Are You a Codependent Empath?

We're going to dive into and discover the unhealthy shadow of codependent relationships. The purpose of today's conversation is to help you to understand and identify how you're showing up in a relationship that could potentially be inviting you to create healthy boundaries.

A codependent relationship is different from a trauma bond. We are talking about how we can identify if we are in an unhealthy relationship in our life with someone else, which could be a relationship that feels codependent?

Let's talk a little bit about what codependency is and what it is not. So a codependent relationship would be an unhealthy relationship. A healthy relationship has a natural balance of two people in a relationship that rely on each other for support. They mutually support each other, they mutually hold space for loving conversations for each other, and it feels very mutual. It's a very balanced relationship of giving and receiving. It may even show up as emotional, financial, or physical support.

We have different ways that we can create relationships depending on if it's your parents or your children or if you're in a marriage. So there are many different ways that we can create healthy relationships. In those ways, it becomes unhealthy if there's excessive attachment or dependency in one way for one of the people, or for both people, it could show up differently in a certain type of relationship. For example, somebody may be dependent on a partner for financial dependency, and maybe that partner is dependent on the other person for physical dependency. So just really noticing the attachment or unhealthy dependency of a relationship.

In general, people who are in codependent relationships, meaning it's coming from an unhealthy place. And we can probably all identify with some point in our life where we have noticed that we've entered a relationship from an unhealthy place. And so this conversation is really inviting you to just take a step back and notice the relationships that you're in. And are they coming from a healthy place?

In general, people who are entering a relationship, an unhealthy relationship from codependency, they may be battling with low self esteem, or they may have unhealthy emotional boundaries. They may have the desire to feel more important than other people. They may have the desire to control other people. So there's really two sides of it. There can be the people who are dependent on another person because they need support and guidance, and then there can be the people who are dependent on another person because they really need that feeling of control in making decisions.

In general, the type of co-dependency that shows up most commonly is in some way a person who needs something and then the person who gives something. So we can see this, even like in an unhealthy codependent relationship, as a caregiver. So a person who needs to constantly be taken care of, and maybe the other person who's taking care of that person, has the need to feel important to take care of that person, therefore enabling the person that needs to be taken care of to respond in a way where they need more care.

We can start to identify that even when our intentions are good, that in some relationships we begin to enable somebody else's behavior. This can happen in parenting, for example, you may have a child with certain needs. And then the more that we give into or enable those needs, the more we enable a certain type of behavior, or not even with just a child, but even in a relationship, or with a spouse, or maybe even at work.

Why does this show up? It goes back to the core limiting beliefs.  Usually there's an underlying wound that needs to be healed, a fear around abandonment, a fear around rejection, a fear of not being lovable, not being good enough, self doubt, a lack of confidence or sense of self. There could be some childhood wounds around betrayal, resentment, anger, mistrust. All of those things can create our presence to show up in an unhealthy way that creates an unhealthy codependency.

We have the desire to create good on the planet. We have a desire to co-create and to show up in a certain way. The hidden wound of the codependency of the nurturer, the healer and the empath. Now, an empath would be the opposite of a narcissist. An empath is somebody who deeply feels and experiences other people, and has a lot of compassion for other people. The opposite of an empath or a nurturer would be a narcissist. And the reason that this is important to discover is because if we don't recognize the wound underneath that needs to be healed, that we're entering a codependent relationship in, then we're going to attract people who are energy vampires, who have the need to control, manipulate, deceive and serve their ego because they're opposites. And so that's why it's really important for us to discern if we're in a relationship that feels unhealthy. What is it within me that is feeling out of alignment?

Body wisdom is a way that we can listen to our body when we're uncomfortable and ask ourselves, I'm going to check in, like, what's happening? Every time I'm with this person, I feel energetically drained. Every time I get a text from this person, I want to avoid it. When I'm with this person, I get a headache or my stomach feels uneasy. It's really the invitation to remember and to lean in and to trust the body wisdom and our intuition. And sometimes we bypass that because we're coming from a place where, unbeknownst to us, subconsciously, we're seeking, we're trying to heal a wound underneath and seeking connection with a person from a place, out of a fear of abandonment or rejection, or the need to feel loved, or the need to be seen or heard. And that's when it can become super unhealthy and create an unhealthy, codependent relationship. 

It's important to recognize that being an empath and having compassion and the need to connect with other people is totally normal. It's a totally normal behavior that we would want to create these relationships with people. The question is, in discerning where is our desire or want or need to co create with people coming from? Not all empaths are codependent, and not all codependents are empaths.

A healthy empath has an awareness and very, very strong boundaries between themselves and other people. If you identify with possibly being an empath, meaning you feel a little bit more sensitive, you have compassion for others, you're aware of other people's needs, you might even cry during commercials, or you might just feel a little bit more sensitive in the world.

