#6. The One Where We Find Just The Right Amount

How do we know if we are relying too much, not enough, or "just the right amount" on one another? Let's find out together, shall we?

The topic of codependency is a tricky one, but an important one. I’ve found most people have some element of it in their lives. I want to implore everyone as they read this newsletter to come with new eyes about this topic and stay curious. By remaining open, not only will we learn more deeply, but by engaging with more compassion we may be able to change our own behaviors and/or understand those in our lives just a little bit better. As you’ll learn, these codependent patterns are not chosen, but rather learned at an age before we could have had any say in the matter. I try to approach things that feel as complex as this with a light heart. This isn’t to say codependencey doesn’t have very damaging consequences when unaddressed, however if we are so, so, so serious about it, we may never be willing look at it, see it in ourselves or our relationships. Listen, if curiosity and light-heartedness feel like a stretch here, I promise we can always be judgmental later if absolutely necessary😜.

Content Warning (meant to inform you about what will be coming up in this newsletter so you can best decide how and what to consume): Conversation and resources provided around pregnancy, fertility, deciding whether or not to be a parent, trauma, and Taylor Swift ;)

this may look like one cat, but really it’s two very codependent cats.

what to expect from this edition:

• mine: personal essay about what I learned this week- and a bonus parenting sidebar

• ours: dialogue of the week-codependency

• yours: the thing I’m on-maybe not wearing makeup (scandalous!) 

• two flows and a slow–graphic design, anniversary, and illness

• Inner-dialoguing–a mantra of sorts

• NEW! In the fade out this week I talk about things I can’t stop thinking about–parenting & friendships and taylor swift. 

If you want more info and my full disclaimer check out the about page here. Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hi!~ this isn’t a session. dialoguing is an educational and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment. If you’re new here, a great place to start is my first ever edition of this newsletter.

dialoguing with myself: what I learned this week

I’ve been saying “you have to” way too much in my parenting

This realization, like most in parenting, made it self known with the subtlety of a bulldozer. We were playing before bedtime and my son dropped a walkie talkie causing the cover for the battery pack to fly off. We looked for quite a long time to no avail. We were nearing bedtime with a capital B and we had looked everywhere I could think of. I let him know we may have to try this again in the morning. He looked me in the eyes, held my face to his and said with an intensity reserved solely for a life or death situation, “I have to keep looking. I have to.” (For those who can’t stand the suspense we found it in a place I had already looked. As T. Swift would say, “It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem, It’s me.”🙋🏼‍♀️) At first, this was very cute and funny, but then I noticed the next couple days how often he was saying, “I have to.” Whenever he repeats something that often it’s a signal to myself. I started noticing how often I was saying “you have to.”

“You have to brush your teeth.”

“You have to take a bath.”

“You have to go to sleep.”

Are all these statements true? Unequivocally. Does he give a shit about what is true? Not even the tiniest bit. I might as well have just been saying, “Because I said so!” Parenting—as humbling as ever. After I wiped the egg off my face, I asked myself “Why does he have to?” He has to because all of those things contribute to his health and, while his health is deeply important to me, I need to be instilling that importance in his own sense of self. If he only brushes his teeth because his mother is haranguing him about it, that fails to help him internalize how essential it is that we take care our bodies. The only message “you have to” sends is that we do things because other people want us to. Talk about a seamless segue to our dialogue for today: Codependency.