Welcome back! In today’s article, I will share what I believe are the 10 steps both personality types should take to heal from codependence. If you are unsure which type you are, go back and watch my video on the two types.

One is the classic disempowered: this is what we typically think of when we think of codependence. They try to take care of everyone. Few people recognize the polar opposite type: the falsely empowered codependent. This is a typically successful person, but the grandiose and anti-dependent personality is hiding codependence. Neither side is in reality: each is stuck in a child-like state. Recovery is recognizing this is what we’re doing and getting into reality.

Alice Miller has a great quote in The Drama of the Gifted Child about the need for us to get into reality,

“Both the disempowered and the falsely empowered person completely deny their childhood reality by living as though the availability of the parents can still be salvaged. The falsely empowered person does this through the illusion of achievement and the disempowered through their constant fear of losing love. Neither can accept the truth that this loss or absence of love has already happened in the past and that no effort whatsoever can change this fact” (I’ve switched out the terms she uses for “disempowered” and “falsely empowered” for clarity).

This highlights the stumbling block for all of us in codependence. However, the ship has sailed, and we must do the work now as adults.

Let’s get into the 10 steps for getting back into reality. For the disempowered:

1. Self-esteem. They really struggle with the sense of self because they think doing for others elevates their sense of self when it really does the opposite. If you want to get into more details on this, I suggest you watch my video How to Build Self Confidence – it is great for laying out the steps to achieve self-love.
2. Stop shaming themselves. They spend a lot of time in guilt and shame, especially when doing things for themselves. They must heal from this – I suggest another video of mine called How to Heal Shame.
3. Start asking for and meeting their own needs and wants. They feel guilt and shame when asking for anything.
4. Start taking care of themselves first. They were trained the only way to survive and get mom and dad’s attention was to give themselves away. They need to ask themselves who they are and what they truly like. Stop focusing outside. Start focusing internally.
5. Learn to share what they really think and feel. Inside they’re boiling with anger, but they don’t voice it. Instead, they may be passive-aggressive or expect others to mind-read. It’s not their fault – they learned to suppress their anger in childhood.
6. Take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions. We always have a choice, but codependence puts the responsibility on others, saying, “you made me…” This phrase demonstrates a person is not in reality and is stuck in a child-like state.

Get into reality.

1. They don’t realize their “niceness” is not truly nice – it’s actually manipulation. The proof is in the hidden anger and resentment. Because they give themselves away, they have interpersonal issues and keep track of everything. They’re doing it as a form of barter, and they’re hoping for the same in return. In dealing with their rage and resentment, they need to face the facts. It is time for them to accept the fact that taking care of others is a form of self-absorption. They’re abandoning themselves just like they were abandoned in childhood.
2. Practice the three Gets of AL-ANON. Get off their back, get out of their way, get on with their life. On their back, means they notice everything in other people’s life. It’s none of their business, and others can live how they want, so they must get off their back and out of the way. They must get on with their own life by meeting their wants and needs and getting into reality.
3. Say no. They tend to say yes to everything – they couldn’t say no in childhood. They need to rebuild esteem, so they feel worthy enough to say no.
4. Set boundaries. The best place to learn is Pia Mellody’s Facing Codependence. Everyone should read this book to learn what healthy boundaries are.

 

For the falsely empowered:

1. Self-esteem. They think they have self-esteem because they’ve achieved so much. So they use achievements and material things to cover up a lack of self-esteem.
2. Ask for and get support. They are anti-dependent and do everything on their own. They must open up, be vulnerable, and realize it’s not a weakness.
3. Take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions, just like above.
4. Stop saying no to gain power over someone. They won’t argue for fear of losing power, and they won’t spend time with you, etc. They need to address how they use this as a power mechanism.
5. Be more vulnerable and transparent. They don’t authentically share their thoughts and feelings to hide their unhealed pain.
6. Address their avoidance mechanisms. They’ll use work, kids, addictions, and activities to avoid themselves and others.

Stop giving advice.

