A Way Beyond the Rainbow

#50 - On Healing Codependency and Emotional Dependency (Part I)

August 09, 2021 Amina and Waheed Jensen Season 4 Episode 10
A Way Beyond the Rainbow
#50 - On Healing Codependency and Emotional Dependency (Part I)
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

This is part I of a 2-episode series on healing codependency and emotional dependency. In this episode, Amina and I discuss how codependency shares similar traits with addiction, and we explore some of the goals, expectations and practical tips on the healing journey, starting with reclaiming our personal power.

How can I stop people pleasing and focus on my own growth instead? What aspects of self-care help me overcome  codependency and emotional dependency? Why are expressing feelings and boundary setting important on the healing journey, and how can we practice them in a safe environment? How can we let go of fear and practice surrender? These and other questions are explored in this episode.

References used and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives by Pia Mellody
- Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattle
- No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover
- How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera
- Video on "CoDependency and Addiction Recovery"
- Ross Rosenberg’s videos on codependency and self-love abundancy pyramids
- Ross Rosenberg's "Understanding Trauma and Rosenberg's HITCH", "Healing The Inner Trauma Child (HITCH) Method", and "Healing the Inner Trauma Child Psychotherapy Method"

Waheed  00:39
Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wabarakatuh, and welcome to a new episode of “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series is dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host, Waheed Jensen, and thank you for joining us in a brand new episode, and joining me again in our series on codependency and emotional dependency is my friend, Amina. Assalamu alaikom, Amina, how are you?  

Amina  01:06
Wa alaikom assalam, doing pretty good today. It’s good to be back! 

Waheed  01:10
Super, alhamdulillah. Absolutely, good to have you back. We're going to be continuing our discussion from the previous two episodes, when we started talking about attachment styles in adulthood and where they came from in light of our childhood attachments. And then we talked about codependency and emotional dependency, as well as the different characteristics of these issues. Now that we understand all of that, we can now talk about healing and recovery from codependency and emotional dependency. So this is going to be the focus in this episode and in the next episode. So as you guys remember, we used a couple of references that we synthesized, and we're going to add them again to the episode description for you guys to check out. So we used Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives by Pia Mellody, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattle, No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover, How to Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera, as well as Ross Rosenberg's videos on codependency. And we would like to start this episode with a quote from Dr. Robert Glover himself, the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy, and he said, “If you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you have always had.” And that's basically an invitation to kind of look at things differently, and see how we can try and attend to our issues in a different light. In light of everything that we have been talking about in the past couple of episodes throughout the season, let us see how we can start to heal from codependency and emotional dependency.

Amina  02:59
Recovery from codependency or emotional dependency is not about going from one extreme to another, because I see a lot of recovering codependents that will go from almost this completely selfless attitude or behavior to a very selfish attitude or behavior. So it's the process of breaking free from ineffective relational patterns, and it doesn't involve becoming not nice or too harsh or distant. It means you want to become more integrated. So, being integrated means being able to accept all aspects of oneself. An integrated man or woman is able to embrace everything about themselves, their power, assertiveness, courage, passion, as well as their imperfections and their mistakes and their dark side, while working on to improve themselves and healing. They'll have a strong sense of self, and they're able to accept themselves as they are, and embrace themselves for everything they are while still working on becoming more genuine and wholesome individuals and overcoming these personal issues. So they don't really strive for perfection or constantly seeking that approval from others, they approve of themselves and appreciate their innate worthiness. So they take responsibility for getting their own needs met, instead of waiting for someone else to meet those needs for them, or trying to always meet somebody else's needs. Women are comfortable with their femininity and then men in turn are comfortable with their masculinity. Both will have integrity, and they do what is right, not always what is convenient at the time, and they're willing to provide for and protect those that they really care about. And they're clear, direct and expressive of their feelings, and they can be nurturing and giving without caretaking or problem solving and wanting something in return. And they know how to set boundaries and are not afraid to work through conflict with others. 

Many of us seek healing from our codependency and attachments when we've had enough or hit rock bottom, that's typically when a codependent will realize that they have to do something about their life, they see the pattern and what has brought them to the point of hitting rock bottom. These things might be that their life is just totally out of control. There's unbearable pain, and they feel defeated and worn out, and they've hit a breaking point. Sometimes, you know, looking at ending a relationship or a friendship with a narcissist or somebody with borderline personality disorder. So there's desperation, there's the fear of the transitioning, so really breaking the silence on what has been going on in their life, deciding to end the abusive relationship that they're in or their friendship. And they're ready to reach out for help from friends or family members, therapists or support groups, and seeking additional resources to help them through the process. 

Waheed  06:31
Right. As you guys remember, and, you know, earlier on when we talked about the origins of codependency, we said that Ross Rosenberg, the therapist and the expert on codependency and narcissism, he gives this paradigm of understanding the “self-love deficit disorder” (SLDD) that he calls it; codependency, in other words, is referred to as SLDD by Rosenberg. And we talked about the self-love deficit pyramid that he spoke about, which is basically that the base or the foundation of it is attachment trauma, and then on top of that comes the core shame, and on top of that, we have pathological loneliness, followed by SLDD addiction, and then SLDD at the top or the apex of the pyramid. 

