Do you worry about what others think?

I need their approval…

This is one of the most pervasive and unconscious beliefs that creates so many challenges, in human relationships and is what I believe to be the lynchpin of Co-dependence.

It’s what gets in the way of conscious parenting,

It’s what inhibits our most authentic self from fully expressing itself,

Its what keeps us feeling trapped, controlled, small, guilted, and manipulated,

It’s what keeps emotional hooks embedded in relationships that you’ve walked away from,

It’s what puts us into hypervigilance, freeze, fight/flight, and fawn state,

And I truly believe that 99% of the planet has this unconscious or conscious program running with at least 1-2 people in their life, if not with many, many people….

And you won’t know it’s there until it becomes activated….

Meaning you won’t know it’s there, until you lose their approval and see how you react, respond, or what comes up for you, with the loss of their approval.

Do you still feel secure in yourself?

Do you still trust yourself?

Do you still love who you are?

Or do you go into a dysregulated state?

Drop into people pleasing and trying to win back their approval?

Get aggressive with them and want to fight or defend or convince them that they are to blame in some way.

Or do you freeze, become submissive, completely withdraw, or drop into shame?

All of these are completely normal and human responses….. I’ve gone into all of them, my biggest patterns are freeze and people-pleasing (fawn).

And to be honest with you, I’ve been dismantling my co-dependent patterns for years, especially after being in a DV relationship for 14 years.

I’m so proud of how much I’ve released and sometimes still feel so frustrated at how much it can play out. Yet my awareness has increased massively of when I drop into these patterns and I’m so grateful for how fast I move back out of them.

Co-dependence is formed on, I need you to be ok, so I can be ok.

It creates a level of feeling completely hypervigilant and “hooked into” how someone else is feeling, responding, and what’s going on for them. We end up taking over responsibility for others’ emotions and abandoning our most authentic selves in the process.

It’s why so many empaths and sensitive people, are co-dependent, because of the level of attunement with other people’s emotional states, mostly because their survival depended upon being attuned to their caregiver’s needs as children, in order to stay safe and fitting in and belonging.

And it creates massive challenges with attempts at controlling people’s behavior, emotions, and feelings in order to feel ok.

This is the generational wounding that can play out.

Needing our Mother’s or primary caregiver’s approval, to belong, fit in, be accepted, and be a good girl.

We are hard-wired for that, our very survival depends on it as babies and young children…..

We mold ourselves into who they want and need us to be.

Diminishing our authentic nature in the process.

So how do we break free of this?

It’s releasing the belief of needing their approval.

It’s developing and maintaining a deep sense of self-love first and foremost.

It’s knowing yourself deeply to know what your own personal needs and boundaries are so that you can communicate these effectively.

It’s knowing your own patterns and being self-aware to recognize when you’ve dropped into a dysregulated state.

It’s being in touch with your own emotional and energetic state to be able to recognize when you’ve become submissive, withdrawn, or gone into a fawn or freeze or fight/flight response.

But the big one that can really make all the difference, is challenging the belief, that “I need their approval”.

For those of me that have been following me for some time, will know I love and adore Byron Katie’s method “The Work”.

It’s what I’ve used for years.

With the thought I need their approval, I feel tiny, I feel small, I feel submissive, I feel wrong, I feel ashamed of who I am, I diminish myself, I hold back, I don’t speak up, I become very afraid and insecure, I feel alone, I feel worried, scared, and distant.

Without thought,

I feel free, I feel liberated, I feel I can totally be myself, I feel brave, I feel confident, I feel so much openness, expansion, and joy, and I feel so truly free to fully be myself….

This is the power of doing the inner work.

So much of our time and our energy is spent on consciously or unconsciously making sure the outside world, especially those we are closest to, perceive us in a particular way, so we can still feel loved, accepted, and valued….

Learning to gift these things to ourselves first, is the KEY to HEALTHY relationships.

I promise it will improve every area of your life.

You will feel so much more freedom.

You will be able to express and communicate more effectively.

You will be able to follow your own heart and do what’s right for you.

You will be able to take steps to create and live your most authentic life and you will feel free from the deep fear that often holds so many humans back from living their fullest lives.

I’ll be teaching this and sooooo much more in my upcoming Healing and Regulating your Nervous System Class on the 24th of January – Next Tuesday at 11 am AEDT time (Sydney Time).

I can’t wait to share, more about this topic, as it’s key to healing burnout, overcoming sickness, exhaustion, and disease, and living a freer and happier life.

If you would love to:

1. Bring your body back into homeostatic balance, in a relatively short space of time and no longer live in chronic ongoing stress.
2. Feel so much calmer in your body.
3. Build resilience and capacity again
4. Take the accelerator and handbrake off in your nervous system (fight/flight and freeze response.)
5. Get better sleep
6. Reduce inflammation
7. Feel better emotionally and mentally

Then grab your online ticket, by clicking below for this incredible hour of healing, learning, and implementing, limited numbers. (ONLY $19)

Get tickets here!

With Love and Blessings,

Sal x

 

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