Codependency and Healthy Dependency with Nedra Glover Tawwab

[Music] Hello and welcome to Being Well. I'm Forest Hanson. If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today, and if you've listened before, welcome back. Everybody has two important needs, and our ability to meet them has a huge impact on our happiness in life. First, we need to feel independent and autonomous, like we can stand on our own and make choices that matter. Second, we need some amount of closeness and intimacy, the feeling that we're supported by other people, and not just doing life on our own. The challenge for most people is figuring out how to balance these two needs, because they can often pull us in opposite directions. My guest today is Nedrick Levar-Tawab, a licensed therapist, relationship expert, and bestselling author with over two million followers on social media. Her work on boundaries played a huge role in bringing that concept to the mainstream, and her new book, The Balancing Act, is about what she calls "healthy dependency," how to rely on other people without losing yourself. So, Nedrick, how are you doing today? I am well. Thank you for the intro. Yeah, so happy to. And the last time that we talked was years ago. It was for your first book, Set Boundaries Find Peace, which I thought was fantastic, and as I said in the introduction, really introduced your work to a lot of people. And I want to start by saying that I think it is so interesting that you wrote this book, particularly in the context of the book. And I'm really in the context of the broader conversation about boundaries. And when an idea takes off, it's easy for people to oversimplify it or misunderstand it or take it to extremes. And I'm wondering if part of your motivation here for writing this book was as kind of a response to that? Yeah, since the time of writing Set Boundaries Find Peace, which I think was and is a pivotal part of relationships. Since that time, 2021, I have seen people taking boundaries and weaponizing them in some instances or having such rigid, rigid standards that we have created more isolation and instances of loneliness. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a correction as much as it is an expansion on what does healthy dependency in relationships look like? How can we bring boundaries in without being overboundary or even being underboundary? Like how are we maintaining that sense of autonomy without being too independent? So there is this balance of dependency that I think was missing in the conversation because some of us went completely down one path when we heard the word boundaries. It's like, yes, I've never had these. And then we became overboundary in some instances. Yeah, totally. Well, I'm glad you're saying that because it was very much my experience as kind of an outsider to the whole thing. It's what happens when anything becomes popular. You've got the first phase, which is, hey, this is a good thing. Like have boundaries, protect your peace, be thoughtful about who you're given your energy to. And then there was kind of the natural push back to it. There's this loneliness epidemic going on. Everyone's just kind of getting estranged from their families. Then a natural third stage, if like, look, there's a healthy middle path here. And I think that's really represented by what you were talking about inside of the book, which was healthy connection and healthy dependency. Yeah, I even feel like with no contact or becoming a strange or cutting people off. I've been doing a lot of talk even with that. You know, there's this whole thing going around like it's increasing. And I think in some instances, it is for sure. And I think people are more aware of what abuse is in family situations. What is neglect and certainly aware of how it continues into adulthood. And they're wanting to make those changes. So in those instances, I don't see that as being overboundary. I see it as a situation where maybe we have not practiced boundaries. And this is the boundary that some people are choosing to have. Now, of course, even with that, because there are some people like, oh my gosh, especially the parents, right? Like, I did nothing. And this thing happened to me. You know, I think there are some conversations needed around how we receive communication from people when they're trying to make a change in a relationship. There are certain things we could get from some relationships and not all. And sometimes we don't need to end them. We just need to de-center them. We need to reclassify them. We need to look at the person or the relationship differently, no matter what that role or title is. Are there particular, I don't know what quite the right word here is like misunderstandings or misconceptions that you think that people have about this territory that were really in your mind as you were doing this content or writing this book. I think we think dependency is all bad. I was speaking with someone earlier and it was like dependency sounds like I asked you more around because it sounds when you hear dependency, you automatically think like codependent dependencies. Sure, yeah. Right. And I said to them, I said, we're all dependent period. We're all dependent. My shirt, my home, the things in my home. These are sourced from other people. I am dependent on the world at large in some ways to help me take care of myself. That's not a bad thing. I think there are forms of dependency, whether that is us being hyper independent. When we are pushing people away, we're being avoidant. We are saying, you know, we are self-made. We are dodging communication from folks. We are not in community with others. Those sorts of things. Yes, that's problematic. Also, codependency, when we are helping people through negative