Transcript  

All Gifts Season 1. Episode 4. Breaking Free from Codependency

Note: The All Gifts Podcast is designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes conversational nuance that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

SPEAKERS

Pandora Villasenor, Mikaela Clark

Pandora Villasenor  00:18

You are listening to The All Gifts Podcast where we unwrapped some of life's most challenging and painful topics to help you find the hidden gifts within. here's your host, an MBA, entrepreneur, author and Coach Pandora Villasenor Welcome to The All Gifts Podcast. I'm your host Pandora Villasenor and cohosting with me today is Mikaela Clark. Hey Mikaela Hi. So today, we're going to be talking about the gift of codependency. Okay, am I the only one who like hates that word? It just leaves like a bad taste in my mouth literally. Like I remember one time when I was younger somebody accused me of being codependent and I didn't even know what it meant. But I just knew it meant like something I didn't want to be and I got really mad at them. Absolutely. What does it bring up for you?

Mikaela Clark  01:19

Every time I hear the word codependency, I just want to hold my breath. Like I feel like I need to brace myself. It's a scary word. It is.

 01:28

Yeah. Scary. And it also feels weak. Yeah, right. Yeah,

Mikaela Clark  01:34

I hear that. I remember. When I was a kid, my dad was an addiction counselor. And I went with him. I used to have to go with him to work on Friday nights because my mom worked late. So I would just sit in the room while they did this big talk about people's addictions. He ran the program. And so he would do like a kind of speech at the beginning.  Speech isn’t the right word.  But he would give a message at the beginning. Yeah. And it's always stuck in my mind that he said that there are many different forms of addiction. And codependency is one of them. Yes. I don't remember any of the other ones he said. But that has always stuck in my mind. And I heard that one. I was probably like, eight years old. Yeah. But that has always stuck in my mind.

Pandora Villasenor  02:2\

Yeah, I don't even remember when I first heard it. But for whatever reason, it left me with the sense of just brokenness, like beyond, you know, repair. But I looked up a fancy definition for us. Because again, All Gifts Podcast is all about finding the gift in the most difficult situations, just sharing our stories, but I am no expert. Okay, so I looked this up. And what I found was codependency was initially a term used to talk about a person in relationship with an addict, right? I mean, that's the classic. But since then, over the years, people have come to associate codependent behavior with all sorts of different behaviors was my understanding. So they can be like emotional or social or physical compulsions, all I can really think of, is what it looks like for me. So I can't really say what it means professionally. But for me, what it looks like, was a desire to meet the needs of other people over meeting my own. Yeah,

 03:27

Right. Absolutely.

Pandora Villasenor  03:28

That's kind of like how I see it. What about you? What have you kind of landed on? Like, what's your working definition?

Mikaela Clark  03:34

I think the biggest way that I see it in myself is my people pleasing. But then also, I tend to take on people's ideas about me. So when I take on those ideas, and I get it in my mind, like, this is what this person thinks of me. They think that I'm bossy they think that I'm too loud. I start to fit into the mold that I think I should say they think I'm too loud. I get quieter if I think that they think I'm too bossy I back off. Yeah. So for me, it's really shown up in taking people taking on people's opinions of me, and then trying to fix yes, those ideas that I've made myself, right,

Pandora Villasenor  04:21

Fix yourself into what you think they might want you to be yes, I totally relate to that. And the other one is taking care of other people's needs or caring about their needs and opinions about me to the point that I neglect to me, I neglect my self-care or even my ideas of my own self-worth. Mm hmm. Based on what they think or what I think they think

Mikaela Clark  04:44

I completely agree.  I was gonna say I completely relate to that.

Pandora Villasenor  04:47

It's crazy too because like their needs, their opinions don't even have to be spoken. They're like, unspoken, you know, it's um, it's a little unnerving that way.

Mikaela Clark  04:58

Are there specific People that you think of

Pandora Villasenor  05:01

Oh, yeah, say that? Oh, yeah, I think for me, authority figures. So, you know, I've done a lot of healing in this area to even be able to be aware of these things and talk about it. But I think it starts with my mom. My mom was very abusive growing up, I love her, but she was just physically intimidating, physically abusive, verbally abusive, emotionally manipulative. You know, as I read and learn about toxic, narcissistic parents, I'm not trying to like, you know, clinically diagnosed or anything, but some of those things really resonate with me. So that is definitely like sort of the place of origin. But then I see that show up in other places of authority, such as my boss at work, or a leader at church. So those are a couple of other areas where that will show up for me.

