Video Transcript: Dark Side - Co-dependent Leaders

In this video we're going to talk about the shadow side the dark side of codependency. Now perhaps you've heard of codependency in a magazine, such as Good Housekeeping, or Family Circle, or something popular buy, while you saw on Oprah the other day, or maybe another talk show host. How codependency is such a problem? Well, to tell you the truth, it's real. And yes, it is a problem for all of us. And as we've looked at the other dark sides, control, narcissism and also paranoia, passive aggressive. We now look at codependency because this is where, in contrast to the control dark side, we now see how we can switch roles. We at first, for example, feel we need to control everybody and everything around us if that becomes a problem. But if you flip it, we then switch roles and we become the object of someone who is dealing with control issues, as the codependent.

Now what is codependency? I have a couple handouts. And I placed these online as PDF files that are there. And I'd like to go over them here briefly and just read them to you, sort of what is codependency. First, codependency has to do with how my good feelings about who I am stem from being loved by you. Or my good feelings about who I am stem from receiving approval from you. Or your struggle affects my serenity. My mental attention focuses on solving your problems, or relieving your pain, or my mental tension is focused on pleasing you, protecting you. And my self-esteem is bolstered by relieving your pain. I feel better one night. I solve your problems and not my own problems. Or my own hobbies and interests are put aside, my time is spent sharing your interests and hobbies, or your clothing and your personal appearance are dictated by my desires as I feel you are a reflection of me. Or your behavior is dictated by my desires as I feel you are a reflection of me. I am not aware of how I feel. I am aware of how you feel. I'm not aware of what I want. I ask what you want. I'm not aware, I assume the dreams I have for my future are linked to you. My fear of rejection determines what I say or do. And my fear of your anger determines what I say or what I do. I use giving as a way of feeling safe in our relationship. My social circle diminishes as I involve myself with you. I put my values aside in order to connect with you. I value your opinion and way of doing things more than my own. And finally, the quality of my life is in direct relation to the quality of yours.

As we say in recovery in this handout--by the way, it's from the Celebrate Recovery resource that we have online and could download it. Put it in your toolbox, have it available for yourself as you do ministry with others, but also especially looking at yourself. How am I doing? I often look at this checklist and say, yeah, how is my mental tension focused on pleasing others? Or am I aware of how I feel? How am I doing today? Because this is what we call, in recovery, "stinking thinking." We call it stinking thinking because, quite honestly, it's it takes us into very unhealthy patterns in relationships with others, whether they are in authority over us, or in our marriage relationships, or in our collegial relationships, colleagues at work, or even people at the deli counter at our local grocery store. Codependency comes in many, many forms.

Now coming back to the dark side of codependency, or how codependency is a dark side. As we look back at Family of Origin issues, what happens with mom and dad and family and so on? And how perhaps their sense of needing to control over me as a child may have created an unhealthy pattern of behavior and dependency on them and that then is transferred to others. So, what are the causes? What are the causes of the codependent Darkside? 

First, as I said, family of origin dependency issues. Mom says, Go to your room and don't come out of there till I say so. You've probably heard that before. Or your dad said, if you don't do what I tell you to do, you won't amount to anything. You need to do things based on the schedule. You’re out of line! You shouldn't feel that way. Don't show your emotions. You're talking to your friends again? Go to your room. We'll talk tomorrow morning. Or the classic: wait until your father comes home. Now, sometimes those situations are expected, because we can be pretty naughty as kids. But other times, that takes us into the domain of how our families can go too far. And they don't step back to understand who we are, made in God's image. And then we think that we've done so wrong that there's a debt we had to pay back as an adult. Dependency, family of origin, also rigid, legalistic or oppressive family systems. And I alluded to this in my examples just now. But then this goes into the area of acute abuse, abuse that is uncalled for, unwarranted. And really, where a child needs to be removed from the home. Things of that nature.