situations and it's, you know, impeding on our life and our ability to live well. Like, yeah, those are dependencies that are unhealthy. However, you know, did in the center of that. We actually need other people. We need community and connection. We need resources from other people. We need relationship at different levels. Every relationship is not supposed to be close. We need that surface level connection. We need associates. We need neighbors. So all of those things are a healthy part of our ecosystem. So the word dependency, I think people here, they are like, "Oh, bad." And it's like, "Now, we are independent." I admit that, you know, I think it's a part of being a human being in the world. We rely on others for certain things. Now, we can under rely or we can over rely. But in the middle of that, we are in some healthy version of depending on people. So you used a word there that often trips people up whose codependency. This word, if I remember correctly, actually came from work on addiction. And then people kind of took it out and applied it to different settings. How do you think about that word? It definitely came from the substance use community, you know, the big, codependent, no more. Where it talks about, you know, like having these connections with a partner or family member who has these, you know, qualities. Of addiction, right? They're, they're still in money, they're lying, they're doing all these things and you're like upholding them in that. That's the origin of that. And I think it does apply to other things. We can uphold people in lots of things in life where they're having some, some behaviors that we support and it continues, you know, this, this detrimental situation in their life. So I think it can be applied in many situations. I think the challenge with codependency is we try to rid ourselves of it in its entirety in every single situation. I think the challenge with codependency is the codependent person is actually very lonely as well because they're not getting their deeds met and relationships. And I think we look at it as such a bad like, oh my gosh, this person has to be stopped being codependent when an actuality, I think, are there other relationships that they need. So, you know, maybe they don't stop the codependency, but they get the fulfillment in other areas because I don't think we're reaching everybody with like, stop being codependent is like, now tons of people still are, right? But they need love and support in other areas, right? So even the codependent person could benefit from increasing their dependency and healthy ways and other relationships. Can they have other relationships where they are supported and love, you know, where are the other relationships in your life? Are all the relationships codependent? Now we have a problem, right? Like so, okay, yeah, we need to, we need to shift a lot here. But, you know, I think there's been a hyper focus on, let's eradicate it when an actuality, it's like, what level is the codependency? You know, is it a little bit, or is it a lot? You know, because that matters too. Is it in every relationship or some? It's an interesting point they are making because codependency and enmeshment, there are things that often appear because a person doesn't have a lot of other deeply meaningful relationships in their life or a lot of other relationships that they can really lean on for support. People in those situations are often pretty isolated from other people, sometimes because that relationship is making them isolated. You think about situations where somebody has a really overbearing romantic partner or some kind that are really like cutting themselves off from other people, making it difficult for that person to access friends, their partner is saying, hey, I don't like it when you spend time with these other people, you should just be spending time with me. No, what this person needs is actually more connection, they just need healthier forms of connection or connection with other people. - Yeah, is it possible that when we have other healthy relationships, we start to want to make those changes in the co-tenant one. - For sure. - Maybe it's like this domino effect. Like, oh my gosh, I can talk to this person and it's so relaxing. It is without chaos, it's without all of this anxiety, I get trying to save this other person. Perhaps that's possible with more relationships instead of, oh, they don't need anyone because they're over there stuck on, this partner who won't let them out of the house or something, like, hmm, I think we need a plethora of experiences to really teach us what's good for us and what's not. - There's a lot in the book that I wrote down, it's simply an accurate to think that loneliness is the result of an insufficient amount of self love. There's this story that we tell in very individualistic cultures and United States is certainly one of those. Where your job is to kind of love yourself up to the point, like you were saying at the very beginning, that you don't need as much connection with other people. And if you just do that enough, you won't be lonely anymore. But we've kind of tried that on collectively and it just hasn't gone particularly well for people for starters. - Yeah, I remember in the '90s, there was this huge self love movement. Like, you know, all the books were about it. It was like love yourself and it was like self love was the cure to overcome it. Like if you love yourself enough, you'll never be abused in a relationship. If you love yourself enough, you'll never be lonely. If you love yourself enough, you won't need friends. (laughs) Okay, love yourself and you still need that connection from other people. It's okay if you don't love every individual experience alone, right? Like