from my partner.

I'm not getting the connection,

The affirmation,

The availability that I want.

And when I was on this two-week training,

It just became so apparent to me that I was part of the problem,

That I really needed to heal this inside of me.

And in Venus Rising and in Shamanic Breathwork,

All of the women that I was learning from and healing with were kept saying the C word,

Codependency.

Codependency is the root of all addictions.

And they started to explain codependency in a way that I could better understand,

Or maybe I was just finally available to receive it.

And so this is where I began my journey of getting comfortable at least to set the boundary of saying,

Hey,

I cannot stay if we're not going to go to therapy.

Just one boundary.

But it took a while inside of my journey to actually feel safe,

Autonomous,

And capable of being on my own.

That it doesn't matter if you're my twin flame,

If we can't have a healthy,

Co-creative,

Emotionally available relationship,

Then I cannot be in relationship with you.

I love you,

But I love myself more.

And when we come to find that that's our truth,

The people in our lives only have a couple options.

Because when I started doing my work,

He had two options,

To show up and start doing his,

Or to not be in the relationship.

And that's,

What's also really powerful about this work.

I want to give you some hope that you don't have to just break up with someone.

You don't have to make any decision today.

You don't have to say,

Sorry,

Mom,

I can't talk to you ever again.

One of the most powerful,

Magical things about codependence recovery is when you start showing up as your authentic self,

When you start setting boundaries,

When you start loving yourself,

The world around you is forced to show up or get out.

And I say that maybe a little bit aggressively,

But I'm saying it with love.

We are so energetically connected and attuned to one another.

And when you suddenly realize that all the ways that you were shape-shifting and manipulating to keep yourself safe is actually keeping people from their ability to show up authentically to your authenticity.

And there is a dance that happens.

Now,

Sometimes we do realize I've had this happen in friendships.

I can't be in relationship with this person.

It's too codependent.

It's not healthy.

Does it mean that other person's a bad person or something wrong with them?

Absolutely not.

It just means that my boundary has to be real hard.

So I want you to know that you don't have to make any decisions about your relationship right now.

The relationship that you're working on is the relationship to yourself.

That is the relationship that we're working on here.

And we're using other people in our relationship.

They are a reflection.

They are a mirror for the inner work that needs to be done.

And so where I wanted to start it today,

Aside from just letting you know a little bit about how I got here,

Of course,

That story is very long.

There's a lot more to it and you're welcome to send in questions and ask.

And like I said,

I'm going to weave things in as we go.

But what I really wanted to offer you is for you to have a better understanding of what codependency is,

Because like I said before,

It feels pretty crazy making.

Jacqueline Small wrote this book from codependency to co-creation.

And she says,

Do not get true caring confused with codependency.

Okay,

We are interdependent beings.

We rely on each other.

We regulate with one another.

Wanting to be loved and nourished and held is literally the first thing that happens when we come out of our mother's womb.

Interdependence being in connection is a necessary part of our survival.

Loving people,

Caring about people,

Sacrificing for people in the name of love is loving.

Codependency is when we sacrifice to be loved,

Not because we're loving,

But to be loved.

I'm going to abandon myself to be loved.

I'm going to shape shift who I am to be loved.

I'm going to stay quiet to be loved.

I'm going to dress this way to be loved.

I'm going to speak this way to be loved.

I'm going to do this job that I hate,

But I make more money to be seen a certain way,

To be appreciated,

To be honored for affirmation and love.

One of the great things about codependency is it's not an addiction or a mental illness.

It is a pattern of behavior.

There are very specific patterns of behavior that we engage in to keep ourselves safe.

And these patterns were created as trauma responses.

So when you were younger,

You created these patterns to keep you safe based on the big T or little t trauma.

To me,

It's all the same that you had in your life.

And they were coping mechanisms,

Walling off because you were abandoned and now you don't want to get close to anyone that protected you for a while.

Being perfect,

Playing the role.

So mom or dad would see you and give you affirmation that worked for a while.