Mikaela Clark  05:55

Absolutely, yeah, it's wild, how you can see certain patterns in yourself. And you can almost always trace it back to your parents and how you interpreted their actions or different situations or circumstances you had with them

Pandora Villasenor  06:13

Totally. And it's not easy to be a parent. I know, I have two grown children, and I did my best and made mistakes too. So I get that you know, at the same time, so it's kind of a, it's a tough thing to be codependent, when you're also a very empathetic person. I do consider myself an empath. So, so they kind of unfortunately, can go hand in hand and really kind of over emphasize each other. I don't know, there's probably a better word for that. But, but I can totally see how difficult it is to be a parent and to be my parent, I can see how difficult it was for my mom. So yeah, so I think I can go back to those places. But what's been really good about and why I call codependency a gift is because as much as it made me uncomfortable to have to dig in codependency made me so uncomfortable, I had to dig in, you know, like, it made me so uncomfortable, that it forced me to grow. It forced me to change and it forced me to care for myself. I had to figure this out. Why was I like this, because the ways we just described their torture, right?

 07:21

Yeah.

07:22

Right. So it's like a prison. Yeah.

Mikaela Clark  07:25

Do you remember when or how that happened?

Pandora Villasenor  07:29

Yeah. I think you mean the awareness around it. I think the awareness around it being a gift, being something that was forcing me to grow, I think, really didn't come to light for me until I became a Christian. So I'd gone to therapy in my 20s. And that helped a lot. And then I became a Christian when I was around 31. It was like 2007. And I really loved this idea of trusting God, you know, I'd never lived like that. I never could trust anybody. But I was gonna say trust anybody but myself, but I didn't actually trust even myself. Wow. Um, so I lived with a lot of worry, and a lot of anxiety. Not clinical anxiety, but situational anxiety, I spend a lot of time ruminating over possible bad outcomes. And, you know, and it was just afraid of failing in life, you know? So, so I like this idea. But I couldn't quite figure out how to trust God. So I think that was what initially made me realize like, Hmm, okay, I'm not grasping this concept. It sounds good, but I'm not grasping it effectively in my life. I'm not behaving like somebody that believes what I say I believe in. And so I landed on two specific things that I felt based on how much I'd studied about God, two main things I needed to really work on in order to get to that place of trusting Him. And the two were one, I had to really know who he was, or who he is, who is the real God, not the god I've projected, based on you know, my father wounds, that's a whole other topic, right mom, or, you know, authority figures, but like, Who is God? Really? What's his character like? And then to, who am I to God? Yeah, so I was on that journey. So I think it was while I was on that journey, that I became aware of the depth of my need to heal from codependency Mm hmm. Does that make sense?

Mikaela Clark  09:46

Absolutely. So when you think of it, when you say depth, I kind of envision like, hitting a rock bottom. Yeah. So was there a moment when you hit that rock bottom And what did you do?

Pandora Villasenor  10:01

Well, I did. Yeah, I do think what happened was, as I was looking at those two things, the first one, which I thought was going to be this huge mystery, and God is still so mysterious, I am not trying to say I've figured God out, okay. But, but I did find that it was easier to accept what I was learning about his character. Even the mysterious things were easier for me to accept, because I could accept that they were mysterious. I could say, you know, he's omniscient. Okay, I don't get it. I'm not God. You know, like, there were things about God that I could wrap my mind around without having to wrap my mind around them. I just learned about, you know, who he was, that he was faithful and loving, and just and righteous and holy. And, and so I dug into that, and that that I could accept. Yeah, it was the second one. So it was when I was starting to understand that the Bible was pointing to my identity as this beloved child, that that was the red flag for me, like, wow, I don't feel like a beloved child. I don't. So I don't know if it's like a moment, per se, but it was definitely a sense that I couldn't do it. I was still afraid of failure. I had this elusive concept of success of being good enough of, you know, of kind of doing everything right. Before I could be completely accepted. Yeah.

Mikaela Clark  11:34

When you landed there, what came next?

