EP45 Breaking Free from Codependency: Reclaiming your ‘Self’ after Divorce

In this empowering episode, we go deep into the concepts of self-care, self-love, and self-worth, and explore how they are crucial in overcoming codependency, especially in the aftermath of divorce.

We cover:

💗The Fabergé Egg Analogy: Learn how to recognise and protect your unique value.

💗Understanding Key Concepts: Differentiate between self-care, self-love, and self-worth, and understand their importance in your healing journey.

💗Breaking Free from Codependency: Discover practical steps to reclaim your self and set healthy boundaries.

This episode is all about helping you to see your value, practice self-care, and embrace self-love as you navigate life post-divorce. 

And most of all, help you find that fuck YES energy to turn the divorce plot twist into happy ever after 💪

Thank you for listening to the episode…. If you enjoy it, I’d love it if you’d leave a review and/or share the show with someone you think it would help 🥰

I want everyone to find themselves again (especially given each of us are 1 in 400 trillion 🤷🏽‍♀️)

Loads of Love 

Sarah x

🌸

P.S. We started a new book in the Divorce Book Club this week but you’re never too late to join. 

How to Do You by Jacqueline Hurst…. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B098GSZ11T/ref=nosim?tag=thedivorceb00-21

If you fancy joining us, check it out here ⬇️ 

THE DIVORCE BOOK CLUB
 
https://patreon.com/thedivorcebookclub

FREE Guide to the 10 MUST read divorce books after divorce

https://thedivorcebookclub.com/free-resources/

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Chapters

• 0:00 F*ck YES energy
• 3:20 Faberge Eggs
• 6:05 Self-Love, Self-Care, Self-Worth as different concepts
• 10:53 The definitions of Self....
• 15:50 The link to Codependency
• 18:32 Where did this start?
• 20:31 Trained to roll over?
• 25:56 Put your own Oxygen Mask on first
• 29:35 You are One in 400 TRILLION

Transcript

00:01

Hola and welcome to the divorce chapter podcast where we turn the divorce plot twist into happy ever after. But what exactly does that mean? It means living a fuck yes kind of life. And fuck yes, energy. Fuck yes! That's getting excited, it's joyful. And most of all, it's not settling for one iota less of what we deserve. But I think often after divorce, we can feel stuck in a place where we're not entirely sure what it is we do deserve. And our self worth is often on the floor. Maybe your ex blames you for some shit. Maybe you blame yourself for not, I don't know, insert any number of the usual reasons we try and make like not good enough, not sexy enough, not funny enough, not clever enough, not enough. All the other bullshit, we tell ourselves. And if that's you, that kind of suggests that you are wasting your deservability is that even a word deservability is that even a word? If it isn't, it bloody well should be. Basically put your deservability and hence your worth in the hands of somebody else. What they may think or may not think of you, you have somehow believed it to be true. And you've relinquished yourself entirely to someone else. And then they fucked you over. So is that on you? Or is that on them? Tell me, what's your instinctive response? Is that on you? Or them? Is it really your fault for not being insert bullshit? Not being whatever.

02:19

Let's imagine for one second, right, you have a rare Faberge egg. If you don't know what a Faberge egg is, it's basically a bejewelled egg, created by a jewellery firm the house of Faberge in Russia, and quick bit of added trivia for you, as many as 69 were created between 1885 and 1917. Of which 57 are reported to survive today. So there you go. Anyway, the point is, that shit is rare as fuck all ornate and gorgeous, unique, sexy and sparkly, glamorous, just beauts, beauts Faberge egg. And you give that utter gorgeousness of an egg to someone to hold. They might juggle it about a bit. Maybe they even give it to someone else an' all. Maybe they look at it and tell the Faberge egg it's a useless piece of shit. And they ended up dropping it, throwing it, smashing it into smithereens. And the egg is completely broken. Who's responsible? Is it the egg's fault? Damn egg if only it had a few more jewels on it and then then it would have been perfect, and then they wouldn't have broken it. Do you see it doesn't matter how bloody amazing and rare that beautiful Faberge egg was. Nothing you could have said or done would have changed it. The person who broke it may well have been a fucking idiot who couldn't see its value. But that doesn't change its value does it? The only thing you could have done differently is maybe be a bit better insured. And think again about putting your rare beauty in someone else's hands. And just in case you need me to spell it out my love. You are the equivalent of a unique, beautiful and incredibly valuable jewel. You yourself. That's you. So how much do you insure yourself? Protect yourself against damage and breakages. How much of yourself do you give away? Because I can bet in the past it's been that you don't insure yourself whatsoever. And you'd give yourself to anyone that wants you and then wonder why they treat you like a really bad eBay copy of a Faberge fucking egg. And no judgement, by the way as I've been there, you know.

