Why Codependency Is a Myth and How Real Connection Works
Needing the people we love is a natural part of being human and a path to spiritual growth. Lorin explains how codependency, a term first used to describe the enmeshment between an addict and their partner, was applied so broadly to relationships that it has created confusion. Drawing on the science of how humans are wired for connection, including Brooke Feeney’s research on the dependency paradox, the episode shows how accepting each other’s need for support helps both partners grow more confident and independent. Lorin questions spiritual ideals of perfect detachment that armor the heart and opens up about learning to receive support in marriage. Listeners leave with practical ways to lean on a safe partner, repair after misunderstandings, and open their hearts to deeper intimacy.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Awakened Masculine Program
An 8-week immersive journey. For the man who is done repeating the same patterns in relationships, business, leadership, and life.
How Old Souls Find Their True Purpose
A 2.5-hour live online workshop with Lorin Krenn
Transcript
In a healthy and conscious relationship, you care deeply.
Speaker A:Do I care whether my wife looks at me and returns loving words or whatever it may be?
Speaker A:Of course I care.
Speaker A:And so does she.
Speaker A:Because we love each other and we need each other.
Speaker A:When you lean on a person who is safe, who has the same intentions, then you actually grow as a human being.
Speaker A:And if you don't open yourself to this, if you believe in false myths and false stories that that neediness or that desire is somehow a weakness, then you are depriving yourself of real spiritual growth and real inner evolution and becoming more mature as a human being.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Masculine and Feminine Dynamics podcast.
Speaker A:My name is Loreen Krem and I help people get to the core of their deepest challenges in relationships, personal purpose in life.
Speaker A:I do this through my trademark coaching mythology to reach the core of any challenge in the shortest amount of time possible.
Speaker A:If you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe now so you never miss an episode.
Speaker A:Don't be codependent.
Speaker A:That is nonsense.
Speaker A:Or at least it's not the whole truth.
Speaker A:Codependency is something that has been widely applied to relationships.
Speaker A:But codependency, or at least the original term and how it has been coined, really has nothing to do with a healthy relationship dynamic.
Speaker A:It describes the dynamic between an addict and their partner and the enmeshment that occurs in this dynamic.
Speaker A:Of course there is truth to this, and if we overly rely on another person for our sense of self, of course that is not healthy.
Speaker A:But at the same time, we now know.
Speaker A:Science tells us that we as humans are wired for connection.
Speaker A:We're wired to co regulate and we're wired to care.
Speaker A:We're wired for intimacy.
Speaker A:If you weren't wired for connection and intimacy, then you would simply not care about how your current or future partner responds to you.
Speaker A:But the truth is, we all care.
Speaker A:And let's stop pretending that we don't care.
Speaker A:Let's stop calling it spiritual detachment.
Speaker A:Whereas in truth, the deeper you heal and go in your journey, the more you actually care.
Speaker A:Here is the difference.
Speaker A:It's no longer allowing unhealthy dynamics.
Speaker A:That's where the growth comes into play.
Speaker A:The growth is not to be detached.
Speaker A:It's not allowing your heart to be mistreated.
Speaker A:That's where the growth comes into play.
Speaker A:But in a healthy and conscious relationship, you care deeply.
Speaker A:Do I care whether my wife looks at me and returns loving words or whatever it may be?
Speaker A:Of course I care and so does she.
Speaker A:Because we love each other, we care about one another, and we need Each other.
Speaker A:This word has been so misconstrued.
Speaker A:We need each other in a healthy way.
Speaker A:Not to tell us who we are and to have.
Speaker A:To be authentic and to have confidence.
Speaker A:No, of course we both have a sense of self.
Speaker A:We are rooted in ourselves.
Speaker A:But also we rely on each other.
Speaker A:We need support at times.
Speaker A:At times one of us might struggle and the other one supports the other or holds their hand lovingly as they're going through something.
Speaker A:You see, neediness is not codependency.
Speaker A:Neediness is a natural part of the human experience because you're wired for connection and you're wired for intimacy.
Speaker A:Here's the thing that happens when you apply codependency or the idea of codependency to healthy adult or adult relationship dynamics.
Speaker A:Then you might feel that there is something wrong with you.
Speaker A:You might feel that you're highly insecure, unawakened, unevolved.
Speaker A:But the fact that you care, the fact that it matters, the fact that you feel things deeply, actually mean that you're quite deep on your journey.
Speaker A:The person who is somehow perfectly cut off and detached is in a state of complete spiritual bypassing.
Speaker A:They're disassociated from their feelings, from their body, from their heart, from what is happening in the moment.
Speaker A:They're disconnected from themselves.
Speaker A:So they don't feel the disconnect in intimacy or in any relationship dynamic.
Speaker A:And we call this spiritually evolved, or at least we have this idea in our head that this somehow means this person knows.
Speaker A:No, that has nothing to do with it.
Speaker A:So let's go deeper into the research now.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:And that's some very powerful work about the relationship between an addict and their partner.