you don't have to go to the theater alone, to dinner alone. I mean, it's good if you like to do that, but it's not like you're a terrible person. If you can't spend 20 days by yourself, the self love piece, it is important. And it's also important for you to continue to have connection with other people, even with your self love. You still need other people. It is not a fix for community. So you talk about kind of a spectrum of dependency. We've already talked about one side of it, the more co-dependent side. Then you also use a phrase counter dependency. And that's a little bit more along the lines of what you're talking about now. Somebody who's kind of hyper individualistic or hyper independent. What does that look like when you think of people that you've worked with therapeutically, who have more of that tendency? Yeah, I think of people who seem outwardly productive or successful, but they don't have anybody to share those wins with. They don't have anyone they could call and say, oh my gosh, guess what happened to me? They don't have anyone to spend their time with. And even when people try to get close, they are pushing those people away or avoiding that deeper connection and relationships because somewhere deep inside, there's this idea that either I don't need people, they're not going to show up well, or I can do this all on my own. And despite the loneliness, it's like the belief overrides, this loneliness, I will feel better with people around, but I just can't seem to figure out how to curate and keep those relationships. And it's not always, they don't have one person, but it's letting more people in. One person is not enough for us, two people is not enough. And some of us will lean so heavily on the few that we are burning them out. I tell stories in the book where there's this overreliance on one person and this person is like, oh my gosh, I want to do other things. (laughs) I want to do other things. I don't want to be with you all the time. Can you please find more people? Because it's really beneficial for us to have like a collective. And it doesn't have to be huge. I'm not saying 100 people in our orbit, but 5, 10, some of us don't have that. There are things coming out now that lots of people don't have two people they can call and share their life with. That's not a lot of people, it's two. - I'm wondering how all of this just relates to people's attachment style. Attachment style is a phrase that people are familiar with. Is this something where codependent people are anxiously attached, counterdependent, counterdependent people are avoidantly attached. And it's just as simple as that or is there more complexity here? - Well, both. I think it is as simple as that. And it's complex, everything is complex. But if we want to simplify it, avoidant people tend to be a little more counterdependent and codependent people tend to be a bit more disorganized, fearful or anxious. They put a lot of, or they think a lot about their relationships with other people, how they're being perceived, how people are doing or feeling as a result of things. And I think when you think of avoidance, people are like, you know, I almost can't tolerate too much connection with some of the avoidant folks I've worked with. I've been surprised that even with healthy scenarios, let's say they're meeting a new friend and the person invites them out two weeks in a row. It's like, oh my gosh, what kind of person is this? It's like a person who enjoys your company and they want to see you again. Or if they're dating and the person expresses like they like them, they just go stuff. It's like, oh my gosh, like you like me, this is too much. So even though they're doing the thing of dating, which is I am seeking connection, it's like I can't even tolerate it when I get it. I know that I need you friends, but when they come my way, I can't even let them get too close because it just feels so uncomfortable to me to have that level of vulnerability and intimacy and a relationship. - Something that I've heard people talk about, and I've talked with other people about on the show, is this common dynamic that comes up in relationships similar to what you're describing? That's this like anxious and avoidant pairing that for whatever reason just seems to be very common. You've got a more anxious person who's constantly reaching out for emotional supplies and you've got a more avoidant person who meets that reaching out with increasing distancing. So it just kind of spirals and spirals and spirals as every time they take a step back, the other person takes a bigger step in, which leads to a bigger step back. I wonder if you see this and why do you just think this happens for starters? - I don't wanna say it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but all most is like people can't be here for me is like the anxious thought, right? And so you go in the world and you find these people who demonstrate I can't be there for you. - Yeah, for sure. - That's the avoidant person, right? It's like, I don't know if two anxious people would do well together, but I also wonder how far to avoidant people would get together. - I think that's a big piece of it. Yeah, like either way, it's kind of like a two-legged stool, right? - Yeah. - It's just not like that. - Yeah, it's like, if nobody wants to like each other, what are we doing here? - Yeah, totally. And it's a lot harder to sustain something like that over time where you don't have somebody who's kind of pulling the other person into the world or pulling them into emotional intimacy, that kind of closeness and connection. But for whatever reason, it walks through your door all the time, I would imagine. - Yeah, yeah, it does, but what I always come back to is our attachment