05:04

But that's why this week, we're gonna take a bit of a look into self worth, and learning to value ourselves, particularly after divorce, right. And the link too between that lack of self worth and codependency in relationships, because as per the Faberge egg example, giving ourselves away to someone else, and depending on them to look after us completely, is at its core codependency, we are depending on someone else, to validate our sense of self, rather than take responsibility for ourselves and own it. And also within that concept of self worth, we're also going to take a bit of a look into self care and self love as well, because I think they're often a little bit misconstrued, and sort of blended into one sometimes. So when we're talking about self worth, it's not actually the same in my view, as self care, and vice versa. Self Care, self love, self worth, it all starts with self. So it's all the same, right? But the thing is, I don't think it is. Because what you do with self self, the verb or whatever it is that follows self has a different result. The bit that comes after self, whether it's love or care or worth, has different meanings, slightly different meanings, albeit they're closely related. But like in the book club, in June it was, it was mentioned in the book, that self love has become an industry of cute shampoo bottles and pampering shit. But I think that's self care. So I personally don't believe that's self love, per se. But I do think each of them is a linked concept, and to build a strong outcome, so that we do own our shit, you do need all three. I'll come back to the Faberge egg in a minute to explain what I mean and show how I think they differ but connect. But let's first start with, I suppose a working definition of each of 'em, right? So for me, self care refers to the actions that we take, the things we do, to maintain and care for our physical needs, our mental health needs and emotional health needs. It's about recognising those needs, and taking steps to meet them and care for them. Self love is more about accepting and loving yourself fully including any perceived so called flaws and imperfections. It's like appreciation for oneself, loving oneself, that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual too, that growth. Right? It's loving ourselves, no matter what. For me self worth is the deep seated belief that you are valuable and deserving of the best goddamn things in life simply because you exist. It's not tied to your achievements, your looks your wealth, and definitely not what others think of you. It's truly knowing your worth. So let's go back briefly to our lovely Faberge egg. Now self care would be things like making sure the egg is free from dust, and maybe in a nice protective case and stored properly caring for it. Self love would be still completely loving egg 100% Even if some of the jewels came off, even if it was a bit bloody chipped, and self worth is recognising the value of the egg and not letting any one or anything near it if they also can't recognise its value. You see although all are needed for giving the egg its best goddamn life, they're all for slightly different reasons. Do you get me? Am I making sense? I don't know. I hope I'm making sense.

09:51

But anyway, let's get back to gorgeous you, right. So let's start again with self care as that first step like The first piece in completing yourself if you like. So self care can look like so many different things. It might be physical self care, like exercising regularly eating healthy foods and getting enough sleep. It could be emotional self care, like journaling, or therapy or meditation. Or it might be social self care, like spending time with friends and family who just get you and make you feel good. It's finding shit that relaxes you or brings you joy. That might just be reading a good self help book. And if that's you, get your ass over to the divorce book club babes, or you might be listening to a podcast like this one, or it might be having a nice pampering bath with a candle doing fuck all apart from breathing. Doing something for yourself treating yourself doing something to bring you joy. Romanticise your life. Self Care is like those physical actions that you can do to show yourself that you value yourself, you care for yourself, and you know, you need looking after. Self love, then it's more of about accepting yourself as you are and being kind to yourself. So where self care is more about the external actions, this is more about how we see and we speak about ourselves internal stuff, you know. And that might be forgiving yourself for past mistakes, treating yourself with the same compassion and empathy that you would offer your mates. It's thinking about the things that you appreciate about yourself, and celebrating your strengths and your achievements. No matter how big or how small. It's like recognising you're so much more than a physical body and loving every single bit of yourself inside and out. And that self love leads to self worth. It's the rest of what we need to build that solid foundation on top of self care, right? There's no point slapping on a facemask, if we think it will somehow change the face that we hate or thinking our face determines our worth. Because that's what some idiot might have once said about our face, you know, and I'm using that as an example. But I'm hoping it helps you to see how they're all important. It's knowing that we as a whole are worth so much more because we love ourselves no matter what. And because of that, we give ourselves the care that we need, right? We're like one of the Venn diagrams that we had at school, you know, with our self at the centre. Cultivating self worth, that sense of self as so hugely valuable, often does mean that we need to challenge and change really deep rooted beliefs about who we are and what we think we deserve. A lot of us relate our self worth to what we look like, what we've achieved or what others think about us, but that makes our value dependent on external factors rather than inherently knowing what we are worth, knowing our value in this world. So building our self worth is standing up for ourselves and our needs because we recognise and truly know that we are worth it. It's like the old loreal ad because you're worth it, you know? It's setting clear and firm boundaries with other people because again, you know what you deserve and what you need and that you come first. Not doing that is often how we've ended up staying in toxic shit relationships. Because we've believed that this is all we're worth. A strong sense of self worth gives us the awareness and the confidence to walk away from what is not good for us. And that is where we get the link from self worth into codependency from self love, self care, all of that self that whole self how that then links into codependency.