Speaker A:The emotional enmeshment, the person who's living with an addict and losing themselves in the crisis of the addict, losing their sense of self, abandoning their own needs.
Speaker A:And the impact of this.
Speaker A:This is very powerful work.
Speaker A:I'm not saying anything against that.
Speaker A:I have deep respect for this work and at the same time I.
Speaker A:Other people have then applied these broadly to relationships in general.
Speaker A:And yet there is not one exact definition of codependency.
Speaker A:Actually it doesn't exist.
Speaker A:Or as far as I can see, it doesn't exist.
Speaker A:No one really agrees what it is.
Speaker A:So it's very difficult to kind of.
Speaker A:It has been applied in such a broad way, which has actually caused a lot of confusion.
Speaker A:Science now tells us that humans are wired for connection.
Speaker A:We're built to co regulate we're here to depend on each other and to rely on each other in a healthy way.
Speaker A:I want to share with you something powerful here.
Speaker A:Brooke Feeney's research on what she calls the dependency paradox found that when partners accept each other's need for support, both people become more confident and.
Speaker A:And more independent.
Speaker A:Independent over time.
Speaker A:Letting yourself lean on someone is exactly what gives you the strength to go out into the world.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:It's a paradox, as she called it, a dependency paradox.
Speaker A:When you support each other, when you lean on each other, on a person who is safe, not on a person who's not treating you well or anything along those lines, but when you lean on a person who is safe, who has the same intentions of goodness and desire for deeper connection and intimacy and emotional and physical safety, then you actually grow as a human being.
Speaker A:And if you don't open yourself to this, if you believe in false myths and in myths and false stories, that.
Speaker A:That none neediness or that desire is somehow a weakness, then you are depriving yourself of real spiritual growth and real inner evolution and becoming more mature as a human being.
Speaker A:In spiritual circles, this myth goes even deeper, this idea that you have to perfectly be detached from everything.
Speaker A:But part of this experience, part of growing as a soul and opening your heart, is to actually face uncertainty and the fragility of life.
Speaker A:That moment where there is a misunderstanding or a moment of tension, and maybe you or the other feels abandoned or feels rejected.
Speaker A:These moments are incredible teachers that humbly teach us to keep opening our heart, not to close or try to become invincible and protect ourselves from it.
Speaker A:This is the paradox.
Speaker A:Some people seek spirituality to become invincible, but what they're truly seeking is to armor their own heart.
Speaker A:So here you can see, by trying not to be needy, you might be armoring your heart.
Speaker A:Now, the other extreme of losing yourself is not the way either, but it's this idea of with the right person, can you open your heart into the uncertainty?
Speaker A:Can you open your heart into the fragility?
Speaker A:And again, if there is uncertainty about the other person's intention, if there is uncertainty about the commitment, that is not something to work through in a relationship.
Speaker A:What I'm saying is, in a relationship or connection with someone who has good intentions, desires the same thing as you, there will be inevitably moments of uncertainty, moments of fragility, moments of trigger moments where you are deeply impacted by what the other has said.
Speaker A:And opening your heart deeper to that, being welcoming of this uncertainty, in that moment, being okay with that is actually real spiritual growth.
Speaker A:It sounds counterintuitive because so many teachings talk about this perfect detachment where you're only experiencing bliss.
Speaker A:But such is an illusion.
Speaker A:You don't want to only be in a superior state of bliss.
Speaker A:You want to actually be able to relate to the people around you.
Speaker A:This allows you to have compassion.
Speaker A:This allows you to fully participate in this life and in the experience of others.
Speaker A:Otherwise we become spiritual narcissists.
Speaker A:Someone who is just in ever bliss and totally detached and doesn't care care about other people's emotional experience, is a narcissist, or let's not diagnose it, is someone who is extremely identified with their own ego.
Speaker A:So we have to be really mindful here.
Speaker A:What actually are we practicing?
Speaker A:What are we trying to attain?
Speaker A:Because if it is invincibility, then really you're trying to armor and protect yourself, the true path.
Speaker A:And when you go into the ancient teachings, you actually realize that, that it's that, that humbly surrendering of your fear of uncertainty, of the fragility of life and loss and moments of rejection and moments of pain, moments of tension, moments of misunderstandings.
Speaker A:It's you opening your heart deeper into that being welcoming of that, participating in that.
Speaker A:We heal in connection, we heal in relationships, we heal in becoming aware of our triggers and then changing our behavior.
Speaker A:We heal when you feel impacted by someone else action and you set a boundary and they honor it and you feel loved in that and you work toward the vision and the sacred intimacy and union that you desire.
Speaker A:That is the spiritual journey.
Speaker A:Everything else can actually be a form of bypassing or trying to protect yourself.
Speaker A:And when you're protecting yourself, then usually unless you really have to protect your, your mental and spiritual health from someone who doesn't have good intentions.
Speaker A:But apart from that, you're actually armoring up and closing your heart.
Speaker A:If you try to get away from uncertainty, the fragility of love and life, you're actually armoring and closing your heart.
Speaker A:We need to normalize needing others.
Speaker A:We need to normalize relying on others.
