Codependency saved my life.
How are you supposed to set a boundary when you can't feel your true needs?
It's true that boundaries have been a central theme of my work for the last decade, mostly because it's what I've needed to learn.
If you've been around here for a while, it's likely you've seen me speak to the ways my codependency has shown itself destructive in my previous partnerships, my familial relationships, my friendships, my business.
Codependency isn't just about our romantic relationships– it's about how safe we feel to be ourselves in our relationships.
Story time.
When I arrived into adulthood I had absolutely no template for sovereign, interdependent relationships. I knew something felt off about my relationships because of the distress and chaos that continually presented inside them, but back then Insta therapy-speak wasn't daily language for lay people like me.
The term “boundaries” was introduced to me by my counselor at church, Jim Lee, when I was 22. Shockingly I made it through undergrad without any of my psych or communication professors uttering the word! (HOW???)
Jim implied that the lack of privacy and immense secret-keeping in my childhood miiiiight not have been healthy– in fact it may have been quite damaging.
I learned quickly that the distress I felt when people were mad at me, my try-hard nature, my inner circle of mean-girl friends, my inability to speak my truth, propensity to tell people what they wanted to hear, disregard of my own needs and the persistent symptoms of chronic cystic acne, chronic pain and IBS that didn't go away no matter what diet I tried might actually all be connected.
Within a year of somatic energetic work around boundaries and early developmental trauma, all of my chronic symptoms went away “magically.”
It was around this time I began my coaching business. In fact, I remember my final session with Jim where he told me he felt I was stable, well and healthy enough to begin a career path where I could confidently hold space for others. I was elated to receive this validation from someone I respected so much. The very next day I enrolled in my first coaching certification program.
Wouldn't it be a nice story if I was to say, “And then all my trauma, codependency and boundary issues subsided! I was healed!!”?
That's not exactly what happened.
Those foundational sessions learning about boundaries offered me stability and a new trajectory, but it was just the start. What followed was a series of reckonings with my lineage, mother wound, childhood abuse, neurodivergence… all the while writing about all of my healing in real time to you.
The imprints of trauma, codependency and lack of boundaries are deep, often ancestral and (I believe) karmic.
They aren't healed by reading a book on codependency and memorizing all the boundary scripts, unfortunately.
These imprints live in the body and energetic field. They are rooted in our primary attachments and usually aren't just an issue because we don't know “the right thing to say.”
For example, if you deal with a shaky, insecure attachment style, it's likely your mom and her mom did too. If you have a history of swallowing your truth, it's likely you learned it was safer, somehow, to not have opinions of your own.
And living under systems of oppression, doesn't it make sense that those of us who have oppressed identities*, who see bodies like theirs/ours harmed regularly, who have experienced exile, who have dealt with food or financial insecurity… doesn't it make sense that we might not feel “secure?”
Doesn't it make sense that our masking, people-pleasing, assimilating, swallowing our Truth would keep us safe?
*I say this not because those with oppressed identities can't have security, sovereignty or thriving relationships, as these are birthrights and all of our bodies can remember safety. I mention this because understanding why it's been challenging can remove a layer of shame keeping us blaming ourselves.
This is why when I see people talking about codependency like a personal failing, I get protective.
It is not a personal failing to struggle with boundaries. It's adaptive, brilliant and wise.
Codependency is advantageous.
And this is why when I look back at my sweet 23 year old self feeling so fucking grateful for this new word, “boundaries,” I have so much pride. This life-changing word saved her. It's no wonder she wanted to spread this word far and wide. It's no wonder she did.
Her earnestness to create courses while still learning…
Her willingness to learn in public… to serve others while healing…
Her willingness to drop a small key to people who might, like her, not know the word yet…
I pray I might still be so courageous to share the knowledge that has and continues to liberate me.
My business itself was built upon imprints of codependency, like all my relationships have been.
I had shit boundaries with clients for years. I didn't know how to navigate projections, and no one told me how my own “stuff” might show up in sessions with clients. I lived for strangers on the internet who I thought knew better about me than I did. I let myself be abused because it was familiar and I didn't know relationships could feel safe. I over-gave in all of my programs and let my relationships suffer. I hid in plain sight– because of course I did.
Of course I did.
While doing the work I was meant to do, I still had blindspots. Doesn't that make me human?
While doing brilliant work, there were areas inside myself still frozen to my own needs; parts of myself that were so far hidden it was like they didn't exist at all.
How are you supposed to set a boundary when you can't feel your true needs?
How are you supposed to run a service-based business where you don't burn out if you can't feel yourself at all when someone has a need?
How are you supposed to market your work in authenticity if the True You has always had to be masked to be safe??
You're not. That's how.
You can't until you can. What a miracle.
It's been 10 years now since Jim Lee gave me the magical word “boundaries,” and it's likely that I'm just now unlocking the depth of what it means to be sovereign, boundaried from love not fear, to have a strong Self, be rooted in dignity, open-hearted and deeply of service.
It's been 10 years, and I'm just now experiencing the bloom of all this work– and it's changing my coaching practice and business completely.
It's been 10 years, and I finally feel like the Guardian of the Good.
It's been 10 years, and just like that sweet 22 year old, I have so much I am eager to share with you about this!!
Even 10 years later, I just can't keep this shit to myself.
Because my friend, we can know all the things with our minds, but…
Until your body remembers that it is safe to be you, your boundaries will be challenging to hold, no matter how much you “know.”
Now, an invitation. :)
Goodness is coming,
Madison