Now the previous video with Pastor Greg, who we have this video today as well, he discussed his story about being sexually abused. And that, my friends, illustrates how that is way too far. It is criminal, it is wrong. And God shows us how to give life as we read scripture, where we see that these behaviors are not what God wants. And we need to also deal with being rigid or legalistic, those other examples too, of how if you're not a dinner table by 5pm, and it's 5:01, you don't eat. Or other things: we're in church, you have to sit a certain way—You ever been there? I have!—or you get pinched in the pew: Stop it! Look straight ahead. Don't look to your left or to your right. Maybe that's your Church Christian, or some of you, from more Pentecostal traditions, are saying, I can't relate to that at all. But we look at how our families can go into that rigid, or legalistic, or oppressive direction. 

Another cause: the need to keep the peace. Mom and dad are fighting; I don't know why. Or everything around you is a war zone because of the environment that you are living in, or at school. It doesn't seem to be order, and here in America we hear about these shootings in high schools and other places and we think, what is this world coming to? Peace! We need to keep the peace; that's up to us, when really, it's in God's hands. Codependency. then we have characteristics of codependency. First the inability to say no. Now I will say, for example, I am a person who struggles with codependency. I feel that I need to say yes to many, many things and also please many, many people. Realistically, and I've been taught all my life, that I can't. It's not realistic. But there's still that sense, that struggle, that I had to say yes, otherwise, what will they think?

We always have to say, who is the 'they' that says you're not measuring up? Because right in that thinking is also the whole idea that we fall short if I don't say yes. So, the inability to say 'no' is a problem. Because we can say 'no.' And we should say 'no' to many things, as well as say 'yes' to many things, too. We need balance. Also, the obsessive fear of disappointing others, again related to the inability of saying no, and the problem of saying yes too much. And the appearance of benevolence, appearing that I am kind to other people all the time, that I need to be the Savior, perhaps, of someone else's pain or chaos, and repressed anger and hostility. I still go back to that example of where the dad will say to the son or the daughter, don't express your feelings. Especially between a father and son, if you express your feelings son, you're a sissy, or you're not strong, or you don't measure up or you amount to nothing. All lies, all lies! However, we know that it does occur in many a family system. And we know that even though that child, as he or she grows up, may not show the emotion based on the conditioning by the dad, or by the mom, or both parents, as well as teachers, and the culture that that he or she is growing up in. There's anger for hostility, there's things that that need to come out. But they're not allowed to. Hence codependency, because we're dependent on someone else's serenity, someone else's agenda, as opposed to the agenda God has for you and me.

Challenges: as we face our codependent issues, we need to learn to say no. We need to resist false guilt. Friends, I can't tell you enough how I grew up with the issue of false guilt. Especially when I would displease my mother. My mother's a strong personality. And yeah, she was figuring things out as I was the only child for the first seven and half years of my life. And then my sister was born. And that changed everything. And I always felt guilty if I didn't do things quite to the level, or the measure that she had in mind. Or a teacher again, and I grew up in a culture in my childhood, where there were many who projected, on me and other students, expectations that seem to be a bit unrealistic, high standards. No problem with those when we are in school, and we need to learn and have excellence. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the delivery of expectations, the behavior of those who are over us, or those who we relate to. And false guilt can some be a challenge to deal on into our adult years. To refer refusing responsibility for feelings of others is another challenge. Someone else's chaos is not my emergency. Because if someone else is creating their emergency, that's not my chaos. It is in God's hands, because God has everything in his hands. And with God, we place other people into his hands or their support systems. Is there the church? Absolutely. It's part of God's plan. Do we have police, do we have nurses? Do we have doctors? Absolutely. So, we need to remember that it's not up to us all the time. Now sometimes, we are obligated with our brother and sister to carry each other's burdens as the scripture says. But we also need to be mindful that we are not always in the position to fix people, and we can't fix people, and we shouldn't fix people. The minute we try to fix someone else's issues or, of course, to always feel responsible for others feelings, that's the moment we go down into a very dark path. A path where we do ourselves in, emotionally and spiritually, where we begin to negate ourselves. We help others at our own expense. And then we have nothing left to give. So, we need to have balance here, as far as the codependent dark side. And also, we have to deal with the challenge of living with unresolved conflict. We talked about that life debt, the debt we know we can't pay back, coming out of family of origin. And how we need to depend on God to take care of that. And where we have the unresolved conflict placed into God's hands in the in the mode of forgiving ourselves, forgiving others. As well as to say, I have to let go and let God heal, restore. God's bigger than the conflict. So as human beings, as followers of Jesus, we then have opportunity to rise above codependent patterns, the patterns I just read at the beginning of the session. And to gain more insight, I invited pastor Greg to join us another time pastor Greg, welcome back.