Speaker A:The spiritual journey is the journey of interdependence rather than independence.
Speaker A:So how can we do this?
Speaker A:Practically the first step to start is to allow others to support you, to allow others presence to really impact you.
Speaker A:Because if you believe that that is neediness or insecurity, then you will never receive the blessing of love and care and support of others.
Speaker A:I thought in the past that it was weak, especially as a man to receive my wife's support, to receive my wife's love, to even to even need That I thought I was weak.
Speaker A:And then I learned in direct experiences where I told her that I felt rejected, where I expressed and shared vulnerably.
Speaker A:And yes, if you do this in the wrong relationship dynamic, it might get weaponized.
Speaker A:But in my marriage, I told my wife these things.
Speaker A:I didn't feel like a strong man in these moments.
Speaker A:And guess what happened?
Speaker A:We experienced more connection and more intimacy than ever before.
Speaker A:Because my wife feels my heart.
Speaker A:She feels my desire.
Speaker A:She feels that I'm not some kind of robot who is detached.
Speaker A:She feels I'm a man who cares.
Speaker A:Who cares about her experience, who cares about our experience as a couple in our marriage.
Speaker A:And this completely flipped my understanding of this.
Speaker A:Because so many things that I judged as weakness inside me were actually a form of armor and trying to protect myself.
Speaker A:So I allowed myself to rely and need my wife in certain ways, and vice versa.
Speaker A:We both do that.
Speaker A:We both see each other as supporting each other.
Speaker A:And there are moments where I need my wife's support.
Speaker A:There are moments where my wife needs my support.
Speaker A:And that interdependence, that relying and depending on each other in a healthy and secure way actually allows us both to be empowered from the inside.
Speaker A:It makes our sense of self stronger.
Speaker A:Anger, rather than losing or abandoning our sense of self in the relationship.
Speaker A:That's the dependency paradox we talked about before.
Speaker A:So the practice is allow yourself to need others.
Speaker A:And then, number two, practice receiving other people's support fully.
Speaker A:Because most of us have this toxic conditioning that never need or the desire to be helped or supported or loved or seen is somehow wrong, and we need to fix it or change it.
Speaker A:But if by allowing yourself to receive that, you actually heal and feel more whole.
Speaker A:And that doesn't mean you are not spiritually evolved.
Speaker A:On the contrary, it's actually a form of spiritual evolution.
Speaker A:To be loved and seen in your need for connection, in your longing for repair after something that has happened that had a deep emotional impact on you.
Speaker A:To be seen and witnessed and loved and met in that is what real intimacy and love is about.
Speaker A:Our heart aches not because we're weak or univocal, evolved, but because that is actually the deepest spiritual truth.
Speaker A:We are not here to be detached from our or other people's emotional experience.
Speaker A:Instead, we're meant to open our heart deeper into the mess of it all, into all the chaos, all the moments of triggers, all the imperfections.
Speaker A:They're all welcome.
Speaker A:They're all part of the journey.
Speaker A:There were moments where my wife and I had a little misunderstanding.
Speaker A:And the whole day that was in the back of my awareness and for her as well.
Speaker A:And then we repaired at the end of the day.
Speaker A:And you know what?
Speaker A:That's okay.
Speaker A:In fact, it's healthy because we put it at the forefront of our awareness to repair.
Speaker A:Now again, if we both are in a corner and feel like they're going to abandon me, this is the end of the relationship.
Speaker A:There is some real work that needs to happen there.
Speaker A:That's not healthy dependency.
Speaker A:There is no security that triggers a deep abandonment wound, Right?
Speaker A:But if it's there and you're impacted by it means you're a human being and you care.
Speaker A:Open your heart deeper into that.
Speaker A:Let's normalize.
Speaker A:Let's stop pretending we don't need anyone.
Speaker A:Let's normalize this.
Speaker A:Let's normalize saying this has been weighing on me all day because I really want to repair.
Speaker A:Let's normalize that.
Speaker A:As human beings, we long, we ache, we have desires and we need and rely on each other.
Speaker A:And if this is ever weaponized against you, if you're ever told that you need to heal or evolve because you have these needs and these desires, then that is not an emotionally safe relationship dynamic, whatever relationship that may be with a spiritual mentor or a partner, a friendship, whatever it may be.
Speaker A:Because in that dynamic, you're shamed for having a heart.
Speaker A:You're shamed for your sensitivity.
Speaker A:The deeper you go in your spiritual journey, the more you care and the more you also understand what is not your responsibility.
Speaker A:It's that great paradox.
Speaker A:We are here to be interdependent and to accept that and to own that fully allows us to be free because we accept our true nature and what we're wired to do.
Speaker A:Part of why we came here, to connect, to co regulate, to build community, to build great relationships, to see each other, to witness each other, to.
Speaker A:To learn and grow through triggers.
Speaker A:Because we learn, grow and heal through relationships.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening or watching this episode.
Speaker A:It is a true honor to serve you in your journey.
Speaker A:If you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe now so you never miss an episode.
Speaker A:Thank you.