By the same token, he also puts forward the idea of the self-love abundancy pyramid, which is the polar opposite to SLDD or codependency. The recovery from codependency means that you start to develop healthy self-love, you have self-love abundancy. And just like the self-love deficit pyramid had five basic stages, the same thing goes for the self-love abundancy pyramid. So when we talked about attachment trauma in SLDD, here we have attachment trauma resolution, whereby we work on healing and resolving the attachment trauma wounds, and this is the foundation for self-love, self-care and self-respect. And after we have attended to the original trauma, the attachment trauma, we go on to deal with the core shame, which involves core self-love, as he refers to it in the self-love abundancy pyramid, where we have a more realistic and empowered definition of the self. “I am lovable because I am me”, “I am worthy despite my mistakes”, “I don't have to work at being loved, I am loved”, “I am a human being not a human doing”, and we spoke about this a lot of times, you know, “I'm worthy because God found me worthy, and He created me as a worthy creature from the get go”. So that is kind of like reframing the idea and healing from the core shame, and kind of putting things in perspective of core self-love. And then the third stage is existential peace, which is the polar opposite to pathological loneliness, whereby we are content by being present and being with ourselves, and we have the freedom to live as an imperfect, but worthy and lovable person. And then after that comes what he calls the mutuality and reciprocity in relationships. The security of self-love, self-respect, self-care, that kind of engenders the same in others. And this is the polar opposite to the SLDD addiction, which is stage four in the self-love deficit pyramid. And then finally, we have self-love, which is the apex of the self-love abundancy pyramid, which is the polar opposite to the SLDD in the previous pyramid, which is the codependency or the self-love deficit pyramid. And once we achieve all of that, we get to a point where we have serenity and acceptance about our place in the world. And, basically, just to help you visualize both pyramids, we will add them also in the episode description, just so you can take a look at it, and you can have a reference point for you to understand self-love deficit and self-love abundancy, as Ross Rosenberg describes them. Now, before we talk about healing, let us address one last point which is SLDD addiction. How does it manifest itself as an addiction? 

Amina  10:23
SLDD is a psychological, physiological and neurological addiction. We hit on this a little bit in the last episode. But the foundational core shame and pathological loneliness that codependents experience, it can lead to an obsessive compulsion to numb or distract or disassociate yourself, just so you can ignore those feelings of the shame and the loneliness. And there's a need to self-medicate anything to really numb those feelings. For people it will be different things. And according to Ross Rosenberg limerence, which is just this intense infatuation, that is typically the drug of choice. And most people have experienced something like this - it can be that intense infatuation at the beginning of a relationship, or the beginning of a friendship, where all you want to do is hang out with this person, and you're constantly thinking about what this person is doing. So this limerence that covers up the loneliness and the core shame. The problem with limerence is that it has a short half-life, so Ross Rosenberg says that “soulmate invariably transforms into the cellmate”, so it doesn't last. And the SLDD and pathological narcissist, they're invariably attracted to each other. So that's the “Human Magnet Syndrome” we had talked about in the last episode. 

Waheed  12:08
Absolutely. And so when we talk about addiction, generally, we tend to think of terms like tolerance, withdrawal, kind of like continuing the addiction despite negative consequences, and all of these general characteristics about addiction. And the same characteristics that apply to addiction and numbing behavior also applied to codependency or SLDD. So let's talk about these different characteristics. So the first one is tolerance, and as you guys know, and as we have talked about previously in this podcast, tolerance means needing more of the substance or the activity to achieve the desired effect over time. So this is true of addiction, and it is true of codependency, because with codependency, as time passes, you know, the identity of the person dealing with codependency becomes more and more defined by the relationship with the other person. And they may need to perform more and please more to feel fulfilled, and so they kind of expand on their behavior, it becomes more intense, because they want to achieve the desired result. So there is tolerance when it comes to codependency, if you think about that. 

Amina  13:16
Yeah, definitely. And then the second thing is withdrawal. So when you're not getting the substance or you’re not being around the person, it can result in physical and/or psychological withdrawals. So when we're apart from the people, we're unable to control the other person, and so then the codependent starts feeling extreme anxiety or depression. Being alone, it makes them focus on themselves, and that is terrifying, because most of the time, codependents have focused so much on the other person, that they've never had to focus on themselves and actually work on what's going on with them. They're so busy working on everybody else's problems. So it stirs a lot of anxiety, and then it brings on that fear of being abandoned, the fear of being alone. 

Pathological loneliness is the primary withdrawal symptom and replays their original attachment trauma, and it can almost be very PTSD-like, and the person can be easily triggered. So, people have different withdrawal symptoms, it's going to vary for everybody. This can include even - some people overeat, some people under eat. Some people experience high levels of anxiety, whereas other people just numb out. And you're essentially going through the five stages of grief. The other person doesn't have to necessarily die for you to experience these five levels of grief, you're still going through them. So you're going to experience, you know, anger and depression, and the bartering, where you're thinking about, you know, “What if I had done something differently, would things be different? What if this person can change?” So, typically, a healthy person, you know, if they're in an abusive relationship, they would be able to see this, and they would be able to move on from it quite easily. But because codependents really stick by the person that has hurt them, and they're more drawn to the people that hurt them, it is harder for a codependent to leave the relationship and just move on from it. So, for me, when I left my marriage, I definitely think I went through physical withdrawals and psychological withdrawals. For me, the physical withdrawals, I was definitely overeating, because I can be a very emotional eater, I eat for every emotion, if I'm happy, sad, whatever, doesn't matter. So that's for me, when I was very depressed, I was eating more. And then I felt dizzy for most of the day, I wasn't sleeping at all. So I was still working. And then, I would always be having to leave my work - not leave completely, but I would have to go into the bathroom, because I would just start crying out of nowhere. But I let myself go through all the stages, I didn't try to rush any stage, because I knew that was important, I wasn't just trying to get over the relationship or get over the marriage, just taking that time for myself to actually go through each phase. 

Waheed  16:43
Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that, I'm glad you're doing much better, alhamdulillah. So, we spoke about tolerance and withdrawal. And then, another aspect of codependency/SLDD being an addiction is that we generally spend more time thinking about or engaging in or recovering from our behaviors, right? We're always hypervigilant about other people's behavior, and we obsess about what they are or not doing, we spend a lot of time maybe rescuing the other person or covering up for them, fixing things for them, particularly like if they are dealing with their own issues, we might actually step in and cover up for them, like if they're late or absent from work, or if they're engaging in destructive behaviors, and so on. And we get exhausted taking care of the other person, but we really can't stop, because we rely on the other person to kind of like derive our own sense of self-worth. And, you know, we identify with other person, as we've been talking about before. We tend to go out of our own way to support the other person, and, again, the other person may already have addictions or recovery problems, or they may be dealing with their own traumas and issues. We might go to great lengths to kind of support that person and rescue them, and we might end up doing even wrong or illegal things, just because we want to help out that other person. And so, this is another aspect to kind of take into account. 