style is not fixed. And surprisingly, it sort of shifts in some of our relationships. I've seen people be able to maintain, you know, secure friendships very well, but when it comes to dating, they're very anxious. Or in family relationships, they're pretty avoidant, but with their partner, they're securely attached. And you know, just all these different play-outs, and I think that has to do with our history with people and how people show up with us. You know, we can be open to a new experience like an anxious person who meets a secure person who's like very upfront with, no, I'm going over my friend's house and they text when they get there, it's like, it cures that anxiety, right? Like you don't even need to be anxious with this person. It's not until you get into the relationship and you're like, oh my gosh, it's been like four hours where is this person? (laughs) That it brings that anxiety back up. And it's the same thing with our friends. You know, I think sometimes we don't think about attachment outside of dating, but our attachment shows up in our work relationships, it shows up in our friendships, and you know, just all over the world. This idea that, you know, people are thinking or doing certain things can be a way that our anxiety is manifested in friendships. So this person isn't going to call me back because blah, blah, you know, we make up these big stories, it's like, sound pretty anxious about this friendship, right? So, you know, I don't think it's a fixed experience. It is person and person of relationship to relationship. And if we can recognize that maybe I'm not always avoided, maybe I'm not always anxious and just live in that space of I can be different because clearly I'm doing something different in these other interactions. We can we can triple that. We can keep it going in other scenarios like we can start to build on that. Like if I can do it with this person, maybe I could do it with that person. I think that person's storytelling part of it is such a huge piece of the whole thing. We talk about self-concept a lot on the show just like the stories that we tell about ourselves. I'm a film the blank kind of person. I'm the kind of person who struggles to show up on the time. I'm the kind of person who gets really stressed out when other people don't call me back within 15 minutes or whatever. And a lot of this is affected by personal history. You know, you've had experiences in the past where something was really painful for you. Or you had an experience in the past where somebody really did let you down. It didn't show up for you in the way that you needed it or the way that they agreed to. And you know, you start to stack enough of those up particularly inside of a family system or something like that. And it leaves a real impact on a person. At the same time, sometimes when we're talking about these things, people talk about them in a way where it sounds like the only thing that matters is like your relationship with your mom when you were growing up, you know. So I'm wondering how you think about personal history and how that impacts all of this? Well, yeah, personal story. Like you said, I do think it's really important. You have this perspective of who you are. And so you live up to it. It's like, I've got to be this thing. I am this sort of person instead of having this flexibility around like, let's see how I show up in this interaction. You mentioned that it seems like it's this thing about like, oh, it's your mom or dad's fault. And I think with attachment, sometimes I've seen it be other experiences. You know, not just our parents. Now, of course, the original attachment research is around children and their parents. But what if you have some anxiety about relationships because you were bullied in middle school and it started with someone who you thought was your best friend? Right? Like, that's not a parent situation. But now you have a lot of trust issues and relationships with females because you had this female bestie who started all these rumors and then became your biggest bully. And yeah, it's not always a parent. But you hear stories like that that impact people throughout adulthood. Like now I don't trust women because I told this girl everything when I was 12. And now I'm 42. And I can't believe my best friend Tiffany did that to me. And now I just have this big thing about not trusting women. Right? So it's not always the parents. I think there are instances. Yeah, certainly, you know, when people come to therapy, we're trying to unravel the story and figure out like, okay, what is the thing? Like, how do I get this person through this scenario or situation? And sometimes it's not the thing that we think it is. It's this, you know, unfortunate experience that we have as humans and it impacts the way we attach. It could be a partner that you've had previously that created a lot of trust issues that make you not that make you very fearful in relationships with other people. So no, it's not always, you know, this, this family or parent experience that does this, you know, I've talked to people who come from and they would say great families like my parents are very and they do, but I don't know why I have all these dating issues. And you talked to them about dating is like, up, that's it. The first college relationship. That was that was it. So yeah, it's is not so open and shut when you're piecing together. Why we are the way we are. Yeah, it's so you said something a second ago, you know, 42 years old and this thing happened when I was 12 and you know, 30 years ago. And when somebody says it that way, if you're listening to it, it can sound like a little ridiculous or a little over the top or something, but man, it is so true. I mean, I think about myself like