1. This is another power mechanism they employ.
2. Stop the controlling. They’ll demean their partner by saying they want too much – they will use judgment, blame, and criticism to attain more power.
3. Get into reality, just like the disempowered. First, it’s challenging for them to admit they’ve been through childhood trauma. Next, they must realize their outside accomplishments are an attempt to fill an inner hole. Many athletes, actors, and politicians are looking for money to validate themselves and avoid the past’s pain. Finally, they must accept they have a problem. This will likely be the hardest step – it’s tough for this side to accept they have an issue.
4. Seek professional help. The detachment from reality is much more severe because they have been convinced their achievements prove well adjusted.

There are the 10 steps for both sides of the codependent dynamic to conquer their codependence. I suggest you check out the links I’ve included for a deeper dive into the recovery process.

Or…

If you are ready to dive right now, you can learn how to conquer codependence in my new masterclass.

Enjoy The Journey!

Kenny Weiss

Welcome back! Today I’m talking about the fascinating polarity of the two codependent personality types. Codependence can be characterized as living on one end of two extremes.

The typical “disempowered” that we commonly identify with on one extreme and the “falsely empowered” on the other.

The falsely empowered is not very well known or recognized that’s the side I want to dig into.

It is important because our society holds this person up as the ideal .When they are just as dysfunctional as the disempowered. We’re missing out on developing healthy and connected relationships without this information.

Before getting into the specifics of the falsely empowered codependent.

 I want to share what I believe to be the six common characteristics the two types share:

1. Childhood trauma. In my video What Causes Codependence. I point out how anyone struggling with codependence has been through abusive less-than-nurturing parenting. I know that’s hard to hear, but we in society are out of reality about how deeply our childhoods affect us.
2. That’s why I choose, along with Pia Mellody, to call it abusive. We tend to have a limited perception of what abuse looks like, and we miss out on the bigger picture.
3. I’m not blaming the parents – we can’t do what we don’t know. But we have to admit this abuse happens and thus creates codependence.
4. The perfect imperfections of our parents weren’t intended to be unloving, but they were harmful .we all experience this. Our parents aren’t bad people, nor are we.
5. With a more realistic understanding, we can break through this together. Check out my other video on this childhood trauma topic for more details.

Damaged self-esteem.

1. The disempowered have little or no self-esteem while the falsely empowered have false esteem, looking for it outside of themselves – this is known as “other” esteem.
2. Inability to take care of their needs and wants. The disempowered can be too needy, dependent, and demanding.
3. The falsely empowered are anti-dependent, needless, and wantless, which is still codependence.
4. Dysfunctional boundaries. The disempowered have no boundaries while the falsely empowered have walls for boundaries .
5. it’s again on polar opposite sides.
6. An inability to express and own their reality. They both struggle with this immensely.
7. The disempowered will see themselves as unselfish and kind.
8. When in fact, they are manipulative.
9. They’re out of reality that their niceness can set up an abusive and manipulative dynamic.
10. it allows the other’s dysfunction to operate and thus enables it. You’ll see this in “empaths” – they are hyper-codependents that have no boundaries.
11. A true empath empathizes but isn’t affected by other’s emotions. I’m not saying they aren’t kind and loving . They just aren’t in reality about what they are genuinely doing.
12. For the falsely empowered, they don’t see themselves clearly, but they think they do. They believe they are always right and don’t need help.
13. They think nothing is wrong with them, that their childhood was wonderful. They’re out of reality in that they’re shut down and defensive.
14. They see it as signs of strength, believing that showing emotions is weak. Neither can see the abuse in their childhood or how their behavior is hurtful and abusive towards others.

They both think they’re living in reality but aren’t.

