10. Overcoming Codependency Challenges - Setting Healthy Boundaries for an Empowered Love

In today's Sensual Secrets episode, I delve into the topical theme of codependency and the significance of establishing healthy boundaries in relationships. I share my journey of overcoming codependent patterns and explore the impact of childhood dynamics and the polarity between masculine and feminine energy on adult relationships. Gain valuable insights and actionable advice on creating a more balanced and empowered connection with your partner.

I hope this podcast will help you on your journey of self-discovery to embrace the power of your feminine energy and help you to find and nurture love into a power couple relationship. 

If you found this episode valuable, please leave a review and share it with your friends! It would mean so much to me!

Link To Resources:

Online coaching: https://www.soli-souls.com/

Connect on Socials:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liekeselis/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@liekeselis?lang=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lieke-selis-0287471a5/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZUoL8UgkGUS_rUVhaCHmDA

If you find this episode valuable, please leave me a 5-star review and share it with your friends! It would help me out so much!


Link To Resources:
Online coaching: https://www.soli-souls.com/

Connect on Socials:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liekeselis/

Transcript

Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome to a new episode of Sensual Secrets. Today, I want to talk about codependency and setting healthy boundaries within your relationship. So that, as women, we can reclaim our power with our inner masculine. And I want to talk about this because this codependency topic is very top of mind for me at the moment in my relationship. And the way it's showing up mostly is the way that we are taking care of each other or the way that we are being taken care of—the amount of energy that we are giving each other and that we are receiving.

And so, in which aspects can we balance that out by setting healthy boundaries for ourselves as individuals? Because it's so beautiful to be in a loving relationship where you want to spend all day every day with your partner, but it's also really important to just come back to yourself, come back to center, and to honor your own individual needs.

And what I'm practicing at the moment is setting healthy boundaries and taking enough time to myself to come back to center. For my partner to do the same, so that we implement these things before we feel as if we are out of balance. And how to integrate that into our daily life. That's what I'm working on at the moment.

Just to sketch a little bit of our background so that we get an idea of where these tendencies are coming from or where this balance in us is showing up. Firstly, in our childhood, I am a younger sister. I've been the youngest child, and I've always been the one being taken care of. Being the youngest, you're always the little one, and I grew up with a very strong and dominant sister who always knew what to do. So it was very easy to just follow in her lead or in her path. And I've always been my mom's little girl. So that is a character, a persona, and identity that I've been carrying with me, which I've been letting go of in these past few years to become a beautiful leader who leads other women into personal growth.

And then my partner is an only child and an only child can have characteristics of both the oldest and youngest child. But his parents were a bit older, and he really helped take care of them, even physically when his dad got older. He was always there for them, and he was kind of his mom's rock. She could lean on him and she could count on him. So we had to grow up faster than you normally would and help to take care of your parents. And this act of service is very much his love language now. So he's always being of service to the people that he loves and taking care of them.

Next to that, we also have this masculine, feminine polarity going on in our relationship. And in this sense, the masculine wants to lead, wants to provide, wants to protect, and is taking charge. So my partner has these characteristics, very strong due to his upbringing. And then also, because we always balanced each other out, due to my upbringing and due to my childhood, my feminine falls very easily into this role of like, okay, you want to take care of me? Yes, I'll follow. I'll go with the flow. I will inspire you, and we will collaborate on which way we go. But the practicalities of it and the taking action, that's up to you, the organization, the planning. I trust you completely, lead me. And so because of this dynamic, we both go more and more into this polarity until the point that we're like, wait a second. He feels as if he's always taking care of me. He is leading the ship, and he is organizing our lives in the practical manners. And I feel as if I'm giving away my power and making decisions and just getting my own life in order because I feel as if I am depending too much on him.

To put our vision or a dream or a life into materialization into action. And so in that way, I become codependent from one end of the stick. That means I'm becoming too needy or too dependent on him, being in my feminine and being in my role of being the youngest child and always being taken care of. And he feels as if he has to carry too much weight, as if he needs to lead too much, as if it's up to him where we are going, what we are doing, as if it's up to him to bring that into reality. And so the moment that we both feel as if I'm losing my power and he feels as if he's overwhelmed with this, that means that the balance is off for us individually. And so what we have done now is we took some time and space to ourselves to just come back to our own center and for him to let go of the wanting to take care of me and for me to just realize my own potential again and take charge with my inner masculine and realize that I can do everything myself.

Because when we are in this pattern, even to the silliest ways, I would give away my power. For example, I would ask his advice on where to take the laundry, or I would ask his advice on things that I could perfectly decide for myself. And it would be funny when he would catch me asking him something so silly and being like, babe, you can definitely decide this for yourself. Okay. Reality check. I'm in my pattern. Good. I don't want to put this onto you. You don't need to decide this silly daily task at hand. I can definitely do this for myself.

And so we work together in a way that we both find our balance again. I reclaim my power with my inner masculine, and I set up my own safe container, and I get my own things done. And he feels as if he can take a step back and relax more and come into his feminine and lean back a bit more and just purely be in our relationship while he is still really living in his masculine, doing his business. But we can both come back to ourselves and the way that we want to. He is completely focusing on his business; he can spend all of his attention and energy on his business. The first thing that I did when we took some time to ourselves was to go to a feminine embodiment practice, to just really honor my feminine and so that I could work from a place of flow afterwards because when you spend a lot of time together, you always find the middle way of what works for the both of us.

And then you feel like you're compromising too much. So for us, it's really important to just keep checking in with that pattern and to set these healthy boundaries for ourselves, to take enough individual space so that we can show up better for our partner and to integrate that into our relationship so that we set those boundaries and we honor those boundaries before we get out of balance. And I'll leave it at that. Have a beautiful day.