I got my own anxious tendencies and friendships with other people that I can kind of trace back to things that happened when I was like in middle school or whatever. My fiance Elizabeth, she's an associate therapist now. She's finishing up her hours and she has complex PTSD and she entered the relationship with a she would say herself a kind of more disorganized style that she managed extremely effectively. And then you know, three or four years into the relationship when we developed a little bit more safety, some of that started to kind of like pop out and we had to do some do some work around that. And one of the things we've really talked about a lot and she's really talked about is how in the relationship with me, she really leaned into the opposite of her instincts essentially. She was trying to do everything like it just hasn't worked out for me in the past. So I'm just going to try to do everything differently. But what I was doing with that, I'm going to see if it works out and you know, thankfully worked out for us. But that's part of why I was so tickled when I saw it actually pop up in your book. Essentially a kind of opposite action. And this can be really counterintuitive for people. And I was wondering if you want to talk about a little bit. Yeah, I, this is my favorite thing to talk about with clients like what, what are they planning to do or what would they do? And it's always like, okay, don't do that. Don't be yourself. Whatever you do, don't be yourself. Don't be yourself. Stop being yourself. That's part one. Part two, let's think in the opposite direction. You like this person. You sent the last text. They didn't text you back fast enough, right? They text you back the next day. Your instinct is to never text them again. That's it. Game over. What do you think would be the counterintuitive thing to do here? And most of them was like, text them. There you go. That's very different than what you would naturally do. You're saying you want to be in a relationship that works. You understand that sometimes people can't communicate quickly. Maybe this was this time. You have to do something differently here if you want a different result. Or you could go some like you do most people. And then you'll be back in your ghosting cycle. So yeah, I think sometimes the thing that feels natural to us is not what we're supposed to do. Because we will stay in the same situation. When we feel like, oh my gosh, there's this misunderstanding. I don't want to talk about it. The most comfortable thing to do is to not talk about it. And I see why we choose that, right? We choose it because it's like this feels good to just ignore it, to disassociate, to be done with the relationship. When an actuality, is this a situation that could be saved if I push through my discomfort and do this thing that feels like, this is so different than what I typically do. Yeah, it's the path of maybe not most resistance, but at least a little bit more resistance. A little bit more, yeah. We'll be back to the show in just a minute, but first a word from our sponsors. I love to cook. 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Our gut can really cue us into danger and what is unsafe. Unfortunately, I think we're using our discomfort as our gut sometimes. Yeah, for sure. We're saying that our gut is in line with the discomfort. I think we have to recognize when something feels uncomfortable versus my gut is saying never call this person back. Is that my discomfort or my gut? I think it's, you know, if we really tap into that, it's sometimes discomfort. I'm not saying it's never good, but it's like, what did they do? What is the situation? Is, you know, is this something that could be resolved? We have to think we have to stop using the word gut when it's actually just a choice that we want it to make. Yeah. You know, it takes a lot of time and attention to self to figure out what is actually happening in your body with so many of these scenarios. Because when we haven't took the time to understand our sales, everything could feel like a danger, a trap, a gut response to something when an actuality is perhaps a growth area. You know, I think about this idea of if a person triggers you, you have to like get away from this person, you have to do away with him. Well, it depends on what the trigger is, right? Like, there are some triggers that are unsafe and there are others where it's like, I didn't even know that was my thing. I was, you know, talking to someone about, I was dating someone in my early 20s and I am so like rigid with a schedule that I don't like anything to like pop up. And the person I was dating, you know, they would call me like, Hey, you want to go to the movies and I'm like, Oh, my god, like today? Like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I guess you're in the calendar, but you know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we could go Friday. We could go Friday. We cannot go today. This is a little too abrupt from my system. That was a trigger, though. And they would, they would do it like all the time. I was like, I would tell them like, Hey, can you give me a heads up? They would never give me a heads up. And I really had, I really had to sit with myself and be like, Why is this like, you want to like dump this person? So for her. Yeah. Yeah. Over like a shift in the schedule of not a negative thing, but a thing like going to dinner or going to the movies, Hey, I got tickets to suck at such and such. And I'm like, all of my indicator lies are like, Blu, Blu, Blu, Blu, Blu. This is, this is dangerous. It's like, no, no, it's not. You grew up in a lot of chaos. You need calm all the time. But there are instances of chaos that are unhealthy for us going to see a movie is not that