Finding Our Way: Creating Change in Ourselves and Our Relationships by Dr. Larry Cohen
Therapist & Life Coach, Voorhees NJ, Marlton NJ and Cherry Hill NJ (856) 352-5428
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“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think!”
― Christopher Robin
1. SELF-WORTH
Freedom From Codependence
To live a happy, joyful life, it is essential to establish lasting, positive feelings of self-worth. Some of us have steady feelings of worth and value, while others experience fluctuating feelings of self-worth and struggle to control the highs and lows.
A fluctuating, unstable sense of self is experienced when your self-worth depends on things outside of yourself, like your job, how much money you have, or your lifestyle. If this is you, then you are what is called codependent. A codependent relies on things outside of themselves to provide feelings of self-worth.
Dependence on things outside of yourself can cause you to feel that your life is out of your control. Your inner world and your sense of self-worth fluctuate as your outer world changes.
No matter how much you believe they are, things like your job or how much money you have are not within your control. Relying on them to provide self-worth can eventually make your life feel out of control as you try to control uncontrollable things. Codependence affects your self-worth because negative things lower it while positive things increase it. To fight off the ups and downs of codependence, you must maintain an inner sense of self-worth. When you do, you are free from codependence, and what is happening outside of you does not define you.
Codependence Broadly Defined
When I think of codependence, I immediately think about addiction and how addiction impacts the family. Addiction theory defines codependence as what the addict’s partner experiences simply by being the partner of an addict. This type of codependence manifests when the addict’s partner allows their emotions and daily life to revolve around that of the addict. If the addict is doing well, they are doing well. If the addict is doing poorly, they suffer. But this is only one kind of codependence. Here, I am looking at a broader definition of codependence. My definition of codependence includes dependence on things outside of yourself that impact your sense of self-worth and sometimes even define it. You can be codependent on your job, money, or the people you surround yourself with.
For example, losing a job can be devastating, but your entire sense of self-worth can collapse if you are codependent on your job. As important as a job is, it does not define who you are. You may also be a partner or parent; we are all sons or daughters. I have worked with codependents who were highly sought-after professionals. Even though they could find other work, they could not accept what had happened. One, a mother of four, was so devastated by her job loss that she couldn’t value how much her children loved her. She was so codependent on her career that she could only think about the job she lost ten months earlier. She told me she felt like a complete failure.
Even this - loving others and being loved - is not who you are. You are not what you do or what you give. You are valuable just for being born. Your self-worth is something inside, not something defined by things on the outside.
Being dependent on things outside of yourself leads, at best, to a fluctuating sense of self-worth. You forfeit your ability to find the self-worth that comes from within. Your codependence must be stopped to have consistent, positive feelings of self-worth.
Negative Core Beliefs
Your core beliefs are those things you believe about yourself deep down. These beliefs drive and play a significant role in codependence. Negative core beliefs include “I am a failure” or “I am not as good as other people.” For example, someone who is a ‘caretaker’ may have the core belief “I am unlovable,” or “My happiness depends on making others happy,” or “I am only valuable if I am needed by someone else.” The caretaker is codependent on being able to take care of someone else to feel loved. These beliefs drive a caretaker to prioritize others' needs above their own and seek validation and self-worth by caring for others.
Codependence and Fluctuating Self-Worth
When you are codependent, your self-worth can fluctuate from high to low very quickly when life experiences don’t turn out how you expect them to. For example, you go out on a date with someone you believe is perfect for you - you dream of a beautiful life together and feel fantastic. Eventually, however, you discover this person isn’t who you thought they were and decide this is not ‘your person.’ As a result, you start thinking that you’ll never meet someone, blame yourself, and think there must be something wrong with YOU. This triggers the inner core belief that you are a loser. Your sense of self-worth drops as a result. Another example: you expect a promotion at work, and your boss passes you over and gives the job to someone else. Because you are codependent, you think you’re not good enough and will never get a promotion.