Co-Dependency and Our Quest for Love
Insights on the 19th Gene Key: Unlocking Your Magnetism
Just a few months after my divorce I had this incredibly intense encounter with a woman from Canada. I was in Guatemala at that time, reeling from trauma as I know now. She was there on vacation and we met on Tinder. We decided to meet for dinner on her final night before she was about to fly back home. But instead of flying back, she stayed for 2 weeks, and later on, I visited her in Montreal. That didn’t go well though and when I realized it wouldn’t work out I cried so hard. You might have heard those deep uncontrollable sobs from toddlers or little children when they are really upset. They cry so hard that they almost can’t breathe. That is how I cried in front of her and I just couldn’t stop.
Although this is the most extreme example, this behavior was a pattern of mine. I had been mostly distanced from women, not letting them near my heart at all. Very few of them managed to go past that wall of mine but what they met behind it was a frightened child version of me. The moment they found me there, I couldn’t connect healthily. I snapped onto those women like a huge magnet on a metal door because I thought they would save me. KLONK!
We fear dependency because at its core we fear for our survival if we have to stand on our own.
My behavior was the typical behavior of someone stuck in the lower frequencies of co-dependency. A co-dependent person lives under the illusion that their well-being depends on external forces such as God(s), substances, or people. We fear that dependency because at its core we fear for our survival if we have to stand on our own. Without a sense of our indestructible core that stabilizes us if we are emotionally healthy, we are left with two major ways to deal with that fear. We either pretend that we aren’t dependent on anyone, that we can deal with everything in life on our own. Or we look for outside validation like a bear for honey.
The repressive way of dealing with co-dependency is to avoid everything that could make us dependent. What sounds like a practicable solution is the fastest way into emotional death. For a person in the fear frequency, any emotional connection feels like a trap. It is either a beautiful emotion and its loss will be painful or a negative emotion that seems to weaken you.
Avoiding connection, in my example regarding women, creates an empty shell. I was detached and hollow but still deeply yearning for companionship. The moment attraction to another person was irresistible my repressive avoidance of heart connection turned into an unhealthy and completely reactive over-attachment. If a space is hollow and under a vacuum the moment you open the valve everything that has been kept outside will flush the space uncontrolled, destroying everything in its path. In those partnerships, I became clingy and suffocating for the other person and it was very unsettling for me too.
This is what makes co-dependency so destabilizing. It causes us to jump back and forth between the two extremes; between pretending that we don’t need anyone and being clingy and needy once we cannot uphold that pretense anymore.
Co-dependency as a mechanism is therefore deeply confusing. Sometimes it leads in one direction the next time it leads somewhere else completely. For years women were a threat to my independence and all of a sudden I felt I couldn’t survive without her. To overcome co-dependency you have to find your own core first. You need to find something that orients you.
You will only be able to leave co-dependence if you find guidance within.
In the beginning, this north star of your journey towards true freedom can be another person, a belief system, or anything that gives you direction but in the long run, you will have left one trap just to end up in the next one because your guidance still comes from the outside. External guidance is only a temporary fix. You will only be able to leave co-dependence if you find guidance within. Once we have a true connection to our heart we can make very accurate decisions that are not based on any outward influence. This is why finding your heart center is so important. Once your decision-making is in place you are independent.
here is some guidance on how to find your heart center:
The next step is to follow through with those decisions and that is when the fear comes in. What will happen if I tell her my most intimate feelings and desires? Will she kick me out? Will I be lost and alone? What if I never find another partner like her?
To follow our truth we need to overcome fears. Otherwise, those truths stay suppressed truths which turns them into lies.
To follow our truth we need to overcome those fears. Otherwise, those truths stay suppressed truths which makes them a lie. And that is where the true drama of co-dependency begins. Once you start living a lie you are stepping off the path designed for you. Once you do that people meant to take certain positions in your life will never meet you. Once you start to make compromises you start to walk the path of comprise and all you will ever find is compromise. Most of us do that. I know very few people who don’t compromise because it is very hard to get rid of the addiction to compromise. Compromise delivers results. You can have quite a nice life with compromises. You have to leave that nice life behind to find your full life. To live your full life you need to trust that life without compromise exists. Very few of us take that gamble.