chaos. Yeah. Yeah. Not that bad. Yeah. You've, you've, you've, you've mixed it up, girl. Now you're just, you're saying going to dinner is chaos. That's, that's, that's not the same thing. Yeah, we're pushing, we're pushing it a little hard here for sure. I'm pushing it very hard. Because yeah, I was on the brink of like ending it all. Like I've, oh, they're really pushing up against my trigger. Yeah. I'm really wondering what, what helped you develop that kind of self-awareness? Because this sort of opposite action idea, it kind of only works if you've got a sense of what your, what your tendency is, right? Like, if you know that your tendency, like you were saying, you did a lot of self-expiration there where you went, Hey, this is my tendency. These are my experiences. You kind of got down to the bottom of and you went, Oh, this is what's happening. How do you think people kind of do that for themselves? Yeah. You know, I think therapy is a container for that. I think journaling is a container for that. I think ultimately asking yourself a whole bunch of questions. Why is this undoing me? Is this actually dangerous or am I triggered because of my past stuff? Because the things that were being axed of me were actually not dangerous. It was like very typical things that you would do at a dating interaction, right? But for me, and my requirement of nothing going out of line or everything being just right, just so, it was just like, Oh my gosh, what is happening? Like my world is crumbling. Now I, you know, I really have to think about like if I want healthy relationships and if if a part of healthy relationships is having some flexibility, is this something not not all the time, but sometimes can I be open to this? Because my big goal is healthy relationships. That's the big goal. So a part of the healthy relationship might be even though I don't like it, sometimes being spontaneous. I still don't like it. But now I have two kids. I'm married. And you know, it requires a level of flexibility. I would still love for my days to go, do, do, do, do, do, do, but they do not. And I deal with it a lot better. I wouldn't say I'm even triggered by it. It's just like, all right, it's powerful. The course. All right, somebody vomit it, got it. This is a new part of the day. Got it. Before I would be like, yeah, we're doing this now. I'm so happy I had that dating experience before kids because kids really throw you into the spontaneous acts like like nothing before. I would have just been like in my bed all day triggered. Relationships often start with this kind of honeymoon phase where the people are just all about each other, right? There's a lot of building a connection. You're very focused on each other. And then as time goes on, there's this normal movement. I think of like when Elizabeth and I moved in together, we were just spending all of this time together for about a month. And I actually remember talking to God. She's going to kill me if she's lessons to this. I remember talking to my dad where I was like, I feel like I just can't do any of the things that I love doing for myself anymore because I'm just spending like all of my time with this person. And I'm kind of self conscious about just going and doing my own thing. And over time, it's really normal for, you know, that all normalized within a month or something. But it's really normal for relationships to become more balanced. Sometimes you do things by yourself. You go out with friends without the other person there. It's okay. You spend time on your own hobbies. But that transition can be really rough for people, particularly if they are a little bit more dependent or a little bit more anxiously attached. And I'm wondering how you've seen people kind of navigate in healthy ways. Yeah. I think it requires a lot of conversations and depersonalizing because sometimes when you want to get back to a little bit of the life you had before you were dating this person, you know, maybe you gave up trivion on Thursdays and we don't go to the gym in the evenings like you were doing. And it's like, well, I don't have to go every evening. But if I could get back to two out of four, I'd be doing pretty good. Right. I think we have to let people know that those things are not about them that we, you know, we have to let them know that I love us spending time together. And I want to get back to some of these things that I haven't done in a few weeks. You know, I haven't, I haven't talked to my friends, I haven't seen my friends. I have a friend who, and when we were in college, whenever she started dating someone new, I meant she would be MIA for maybe three to four years. four months, like you just wouldn't hear from her. And I remember one of the times that, you know, probably after the fourth or fifth time she did this, I said, Hey, we're going to all go together this time. Me and him, we are, we weren't using the word, "thrupple" at this time, but if y'all go bowling, we go and bowling. You know? For sure. For sure. You are in the boat. Yeah. We are in the boat. Y'all can go over there and kiss. I will not say anything as the third wheel. But I'm going to be in this. And this time she, I don't think she noticed this tendency that she would just, yeah. And so once I mentioned it, this time I was in there. I mean, it would be like three of us. We were like buddies. So it worked out. But yeah, I was like, oh no, not a new relationship. Yeah, I'm going to lose my friend for a minute here. Totally. I'm going to lose my friend for a minute. Yeah. So I was like, not again, not again. I'm like, look, talk to me on speaker phone. I don't care if he hears everything. I'm just like, I'm just, what you got to do. Yeah. For sure. I get it. You want to be around him all the time. He's