Description

This may be the most confusing seminar topic ever. Is codependency really a thing? After all, no one can agree on a definition (this is true). Besides, the problem isn’t me; it’s the people who are hurting me or are destroying their life with addiction. You’re not going to tell me this is my fault, are you? Wait a minute, no one in my life is an addict and I’m not married, can I be codependent?

These are just a few of challenges we will have to navigate on our journey. We will define the concept of codependency in greater detail as we go along, but here are a few foundational premises for how we’ll use the term.

• Codependency is a style of relating; meaning it is an activity rather than a condition.
• Codependency is more about why and how you do things than what you do. There are not codependent behaviors (what you do) as much as there are codependent motives, tones, and patterns (why and how you do things).
• Those who relate codependently struggle to rightly assign responsibility for problematic actions by others and self.
• The struggle to rightly assign responsibility makes it hard to determine “reasonable expectations” for others.
• The struggle to appropriately assign responsibility results in a difficulty regulating personal emotions.
• The struggle to assign responsibility and regulate emotions produces unhealthy relational patterns.
• Codependency is often (not always) associated with abusive, addictive, or controlling home environments.
• Those who related codependently are usually physically-emotionally exhausted and feel used by others.
• Unless we intentionally learn to think about responsibility, relationships, and emotions differently, we will continue to relate in a codependent manner.

You may not like using the term “codependency.” That is fine. There is no magic in the term.

“We don’t have to label ourselves at all. Deal with the behaviors that hurt and call yourself whatever you want (p. 77).” Melody Beattie in The New Codependency

You may not feel like you have the emotional energy left for what change will require. But realize the number of crises and amount of drama around you is going to take a large emotional investment. You might as well invest that energy in learning to relate in a healthier manner.

“Given how long you have already lived with your drinker under the present circumstances, you can tolerate it a little longer as you make small, controllable changes (p. 6).” Robert Meyers and Brenda Wolfe in Get Your Loved One Sober

You may have reached out for help before and been burned. Unfortunately, this is too frequent, even in Christian contexts. Those affected by abuse, addiction, or adultery do not always get good counsel when they reach out for help. Hopefully this seminar provides a resource to help you vet the competence of helpers you invite into your life.

“In fact, many victims believe clergy have the most potential to help them, when in reality they are too often the least helpful and sometimes even hurtful (p. 16).” Justin and Lindsey Holcomb in Is It My Fault?

If you look at the studies referenced by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb, what you will find is that direct invention helpers (pastors, police, lawyers) are initially less helpful to those in harm’s way than less direct intervention helpers (hot lines, social workers, counselors). When attempts are made to introduce change, even healthy changes, into your social systems before you are ready to consistently cooperate with those changes, the results are often a more difficult living situation.

That is why this seminar is focused on you; more than your living conditions (i.e., abuse, addiction, manipulation, etc…). You will need to be ready to consistently live out the implications of any changes that are made in order for those changes to benefit you. You will also need to be ready to live out the implications to maximize the potential influence you have on your loved one(s) who are living destructively around you.

With that said, one of the goals for this seminar is for you to understand the entire process. We will be taking a 9 step journey together that unfolds in three phases. A summary of the primary objective for each phase is listed below.

• Phase One: Steps 1-3 // Gain an accurate and unhurried view of your relational patterns
• Phase Two: Steps 4-6 // Remove destructive, dysfunctional messages from how your understand these patterns
• Phase Three: Steps 7-9 // Identify healthy ways you can have influence in unhealthy relationships and things you believe God has called you to pursue regardless of how much cooperation there is in key relationships becoming healthier

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