To get rid of compromise you need to speak your truth whenever necessary. This requires that you know your truth and you can speak it fearlessly whenever it needs to be spoken. It is not pretty sometimes but as a result, you purify yourself and live your life untarnished by things or people that do not belong there. It also prevents you from having the right people in your life but in the wrong way. This way of life will reward you with great gifts but will also be quite painful at the beginning.
Starting your full life will be a bumpy road because truth is a very shy guest. It is a challenge to find your truth and sometimes we act on impulses that we think to be the truth but which in fact aren’t. Those errors are painful. But failure is the only way to success. Compromise means to live a life without daring to make mistakes and such a life has already failed.
If you overcome co-dependency in your relationship with your parents you can overcome it once and for all.
The most important relationship you have to heal to overcome your co-dependent behavior and find your core is the relationship with your parents. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to get along with them in real life for those of you without that option. It is more about your attitude towards your parents when you meet them or when you imagine meeting them. Parents rarely release their children into their lives without imprinting co-dependent patterns on them. Most of us still have that sensation when we are next to our parents that we are drawn into versions of ourselves that we do not necessarily like and want to overcome. This is the draw of co-dependency. The presence of your parents activates patterns in you that are your oldest patterns. Those patterns have been imprinted in your being right after your birth and since they had the most time to take hold of you those patterns are the hardest to release. They are also especially hard to release because at the beginning of your life, you WERE dependent on your parents.
All your other patterns stem from those mothers and fathers of all patterns. This in turn means that if you overcome co-dependency in your relationship with your parents you can overcome it once and for all. Check your relationship with your parents for co-dependent patterns. Are you relying on their financial support? Do you unload your emotional insecurities on them every time you interact? Do you blame your parents for your failures in life? Do you refrain from speaking your truth in their presence because you fear their disapproval? All those are co-dependent patterns.
Now stop doing that. Try to interact with your parents as you would interact with an old friend who happened to have given birth to you. Don’t accept bullshit just because you have accepted that bullshit in the past. Do not pretend to be someone that you are not just because your parents still treat you like your 17-year-old self. Hold them accountable for things they do just like you would hold a friend accountable. It might help to start calling them with their first names.
You can imagine how that will irritate your parents, maybe your whole family. Try to stick with it anyway. You will unbullshit your relationship with your parents but most of all it is the fastest way out of co-dependency. Once your co-dependent patterns have melted away you will be ready for a healthy and lasting relationship. For one, you will speak your truth. No suppressed desires will poison your connection with your beloved.
Additionally, once your core is stable and you find someone with the same stability it won’t be magnets snapping onto metal doors anymore. Now the two of you are both magnets that pull each other in. The stability of those magnets will create an irresistible attraction that came to stay because none of you will collapse into your partner. You will stay true to your center but you keep magnetizing your partner just as he or she will keep magnetizing you. Instead of recreating patterns from your family’s past by dating representations of your parents you will open space to create something new with your beloved. This is how family curses will be broken - it is a holy task.
Additional Resources
if you enjoyed this text and it resonated with you, you should check out this channel on co-dependency as well. it offers a lot of additional perspectives, especially on how co-dependency is rooted in our fear of death:
this essay describes another way of leaving the Maya and entering the realms of joy:
to conquer fear you need to know how fear works and how it influences us. check out this great read to get a better understanding of how your anxieties hold you trapped:
Dear Tom, I met someone who I love so so much. I want to be with him for all of eternity, and I am so afraid to tell him. I want to live a life together with God's blessings, and I am ready to give all of me to this purpose of perfect peace as one body under God. I want to tell him everything I want and need. I want his kisses and his skin and his eyes. I want to marry him, exchange vows and rings, and multiply! I want to worship God together and be in thankfulness for what He gives us. I want to live a life of honesty and trust in God and Christ's joy within together. A life of deep deep love. I want to meet his baby and take care of her as a mother and a friend. I want to learn to speak Spanish together and English and get to know each other over a lifetime of years. I want to talk to him about everything everything. I want to get married so we can sleep together in the same bed, live in the same house, be 100% naked and true with one another and no one else, physically and spiritually. I pray that God would grant me this hope and this future.
Amen