Amina  18:06
Yeah, codependents in this stage of a relationship, they'll usually find themselves always trying to paint their partner or their friend in a great light. They're always making excuses for that person just to avert any type of ill thoughts away from what is actually occurring. Anything that will divert people's attention to something else. The codependent will need their partner/friend to be good, because that is how their self-worth is determined. So, if my partner is good, and I can paint them in this great light, then everybody will see that, and then, in turn, I will be okay. So people know that I'm a good person. I think for me, this was a really big one, because I was always making excuses for my wife at the time, and I was always trying to paint her in a great light to my family and my friends. And I lied so much about what was really going on, and I lied so much about her. And I remember I was lying, because I was always thinking, “What are people going to think about me if they know that I'm in this type of relationship?” and “Are they going to think that I'm a weak person, because I can't handle this, and because I got myself into a situation like this?” It was always “What are they going to think about me as a person?” And so, at some point, I just realized that it's not good to lie about this, because what is it actually even doing for me? It's not benefiting me in any way. So, at some point, I remember I made the conscious decision that I'm going to start telling people what is really going on about our fights or whatever, and open up to people. And then, when I started doing that, and just talking through it, that's when I realized, “Oh, something really is bad here!” And what's crazy is that, the biggest fear, the fear that “Oh, what are people going think about me? Are they going to think that I'm weak?” and all this stuff, people actually think the complete opposite, they always think that you're really strong for coming forward, and that you're really strong for even being in a relationship like this and noticing the things that are going wrong. So, typically the things that we fear actually end up being the exact opposite of what we think other people are going to think. 

Waheed  20:24
I couldn't agree more honestly. You said it so beautifully, mashaAllah. Absolutely. And then another aspect is, we tend to forego our interests in order to maintain this particular addiction - in this context, the relationship, because we said that the relationship is the “drug of choice” in the codependents’ lives. And so, having that person in our life makes us feel okay or whole, and the relationship itself takes the place of proper self-love. You know, with codependency we depend on each other for our existence, either one is not going to be whole, on his/her own, we need each other, that's why it's co-dependent. Now, normally, in a normal relationship, each party has to kind of be okay independently; otherwise, it becomes codependent by definition. So, you know, we see ourselves in the other person, we try to help them, and in our mind, subconsciously, what we're doing is we're trying to help ourselves. But, in reality, we're not really helping either them or us, because it's dysfunctional. We put the other person over and above ourselves. And, as a result, we forego and let go of so many things that are happening in our lives: our interests, our hobbies, maybe other relationships, family members, even our careers, and so on and so forth, just to make sure that we are maintaining this relationship, or, in other words, the addiction. 

Amina  21:55
Yeah, and continuing the addiction, the codependent will typically continue the relationship or the addiction, despite the negative consequences associated with that, the emotional part of it, the depression, anxiety, the anger, and then there can be also social negative consequences, like losing friends or being isolated from family members. And then the physical consequences, which I talked about, you know, not sleeping, overeating, under eating, stress-related physical issues, or it can also start affecting their work, poor job performance, but they will continue this addiction despite all those things. Because the codependent is typically so enmeshed at this point, that their whole identity is determined by this other person. So they feel like, if they quit or lose this relationship, that they're going to lose themselves, they're going to lose their whole identity. But, at this point, I always suggest to people, because I always hear people say, “Oh, I don't know who I am, I don't know my life without this person, if this person isn't in my life, I don't know what I will do. I don't know what life will be like.” And I always just tell that person, you know, “Think about your life before this person, before this person came into your life, what was your life like?” Just what were you doing for your job, or where were you, whatever, anything, doesn't matter if it was good or bad, or whatever, that's irrelevant, but what was your life like? And then they will say it and then I'll say, “That's the proof right there, that your life has existed without this person in it, whether it was good or bad is irrelevant, but you can exist without this person, because you've done it before. So you can do it again.” It just might be difficult, but you can do it again. 

Waheed  23:57
Absolutely. Beautifully said. 

24:06
Now that we have spoken about everything that we have touched upon, so far, we now turn to the topic of healing codependency. So, it's very important to get the necessary support that we need. And you guys recall when we talked about complex trauma, we discussed in episode 46, when we talked about healing complex trauma, we mentioned that there is this bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. The same advice applies here, a lot of the themes that we discussed back in episode 46 are very relevant to this discussion. So I would definitely advise you, if you haven't listened to that episode, please do revisit that episode when you have time, because healing the original attachment trauma and then the core shame are necessary to healing our codependency and attachment issues, as well as our emotional dependency. And these are multidisciplinary, so they involve healing the body, the mind, and reconnecting spiritually and having social connections and genuine connections, and all of that has to play together. 

A very important aspect of healing attachment trauma involves finding a good therapist, who has a background in trauma addiction, you know, codependency, as well as maybe family systems, who can work with the person dealing with codependency on their original buried traumas, to try to understand all these traumas, and then kind of tell the story, to heal and reintegrate the trauma and kind of move on and recover from all of that. Now, of course, the process takes work and time, it takes patience, and it does get emotional, but the aim is to kind of process the trauma and end with closure, to kind of like rewrite our own personal narrative and become more empowered to move on, and to learn from what we have been through, and to recover. And, as we embark on the healing and recovery journey, and you know, thinking in terms of the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model that we've spoken about before, and when we have our support system and our safe persons and the therapist, we develop a foundation of resiliency that can help us explore our trauma and break through whatever barriers of repression we have been using just to kind of stifle our traumas.

