Are you a rescuer?  I’m learning this is a common trait of ….


…a daughter of an alcoholic. Being 52, I’ve explored codependency before and I have done my rounds of healing, but the deepest parts come out to heal once you are strong enough to handle it.

However, it doesn’t make it easy to go through.   I have to say my sound therapy work and the parts work I have been studying have been helping  A LOT.
In case anyone else was curious about how to go through these deep chasms of codependency healing, I wrote this blog.  You’ll find some interesting tools to use to free yourself from this next layer of pain.

The Part I THOUGHT Was Helpful, Turned Out To Be Something Else


I thought I was being kind, thoughtful, and helpful to my friends and family. But then I realized the intention behind it.  This causes several problems. Here are two scenarios I’ve gone through lately where I had to take a deeper look at my intentions.

Aware of my codependent nature, I realized my feelings about my long-term friend moving across the country put me into a tailspin of emotions she was not able to hear about or hold.  She said to me one day,  “Can you please be happy for me?”

You don’t have to ask me

twice. YEP, I am happy for you, and I will keep my feelings to myself AND I will even back off a bit so you can go through your feelings without my feelings making it worse.   I thought I was honoring her wishes and positively supporting her.  But then I get the text she needs space and later that she wants to end the relationship. My plan obviously did not work.   In complete shock, I went into some hard knocks healing.

While she never shared with me why she felt she needed to end the friendship, except that the dynamics shifted, what I came to realize on my own in this scenario was that I thought I was being helpful in this situation. But I was still rescuing from an intention that was a reaction to not feeling any more pain.  I was trying to appease

her without asking her what she actually needed from me. I also started to numb my wounded feelings by getting more social and finding more friends, instead of using my feelings about her move to dive deeper into what really was important to me.

The part I THOUGHT  was being helpful was a protector that was trying to keep me from feeling more pain. The support I was offering her and myself was actually a rescuing reaction, not kind benevolent support.

Now The True Rescuer Showed Up


During this same time frame, a family member moved back to town and was down and out. Their health and finances were troubled and they had no home to land in. My rescuer nature came back. This time in the typical way of making calls every day to see if they were ok, offering unsolicited advice about how to raise money and get business, and offering them sleepovers and dinners. I thought I was being kind but really I was acting out of obligation to do this.

My codependent belief was that this is what family does, even if it goes past healthy boundaries. And it felt too hard to think of them suffering, so I was going to do everything in my power to keep them supported.

Needless to say, this didn’t end well either. As this family member was at rock bottom and started to do their style of codependency to immesh with my life, they started to make underhanded comments and I finally brought it up to them. It did not go well.   The inner part of me that was helping was actually a wounded part that was not willing to feel the pain of another person suffering but at the cost of healthy boundaries. The healthy part of me finally had to step in.

Now in retrospect and with more time on my hands, I am seeing very clearly these inner parts that created the codependent behavior in these scenarios. I have found respite in sound therapy and awareness tools to work with these inner parts and heal the deepest chasm of my codependency that my psyche now seems to think I am ready for.

Vocal Sound Therapy Support for Codependency


The greatest tool I have found to move the energy of this trauma and trigger is my voice. I have used my voice to soothe the pain, to process the intense energy of grief, pain, helplessness, anger, and frustration, and to voice healthy boundaries.  First I started by emptying the emotional energy with vocal sound.

Sound Out The Feelings

It can be vulnerable to do but sounding out dense emotions with vocal tones processes the intensity of the wound energy very well.   You can tone on Ah, EE, OO… or just make up a sound you think is the sound of the feeling. It does not have to be loud. You don’t have to strain your voice. It’s simple to sound out the feeling until you notice the tone shift.

Sing a Love Song to Your Wounded Child

Another way I have helped myself with sound is to sing a love song to those wounded inner parts.  This can be a lullaby song or just sweet vocal toning with no words. It is so sweet to see your inner wounded parts soften and warm up to you, even hug you.

Write and Say Your Feelings and Boundaries

And lastly, it has been really powerful to write in my journal the boundaries I want to hold for myself, as well as the things the “parts” want to say.  Then read them out loud.  Your parts are immature and what they would say would not communicate well or be helpful in a real-life situation. So you write it down and read it out loud then burn it. The energy is moved and heard on some level without the extra misunderstanding and drama.

Awareness Tool To Grow Vibrational Wellness


Once you come to clarity about how this codependent nature is, then it is really helpful to use this next awareness tool.  When you feel an urge to help or support someone, PAUSE.  Then tune in -is this coming from an obligation, from wanting to avoid pain, and rescuing OR is this coming from an authentic calling to be helpful that is not attached to the fear of being rejected?

Once you are clear about your true intention then proceed with the plan to help or the plan to abort the mission and go into meditation and vocal toning to talk to that inner part that was activated again.

I hope these suggestions are helpful to you.  Codependency can be a very difficult thing to become aware of and manage as it seems to be offering care and love. But the more you build awareness around it and empty the underlying wound energy, the more free you will become.

I’ve started incorporating parts work into my Awakened Voice Sessions.

If you are curious about giving it a try, go here to learn more.

Best,

Rebecca

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