14:49

So let's talk a little bit about codependency and how it ties in right. So codependency is where someone essentially prioritises the needs of others over their own needs. And it's to the detriment of their own well being. It's like, often characterised if you like by this lack of self worth and poor self care and difficulty with self love, because we don't see and accept ourselves. So codependent people then try find their self worth, in how much they can do for others in how much others love them. And in doing so neglect their own needs in the process, right. Codependency is also known as self love Deficit Disorder, because we have that lack of self. And so we depend on others to try and find it. Self love deficit, you know, it's missing. And so we look outside of ourselves to find it, for our completion, we expect others to support us. And then we get disappointed when they don't do it, even when they just haven't got the capability to do it. And then think it's because of us. We've decided that someone else not having the capacity to love us must mean that it's us isn't good enough. If I was enough, they'd love me. But they don't. And therefore I'm not worth anything. That's how we think, we try desperately to control how others see us and treat us because we can't see that it's possible to love ourselves. Our perceived lovability, that's like deservability and lovability is up to someone else. So when we're codependent, we basically give up, creating our own lives, give up valuing ourselves loving ourselves, and try and give that away instead in the hope, that hope that tiny bit of hope they might love us back. We try and work out what they're thinking what they're feeling. We sort of know, we want to be treated better. So we hope and we expect them to change. And then when they don't we blame ourselves. We put ourselves in a position where we make ourselves fucking responsible. But back to that rare, gorgeous egg again, keep that in mind is it starting to make sense?

17:31

And you know, this lack of sense of self, the self love deficit often comes from childhood. That's generally where it starts. You know, I've said before about my concept of being adopted, must have meant I was not beautiful enough. I made it about me, I determined my value in this life, from what I fucking looked like. And then over relied on what people may have said about my looks or not said about my looks, and then I've decided what they must be thinking. And then another example so my dad, right, my dad was incredibly demanding of me really fucking pushy. He pushed me academically the most. But generally in all areas, sport as well. He always expected more. So nothing I did ever felt like it was ever bloody good enough. approval from him was so hard to come by. And the feeling and thoughts that came from that were basically that I wasn't enough. Just as I was, I needed to be more, I needed to be better. I made it about me, I determined my worth, by what I perceived, my dad thought. So I made it all mean that I wasn't beautiful enough. I wasn't clever enough. I just wasn't fucking enough. And rather than recognise that my birth mother and my dad, both each had their own limits, their own capabilities, their own issues, and that neither of that was difficult to do with me. I just went with it.

19:30

So imagine a dog being trained, right? Think about it. We want the dog to roll over. We show a dog what we expect it to do. And then when it does it we like yay, whoa, and we give the dog a treat. And then we do it again. And again and again. And we repeat it over and over and over. So the dog learns to associate rolling over, with getting a lovely juicy reward. Then one day, we don't give the dog the reward, we might be a bit tired or a bit busy and we're just kind of oh they can fucking roll over now you know whatevs, but that dog keeps rolling over and over and over on the off chance, on that tiny small chance they'll still get a reward - the dog is still brilliant in being able to roll over. Not getting the treat is fuck all to do with the dog, it's to do with us and our lack of capability and being consistent with the treats. But the dog still rolls over anyway. So the dog's kind of codependent because it hasn't quite got the brain capacity to make it about them, but they just want the goddamn treat. But you know, this is what happens when we give ourselves away to others. We perform what people want, we try and meet others expectations like we roll over, all in the hope of getting the goddamn treat. Only with us humans were more than capable of giving ourselves the treats. But that basically demonstrates codependency right we don't give ourselves what we need, that instead we try to perform for others in the hope that they'll give us what we need. So with my dad, and then my ex and other men before and after my ex, I wasn't able to recognise that I was beautiful enough, I was clever enough, I was enough, just as I fucking was. I couldn't see it though, because I needed that validation from outside of me as like, is it really any surprise that I ended up in such toxic relationships, I needed other people's approval so badly, to make me feel that I was enough. And it never really properly came because I never gave it to myself. I needed other people to make me feel better. But that was not taking responsibility and accountability for myself, I lost my sense of self. And that is where codependency ties into self worth and self love. I had no boundaries. I was always trying to fit in doing what I thought others expected of me. I basically had zero self worth or love or respect for myself and didn't respect my own needs. Until I finally thank fuck, learned that it was my responsibility to make my self, my own self feel the way I want to feel. That's why it's called my self. My self is me and therefore it's on me to meet my own self needs. Your Self is you and therefore it's on you to meet your self needs. And you know look. There's no shame or judgement here because as I say, clearly I've been there Right? And recognising codependency is the first step to healing from it. So I just want you to have a think about where you might have given yourself away and then reclaim it right the fuck back. It's so important to understand that taking care of your own needs, is not selfish. It's 100% necessary. Realising that you are whole and complete as you are without anyone else validating that loving and accepting yourself because you realise how valuable you are and then taking the best goddamn care of that. So promoting self worth self care and self love separately and together all help to break that cycle of codependency by reducing the deficit right? By valuing yourself attending to your own needs. Loving yourself means you build a stronger, more independent foundation.