1. Inability to express their reality moderately. They both live in extremes and chaos. The disempowered get over-involved: this is an inability to navigate reality.
2. They take care of others and sacrifice their own needs. They distort their view of helping others and can’t express their thoughts and feelings moderately.
3. They’re hyper-emotional when they express themselves. For the falsely empowered, they are completely detached and emotionless.
4. They can’t share they were hurt because they are so detached from the hurt and the relationship. Pia does a great job pointing out how the typical arrogant, grandiose, vulnerable, anti-dependent, perfectionist overachiever has been branded as a healthy adult: they’re really severely codependent.
5. The view of a codependent shouldn’t always be a weak and spineless person – there is also the falsely empowered codependent putting up a wall.
6. Realizing this can significantly help the disempowered – they know they’re the same as the grandiose person and don’t feel negatively towards themselves.

Many people can have traits of both disempowered and falsely empowered

I am an example! I inadvertently put other writers down by celebrating Pia: that’s my grandiosity and codependence. On the other side, sometimes I sign off a show with low esteem, quietly asking people to share.

We are all battling these things. Part of the recovery journey starts on one side and swings to the other – I do this all the time! I try to work on how I communicate my thoughts and ideas to be less grandiose or condescending.

I, like all of us, went through severely abusive and less-than-nurturing parenting.

But this doesn’t mean we don’t also go through nurturing, loving, beautiful moments as a child. We all experience the perfect and imperfect.

That’s healthy and moderate. My parent’s perfections left me with fantastic memories. Mostly of Christmas with beautiful lights, presents, and my dad happy and not detached.

It was the one time a year I got to spend with my father perfectly attuned – parents will do this all the time. I just want us to get into reality about the imperfect and perfect moments. I’m asking that we consider both sides do exist, and both are equally OK – the perfections and imperfections.

Let’s get into the falsely empowered a little more. Those disempowered will feel far less bad when they see the closed-off successful person is no different from themselves.

The falsely empowered will:

1. Seek “other” esteem through career and social status. This is the primary mechanism – everything in American is about to achieve, achieve, achieve.
2. The most successful people are the most broken. They are driven by a shame core of feeling less than. Yet it’s expressed as better than. Career, social status, social media likes drive their value. The disempowered does this by doing for others. See how similar they are?
3. Rarely know what they’re feeling. They’re most often blank and detached. They can’t feel, and they can’t communicate their feelings.
4. See feelings as a weakness while they minimize their own.
5. The typical male CEO will say he doesn’t bring feelings into the board room.
6. This is a lack of understanding of how the brain and body work together. Every thought we have starts with a feeling! We’re starting to turn women into this, which is devasting .
7. we are asking them to forget their inherent gift.
8. We’re beginning to see many more women falsely empowered and men disempowered in an attempt to bring equality – it’s hurting both sides.

Use isolation, anger, or humor to hide their feelings.

1. Lack empathy and interest in other’s feelings. This is one reason why falsely empowered, and disempowered people are drawn to each other. It is a continuation of their childhood experience that created their mutual codependence.
2. Not ask for or accept help. Sometimes they may not even mention when something terrible happened – to do so would create connection, and they fear connection.
3. They hide from and mask their emotional pain. I struggled with this – expressing physical pain was difficult. If I came home hurt and my ex-wife asked what happened.
4. I would immediately get angry. Sometimes I would be completely detached from physical pain, which brings in an important point.
5. Our spectrum of codependence is physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual. We can be emotionally on one side and physically on another.
6. Label, judge and criticize others persistently. I do this all the time! You can see it in my videos. The reason I get haughty and think I’m better than others.
7. It is because I couldn’t persuade my father to hear and embrace the truth about our situation.
8. I need to be able to back up my claims. As a result of my own sense of inadequacy and insignificance. I seek external affirmation.

Be indifferent, authoritative, or use rage to control.

