Codependent.
This is a word that can come loaded with emotion, responsibility, shame, guilt, self-doubt, people-pleasing, and fear of going against the way your protective survival skills have trained you to go about life.
Well, this week, a variation on this theme kept coming up in my sphere of observation. From counseling and coaching meetings to a trip to the convenience store, one theme seems to be showing up repeatedly. as.."someone bothered me by their thoughts/words, and I find myself emotionally spinning as a result of it."
Over and over again, I was observing situations in which "Person B" had thoughts or opinions that were made known to "Person A" in a way that "Person A" didn't appreciate but was trying to work through. "Person B" in each case had expressed themselves in a way that "Person A" was feeling "put upon" by the disclosure(s) of "Person B," and "Person A" felt the pain and pressure of trying to sort through the various nuances of that information "Person B" attempted to share.
If that last paragraph sounds convoluted and confusing to you in any way, image how confusing it can feel when you are "Person A!" You're minding your own business, trying to live your life well, and "Person B" drops a verbal "bomb" of some sort....perhaps, an insult, a blaming statement, a shaming statement, an expectation, or an observation that you didn't ask for, didn't want, and didn't deserve right at your proverbial feet.
Those kinds of situations bring up all kinds of "feels" right? There's the confusion, the frustration, the hurt, the anger, the trying to understand and meet someone else's needs, the digging in of heels when we feel pushed against our will or resentful of the intrusion we didn't ask for because somebody else just had to express themselves "at our expense" in some way, and overall, the dysregulation in our nervous systems when we feel the load of what "Person B" expressed.
The key to handling these types of situations is to recognize what "belongs to you" and what "belongs to the other" person.
It gets convoluted and confusing, when we can't identify where we end and they begin, just as they couldn't identify where they end and we begin.
It's easier said than done, though, because these kinds of things can send our nervous systems into fight, flight, freeze shutdown, or fawning. So, how can we become more clear on what does and does not belong to "us?"
6 Questions You Can Ask to Leave "Person B's" stuff with them.
1) Ask yourself, "What am I observing?"
2) "Is this mine or theirs?"
3) "Do I need to respond/take action, or is it their issue/responsibility?"
4) "Am I trying to be the rescuer, when they need to be the one who makes their choices and experiences the consequences of those decisions they've made?'
5) "What am I going to do with what I have observed or experienced?
6) How can I make a healthy choice that pleases God out of truth and not obligation, people pleasing, or fear?"
On a related note, finding one's way after belonging to a religious cult is an experience that leaves a lot of confusion and conflicting thoughts and emotions to sort through, too, as the cult's destructive messaging and beliefs can be left at the unsuspecting doorstep of its followers. Don't forget to check out this week's podcast episode, Part 2, of my interview with Liza Lovett, from the Warrior's Community Podcast, where she shares more about her journey to healing from toxic abuse.
If you would like help walking through the difficulties of life and mindset issues, the Mental Health Membership Community is NOW OPEN. You can learn more about what's included,and join by clicking this link.
Have you ever wondered if you need therapy? So many people come across my path in the course of what I do with counseling, coaching, and podcasting, and they say similar things. They say, I thought about it, but I'm not quite sure I'm ready to go or I just don't know who to reach out to. I'm kind of afraid.
In fact, that came up in the membership community today when we had our live meetup this afternoon where the person in the membership was basically saying that they'd tried it in the past and it didn't go so well. And you know what? That is such a common thing that I've heard. In fact, I've done other podcasts on this topic, but I thought it was time to revisit it because I haven't revisited it in, in a while. So, if you're wondering if therapy can benefit you, I'm going to give you my top five reasons that you may want to consider it. I do not think that everybody needs to be in therapy, but I don't think it can hurt.
Finding a Good Therapist!