We need to feel safe to kind of lift those defense mechanisms and drop the masks that we've been putting on for so long, and to kind of access that survival brain memories that we talked about before, you know, the limbic system, the fight-flight-freeze response, where all of these emotional traumatic memories are stored. These memories may include a history of abuse, neglect and deprivation, isolation, loneliness, etc. And it can get very emotional. So having a professional, a safe person, your own support group to kind of navigate that is necessary. Ross Rosenberg himself, he talks about what he calls the “Healing the Trauma Child Technique”, which is part of the inner child work, that kind of processes that attachment trauma, and usually it's done with a therapist, and it basically involves addressing the wounded child at the time of the original trauma. You know, as we said before, our limbic system stores frozen memories of what we experienced in real time actually. And we can actually go back to these memories and relive them in real time. Surprisingly, we can also even talk to our own wounded inner child at that particular moment, at his/her developmental stage. And doing this involves re-experiencing the trauma, reliving that all over again, and it can be very difficult and very triggering. So it's best done under expert supervision with an experienced psychotherapist who is able to help you with that. And then the goal of the “Healing the Trauma Child Technique” is to become more aware of those memories that were long hidden in the mind, so that you can process them and no longer need the defense mechanisms that you kept alive for so long, including, you know, any trauma bonds that we've spoken about before, whatever trauma bonds that we have in our lives that we tend to replicate, any dissociation that we may be engaging with, and so on. We integrate that wounded trauma child with the adult conscious self, we integrate the repressed trauma into the conscious mind, we fuse the past with the present, and then the person is given a full story of their life, so they are empowered to move on. 

A lot of people can access their wounded inner child. As you guys remember, we've spoken about this earlier in the season, when we talked about inner child work and reparenting, and a lot of people can actually do that. And, you know, with all of the techniques that we've spoken about, including like their own support system and therapist, you know, in a particular context, especially if there was intense trauma, abuse going on, doing this kind of work on our own can be very triggering and very emotional. So it's very important to just lay out this caveat right here. Make sure that you consult a therapist or professionals to be able to do this, at least at the beginning, just to make sure that this work doesn't really get too heavy for you, because it is very triggering work. And we will add links to the episode description so that you can check out more details about this and see what works for you, inshaAllah. 

In addition to all of that, it is very important to address any concurrent addictions that we may have, like if anyone has any substance abuse addiction or behavioral addictions, or a person is a workaholic or they have any co-morbid mental health disorders, be that depression, anxiety, ADHD, conduct disorders, mood disorders, psychosis, and so on, that we have the appropriate therapy and support or counseling services, because all of these are important on our healing journey. 

Now that we have discussed all of this, let's now look at what we can do in order to heal individually, as well as being part of a support system, when it comes to reclaiming our own personal power, and becoming better in our relationships. And for men in particular, how to reclaim their proper masculinity. And then for all of us how to rekindle that passion, the purpose in our work, and our lives and to heal from codependency and emotional dependency. 

Amina  30:51
So, to start the recovery from codependency, it's about reclaiming your personal power. So, to do this, you can start by identifying your behavior that you normally conduct to seek the approval from others. So you can look at the intentions behind your actions, and what are the actual driving forces behind what you say or your actions. So this could be like spending extra time doing your hair or your makeup or dressing good - is it really for you, or is it for somebody else to comment on those things about your appearance? Or it could be, you know, a little thing like holding the door open for someone - are you actually doing it for that person, just because you really want to help them, or is it so that they notice that you're a good person? Or you know, cleaning the kitchen - are you cleaning the kitchen for yourself, or is it for a friend or a spouse, so that you can get the affirmation from them? Etc., right? So, you can think about all the little things and the big things that you might do or say just to get noticed or praised - are you really doing them for yourself? So, once you start to look at all the little things in your life, you start to understand just how much energy and time you spend on all of these things, when they could really be spent doing something else, just for you, right? And more importantly, you want to ask yourself, “What does God want from me, and what can I do to please Him?” Because in the end, that's what we all want to do, correct? So it's not all about just what exactly you want, not going to one extreme or the other, but finding that middle ground. 

So then, when you get into the realm of practicing self-care, you know, I find a lot of people don't actually even know where to start with this. So it can seem like you need to do some big grandiose things to care for yourself. But really, you can just start small. And if you don't know where to start, you can always ask friends or family members, especially that have known you before that relationship or friendship with a toxic person has occurred, because most of the time people will know the things that you've liked to do sometimes more than yourself. So they'll say, “Oh, I remember you like to snowboard” or “You like to read” or they'll kind of jog your memory. But it can become a little problematic if those were the same people that you had always done things with that they wanted to do, and you didn't want to do yourself. So you kind of have to find the balance in that. But really, you can just start looking up even activities in your area. And just start doing different things to see what you like. So it could be hiking or getting massages, just trying to do things by yourself or with others that you end up liking. But it also can just be little things like drinking more water or exercising or eating healthier, it doesn't have to be anything crazy. 

Waheed  34:20
Getting enough sleep, for example, you know, just relaxing, maybe even goofing off with others, and just having a good time, maybe buying something nice for yourself or listening to good music. You know, whatever makes you happy and take care of yourself, right? 