1. Rarely admit their mistakes and must be right all the time. You see this in CEOs – part of their gift is that they are headstrong! But it comes with detriments.
2. Try to control and shape other’s thoughts. If you’re disempowered, you’ve been through this.
3. Use sex, money, intellect, charm, and gifts to manipulate, control, and have power over other people. This trait has strong connections with narcissism.
4. Avoid emotional, physical, and intellectual intimacy to keep control and distance. They may be too busy working, taking care of the kids, with their hobbies. We think it makes them strong and powerful, but it’s avoidance.
5. Use illness or addiction to avoid real intimacy and connection. Almost all illness and disease is brought on by the environment which is your emotional condition.
6. People don’t think they make themselves sick . it’s because we have a lack of understanding. Western medicine only gives us 50% of what we should know.
7. Decades of research and proof say you cannot separate the body and mind regarding illness and disease.
8. So it’s not a question as to whether our emotions make us sick – it has been proven.
9. Deny childhood trauma. The falsely empowered see their childhood as perfect – no ones is.
10. Be resistant to or will rarely seek help. That’s the grandiose position that they have to be right. Many falsely empowered likely would’ve stopped reading at this point.

 It’s too confronting. Healthy adults can take information from all sides and navigate their emotional reactions to it.

The biggest stumbling block for both is their denial. Neither are in reality of the damage from their childhood and therefore can’t see and admit who they really are.

But they both think they know who they are. Both sides lack compassion for themselves and self-esteem. They abandon themselves at the extremes.

I hope this helps you separate the two polarities of codependence and shines a light on the rarely discussed falsely empowered. For genuine connection and intimacy to form in a relationship, it will require us to understand the impact of our perfectly imperfect childhoods and heal the codependence that resulted.

Enjoy The Journey!

Kenny Weiss

Learn more here:

Heal Your Codependence TODAY!

Hello and welcome! Today I’m breaking down what causes codependency. To start, I’m going to share a passage straight from Pia Mellody’s Facing Codependence.

I believe the way she’s explained the causes of codependence is so critical for every person. After reading her explanation,  I believe you can immediately determine if these conditions are operating in your own life.

“Where does the disease come from?

I have come to believe that the dysfunctional, less-than-nurturing, abusive family systems create children who become codependent adults.

Our cultures’ inherent belief that a certain kind of parenting is normal contributes to the difficulty of facing codependence. But a closer examination of normal parenting techniques reveals that they include certain aspects and practices .

That actually tend to impair the growth and development of the child and lead to the development of codependence. In reality, what we tend to call normal parenting very often isn’t healthy for the child’s development.

It is less than nurturing or abusive parenting. For example, many people think that the range of normal parenting includes hitting the child with a hand or a belt, slapping a child across the face.

Screaming at a child, calling a child names, having the child sleep with them, or being nude in front of a child who is older than the age of three or four.

Figure out a way to deal with life situations

Or they think it’s acceptable to require small children to figure out a way to deal with life situations and problems themselves. rather than providing a concrete set of rules for social conduct and some basic problem solving techniques.

Some parents also neglect to teach basic hygiene such as bathing, daily grooming, the use of deodorants, dental care, removing dirt, stains, and body odor from clothes.

And how to keep them mended, expecting the children to somehow know these things on their own. Some parents think that if children are not given rigid rules and swift, severe punishment for breaking them.

The children will become juvenile delinquents, teen unwed mothers, or drug addicts. Some parents, after making a mistake such as punishing a child in error because the full facts were not clear at the time of the punishment. They would never apologize to the child for the mistake.

undermine the parent’s authority

Such parents conceive that an apology would be seen as showing weakness that might undermine the parent’s authority. Some parents believe perhaps unconsciously that children’s thoughts and feelings have little validity because the children are immature and need training.

These parents respond to a child’s thoughts and feelings by saying, “You shouldn’t feel that way or I don’t care if you don’t want to go to bed. You’re going because it’s good for you,” and believe they are training the child in a functional way.

Still, other parents swing to the opposite extreme and overprotect their children, not making the children face the consequences of their own abusive and dysfunctional behavior.

Such parents are often very intimate with their children, using them for confidants and sharing secrets beyond the children’s level of development.

This, too is abusive.

Many of us who were raised in homes where this kind of behavior was common grew up in the delusion that what happened to us was normal and appropriate.

Our caregivers encouraged us to believe that our problems as adults arose because we didn’t respond appropriately to what happened to us.

And many of us arrived in adulthood filled with baffling feelings and with the distorted way of looking at the world and what happened in our family of origin.

We got the idea that the way our families behaved toward us was correct and our caregivers were good.