But now as an adult,

It's not working.

Now as an adult,

We're still relying on people to regulate us in our minds or in our bodies.

These very specific patterns of behavior can be tracked.

We can literally look at a list of patterns that I have for you on the HealSpace app.

We can literally look at a list and go,

Which ones of these patterns do I engage in,

In my life?

And everything you're going to do with me,

Okay,

In the podcast,

In the,

In the one-on-one work,

In our group circles,

If you retreat with me,

Whatever you do with me,

Every single time we enter into a place of exploring a deeper awareness,

You are going to be invited to do it from a place of compassionate observation,

Not a place of self-judgment and victimization.

And this is where your courage comes in because using shame and guilt and anger to transform yourself just isn't going to work.

You've got to have the courage to be compassionate with yourself.

You have to have the courage to come into a place of radical self-honesty and be really honest.

And to remember it's your wounded child.

It's these parts of you that are controlling your life when we're in these patterns.

It's not you,

Your functional adult.

They're old parts that need to be healed.

And in order to heal them,

We need to understand how they were developed,

Where they were developed.

And we also need to see clearly how they harm not only yourself,

But the relationships that you're in.

So I'm going to give you just kind of a quick rundown of the different kind of buckets of codependency.

And this is going to be from Codependents Anonymous.

There is a book called the Coda Blue Book.

You can also go on coda.

Org and also on my HealSpace app.

If you join the relationships membership,

I have all these resources in there for you.

So let's start with low self-esteem patterns of recovery.

Often anxious attachment,

Low self-esteem is where a lot of women find themselves,

But stay with me because there are multiple different patterns.

So in low self-esteem patterns,

Codependent behavior often looks like the following.

Having difficulty making decisions on their own.

Judging what they think,

Say,

Or do harshly as never good enough.

Valuing other people's approval of their thinking,

Feelings,

And behavior over their own approval.

Low self-esteem patterns are often seeking praise,

Recognition,

And affirmation to overcome feelings of being less than.

It can often look like not perceiving yourself as lovable or worthwhile.

You might have difficulty making a mistake,

Living in a lot of perfection.

Needing to appear right in the eyes of others,

Might even lie to look good.

Unable to identify or ask for what you need and what you want.

Looking to others to provide sense of safety.

In low self-esteem patterns,

We often have trouble setting boundaries,

Having priorities,

And putting ourselves first.

All right,

So compliance patterns.

This is another pattern of behavior.

In a compliance pattern,

Codependent behavior often looks like remaining extremely loyal and in harmful situations for too long.

So making excuses for people's behavior when it is emotionally or physically abusive,

Just hoping people are going to change,

Or you go into this place of hypervigilance,

You're going to do whatever you can even though you're in a harmful situation because you're loyal,

You're committed.

In compliance pattern,

You can compromise your values and integrity in order to avoid rejection or anger.

You might put aside your own interests in order to do what other people want.

You may be hypervigilant of the feelings of other people.

You might take on those feelings and make them yours.

In compliance patterns,

You might be afraid to express your beliefs,

Opinions,

And feelings when they differ from others.

You might accept sexual attention when you want love.

You might make decisions without regard to the consequences as long as it serves the other person.

You might just give up your truth to gain the approval of others or to avoid change.

Control patterns.

In control patterns,

People might believe that other people are incapable of taking care of themselves.

This can happen a lot with parents.

Well,

My mom can't take care of her,

So I have to do this.

Well,

My partner can't do these things,

So I have to do it.

You might attempt to convince other people what to think,

Do,

Or feel or get upset when they don't take your advice.

You might freely offer advice without asking for permission,

Without even being asked.

You might lavish people with gifts and favors if you want to influence them or get them close.

You might accept sexual attention to gain approval and acceptance using your sexual body to control and manipulate the dynamics of your relationship.

You might demand that your needs be met by others.

Often in control patterns,

It's a very upper-right,

Professor,

Holier-than-thou,

Some narcissistic tendencies and energies,

Using blame and shame to exploit other people,

Refusing to compromise or negotiate,

Pretending to agree with people to get what you want.