Amina  34:36
Yeah. And I think that, for some people, this self-care, it might lead to them feeling frightened or anxious, or guilty or confused, but you're doing something that implies that you're valuable, you're doing something that’s purely for yourself, and that's why it can feel really weird and it can feel selfish, but at some degree, you have to be a little bit selfish, you can't be completely selfless all the time. So, in this time of self-care, the core messages from childhood are being replaced with new and more accurate beliefs that actually reflect your inherent worth. So I think this is the hardest thing to do. And for me, I just started really small, I just started eating the things that I like to eat, maybe I went a little overboard and over ate too many of them. But because I realized that, for me, I'd always eaten things that my partner had liked to eat. So it was just kind of that's where I started, it was very small, and something like that. And then I decided to stay in the career that I was in, because at one point, I was getting ready to leave it, because she wanted me to leave it. And I realized that is not what I wanted to do at all. And I was just willing to sacrifice like that. So, yeah, it is definitely a journey, because if somebody had asked me back then who I was as a person, if they had just asked me, “Who are you, and what are the things you like?” I would have no idea what to tell them. But then, after I started that recovery process, if somebody were to ask me now, you know, who am I and what are the things that I like to do? I could give them a long list of the type of personality characteristics I exhibit, and then, you know, what are the things that I like to do and such, but it took a while to get there. 

Waheed  36:33
For sure. Yeah. So other than kind of like identifying your approval-seeking behaviors and then practicing self-care, another piece of advice would be to give yourself positive affirmations. When we allow ourselves to have those affirmations on a continuous basis, they start to replace all of these old and inaccurate messages about our worth, and then they allow for more realistic and new messages to come in their place. If we just use affirmations on their own, they're usually short lived, because these messages are kind of like the polar opposite to a lot of the deep beliefs that we have about ourselves. The affirmations are only effective when they are used along with other processes that help us change our core beliefs. So whether that is having positive friendships or engaging in therapy or reading self-help books, and doing all of these things that can help you, in addition to having these affirmations. Examples of this, and we've been talking about this throughout the podcast, as you guys remember, just repeating to yourself and saying to yourself, “I am lovable just as I am”, right? “I am perfectly imperfect”, “My needs are important”, that is important. “I am a strong and powerful person”, right? “I can handle it”, “People love me and accept me just as I am”, you know, “I am a human being rather than a human doing”, “I don't need to do things to earn people's love or to feel worthy”, “It is okay to be human and to make mistakes”, “I am worthy and loved”, “I am enough because I exist”, “I am worthy because Allah created me worthy”, “I am worthy of love and belonging.” And sometimes even having your safe person or support group or even therapist record these affirmations for you, so that you can listen to them, it really makes a big difference. And sometimes maybe like listening to them on meditation playlists, there are a lot of affirmations out there that you can make use of. So this would be definitely another big point to take into account. 

Amina  38:53
Yeah, and then the next step would be to spend time alone, which can be one of the scariest things for a codependent to do, since they're so used to being around other people and helping others. But it can also be one of the most rewarding things, because during that alone time, they can really discover who they are and what they like about themselves, and they can choose what rules to govern their lives with. You could take trips and retreats by yourself to places that you haven't gone before. And when you're alone, there's really less chance of seeking others’ approval, right? Sometimes you have to force yourself to learn how to not seek others’ approval, and you have to do this in a way of just forcing yourself to be alone to be away from everybody, because that's when you really start to think about everything that you do when you're alone, there's nobody else there to validate or invalidate you. And so you just start going through a lot of the thought processes surrounding this. So, you're kind of forcing yourself to get away from seeking approval. 

Also, when you're alone, obviously, you're going to be less likely to care take for others, because they're just not there, or to fix anyone else's problems. But I think you learn when you're alone, that it's not life threatening, you're not going to die just from being alone. And because codependents fear so much of being alone, they almost think, “Oh, man, it's like, it's gonna feel like I'm dying, and it's just so scary!” But you realize that you won't, you know, you spend the night alone or a couple of weeks, and you come out of it from the other side a better person, because you've done so much self-reflection. And a great way to self-reflect is to keep a journal during these times, and write things down. And I know keeping a journal can be really tiresome, but for me, I am not a good journaler, so I would make myself in the mornings, I would just take one minute, 60 seconds, I would literally set a timer, and I would just write a stream of consciousness, I would just write it, I don't even care if there's mistakes, errors, whatever, just write whatever is on my mind, it doesn't have to be anything specific. And you'll see that a minute will actually go by really fast. So then you can increase it to two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it is, and then you're just getting all your thoughts out on paper, so that you can read it or not. But when normally when you go back and read it, you can start to see, “Oh, this is what I'm thinking”, and “Oh, look at this, there's a pattern in this thinking”, and so on and so forth. So you just have a little bit more of control of your thoughts and what to do with those. 

Waheed  42:09
Absolutely. Yeah. And then, other than doing all of that, you know, remember that, ever since season one, we've been repeating this over and over, the idea of vulnerability being the antidote to shame. You know, it's very important to practice vulnerability with our safe people, right? It is frightening initially, but having those safe people in our lives is essential, in order to learn to approve of ourselves. Safe people, you know, be they friends or family members, trustworthy people who have earned the right and privilege to hear our story, these are essential people to help us reverse all of the distorted beliefs that we have about our own self-worth. This process takes time to build the trust with those people, and we have spoken a lot about this throughout the podcast, as you guys remember. And we've spoken about how to gradually open up, how to seek mentors and friends who are supportive on the healing journey, you know, I refer you back to episode 27, as well as episode 46. Practicing vulnerability is very important, because that's how we start to drop those masks, lower our guards, and be loved and seen for who we truly are. And that is where we start to develop our self-worth and feel genuinely that we are enough, that we are worthy, and we are lovable. And we start to heal a lot of these wounds that we have. 