This meant by unconscious deduction that since we weren’t happy or comfortable in our adult life with some things that went on or things that went on as a child.we were somehow not good.

Also, we apparently couldn’t please our parents by being what we were naturally. This delusion that the abuse was normal and we were wrong locks us into the disease of codependence with no way out.”

I know many of you will shy away from the word “abuse.” You may recognize your parents have done many of these behaviors, thinking their actions were not wrong.

That’s the delusion of denial. We are massively undereducated on what healthy parenting is. That said, we aren’t blaming the parents.

As we know better, we can do better. We are only just discovering how abusive these things are.

No one likes the term “abusive.” The following quote is from another page out of Pia’s book, and I think it’s compelling.

“In my work with patients at the Meadows, I had come to know that the term abuse is much broader than most people think.

It includes more than the overt physical beatings, injuries, and sexual incest or molestation we commonly associate with the term.

Abuse also takes emotional, intellectual, and spiritual forms. In fact, when I talk about abuse. I now include any experience in childhood from birth to the age of 17 that was less than nurturing.”

I agree, and here’s why: look at the trail of tears in our adult lives.

The addictions and the divorces are all borne from how we were treated as children. That’s the result of less-than-nurturing parenting.

I broke down essential points for you to see if it happened in your childhood and if you suffer from codependence:

if there was yelling, hitting, nudity beyond the age of three, sleeping with the child beyond the age of three.

A lack of rules and structure, too many rules and structure, invalidating a child’s thoughts and feelings, blaming a child for the parent’s feelings, making a child responsible for keeping the parent comfortable.

Making a child the best friend, making a child the confidant, spoiling a child, making a child act beyond their age and development, never apologizing to the child, abandonment, divorce, addiction, mental and physical illness, neglect (physical, emotional, intellectual), being raised by others besides the parents.

This list is exhaustive and could go on. Remember: so many of these things aren’t conscious and are just the cost of being a parent!

There’s a hesitancy in us to hearing these truths.

Instead of getting defensive, we should accept them and learn. Defensiveness is a sign of a lack of compassion for ourselves – we don’t want to admit we went through this. But we must.

I believe that every one of us has experienced less-than-nurturing and abusive parenting. We all have grown up codependently.

People don’t want to see it this way and blame me for pointing out the truth. There’s a bind where we want to protect our parents.

This bind is not loving to ourselves or our parents. When we are in deception, love cannot exist.

But here’s the beauty: do you see how it brings us all together? This is an inclusionary process and statement to recognize. Life is tough; parenting is overwhelming.

So let’s stop this false protection that’s killing us and robbing us of truth and connection. We see the virus of shame exploding in society, but it kills the virus the second you bring it to light.

That’s how we heal and create intimacy!

The belief we walk out of childhood without abuse shows we’re in denial. We have to accept we are all codependent and should talk about it. Then, we can drop the shame and have compassion for our parents. It is OK to be perfectly imperfect.

If you want to learn more, check out my video breaking down the two different personality types in codependence.

Enjoy The Journey!

Kenny Weiss

If You Would Like To Heal Your Codependence & Achieve Lasting Love and Connection I Have Created This Masterclass For You!

Welcome back! This is a continuation of a three-part series on codependence recovery . The first is on determining our morals and values.

Today I am showing the difference between a need and a want and the five main ways codependent people cannot meet their needs and wants.

Finally, I’ll end with some questions to ask yourself to begin identifying and meeting your own needs and wants.

What’s the difference between a need and want?

Needs are things that must be fulfilled for us to survive. I’ve identified five: food, clothing, shelter, intimacy + connection (including all types of intimacy like physical and spiritual), and money (or some sort of income).

Wants are different: they bring us joy! There are little wants (like candy or a drink) and big wants (like a house or big trip).