Pandora Villasenor  11:38

Well, that. Okay, so that was a little bit of a rock bottom. Okay. So I think now that we're talking, it's becoming more clear. So I was at this point, where I'd lived like this, like for about 10 years. Yeah, believe it or not. But I had reached a point where I was in a high profile, high stress job, I was getting my masters, you know, I went back to school to get an MBA, again, trying to just get ahead of that feeling of impending failure that was just around the corner. And during that time, I had like a kind of a harsh boss. He was nice, but he was like, he was harsh. Sometimes he was nice. Sometimes he was hard to read, very similar to the way I grew up. And he would trigger me I would just feel all the time, like the sense of doom and dread and like, failure was coming like it was just coming after me. And it was during that time that I had a serious, like, I hit a wall health wise, I got sick, you know, and nothing serious. But I got like a pretty bad flu that I couldn't quite shake. And then once the flu started to wear off, I got this, like, I threw my back out, like, Wow, so I found myself for about a month, where I couldn't work. I couldn't perform, I couldn't achieve, I couldn't succeed. I couldn't try to please, everybody. And it was during that time, kind of laying on my back. And this is when I read an Unhurried Life, actually, kind of going back to some of the other things that I've shared before about some resources that I really started to realize, like I need to slow down and get like a sense of like, where this engine of have go-go-go achieve-achieve-achieve was coming from. And this is it all kind of came back to this place. If that makes sense.

Mikaela Clark  13:26

It does. It sounds like your body even was really aware of the triggers around you and the wounds that were being hit. And that mind body connection is so powerful, so powerful, crazy. 

Pandora Villasenor  13:38

And this is like probably the one time in my life where it showed up loud and clear. Like there was no question my body was going, you're going to slow down. You're going to stop right now. Wow. And I did.  I couldn't do anything else. And another big area was I served at church a lot and I had kept that pace going and my body like quitting on me, forced me to see that I had old wounds that really, were driving all of this.

Mikaela Clark  14:08

Yeah, I definitely relate to that. I feel like quarantining has given me that opportunity to slow down and realize some of them

Pandora Villasenor  14:17

Yes, one of the gifts of the Coronavirus. What I think what's interesting, I don't know if listeners are if you can relate to this. There was this sense of like, wait, have I healed from this stuff?

14:29

Oh, yeah. You know, like, yeah,

Pandora Villasenor  14:32

You know, so there was this like, it was confusing because I was like, I went to therapy. I wrote grief recovery letters, like I did all this. All these different tools, you know, different groups, different recovery things. So I was really taken aback that I still had so much healing to do. Now looking back, I laugh at that because like, I think I've gotten to that place in my life. That was like four years ago, three or four years ago now. Like I think I'm beyond that where I needed nothing surprises me now. I'm like, when I realized I still have a wound, I'm like, yep, here it comes. Okay, come on. I tell my inner child. Come on, honey. Oh, yes, let's chat, you know. So I don't feel that way anymore. But I was still at this point, just like, Why? Why am I still dealing with this wound?

Mikaela Clark  15:18

Yeah. What were when you think of like that wound? Can you think of one of the big things that came up for you?

Pandora Villasenor  15:30

Oh, gosh, yes. Um, yeah, I mean, God took me deeper into, okay. So at the time, like, there's always been a sense that, you know, I was physically abused, I was neglected. I mean, you know, my mom spent a significant portion of my childhood on meth. And then she transitioned into some other drugs of choice, but, but there was a lot of, you know, responsibility put on me at a young age. And I saw a lot of things that I shouldn't have saw. And there's a lot of things that, you know, my dad was in prison most of the time. So there was a sense that, yeah, it was messed up, you know, but I think it was during this time, that older memories of abuse that I hadn't quite categorized as abuse, like a geyser, they kind of shot up through the surface of my heart during this time of rest is for stressed. Like, for example, I had categorized some things that had happened, as you know, sin, you know, bullying around as a kid, that later during this time, I began to see, were actually, you know, sexually inappropriate things that had happened, which I wouldn't have categorized as sexual abuse. But I went to a counselor and kind of talked about it. And they were like, actually, these things could be categorized in that, you know, they're not the direct sort of, you know, sexual abuse that that many people go through. But there were sexually inappropriate things that happened at ages that shouldn't have happened. And I write about this a lot in my book, but this was the time that I became more aware. And so, you know, I think God just allowed me to be more aware of some deeper wounds, some deeper level of abuse that I didn't even I didn't even think about before, but it became very apparent at that time.

Mikaela Clark  17:20

Yeah, I'm sure as a child's You didn't even know what to call it then.

Pandora Villasenor  17:27

Right, right. Yeah, I didn't. And I just, it was just basically like, suddenly, something that I had no words for the fog was just sort of there and it started to lift. Wow, yeah. That's huge. But more than the wounds, I think, what it did this time, it gave me the courage to finally say no. For the first time in my life, I told my mom, she wasn't allowed to call me, you know, bad names, and cuss me out and yell at me anymore.