The question is, are you creating that healthy boundary? And is your empathy coming from a place of witnessing, or is there an underlying subconscious need to connect with people in an unhealthy way? How some empaths have a subconscious need to be seen or heard, and others could just be choosing to be in somebody else's pain rather than their own. So that would be an unhealthy empath showing up as a codependent in a relationship. In other words, an unhealthy empath has an underlying subconscious need to connect with somebody because of the need that they haven't healed themselves, or they're avoiding their own healing by invading the space of another person and taking on their emotions.

Boundaries are super important in relationships, whether it's parenting, or marriage, or friendships, or business partnerships. And it could be the thing that when you set up this boundary, will show you that you are in a codependent relationship if it ends the friendship or the relationship. Because oftentimes unhealthy codependent relationships don't have boundaries. And so when a boundary is put up, sometimes it can end the relationship, which might not be a bad thing. 

A boundary is really just setting a sacred space, a guideline or a rule, creating your own identity to identify yourself separately and into the pendant of the other person in the relationship and discerning. I like to use the word discerning, is this relationship in alignment with me and noticing patterns that can show up if it's an unhealthy relationship. Because oftentimes, if we find ourselves as a codependent in a relationship, whether we're the person giving or needing, this is a pattern that we can see that repeats. And the reason that it repeats is because we haven't chosen to heal the thing underneath that is creating this codependency in the first place.

If you're a healer, a coach, a nurturer, or an empath, which many people who listen to this show are. If you're somebody who shows up in the world with a big open heart, with the intention to stand in truth and love and to create more good in the world, I invite you to ask yourself, what does it say about me if I stand in this? And what does it say about me if I don't? Because we can even have an unhealthy, codependent relationship with what we identify with. So it might not even be about other people, but what we believe about ourselves, anytime that we're attached to anything, it's probably an unhealthy, codependent relationship if you're a healer or a coach, or a nurturer or an empath.

If somebody who willingly has the intention to support others in the world, you could be a mother, you could be a doctor, you could be a coach, you could be anything, you could have any job that you wanted. But if you show up from that place leading by your heart, it's just important to create those healthy boundaries. The more that we stand in our light, the more we welcome the shadow, the more that we stand in our light, the more that other people are going to see that and they're going to want some of it. So it's really important to notice when you let people in, in relationships, how you're feeling because what can be so tricky is deceit and deception.

An empath, a healer, a nurturer who has unhealthy codependent potential is going to be somebody who's going to likely easily be taken advantage of or used. So one of the ways this shows up is when we trust others more than we trust ourselves. Again, it's the opportunity to ask ourselves, leaning in and really getting clear on what is the underlying need that we would be willing to not listen to our own guidance, our own wisdom, our own intuition, but that we would choose to trust someone else more than ourselves. And so ask yourself, when has this happened in your life?

When boundaries become blurred in a relationship, enmeshment can happen where it's really unclear and it gets really messy because the communication hasn't been clear, the needs have not been communicated properly. It gets intertwined into this deeply rooted sort of spider web of codependent strings attached in so many different ways. And this can lead to an unhealthy marriage, an unhealthy friendship, an unhealthy relationship between a parent and a child. And this is why it's really important to identify this. If you feel like you're drowning in a relationship where you just can't communicate clearly, you don't feel seen or heard, your needs are not being met, you're unable to communicate your needs.

One of the tools that I really love is the tool of nonviolent communication. It's a four step process. The first step is to state the facts. The second is to identify how you feel. Coming down to six to eight basic primary emotions. The third step is to identify the need underneath, and the fourth step is to make a request. This is a tool that can help really open up healthy communication and make a codependent relationship turn into a mutually dependent relationship.

As empaths, healers, coaches, nurturers, if we do not create healthy boundaries, if we do not do our own inner work, if we do not become aware of the underlying subconscious belief that is creating a pattern in our life, the fear of rejection, the fear of abandonment, the need to be seen or heard, the fear of being hopeless, the fear of not being worthy enough. If we don't do this, then we're going to attract experiences in our life that are going to be really uncomfortable and the most uncomfortable relationship that can happen, is the one between an empath and a narcissist, or an empath and an energy vampire. They're total opposites.

An empath is somebody who lives from a place of compassion and empathy. And a narcissist is someone who might seem very magnetizing at first, very charismatic, but they lack empathy. They lack compassion. They pretty much only think about what their needs are. They might even believe that they're the victim. They might blame everything on you. They might be angry and condescending. Even if you show up in the most nurturing way, it can trigger them to be more angry and condescending. And there's an attraction that a narcissist has to an empath because they're going to get what they need. They just want to consume and control people. And an empath wants to help. So it makes them very easy targets in a codependent relationship. And the empath because they want to help. 

If it's not coming from a healthy place, if it's coming from a place of needing a certain level of connection or needing an identity, such as a caretaker, needing value from their role or position in the codependent relationship, then it creates an unhealthy bond between the two.

