Projecting Outcomes and Codependency

If you’re worried something will happen again, remember that you have to allow it.

“I’m scared it’ll happen again!”

How many times have you told yourself this or heard this from a loved one? While it is entirely reasonable to be trepidatious about experiencing a certain pain or inconvenience again, if what is on the other side benefits our overall good, we should not let that stop us. Most of us have an inner critic with a very big mouth. That inner critic is often made up of the manipulations you have been subject to, doubts you hold dear, and delusional thinking.

It’s easy to forget your personal power or give yourself entirely too much of it. Both are often rooted in something major: codependency.

Enough experience with codependence will have you choose hyper-independence just as easily as it will make you believe in your outsized impact on a situation. The latter leads to the classic way we characterize codependence: fixers and failed puppeteers seeking to create safety.

Codependent people can place themselves in situations where their needs, desires, and boundaries are subservient to another’s. They are so attuned to a situation that they get swept up in it. This is one way of giving permission.

Codependent people also, and I’m going to go slow because it’s paradoxical, can be profoundly convinced of their power to control a situation/person/thing. This can manifest as hollow “independence” aka isolation/living on the surface. Notice how hyper-independent people are doing the same thing as codependent people who remain in community do; they are using control to attempt to create safety. They just do it, presumably, alone. They’re terrified of the impact of anyone or anything’s possible effect on their sense of control.

We all know that friend who is convinced that their mere presence is responsible for the entirety of a particular repeating dynamic. They don’t believe it’s about placing themselves in scenarios that feel familiar and behaving consistently, they believe it’s their whole existence. They’ve given permission for whatever story that is to be their truth.

Usually, a repeating dynamic is trying to show you something about yourself. (A loose pale in your boundaries, a trait you need to nurture, or a form of growth you need to foster, etc.)

So, if you’re concerned something will happen again, you have to give it permission to happen to you. Remind yourself that you cannot control anyone else but you can control yourself. Remind yourself that personal responsibility is not self-flagellation and that isolation isn’t a reasonable, sustainable solution. Remind yourself that you do not need to be perfect, you just need to be. The tricky part is figuring out who you actually are and taking care of yourself. You’ve got this. Let that happen.