Greg: And thanks for having me again.

Mark: Of course, it's fantastic to learn from you and last session on compulsivity and control issues that your story was compelling. I think God will use that story in a big way. Everywhere, as this course and all the courses with CLI are all over the world. And today we talked about codependency and I know that you meant mentioned sexual abuse. You talked about your crack addiction, your family of origin that just kind of shoved you to the side and also even turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse. I know that you've shared that with me too. But as I read the codependency statements, what are some thoughts and again, you're a recovery coach, and you're dealing with many individuals who are struggling with the same issues and we all do. What are some reflections you have on codependency as you look back at your own journey with codependency self-empowerment.

Greg: What we know clinically as codependency there's no other term other worth. That is, you know, giving your sense of value and purpose to another, of being dependent on someone who's dependent on something else. Which means that you're out of touch with yourself. So that was important for me in my journey of recovery, too, as we use the term previous session, love the skin you're in. Okay. And by loving the skin you're in and that's with its flaws and that's with its defects, but it's yours. And in the only way you can do that really is through the eyes of the Lord in Scripture, where it says one that we could say, overuse, we're fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Okay, now because of my desire to be whole and to be well, I'd wanted to explore that. Desire is a very powerful emotion, because we let nothing and no one interfere, stop or hinder our desires. Okay, that's something that as opposed to need to do, we're more resistant and more rebellious and defiant. But the things that we want to do we’re innovative and creative and ingenious about getting them done. So, I wanted to know who I am, as well as whose I am. And so, from that, not that I wanted to be stand offish, but embracing of that. I know that I have a God Who has a purpose for me and I have a purpose in him. Yeah, okay. The one thing I had to be aware of: Here's my codependency tendencies, you know, whereas I needed someone else to give me or confirm value worth importance and significance to me, okay? Because it made me, if I continued in that trend, vulnerable to abuses, different forms of abuse or continuation of the abuses that I want to, so desperately desire to, escape from in the past. And so, through relationship with him is to be self-important, empowering, but not independent. Can I use a term like, interdependence? I am independent of other people where I can say, I love the skin I'm in and I walk in the skin, but I have an interdependence with God, because I know I can't make it in this world, or desire to make it in this world without him, you know, and so because of the work that he is continuing to do in my life, I believe it's lifelong. Okay. It's not any bad. It's a process. It's an experience.

Mark: Well, I know you did. You did some prison time there. Yeah. And in prison, those three years? Yes. Comment on how these challenges and of course, the characteristics of codependency what was in the prison culture? How was that played out?

Greg: Culture is challenging, because, you know, it's almost as though codependency is promoted. Yeah. You know, and you really have to work hard not to buy into it. It's like the crabs in a barrel: we're all in here together, we desperately want to get out. But we want to get out at somebody else's expense, whereas hurt and pain and wrongdoing got me in, and it's not going to be what I use to get out. So that really gave me an opportunity, especially prison was like, Ooh, the star, look in the mirror. Okay, it was beyond what other people had done places and things, it was about my choices, or lack thereof, that resulted in this consequence, and there because of the shock of being incarcerated, you know, that really, I've done this to my life, and said, I'm going to have to meaningfully do something different, you know, and firstly, we came with self-examination, and then I know it sounds cliche, but it does work. When you talk about 12 steps, first step is making that admission, I had to admit that I was powerless not only to my addiction, but to my own behavior. And my life had become unmanageable, so it was not looking at what someone else did, and when they did it, but it was looking at me, because this is the reality I'm in and I don't want to continue to be in this.