And a narcissist. I think a lot of times we think of it as a romantic relationship. It can show up in a friendship. It can show up as siblings. It can show up with parents, with children, with your boss at work, with coworkers, and a business partner It's not what we traditionally think of which I think most people are used to hearing, is that this comes out in court with a divorce court, some type of something went wrong in a marriage. But very often a narcissist will use legal terms to gain control, and it can show up in any type of relationship. 

So what's important is that we identify our healthy boundaries so that we notice those red flags. Because oftentimes at the end of a relationship, people will say, yeah, I ignored the red flags. I ignored the headaches. I ignored, I kind of overlooked when this person said this or when the person never offered to pay for anything or always talked about themselves or never really acknowledged anything that I said or had to control everything or gossiped about other people or broke promises over and over again. Those can be some of the red flags that we overlook in unhealthy, codependent relationships. So the invitation is to really check in with yourself. If you're feeling drained in a relationship and asking yourself, like, what is this inviting me to really lean into? Because underneath all of that, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter about the other person.

What the other person does and how they show up in the relationship is just reflecting back to you. The part of you that you can choose to heal. That's the important part. That's the takeaway. We can't change other people. And if you're in a relationship with a narcissist, they probably don't even know, and they're definitely not willing to change. They're probably going to blame everything on you.

The invitation is not even to try to prove them wrong, not even try to get them to understand how they showed up in an unhealthy way, but to look within you. What part of me attracted this that needed to be healed? What part of me was willing to overgive? What part of me needed to identify with the caregiver? What part of me needed to identify with the need to be seen or heard or recognized, to be a part of something? What part of me overlooked those red flags? What part of me overlooked every single time I was exhausted after meeting with this particular person? What part of me did I ignore? What part of me did I choose not to listen to? Why did I make this other person's needs more important than my own?

At the end of the day, it's important for us to stand in our own truth, our own God given birthright to be here. And that includes creating healthy boundaries, that includes understanding what our needs are and co creating healthy relationships. And there's a really fine line in relationships where we show up, “unapologetic” and in the right relation, because there is a little bit of an unhealthy invitation, of a self serving, unapologetic way that we can show up in a relationship where there's the power of no.

If we are unwilling to listen to the other side and the other person's views, whether it be political, religious, their needs, their emotions, if we're putting up boundaries and unwilling to hold that space for them, then we are not in a healthy relationship. So just notice for a moment, usually we talk about relationships with food or money, your body. 

Notice unhealthy patterns in relationships in your life that are showing up as an unhealthy, codependent relationship. Signs that you're in an unhealthy, codependent relationship. You feel like there's no way out, you feel powerless, you feel confused, you never get a word in. You need to control things. You need to fix things. You feel mistrust. You are energetically drained. You've developed unhealthy habits as a result of maybe the stress that this relationship creates. You might even notice that you show up in this relationship in a certain way. Like maybe you show up in this relationship with the need to vent all the time. Maybe you show up in a relationship with the need to nurture all the time. Maybe you show up in this relationship with the need to be angry or the need to be a victim. Notice how you show up in the relationship yourself. Maybe you feel full of doubt in this relationship. Maybe you try to speak up and create a boundary and it's not heard in this relationship. These are all signs that you could be in an unhealthy, codependent relationship. 

If there's a fear around speaking your truth, if there's a fear that you won't be loved or accepted or feel worthy unless you show up in a certain way, and it's just the invitation to check in. Create healthy boundaries. Work on your own confidence and self esteem. Identify what your needs are. Communicate them clearly. Let go of unhealthy needs that are no longer serving you. Practice the balance between truth and compassion. That assertive compassion. Practice compassion by witnessing it, not being consumed by it, not giving so much compassion that it enables somebody else's behavior. So witnessing yourself and compassion rather than being in it.

And lastly, get support. Get support from a therapist or a coach or a friend to communicate or practice the tool that I shared earlier, the NVC tool, you can practice with somebody else before you speak to the person that you're in an unhealthy relationship with.

I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what relationship you are navigating, what you have learned about yourself. I'd love to hear the awareness around the belief that keeps you stuck in that pattern, attracting these unhealthy, codependent relationships. Sometimes just speaking it out loud and being seen or heard in it gives us clarity. And a lot of times we're all navigating similar feelings. Our outside experience is just different. In other words, the example of the empath and the narcissist. Both are deeply wounded; they both feel like the victim. The difference is that the empath becomes the victim of the narcissist. The narcissist is the victim of their own ego, but it still feels the same. And so we're really not that different. And when we can see it from that perspective, we can allow more compassion with healthy discernment in relationships.

P.S.

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Jen Mons is an author, speaker, mentor and coach for high achieving purpose driven ready to shift the paradigm of feminine leadership and redefine excellence and wealth through 5 Element Wellth, Prosperity, Journaling and Soul Wisdom Imprinting.