If you find a really good therapist, there's always something more that we can process. To have an empathic listener is really a good thing to make you feel very good inside, to finally be heard, to get those things out of your head and to be able to process them and then get some tools and things that might help you. I think that if you are willing to test out a few people, see who you're comfortable with, if you need to try more than one because you're not comfortable, or two or three, and find somebody that you are comfortable with that makes all the difference in the world. So, find somebody you feel you could come to trust; you don't have to trust them straight off, but if you could come to trust them or feel that they're competent in the field, that could be a really good start. You know, it said that the average time it takes between symptoms and seeking help is twelve years. That is way too long to hurt. That's all I've got to say. That is way too long to hurt.
5 Reasons Indicating It's Time to Go to Therapy
- How long have you been suffering with the same problem? One of my reasons that may indicate it's time to go to therapy is to think about how long you've been suffering with this same problem in one form or another. If this, whatever it is, fill in the blank, keeps coming up over and over again over months, or especially if it's coming up over and over again over years, it may be time to seek out therapy. The reason being, we have wounds. We live in a fallen world. It is not a flaw of you to have wounds. There are battle scars. You know, we are in the world, but not of it. And we can sometimes have the scars of living here, but actually, they're not always scars. Sometimes we think they're scars, we think we're past it, and then something triggers us and opens that wound back up and we realize, oh, wow, it was like just kind of scabbed over, and I wanted it to be a scar already, but it's still tender and it's still bloody. Sorry for being gross, but that's really what it is. It's like this has not been fully healed, and maybe a little bit of it has, but there's stuff underneath that still needs to be cleaned out so that it can be neatly folded away into one of those beautiful file folders in your brain, so to speak. Because your brain wants to make sense of things, it wants to resolve things, it wants to help you, but trauma overwhelms our nervous system, and that's why it can go on for years. Even though you can function in so many ways, there might be this tender spot that still hurts so badly. Basically, I think that if you've been hurting more than you've been feeling peace in your own skin, or you've been suffering more than you felt grounded, and in the present moment, therapy could be a really good help for that. It can release a lot of tension and allow you to process things that really need to be put to rest.
- Are you already thinking about therapy? The next reason that might indicate you want therapy is that you're thinking about it. Why I say that is because you wouldn't be thinking about it if everything were okay, right? If everything were just fine, would you really be thinking about, do I need therapy? It's just not something we think of when we start to ask ourselves that. If you're asking yourself, do I need therapy, there's a pretty good chance your system's trying to clue you into something.
- Are you spilling onto other people? A reason you might want to seek out therapy is that you're spilling onto other people. You yell at your kids, you can't control your emotions, you're having difficulty sleeping, you're having difficulty in your relationships, or you're going through a rough transition. If there's stuff that is causing you to more or less just lose it on the people around you, to kind of just blow your volcano, blow your stag, or break out in tears for no apparent reason or out of proportion to what is going on, or that the typical person might be doing that might be an indicator that therapy would be good for you.
- Has someone told you that you need therapy? When someone else says, hey, you might want to look into this, it might be good for you, they're probably picking up on some stuff that either you are ignoring, you're brushing aside, or they are aware of that you're not, or maybe you are, and you don't want them saying that. Now, if there's somebody who always turns things back on you and tries to make it your fault, and you're like, no, this is not something I need, it's them who needs it. You know, they are not the healthy person they like to pretend they are, and this is their stuff, not mine, then that's fine. But if they are somebody you trust, somebody you care about, somebody who knows you and cares about you, there's a really good shot that it might be time to consider therapy.
- Do you have someone who offers you unconditional positive regard? Therapists are trained to give unconditional positive regard. How often do we have that in life? So that's a good enough reason to go, too. When you have unconditional positive regard from somebody who the agenda is all about you and everything going well for you instead of for them, where you don't owe them anything, but possibly your insurance, insurance payment or your copay. It's a good deal because you get to process with somebody who is not in the same dynamics. So, they can see the crazy making that you might be experiencing from other people. They can see where maybe you need some healing or some tools that could help you with that, or some techniques for how to manage some stressful things. They know how to help you through that. And if you're too afraid to tell them your stuff, that's okay. If you tell them you're afraid to tell them your stuff, they'll work with you to help you feel safer, and then they'll work with you to decide which is the safest thing to address first. Maybe you just address a little bit of it, and then you see that they were trustworthy, and you realize you can tolerate it and you build up from there.