You know, there's one thing about being incarcerated, you know, physically, but then it was being emotionally and spiritually incarcerated. So, I resisted those trappings and seductions of the prison environment. You know, you got to get along or whatever adage that they use is just that, I don't want to be here. I'm not buying into this, but I'm going to salvage this experience. I'm going to use it as a learning and a stepping tool, you know, stepping stone, learning tool, what have you, to improve myself, and one thing is that, being empowered through the word of God, that I don't have to be what these other people are, doing what the others do, but to work on me, you know, and so, that's where I became really attuned and acutely aware of the traps of codependency. I'd pick a book. and start reading and learning for myself, because I don't want to repeat this. It's not like being motivated marked by the darkness, but by the light. It's not I'm running from not wanting to be incarcerated again, even though I don't want to but I'm running to light, fresh opportunity. You know, just to be free to be me, as what is outlined in Scripture, you know? And that's why I challenge anyone today. Yeah, we can walk you through 12 steps and whatnot, but to really work them, you have to walk with Christ in them, because all they are is just man's version of trying to reach God. But then Christ is God's provision of reaching man.

Mark: Right. And I think what you're so well describing is how dependency on Christ is appropriate. Dependency in Christ is what we ought to be, where we ought to be. As the Scripture says, Being in step with the spirit, total sync with the Spirit, as we say, in technical and techie term. As we say, in terms, this guy's a techie guy, I mean, he runs our Facebook page for community recovery, and also runs our website. And it keeps going. And so, I thank God for your gifts and because then that we were contained. Ah, working in team means interdependence! And so, what you talked about in terms of relationships, being in the prison, how that force, because there's a lot of controlling factors in the prison system and the prison experience as an incarcerated person, where you're forced to be well under the control, for example, of other domineering prisoners, and they try to put you in the corner to be codependent than on them. Yes, where the agenda is what you will then be. And what you just said now was to become free, where then you become all Christ has created you to be.

Now that brings us back to the whole thing of saying no, of releasing the false guilt, of forgiving others for you, not for them. To be set free, so that in Christ, we are free indeed. The Son set you free; you are free, indeed, John, chapter five. And so, God brings us into these opportunities to be set free through the power of Christ, the transformation through Christ, and you're saying, Boy, that sounds like sanctification. That sounds a lot like the whole restorative process that God outlines in Scripture. Absolutely. That is recovery, recovery and restoration; restoration is recovery. And how healthy relationships start with our relationship with God. And then, as God transforms us to become like Christ, but also in the skin that we're in, and how we become free to be me, in the way Christ has meant for me to be, and that I'm not Greg, and Greg is not me, and vice versa. But I am created in the image of God, so I can be who I'm meant to be. So, my serenity, my thinking, my pattern of life is not dependent on Greg's pattern, or anybody else's. I'm dependent completely on a risen Savior, Jesus, and who he tells me to be. Galatians five speaks to this again, to be free, therefore, to yield the fruits of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control. Self-control. That's huge. We look at control as a shadow side. And now we look at being codependency as a shadow side. And what happens with codependency is that, based upon this list, my behavior is dictated by my desires, as I feel your reflection of me that indirectly can become a form of control as well. Both ways. We just change roles in relationships. And so we need to yield everything over to the control of the Holy Spirit, so that we can have self-control. And as Paul says, against such things, there is no law. Nothing can take that away. And so, friends, we invite you to dig deep in the scriptures, dig deep with examining your relationships with those who are in authority over you as well as those who you work with and those you minister to because quite easy for example, as you minister to people and as pastor Greg and I have ministered to many people and as a recovery coach as, as pastor is teacher. It can become unhealthy quickly and trying to help others, because we want, we feel the need to fix them. No, God does the fixing. And that's a big part of the shadow side. And God gives you victory over that, keeps things in check, because we keep struggling with this all of our lives. God will help you to be a better servant of him, of Christ and a better helper to others. Thanks for watching, and we look forward to the next tape when we talk about another Dark Side