If you feel like your relationships are on the codependent side, you could be some shade of disempowered when it comes to your own needs.
The second personal power piece is acknowledging that you have needs AND that they matter.
Empowered
A person who is fully in their power around their needs:
- Never ignores their own needs
- Is willing to take action to get their needs met
- Is willing to walk away if they only get the bare minimum from a partner
- Gives to a partner out of abundance rather than as a way to get something in return
Codependent = Disempowered
Someone that is disempowered around their needs might feel like:
- It only feels right to give and receiving can feel downright toxic
- If they don’t have a need then they won’t hurt or bother others
- Might idealize every relationship in hopes of finding a ‘savior’
- Believe that if they don’t have needs then they won’t be rejected or hurt
- They need to do it all and do it alone and doesn’t need help
- Feels deprived
- Thinks love will solve everything
In the extreme of this, the person might not even know what it feels like to have their needs met and will feel terribly guilty whenever someone does provide for them.
This piece is extremely important to be empowered in!
Codependency Leaves the Door Open
The more someone is disempowered here, the more likely they are to invite in a toxic personality (aka narcissists).
Because people who are disempowered here feel they can only give and cannot receive, they tend to date the ‘walking wounded’ or ‘broken birds’.
Energy Pattern
The typical energy pattern of someone disempowered in this piece is a flow toward others.
Their energy literally attaches to others in an attempt to get their needs met. They have a more anxious love style.
This can feel clingy or needy to the people they attach to.
Therefore this energy pattern can invite in the very thing the disempowered person fears: rejection, hurt and frustration as the person they have attached to tries to disconnect.
How to shift it:
- Reconnect back to self and acknowledge needs
- Lean into the discomfort of receiving
- Heal the inner little one that felt threatened so long ago for having needs
- Understand that you can’t meet others’ needs without first having a bond with your own