Amina  43:36
Yeah, and you want to become sort of selfish, which a lot of people have this negative connotation of the word “selfish”. But really, I don't think we should have given it such a negative connotation. Obviously, selfishness is going to be on a spectrum. So, you can have the grandiose, very vain, very selfish types, though I'm not saying to go to that extreme. But I'm saying that you do have to be a little bit selfish in a way, you really have to start giving yourself what you need and want, which we keep hitting on, because it's the most important thing. You've always learned to sacrifice yourself in order to survive, because most codependents have believed that if they sacrifice themselves and they giving up themselves and put others first, then they will in turn be loved and get their needs met, right? But it doesn't work like that. So you have to make your needs a priority. And you're not going to be disliked or unloved, and you're not going to be alone in this. And it actually helps others too, because it decreases the likelihood of you blowing up on them, because codependents typically, they will keep doing things for others, and then, at some point, they're just going to blow the lid off the top, they're going to freak out on the other person, or they become passive-aggressive or make insensitive comments. And then the other person is always left thinking, “I don't even understand what just happened! I don't even understand where this is coming from!” So it actually helps other people too, in a sense, which decreases the likelihood of that happening. They don't have to continuously try to read your mind and play these guessing games and be under your manipulation and control. 

Waheed  45:31
Right, absolutely. As a result of all of that, decisions are now made by the individual him/herself, rather than like by the group, because we used to follow the group, as codependents. But now, I am making my own decisions. I no longer have to mind read or predict or try to please so many people who have conflicting agendas, and try to tag along just to make everyone happy. When I put myself first, when I'm making these decisions, all the information that I need in order to make a particular decision, I find them within, in a sense of, “Okay, is this what I really want? If yes, then, okay, that's what I will do”, as opposed to being secondary, let other people make the decisions. So we can truly come to believe that our needs are important, and there are people out there who are happy and willing to help us meet them. Again, it doesn't have to be an individual endeavor. 

In addition to all of that, it is very important to face the hard facts, right? Life is not smooth, human existence is by nature chaotic, life is going to be filled with experiences that are very unpredictable and beyond our control. So, trying to create this predictable life where everything always goes as planned is not going to work, right? It's futile. The belief that life should be smooth is the direct result of a lot of our abandonment experiences, because we wanted it to be smooth, or because we abhorred all of the chaos, so we tried to create this reality, where we avoid uncertainty at all costs, whether it's the unpredictability of not having our needs met in a timely manner, it was very frightening, but it was also life threatening. And so, in order to cope with the uncertainty of all of this chaos, as kids, we develop that belief system that, “If only we could do just everything right and please everyone, then everything is going to go right in our lives.” 

Sometimes even people have developed this belief that their childhood was ideal, it was problem-free, and that was in stark contradiction to the reality that they experienced, because they wanted to cope with their abandonment experiences. Because if they admit that it was chaotic, then it just sends them on a downward spiral, so to speak. So, regardless, all of these are kind of distorted beliefs, but all of these illusions kind of helped us as little boys or girls deal with a lot of the turmoil that was out of our control. And, as we said before, sometimes we're guilty as adults of kind of approaching a lot of the problems that we have as adults, with the mindset of kids, with all of the survival mechanisms and coping strategies that we developed when we were powerless, as children. And when we depend on these mechanisms, it just keeps us trapped in that memory of that fearful childhood experience, and it becomes a very vicious cycle, because the more frightened that we are, the more we are going to use the survival mechanisms that we develop as kids - remember, you know, the survival brain kicks in, and we go into that fight-flight-freeze response. And, as a result, we are going to be less successful in dealing with life's ups and downs and the challenges and ambiguities that life has. Therefore, we're going to become less successful at that, and then more fearful of life, and so on and so forth. So it becomes a vicious cycle that continues on and on. So, sometimes we just have to face these hard facts, that “Okay, life is full of unpredictability, uncertainty, it's going to be difficult, it's going to be challenging, but inshaAllah I'll be able to make it, Allah will help me, Allah will give me strength. I have my friends, my support system, I'm doing what it takes, and Allah will take care of the rest.” We're not saying that this is easy, but with practice, conviction and surrender, it can happen, and it is necessary at the end of the day, right? 

Amina  49:46
Yeah, definitely. And we can learn how to recover from codependency by starting to set boundaries. And learning to set boundaries allows codependents to stop feeling like they're just helpless victims, and allows them to reclaim their personal power. I personally think boundary setting is one of the most fundamental skills to learn on this path of healing and recovery, and it's also one of the hardest things to learn - we will definitely talk about boundaries in a full episode because it's so important. But just to kind of start a little bit and touch on it, it's really about learning how to say “no”. And for most codependents, they have never said “no” to the people around them. But it does get easier and easier. And to start doing this, I would just, as soon as someone asks you to do something, or go somewhere with them, or a job asks you to do something, whatever it is, just take a second and just think about it and think, “Do I really want to do this? Why am I going to do this? Why am I going to say ‘yes’?” and that is when you can start setting a boundary. It can be a very simple thing, somebody's asking you to go out for coffee or dinner with them. And you can also make a list of people that you always say “yes” to, and think about, you know, “Do I even like hanging out with these people?” or “Why am I saying ‘yes’ to this person?” “Do I feel like I need something from them?” Just whatever it is. So, obviously, I'm not saying, you know, don't go to one extreme or the other, don't become an ultimate recluse and start isolating yourself and just saying “no” to everybody and to every invitation. But I'm also saying don't say “yes” to every single invitation, unless that is actually what you really want to do. So, that's a good place to start setting boundaries.  

Waheed  51:55
Absolutely, yep. It follows that it is very important to actually express your feelings, and we've talked about this, as children, we may have had this experience of feeling things very intensely, and we were either met with negative attention, or even no attention at all, we felt invisible, right? So, it came to feel safer to repress our emotions, and particularly any emotions that might attract too much negative attention, or they might cause us to feel abandoned, right? Because it just became part of our narrative to say or think that, “If I express my feelings or emotions, then I will hurt people”, or “I'm not going to be even met with any kind of attention that I need.” What we are really saying is that we don't want to do anything that might recreate our childhood experiences, as a result. We're not really trying to protect anyone from harm, we're just trying to keep our world smooth and under control. But it's very important to notice that our feelings are just feelings, they won't kill us, they won't kill anyone else. Regardless, whether we're anxious or helpless, or shameful, or lonely or enraged or sad. You know, our feelings are not life-threatening. 