great and wonderful. Yes. I invite him over. Come on. After a while, we do figure out some, some normal see. But I do think it's important that we have those conversations around, hey, in my past life, which was a month ago, here are some things that I really enjoy doing. And I have just been in this cone of love with you. And, you know, doing all of these fun and wonderful things. And there are some things that I need to get back into some connections that I need to make. And you bring this person with you. Maybe they go work out with you. Maybe they go to these friend things with you for a little bit. And then they start to, you know, you push them to, hey, I remember you saying you have friends. Don't you want to talk to them again? Like you push them back out there to, to do their thing too. For the person who is a little bit more dependent because we're kind of talking, maybe I don't know, maybe it's my own tendencies coming through or something. We're kind of talking about it through the perspective of the person who's like, how do I establish a healthy amount of space? For the person who has a little bit more of that, like anxious or dependent tendency, are there things that they can do inside of themselves or resources they can build that you think help them just manage that a little bit better or deal with that experience of somebody saying, you know, hey, I love you, but I'm just not going to do everything with you. Yeah. I think we have to depersonalize what that means because sometimes we put ourselves at the center of somebody else's desire. Like if they want to do this thing without me, it's me. And what anxious people tend to do is try to make themselves a fan of everything to keep this person around all the time. Like, you know, I used to really love the, the, the, the nets, but since you love the pistons, I'm going to love the pistons too because I don't want to spend any time with out you. So now I have to love them too. So we can, you know, be in this cocoon. I have to lose myself in this situation with you. When an actuality, it is okay for them to have their own thing. It is okay for you to have your own thing. We are not in competition. There are some things that perhaps you enjoy without your partner and you have to be able to again depersonalize and say, I can understand how they might enjoy this activity with other people who enjoy that activity because with our partner, sometimes it is that, you know, men don't want to do all these things and heterosexual relationships that girls may want to do with their friends. They don't. Even if you want to spend time with your girlfriend or wife all the time, there are some things that you're not going to want to do. So you have to relieve that dependency so she can go and get pedicures and all these fun things with her girlfriends or you're going to be doing it. And you may not want to. And that's, you know, I think there are parts of ourselves that are for other relationships. If I like a music artist and you don't like this person, I don't want to drag you to a concert. I'd rather go with that friend who also has a love and fondness of this person and knows their catalog versus, okay, we have to do everything together. We don't. We should do enjoyable things together. We should find our own things to do together. There's, you're not a, you know, I'm not taking it as a slight if we have a difference in music taste. So it's really practicing like, how do I start to be comfortable with differences in a relationship? Not just autonomy, but differences because that's what we're talking about. There are, there are some things that I like to do with you and there are some things that I like to do without you. I think this is another one of those things were just the way that we talk about it kind of culturally has such a big impact on how people think about it inside of their own lives because there's a lot of narrative that comes from this place of like, profound insecurity at least in my opinion around, okay, if they're spending time with other people, it means that they don't love you enough or okay, if your partner's spending time with somebody of the opposite sex, then like that's a red flag. Normal human connection with other people is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, most of the time it's an inherently good thing, but we've just got so many fears around it that we have to work through in order to kind of get to that place. And yeah, doing that does sometimes open you up to a little bit of risk and balancing that is really scary for people that I know I'm wondering how you think about all of that. Some people who are anxious, I don't know if they recognize it. I think they think that that that their problem is the other person not doing what they want for sure. Not showing up in a way that will make them feel comfortable. There is little recognition that I am like this in relationships and maybe it is me. It is not the other person. There is there is some level of security that I'm seeking that might be unreasonable for another person to offer me. Maybe it's an opportunity for you to dig into other relationships. I think sometimes particularly with romantic relationships, we need more friends. We need other people. When our partner is not fulfilling a need, it doesn't mean this is a bad partner. It just means maybe there's another relationship and I'm not talking about cheating in affairs. But another relationship that I need with a friend or family member that can meet this need. One example I give in the book of a woman who wanted to leave her husband because he didn't he wasn't as social as her. He didn't like to go to concerts. He didn't like to hang around a bunch of people and she's like, oh my gosh, she's a