24:16

So what can we do to overcome codependency? I think one of the most important things to start doing is putting your self first you know like when they do the old safety thing on the aeroplanes right? What is it they always say about the oxygen mask? If the cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will fall from above. You are to place your own oxygen mask on before trying to help others. Why? Because if you try to put on the person next to you, you might just goddamn die yourself. And it's the same analogy for taking care of your self. You need to care for your own needs before anyone else, put your own oxygen mask on first because quite frankly, if you don't, there'll be nothing to give away. So focus on what you need, spend time getting to know yourself, and what you need and what gives you joy, and fills your cup back up, what gets you excited and makes you feel good. Because likely, after years of codependency, you've probably lost this awareness of what your needs are. Along with when you lost yourself right. And part of reclaiming that, taking our precious egg back is working out how best to look after it. And when you can start to care for your own needs first, you can start to realise that I'm alright you know, actually, I'm alright which starts to build your self love. And then if someone tries to take the piss, your self worth grows, and you realise that you deserve more than this crap. Which is the next thing to remember on working on this stuff. It's so important to start to set boundaries, and be assertive. Now, if this is something that you've never done, then start small because this can be really, really fucking hard at first. But start learning to say no. Set limits on what you do for others, your own needs come first, remember, and by the way, no, is a complete word. You don't have to make excuses or give reasons. But if it helps you to do so to start off, do it. Just make it about what you need, and how you feel. You're just insuring yourself against breakages and damages and remembering your value. So not giving yourself away to someone who could break you in the process. Remember yourself as that priceless Faberge egg? Start by valuing yourself taking care of your needs and loving who you are just as you all are. I know it feels so damn hard after a lifetime of codependency and years of giving ourselves away. But each step you take brings you closer to a healthier, more fulfilling life to that Fuck yes life and fuck yes energy and turning the divorce plot twist into happy ever after. You are your priority and responsibility so get that bloody oxygen mask on girl. Remember, you are worthy, you deserve care and you are loved.

27:56

In fact, you're even more valuable than a priceless Faberge egg. You know, I looked this up scientists have worked out that the odds of you being born exactly as you are is 400 trillion to one. Yep, you are one in 400 trillion. So in order for you to exist, a lot of highly unlikely events needed to unfold in exactly the way that they did. Everything on the planet had to evolve. And then 1000s of years of different DNA sequences coming together, created your parents DNA, then your parents had to meet exactly the right time and exactly the right place, and then have sex at exactly the right moment. And yes, I know nobody needs to think about their parents having sex. But bear with me here. The exact sperm cell and exact egg cell needed to come together at exactly the right point in that exact point of the cycle in order to create you with the DNA sequence that then encoded you and brought you into existence. And apparently the exact sperm and egg meeting is a one in 250 million chance for a sperm cell alone. So the bods worked out that all of that basically means that you Yes, you are one in 400 trillion 400 trillion. That's way rarer and priceless than any fucking jewel.

29:39

So now can you please for the love of God. Start to see your worth and start falling in love with the amazing you and take the best care of you. I hope so my love I really do as I'm all out for today I'm trying to convince you right now. I'm done. Seriously though I do hope that's given you a couple of lightbulb moments at least and helped you to see your worth and your value. And if you do want more help with building yourself after divorce and filling yourself up with more fuck yes energy for your happy ever after then do think about coming over to join the divorce book club. We read all the self development books which is basically self care and building self love and self worth all in itself for a tenner a month fucking bargain considering you're one in 400 trillion. We did start a new book on the first but it's never too late to catch up as all the past episodes are there for all members at any time. And this month we're doing how to do you by Jacqueline Hurst which is a super practical guide in getting to know ourselves so it couldn't be more apt for this episode works. So check it out at the divorce book club.com Or else the links are in the show notes. So, that's all for me this week. I will be back in your beautiful earbuds again next week. So until then, I am sending you so much love from me actually not that you need it because you're gonna love yourself anyway. But have some extra, loads of love.