Men and women who are in touch with their feelings and who embrace their emotions are powerful, they're assertive, and they are energized, contrary to what a lot of us believe, particularly men, like you don't have to become more like women in order to experience and express your feelings. And this is something that a lot of men fear. No, when we experience our emotions, we sit with them, we honor our emotions, we acknowledge them. And this is very necessary, and we allow them to be expressed in healthy ways. Because, otherwise, what's the ultimate result? If we don't do that, what are we going to do? We're going to repress and ignore our feelings, and we know what that leads to, right? So it's very important to express our feelings. And there's no really right formula or right way to get reconnected with our repressed feelings, but, you know, our mentors and counselors and support groups can actually teach us and support us in the process, and then can model how to actually do that. It is a very important process. 

And, you know, as a result, this support system can actually become like family, and it is a family, right? We can ask for the kind of help to help us deal with particular feelings that, you know, this kind of help was never available to us as children. And if we are part of a group, we can be allowed to feel like we are out of control for a moment, and just allow our feelings to be expressed, because that is a safe environment that nurtures us, accepts us and allows us to grow and allows us to navigate that territory of maybe “messy feelings”. And, sometimes, if we feel that they're like intense emotions, we will eventually discover that, if we express those emotions, we really won't fall and drown if we “rock the boat”, so to speak. And it also goes both ways, because if another person has a particular emotion that is “inconvenient”, I'm not going to shrivel up and die, if they have that feeling. Because, you know, it goes both ways, we'd sometimes run away from people when they start expressing emotions. We have to sit with those emotions, whether they're coming from us or from other people and kind of learn how to embrace each other at our own pace. 

Just in general, a couple of guidelines about expressing feelings, particularly when you want to express feelings towards other people, like let's say, someone hurt you, or you are angry at someone else, or you just want to kind of like communicate your feelings to someone else, don't focus on the other person and say, like, “You are making me mad, you hurt me, you did so and so”, instead, take responsibility for what you are feeling, and instead use the first person pronoun “I”. So “I am feeling angry”, “I am feeling hurt”, and so on. So instead of “you”, use “I”. And then, don't use feeling words to describe what you are thinking, as in, you know, “I feel like so and so was trying to take advantage of me”, you are putting an interpretation in the form of a feeling. “I feel like you said this, because you wanted so and so.” No, instead, pay attention to what you are experiencing in your body, listen to your emotions, and say, “I am feeling helpless”, “I am feeling frightened”, “I am experiencing anger”. In general, you know, phrase that from your own perspective, and then try to begin feeling those feeling statements using “I” rather than “you”. “You are feeling helpless” or “You look frightened”. Don't do that. Speak from a first person perspective. And then try to avoid saying something like, “I feel like, you know, you are being mean to me”, “I feel like you don't respect me”. Don’t. Speak from your own experience, it makes it more legitimate, and you are in control of that. So those are just a couple of things to get us started, and just to kind of like be foundational when we express our feelings. 

Amina  57:21
I feel like you are the most amazing person ever. 

Waheed  57:24
Girl, I feel that you are extraordinary.

Amina  57:28
Same. #metoo. So then, another way to reclaim your personal power is to deal with your fears. So, for many codependents fear is really recorded at a cellular level. 

Waheed  57:53
Say that 10 times in a row!

Amina  58:01
Oh, Gosh! It's a memory of every seemingly life learning experience that the person has ever had from childhood, all the way through adulthood. And so, it can be a real or perceived threat. So sometimes the threats are actually real, like physical abuse from somebody, a family member or friend or whatever, or it can be just a perceived threat that you're thinking that, you know, your life is in danger in some way, but it actually isn't. But the point is, the child experiences this, and for them, it's very real. It's life-threatening to them, and that is their reality, whether it's perceived or not. And during this time, it was born from absolute dependency on parents and helplessness, so the child can't help themselves. So they actually rely on other people, like family, to help them. 

Fear originated from not having their needs met in a timely or judicious manner, and it was heightened by the reality that life is very messy and chaotic. And any kind of change promises a journey into the unknown. So because of this memory that was created in childhood, codependents still approach the world as if it is extremely dangerous and overpowering. It is actually truly amazing that when we really start to do this work, how much of our life is determined by these very small or big things that have happened in our childhood, but it's like something will happen when we're a child, you know, whatever the incident is, and then, as a child, we have a thought about what is happening, and then we literally take that thought, and we bring it into the present as adults, and we basically live our whole lives from some thought that we had when we were a child, whether it's “Oh, this is unsafe, this person's unsafe”, or “This event’s unsafe”, and then we've determined our whole adulthood, just based off of some childhood event. 

Typically, we're very afraid in those situations. So it's like, as adults, we are basically living as just a scared five-year-old or six-year-old, and we're just dragging these events into our present life. And it's truly amazing what these small events will do. But we don't have to live like that anymore. You know, we don't have to be that scared five-year-old or six-year-old now as an adult, we can get rid of that childhood trauma. So, to cope with these realities, to cope with these events that have happened, we play things safe, and we stay within our comfort zone, right? So the whole idea is that we don't want to be put in unsafe situations anymore. So we stick to what we're familiar with, and we're trying to control our lives in a sense where nothing will endanger us. So, we get this idea of “No matter what happens, I will handle it, I can handle it.” And it's very true, right? Because Allah does not charge a soul except with that within its capacity, that's from Surat Al Baqarah, verse 286, which I'm not going to say in Arabic, because your girl is a convert and doesn't know Arabic, and I will butcher it! 

Waheed  1:01:47
Okay! All right, well, we will just keep it in English at this point! 