There are many ways to go about therapy, so I don't want you to get hung up on the fact that you don't know what to expect, or you're afraid of finding the wrong person, and that you know somehow it means something is wrong with you. Do you know that it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you. It's simply means that you live in a world that is fallen. We get wounded in this world.
We are warriors. We are in battle all the time, and sometimes we get to rest, and sometimes we heal, and sometimes we're kind of reprieved from the battlefield, and that's great. A lot of the time, we need to have some support, and if you're not getting that ability to process with somebody who can make it all about your needs and stay attuned to you and help you through it, and not make you feel stupid for it, not make you feel bad for it, in fact, help you understand things even better. That is a really good thing to have.
My Personal Experience of Finding a Good Therapist!
As I mentioned, this came up in our membership community, and we were talking about it. I'm going to tell you that I went to, oh gosh, four or five therapists before I found the one for me. I'm going to give you the example of two who were definite not-going-back-there-people. One of them came out 20 or 25 minutes late to get me from the waiting room at our first appointment. Her hair was long and wild, sticking out like she hadn't brushed it. She looked like she rolled out of bed. We got into the office, and she sat down and pulled out a bowl and a spoon and a cereal box, and she started chowing down saying, oh, you don't mind if I eat, my blood sugar is low? I was like, okay, that seems a bit odd, but whatever. So that was like kind of two strikes against her. Then the third one was, she asked me a question and I answered her, and she kind of argued with me on it, like, told me her viewpoint. That's not supposed to be the thing that happens. It'd be different if it were a therapeutic challenge in a respectful way, but she was disagreeing with something that she asked me my opinion on, so I didn't go back. Well, I did one more time; I think I went a total of three times. The third time was to tell her, hey, not okay with me, but that just wasn't the right one.
I went to another one that I was hoping to get EMDR, which is the therapy I now practice; however, he was not, not, not for me. This was a man who had a really smelly dog who would jump up on the couch next to me. Now, I am a dog lover, and I have two of my own. I have a puppy, Corduroy, who is a mini Goldendoodle. I also have Brooklyn who is almost six-years old, and she is a Morky, and I love my doggies. If you've been listening for a while, you know, we had to put down our sweet Abby last year in the fall and so we're still missing her a lot. But I am a dog lover. But this dog in this therapy room was stinky. This dog did not seem like it had had a bath in a really, really long time. And the man didn't even ask if I minded or if I was allergic or anything. He just let his stinky dog come right up to me. I didn't stay with him long. Also, in his waiting room, he had a white noise machine that could rival a rock concert. I mean, it was the loudest white noise wave machine ever.
You need to feel comfortable in the environment. You need to feel comfortable with the person. You need to feel comfortable with their treatment modality, what they're going to do, and what perspective they're coming from. One of the best ways to find a good therapist is to ask. Around 23% of Americans have been to therapy, so you have a pretty good shot. That's about one in four people, practically, that you could maybe get a referral from.
Therapy Modalities
As I mentioned EMDR above, it is a really good and helpful for trauma recovery, and so if you are dealing with trauma, that is a really good way to get your needs tended to. Trauma, somatic experiencing, internal family systems, developmental needs meeting, trauma informed therapy, Trauma informed narrative therapy, parts work, ego state work somatic experiencing. Any of those modalities are really good. Sensorimotor, any of those are really good for trauma therapy. So, if somebody is trained in one of those, that's probably a good indicator that they understand the deep wounds of trauma, how it's not just our thoughts, but it's also in our bodies and how to process it and help both to go together. That's just an aside that also came up in the membership community today as I was giving more of my story and the experience of what to look for if you do decide to go for counseling.
So, if you notice that things are bothering you, you can't put them aside. You wonder if you need something, people are telling you that it might be a good idea, and you could really just use someone who's objective to hear you and support you. Those are good reasons to go to therapy and keep trying until you find a good fit. You're worth it!