This leads us into the five main ways codependent people don’t meet their needs and wants:

1. They pursue their wants over their needs. That pursuit sacrifices their ability to meet their needs. They will go on a nice trip which sacrifices food or rent.
2. Because of such deprivation as a child when their basic needs weren’t met (primarily emotional needs), they were so deprived they didn’t experience joy.
3. There’s such an abandonment hole they search for any sense of feeling to feel better. They end up putting themselves in continued deprivation.
4. They pursue meeting other people’s needs and wants over their own. They may volunteer, but their house is in complete disarray.
5. They make dinner for a sick friend but not their family. They may ignore their own health conditions.
6. They work well below their capabilities or work in jobs they don’t like. As a result, they are not meeting their need to take care of themselves financially.
7. Because of neglect in childhood, they fear intimacy.
8. As a result, they don’t know how to ask for their intellectual, spiritual, and emotional connection needs.so they create fights. It’s their representation of connection even though it’s truly disconnection.

They don’t seek medical care, but they demand others receive care.

1. This leads me into a story about Lou Gehrig, a famous baseball player. He played some 2100 games without missing one game.
2. He had 13 or so fractures in his hand during that time. A rookie on his team got the flu one day, and Lou demanded he not play.
3. Lou took him to his mother’s house and helped nurse him to health. This is what causes ALS and Lou Gehrig’s disease: the inability to care for yourself.
4. These people “give” so much their bodies can no longer support themselves.

What does this look like in real life?

For example, one of my clients came in and told me she ran out of toilet paper and couldn’t bring herself to get a new roll from the closet and put it on the roll. So instead.

she would use a different bathroom in her house. She didn’t feel she was worthy of changing and meeting her basic need to take care of herself.

That’s how devastating this can become.

An antidote from my life: I once starved myself. I was young and reaching into the fridge to get cottage cheese. As I reached in, my mom screamed at me that it was for the dogs.

I wanted her approval, so I put it back. My mom meant she used the cottage cheese to hide the pills when the dogs were sick. What I heard was. “If you eat, I don’t love you. If you eat, you’re in trouble. And finally, we feed the dogs before we feed the kids”

. Did my mom actually say any of this?

Of course not. This is what I mean when I repeatedly say that we’ve all been through abusive parenting. No one taught my mother that needed further explanation.

To keep me safe, the resolution I came up with was not to eat. I was playing professional hockey, eating hardly anything.

The false defense mechanism I made was telling myself eating “bores” me.

Until I started the healing work, I had no idea how my saying I did not like to eat was so out of reality.

Second story:

joy. I had no joy in my childhood, so I didn’t know how to experience it.

When I was playing hockey, my team took a trip to Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and Finland. On the days off we went sightseeing.

I have a stack of pictures of all the team pictures and the photos my friends took. I am the only person missing in all the photos.

I would stay on the bus. I didn’t look at any of it. I didn’t know how to meet my need and want for joy.

I left the bus twice: once to walk across the street and peer into a museum window and once to get something to eat. Not being able to experience joy is extremely common for someone who struggles with codependence.

Here are the questions I encourage you to ask yourself:

1. Am I meeting my needs and wants?
2. ? If not, what plan can I put into place to do so?
3. How am I meeting everyone else’s needs and wants? Make a list and begin doing those things for yourself. You’ll know you’re doing it right if you feel guilty or selfish. That means you’ve probably moved into moderation. If you feel selfish, arrogant, and shameful. At the most, you’re probably moderate.
4. What are the little wants you have? Please make a list and put a plan into place as long as they don’t sacrifice your needs.
5. What are the big wants you have?  Please make a list and put a plan into place as long as they don’t sacrifice your needs.

Finally, falsely empowered codependent people (on the other side of the spectrum) need to stop doing everything for themselves and begin asking for help. They’re anti-dependent people – I’ve done videos and articles on the falsely empowered codependent, and I encourage you to check them out. For the falsely empowered person, they’ll know they’re doing it right when they feel weak, vulnerable, whiny, and insecure. In reality, they probably moved a little towards moderation.

I hope this helps you – check out my other videos and articles to continue on the recovery journey.

I have created a masterclass that will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and tools to heal your codependence for those ready to conquer codependence.

Enjoy The Journey!

Kenny Weiss

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