Amina  1:01:53
Basically, it translates into, you know, Allah is not going to give you something that you're not able to handle. And I know every one of us can relate to that, with SSA or not, it really doesn't matter. We've all been tested in our lives, and it almost always feels like, at the point when you're at a breaking point, and you feel like, “I cannot deal with this anymore. I can't, I just feel like that this is it.” It seems like at that very moment, something gets better, it's almost like Allah gives you a break and says, “Okay, you know, I've tested you enough for now.” And I find that in periods with my SSA, you know, I'll get to the point where I felt like just too tempted or whatever it is, and it’s almost at that point, all of a sudden, my SSA goes away for a while, and I'm just not tempted anymore. And it's like Allah knows that, you know, you have reached your limit. 

Waheed  1:02:56
Beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. 

Amina  1:02:59
But yeah, so then kind of getting back to dealing with the fears, so if you fear something, just go out there and do it, you know, face your fears. So if you fear being alone, then be alone. If you fear you won't be liked or loved by people if you say “no” to them, you know, you feel like “Oh, they're going to hate me”, then say “no” to them one weekend, say “No, I'm not going to hang out this weekend, but what about next weekend?” and see if they still like you or love you the next weekend, because I'm almost certain that 99% of the time they will. 

Waheed  1:03:34
They will. And, as you guys remember, we've spoken previously about dishonesty and manipulation and the covert contracts that a lot of codependents engage with, you know, just saying like, “I didn't lie, but I just didn't tell everything!” or “It was like a white lie” or lying by omission, etc. But, you know, if you want to heal, we have to let go of all of that. We need to develop integrity. I mean, it's part and parcel of our worship and of our Deen, like being honest and sincere and truthful, right? We have to learn and force ourselves to speak the truth, and to avoid any covert lies, or all of these lies of omission. That is part of the past, no more. We have to pay attention to the things that we least want others to know, the least that we want to reveal to people, not because we want to hide our sins, but rather because there are things about us that are tied to our core shame that we need to get rid of. These are the things that, you know, the least things that we want others to know about us are the things that are most likely to hold us back. And these are the things that we most need to tell, particularly our safe persons or our support group. Sometimes, we have to practice telling a certain truth several times until all of the pieces of information get told, especially if we have this habit of kind of like omitting things or not telling the whole truth. It takes practice, but we can get there.  

Integrity is a very important part, it's an essential part of recovery from codependency. And it involves deciding what is the right thing to do, and then doing it. We don't make decisions and act based on what everyone else would think is right. You know, because all of this leads to confusion and fear and powerlessness and dishonesty and this whole idea of “groupthink” and being like one of the sheep in the herd and so on. We need to ask ourselves what we believe is right, based on our own value system, our Deen, what Allah wants from us, and then doing it. When we do that, we become men and women of integrity. So a practical point: Choose one area in which you have been out of integrity, that you feel that you have been out of integrity, and then identify your fear that keeps you from telling the truth or doing the right thing. And then, talk about this with your safe person or your mentor, or your therapist or counselor or support system, and then go and tell the truth, or do what you have to do to make the situation right, and tell yourself that you can handle it, seek help from Allah subhanahu wa taala, and do it. And we promise you, it will make a huge difference, inshaAllah. 

Amina  1:06:26
Yeah, definitely, integrity is really important. So, the last aspect is to surrender, which is one of the most important aspects of healing and recovery. Surrendering doesn't mean to just give up, it means to let go of what you can't change, and then change what you can. And so, it doesn't mean to just not care or to not try anymore, it really means to just let things be, to kind of go with the flow. And it's like opening up a tightly-clenched fist, and then releasing all the tension stored inside. And when you do that, at first, the fingers want to return back to their former clenched position, if you try it, and then your hand almost has to be retrained to open up and relax. And that's what letting go is like, that's what surrendering is like. And it allows for recovering codependents to just let go and respond to life's inherent innate beauty, rather than trying to control everything about life. And surrendering will allow the codependents to see life as a place of learning and for growth and creativity, instead of constantly asking, “Why are these things happening to me?” codependents will start to respond to life's challenges by really pondering, “What do I need to learn from this situation?” And I remember, you know, during my divorce and such, I got to a point where I just said, you know, “This is it, I've done everything that I can, and I feel like I'm giving this up now, I'm letting Allah - whatever is going to happen is Allah’s decree.” And I let that go, you know, I'm not going to try and control the situation anymore and the outcome, and just letting myself go through the phases, and trusting in Allah that whatever He has decreed for me, that's how it's supposed to be. 

Waheed  1:08:53
So basically, so far, we've been talking about all of the things that we can do personally in order to heal from codependency. And we would like to end this episode with a beautiful quote from Ross Rosenberg when he talked about the importance of sadness, and he says the following, and I'm quoting, “Listen courageously and carefully to the sounds of your wounded heart. Focus on the echoes and whispers of everything that once failed you. Don't squelch what needs to be heard, but listen gently, but carefully. The inner sounds of your long forgotten trauma child will not destroy you, but you will think it will. Even with the pain, don't run. Dig into it. Lay in it and meditate on it. It will only hurt for a time, you will persevere. Before you know it. You will recognize that your sadness was never you. It deceived you. It was always the emotional backdrop of your life, not your life. Unlock the narcissist’s dungeon and bring yourself out into the light…” - and by “narcissists” here, he is referring to the other person maybe a codependent was in touch with, in a relationship with, and then he continues, “…Breathe in hope and exhale possibility, as self-love is just around the corner.” And, inshaAllah, in the next episode we will continue our talk on healing codependency and emotional dependency. 

Amina  1:10:22
Holla! 

Waheed  1:10:24
All right, so, until next time, stay safe and healthy. This has been Amina and Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh.

Episode Introduction
From Self-Love Deficit to Self-Love Abundancy
On the Addiction Aspects of Codependency/SLDD
On Healing Attachment Trauma
On Reclaiming Your Personal Power
Ending Remarks