Mikaela Clark:

Wow. Yeah. How did that go?

Pandora Villasensor 

It was Wow. I mean, first of all, and I write about this in my book, because it was such a powerful time for me to be able to do that. It did not go well. She was really angry. I'd never told my mom before not to cuss me out. I'd never told her I'd never stood up to her to that degree. And really, I didn't do anything. I just didn't call her back when she cussed me out. And instead, I wrote her a letter very commonly, and said that she couldn't do that anymore, that I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to have a relationship with her, but I just was not going to allow her to cuss me out anymore and call me names. That's huge. Yeah, yeah. So she was mad. And she cussed more, you know? And so this went back and forth. And eventually, I had to go, no contact with her.

Mikaela Clark  18:55

Wow, that's crazy. I can't even imagine what that must have looked like.

Pandora Villasenor  19:02

Yeah, it was hard. I mean, you know, it's hard to establish boundaries with an authority figure that has pretty much done whatever they wanted to do with you. For so long. I was 43 years old. Wow. But it was, again, this was something that I felt forced and compelled to do out of. I just couldn't take it anymore. And what was so good about it was I put the boundary out there. And then it was up to her. I finally recognize that it was up to her whether or not she wanted to honor that boundary. Yeah. And when she honors that boundary, we talk, but then when she dishonors that boundary, I have, I honor and respect my own boundary and say, yeah, we can't talk right now. No, so it's been good. And you know, it's been hard though. Um, it was hard on me and… but it's so interesting how when I put that boundary there, and boundaries are a whole nother thing. I mean, people can think that it's mean, people think you're creating walls. I mean, people have very mixed reactions to the term boundary. All I mean by that is being able to voice and say how you want to be treated and how you don't want to be treated. And for me, being able to say, you know, nobody in my life is allowed to cuss me out, like nobody. So why am I letting you just because you're my mom, right? And this is what I was going to say. What's funny about that is once I did that, it was amazing. The gifts that came out of just being able to own my own voice I, I started writing, you know, this is when I started writing my book. And I really started to find my life's calling, because there was something in me ever since I was a little girl that said, you know, write, you know, tell stories and share your life with people, help people this way. And yet, I always felt held back from that. But once I started to find my own voice around codependency and saying no, and setting those boundaries, I started to find my voice. And it was really a hard time, but it was also a really empowering time.

Mikaela Clark  21:25

Yeah, sounds like giving worth to your experiences and telling your experiences that they matter and that your story matters.

Pandora Villasenor  21:35

Yeah. And I feel guilty about it. I have to say for like two years, I mean, it's been a few years, but the first solid, I'd say 24 months of it, you know, long stretches of going no contact, opening up that door again, having her you know, be okay, but then cuss me out again, and then going no contact and basically, you know, honoring my boundary to be a healthier person. I learned that there's actually a lot of research around how you can't fully heal. And I know I have like an accent when I say that word heal. Um, you can't fully heal from early childhood abuse if the abuser is still abusing you. Okay, so this goes back to the spiritual battle I was sharing with you. Yeah. So if you go back to that second point, becoming God's beloved, really accepting that identity. I couldn't accept that identity.  I was still being abused by my mom. So here's what I learned in Dallas Willard book Renovation of the Heart, which is a very intensely written book. I mean, it's very academic. But I got some really good nuggets out of it. And I'm kind of into that kind of thing anyway. But Dallas Willard talks about how, like early childhood can kind of inform your ideas about yourself, basically.  So if you have these ideas, of brokenness of a lack of love, of being abused, you have sort of this broken idea of yourself, basically. And so it's a, it's kind of like, a wall between you and God. And it's not until you, you know, and this is my total take on what he shares, by the way, this is what I got out of it. And it's not until you actually kind of can be separated from that early childhood experience that you can really grasp your identity as being loved by God.  And so reading that during this time of intense guilt, of going, you know, and having that boundary with my mom was really good for me, because I was able to just be so much kinder to myself and go, you need this right now. So that you can heal and stop current abuse so that you can actually get close to God.

Mikaela Clark  24:12

Yeah, that's really powerful. That's amazing.

Pandora Villasenor  24:16

Yeah, it's really the core of who we are. Doesn't matter. Even people who don't necessarily call it that or know that they believe in God, there's this sense that we should be somebody Beloved, yeah, it should be this unfailing love for eternity. And I had that in my heart. But it wasn't until I set this boundary that I could actually feel it and now, Mikaela, listeners, I'm walking in that, for the most part, I feel loved. I feel a strong sense of my identity in Christ. I feel free. And I feel like you know, God's beloved.

