Family Of Light,
During my awakening journey, I have been doing much learning and healing.
One area I explored was codependency and how it manifested in my life.
Why do I bring this up now?
The global lockdown leading to homeschooling is a possible time when your unhealed issues around codependency are likely to surface (including myself).
Now that we are all spending a greater amount of time together in addition to homeschooling, you might start to see your codependent tendencies come to the surface to be acknowledged and healed.
Codependency can exist between partners, parent-child relationships, friends, andalso between a manager-employee dynamic.
Having spoken with several mums and dads who are simultaneously working and homeschooling, I can see the tension and pressure starting to boil to the surface.
So I thought I would share examples of codependent conditioning for you to think about in case this is what you are experiencing and don’t realise it.
So what is codependency?
It’s a loss of the self because we have been programmed to take care of or “rescue” others and to “fix” situations.
Codependency is generally passed down through families. It’s a generational problem and is usually rooted in childhood. Often, a child grows up in a home where their emotions areignored or punished. This emotional neglect tells the child that their feelings don’t matter. The adult then seeks out validation of self-worth from outside of themselves and uses control to feel secure.
So here is an example of how codependency could reveal itself during the lockdown.
- You are nagging at your child/children to complete their school work on time.
- You are relentlessly checking their schoolwork before they hand it in.
How do these examples reveal codependency?
- My child does not hand in their work on time so I feel bad because this is a reflection on me as their parent. (needing validation)
- I don’t allow my child to hand in their work until I have reviewed it. This level of control or perfectionism makes me feel better about myself because then I know my child has done the work as asked and he/she and I will be viewed in a positive light by the teacher. (validation – when my child succeeds, I succeed)
- I sit with them and more or less do their homework for them because I know it will be done right. (control)
Parents whose self-esteem is tied to their child may try to live vicariously through their child. When their child succeeds, they feel successful. When their child fails, they feel as if that failure is reflected on them as well. When parents’ emotions are tied to their child’s, it can create a yo-yo effect where both the parent and the child are emotionally feeding off of each other.
In a codependent parent-child relationship, the lines between protective and obsessive, engaged and over-involved are often blurred beyond recognition.
It’s O.K if you see yourself in the above scenarios. I was once a codependent parent and I know firsthand that you can change this.
Wanting to help is a natural instinct in most parents, but when parents micromanage and try to help with everything, children are not given the opportunity to learn.
When parents show their child that they require parental help for homework, chores, and everything else, the child learns that they cannot do things for themselves. They may begin to believe that they need their parent for everything because, without that parental involvement, they will fail.
It is normal to feel hurt or worry that you are being a bad parent by not being as over-functioning, especially if your child is struggling with these new tasks. It would be tempting to give in and want to “rescue” them. But stand your ground and have faith that you are being the best parent that you can be.
Tips
- Be less available so they can become independent learners
- Give them chores and responsibilities around the home
- Allow kids to make mistakes and to bear the consequences
- Allow kids to create their own definition of success
- Shift your fears into the vibration of love for yourself
Most parents want their kids to have all that they didn’t have as children and as a result, over-function. Yet this is creating a generation who will not grasp basic responsibilities–something that will ultimately affect them in the future.
While it’s totally normal for a parent to have hopes and dreams for their child, codependent parents take things a step further: They expect their child to live the life and achieve the goals that they themselves fell short of.
As a mum of two, I often see parents who are heavily reliant on their children doing well at school or at sport.They are reliant on the child doing well so it can validate their own self-worth. This is unhealthy as the parent cannot be O.K within themselves if the child doesn’t meet their expectations.
If you are meeting yourself here for the first time….take a deep breath…and know it’s O.K! We are all learning all the time.
Be patient with yourself when you make the decision to move on to better parenting. You’re on a learning curve. Allow yourself to have some bad days, but keep moving forward.
Breaking the codependency could be your greatest gift to your children. In the long-term, it will help them to be high-functioning and responsible adults.
The first step to reaching unity consciousness is to come into divine union with the self. Once we can fully and wholeheartedly love ourselves with no conditions and without requiring external validation we can start to live in our divine presence and co-create with the earth.
My light I send you
P.SIf you’d like to learn more about codependency, feel free to read about our self paced workshop