So those are control patterns,

Different ways that it shows up.

Okay,

Avoidance patterns.

So in avoidance,

This is people who like wall off.

We can see this a lot in men,

In the masculine.

Okay,

So they judge people.

They judge people to avoid them.

They judge what they think,

What they say,

What they do.

You might avoid physical or sexual intimacy in a way to maintain distance,

To keep yourself safe,

Allowing addictions to people,

Places,

And things distract you from achieving intimacy and relationships,

Suppressing feelings,

Suppressing needs in order to avoid feeling vulnerable.

You might push people towards you and then push them away as soon as they get close.

In avoidance patterns,

It's this,

There's this stubbornness,

There's refusal to give up self-will.

The thought of surrendering is just too scary.

Avoidant people often also use a lot of control patterns that compliment that way of protection.

And the last one is denial patterns.

Denial patterns often accompany low self-esteem pattern people,

But this is having a difficulty identifying what you're feeling or you do know what you're feeling,

But someone else's response to you is changing that,

So you feel like you don't know.

You might minimize,

Deny,

Or alter how you feel.

You might lack empathy for the feelings and needs of others because you're really thinking about yourself.

In denial,

You can often come into this belief or story that you can take care of yourself and you don't need anybody.

And you might mask your pain in ways like anger,

Humor,

Isolation.

You might express yourself through negativity and aggression or indirect passive-aggressive ways.

And in denial,

You might not recognize the unavailability of those people who you are attracted.

And I think this is a big one inside of relationships,

Is that so many of us are wounded and when we enter into a relationship with someone and the honeymoon phase is over,

We begin to activate one another's wounding.

Our family of origin stories are all different.

We all grew up in different environments that greatly affect how we live today.

So for today,

What I really just wanted to offer you was awareness.

The understanding that codependency is a pattern of behavior that was created to keep you safe.

And that you can live your life without these patterns.

It is possible.

And so this list is just a beginning way to get you thinking,

To see,

Is this in alignment?

Are these things here that I do that do cause harm to me?

Am I abandoning myself in the name of love or being a good daughter,

Being a good coworker,

Being a good friend?

Am I shape-shifting?

Am I using these patterns?

And there are other patterns,

Of course,

But this initial list really helped me understand what was mine.

It really helped me understand what I could control and what I could change.

So the reflection question that I want to offer you to think about or do some journaling on is what has brought me here to this work,

To this exploration,

To listening to this podcast.

And I also want you to know that as broken,

Lost,

Confused,

Or however you feel,

What is so amazing about you coming into awareness and being on this journey is that the part of you that does deeply love yourself have a deep reverence who wants to live inside of their own authenticity.

That part of you is nudging you and leading you.

It exists.

You might not know who you are in your authenticity and I am here to tell you that it is in your bones,

It is in your spirit,

It is in your DNA.

There is a part of you that is screaming to be seen and heard and that part of you is with you.

It is a guide on your journey and that is why we experience pain and conflict with ourselves.

The back and forth of thinking horrible things about ourselves and then that voice that's hurt,

That's a good sign if there's a voice that's hurt when you say something hurtful.

It's a really good sign if you're hurt when you abandon yourself.

That means that part of you that loves and respects you is here.

It's awake.

It's always been inside of you but it's awake.

And so be gentle,

Be curious,

Be compassionate.

I love you.

I'm proud of you.

Thank you for being here,

Excited about our first episode and I'll see you on the other side.

Reviews

Really interesting and I know I need to dive deeper… I appreciate you and your sharing all this vulnerable personal stuff to help us Do the same!✨🙏🏼✨

What an amazing talk you have presented here, thank you so much!

Thank you. This made so much sense to me and helped me understand more about me, my behaviours and my life.

Thank you! I enjoyed the way you laid out this difficult topic.

Fantastic! This felt so personal and has shined a light on the reasons for some lifelong patterns in my relating to others. I am ready to do this work.