How to Overcome Codependency: A Concise Guide

Codependency is the feeling that  you can’t live without your current relationship, or that you can’t get by on your own. At best, this need to hang on to a relationship threatens your independence. At worst, it threatens your very safety, particularly if you stay in an abusive or controlling relationship because of  abandonment issues.

When you are codependent you give your power away to the object of your codependency,” says Hale Dwoskin, CEO and director of training at Sedona Training Associates. “This robs you of your aliveness and ability to make clear decisions. It also makes your happiness and self-respect dependent on another person.”

While needing others is a normal part of life, people with codependent personalities need to be needed. They may smother their partner with care, try to control their behavior, and avoid their own feelings entirely.

Codependency often develops because a person was unable to reach the normal developmental stage of independence. Instead, perhaps due to family problems during childhood, the death of a parent, divorce, or another traumatic event, the person learned to cope with life by hanging on to those around them, for fear that they will be left behind and unable to make it on their own.

People with codependent personalities may:

• Downplay their own feelings so much they may not even know how they feel



• Have trouble making decisions



• Feel unlovable



• Put their own interests and hobbies aside to please others



• Be excessively loyal (even staying in abusive relationships)



• Not ask others to meet their needs

There are many disadvantages to having a codependent personality, to living your life wanting to be controlled by how others think, feel and act,” says Dwoskin. “When you live your life from a ‘reaction’ frame of mind, you feel and act as though you are a victim -- and that is how life treats you.”

If you suspect that you have a codependent personality, but would like to overcome it, you can break free of your self-doubt and fears of abandonment by learning the scientifically proven Sedona Method.

The Method is a simple system that shows you how to release the underlying negative emotions -- the feeling that your very self-worth is dependent on others -- causing you to be codependent. In its place you will feel free to live your life in a way that’s pleasing to you. It works through a simple process called “letting go.”

The Sedona Method can help you free yourself from codependency in several ways,” Dwoskin says. “First, I would recommend that you let go of wanting to be controlled by both the tendency of being codependent and the people you feel dependent on. I would also recommend that you let go of whatever feeling(s) both the tendency and the object of the tendency brings up in your awareness.”

You should surround yourself with independent people who will support you in a healthy way rather than looking to rely on others who may also struggle with codependency. Over time, you will realize that you can have relationships and people in your life without having to feel that your life and happiness depends on them.

When you allow yourself to take charge of your own life and love yourself as you are,” Dwoskin says, “you’ll know that what you are is dependent on no one and nothing.”

For more information on the easy-to-learn Sedona Method, please visit our web site at www.sedona.com