Mikaela Clark  24:57

Yeah, I mean, that's a huge thing to do, I definitely think that, you know, from our primary caregivers, that's the way we learn to receive love. That's the way we learn how we're loved. So being able to kind of like break that chain, you know, that had been created. I mean, that's huge. Yes.

Pandora Villasenor  25:21

And seen where this pattern shows up with other authority figures, right. So one more story is, I had this huge test last year. So a kind of a test of this whole paradigm shift. And that was I was out to dinner with a spiritual mentor in my life, somebody I've looked up to, for many years. And I shared that my book was almost done. You know, they asked about my book, and I said, Yeah, it's almost done. But I confessed that I had a lot of fear in sharing my story. Because I didn't want to hurt my mom. Like, that's not my intention. That's not my intention in this podcast. That's never my intention. I love her so much. And I'm so grateful for what she did for me, like the good thing she did for me. And I can even see a gift in the things that weren't good. And that's the point of my book. And that's the point of my podcast. So the whole point is to talk about how even the things that were bad were gifts. So I'm out to dinner with this friend, I share with her that I do not want to hurt my mom, I'm scared. But I feel like this book was something that was given to me as a mission to help other people. And this friend ends up saying, like, immediately and definitively do not publish that book while your mom is alive. Oh. And I mean, that little girl in me, the one that wants to please, my mom and other authority figures was immediately triggered, like, I know, you know, but I listened. And I kind of just took it in. But I didn't take it all the way in. And instead, I sort of, you know, prayed in my head and thought, you know, communicated again, with that inner voice, that inner wisdom like, this, does this ring true for me? And then she goes on to share about her own strange relationship with her adult daughter, and then it hits me, okay, she can't accept your situation. Because she is seeing it through her own situation. And that's when I realized, we do that people do that. They will look at your situation through the lens of their own experience. So I told myself in that moment, you know, as Pandora, not everybody's going to enjoy your story. Not everybody is going to think this is a great idea. And so it was actually a great test for me, because I came away from it. Now I'm going to say it gave me a little pause. I did pray and journal about it for a day or two. But where I landed was pretty quickly that it wasn't my business what she thought about my business. And so that was really a great test for me to realize like, I am learning and growing. And I can see codependency as a gift because it has shown me that what other people think about me is not my business. Yeah, you know.

Mikaela Clark  28:22

So you were able to put all those things that you were learning into practice to say, No, I'm not gonna live my life like that anymore.

28:30

Yeah, yeah. Cool. It was such a temptation for just a second. I bet.

Mikaela Clark  28:36

I bet. Especially you talking about that little girl inside that was like…

Pandora Villasenor  28:42

It was just another opportunity to face that, that little girl and say to her, like, It's okay. It's okay. You've got some extra places of healing. And that's okay. You've got some areas where you can own your own responsibilities. And you've got some areas where you need to let other people own theirs.

Mikaela Clark

Yeah, sounds hugely healing

Pandora Villasenor

It was so healing. So I guess if I could sum it up for our listeners, it's like not to be afraid of codependency but to see it as a gift to really see it as an opportunity to listen to your own voice. You know, like, so many of our episodes are about this sense of, you know, taking the time to check in and know, you know, how do you really feel about something and someone and what the dynamics are, and then, you know, just little by little, having that courage to just be you be your authentic self and find your authentic voice. And you know what, sometimes it won't be easy, and sometimes we won't be good at it, but that's what makes it a practice. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's amazing. Thanks for being here with me today. Mikaela. 

Mikaela Clark  29:59

Thank you for having me. 

Pandora Villasenor  30:00

And thank you listeners for just listening in and hearing about the ways that we find the gift in life's most difficult topics. I'm so grateful and one of the things I can share with you is when I look back at these times, I can see it all as a gift. So remember, listeners, everything, especially the painful can be a gift. Thank you for listening to The All Gifts Podcast. I'm your host Pandora Villasenor. I have a passion for coaching people to overcome the challenges in their lives by helping them discover ways to transform those challenges into gifts, gifts of accomplishment, perseverance, strength and resilience. But most of all, peace and self love. Loved ones go to WWW dot All Gifts book.com to join us for exciting updates on the launch of All Gifts the book and sign up for our free newsletter.