terrible guy. It's like, well, he has all these other wonderful qualities and I wonder if this is an opportunity for you to have a friend who you can be a little more social with and then you and your husband you do your things together. But I think this all-in-one person sometimes that expectation is pretty tough for us to get from our partners that sometimes people have limitations and they're great people. It doesn't mean they're bad people. There are other relationships where we should be seeking to get those needs met and that's why we need a collective of people in our lives. Back to the show after a quick break. For a lot of people I think that the most important section of the book is the one that you title, agreements are what you do behaviorally which is in a section that focuses on people who tend to be more dependent and particularly a line that again really stuck with me. Our presence is an agreement to the conditions of the relationship. I just immediately thought of like four friends and six past relationships and all of that and I would just love it if you could unpack that a little bit for people. Oh, now I want to hear your friend example. Man, I've had friends who've been in relationships with people particularly with ex-substance who's issues and things like that. Or people who just were not reliable and they would consistently not be reliable in the same way over and over again and then they would vent to me or to Elizabeth about the unreliability of this person and at a certain point it's like, buddy, you're signing up for this. Like there are no surprises here. Like you've been on this ride. You know where it goes and it can be really difficult for that person because it's easy to like place the blame on them, place the blame on the person who's kind of signing up, particularly from the outside as a friend. You start to get frustrated when that is not ultimately what helps that person. What helps that person, as you were saying at the very beginning, is like more connection, more support, more showing up. But it's just it gets tough to offer that at a certain point. Yeah, it does and and you know, I think we could be less energetically focused on how we show up for them. I think in no scenarios with our friends, we think the best way to show up is to keep giving them the same advice they never listen to. Sure. Let me give you this advice again that I gave you last week when you told me this issue. I've lived that for a while. Yeah, it could be really helpful to get to the point of working your way out of the advice cycle. Like now I'm just going to sit here and and plan my meal while you talk. I'm just going to be in my head the whole time I have I heard this before. Do I want ricer potatoes? You know, it's just like I am. I am not actually a conversation partner. Yeah. I'm not a conversation partner. I'm not really a sounding board. I'm almost like a human wall because you're just getting out. Yeah, you're just getting it out. And I can let you. I can just let you get it out and do nothing about it. And keep letting you do that without me having some emotional, like tie in and all of these examples. Because you have to get to the point of being tired of this behavior. I've been tired of listening, but you're not tired enough to do anything about it. And so I will let you talk about it without being emotionally invested in it. Like this is a problem that if you wanted to resolve it, I feel like you have some solutions. You have options as to ways you could resolve this. However, if a person isn't doing those things that they have the option to do, they're not ready. So you giving them all of these other things that they possibly could do and reminding them of the history of that. That is not supporting them. I do feel like when people are ready to leave stuff, don't you want to be the person that they come to to tell about that? Yeah. Sometimes we have to just show up just like whenever they're ready to leave or never who knows. But whenever they're ready to leave, I want them to be able to tell me about that experience too. So I have to hear the in between. Yeah. Sometimes if you're in that kind of relationship with somebody else, you can have a moment which I've had only a couple of times where the curtain gets peeled back a little bit. And you just sort of go, "Hey, we've done this eight times." And I am here for the ninth time. I am here for the 21st of time. But like at some point we just have to acknowledge that we've done this eight times. And at some point maybe it's time to try something a little different. Yeah. But before I was again, stories of my youth, I remember in college I had a friend whose boyfriend was cheating and doing all sorts of things. She would, you know, like, he did this, he did that, he did this, he did that. And it came to a point where I say, "I cannot hear about him anymore." I think that you're going to do whatever you want to do. You take all of these opinion polls. You look for feedback and all of this stuff. And I just think there are other things that we could talk about. And when you're ready to make a decision about that relationship, I'll talk to you about it. I'm sure I didn't say it as nice as I'm saying it now. I'm like, I probably say like, "Girl, I'm tired of hearing about him. They'll talk about him." But, but she did stop and she did, you know, eventually leave the guy and it was fine. But my boundary was whenever she would bring him up, I'm like, you know, my position. This is nothing new. You're talking about the same problem with this person. And when you're ready to resolve it, you will. But right now, you're just an ideation. Maybe you're thinking about it. Sometimes people need enough like juice to leave a person. So, you know, the funny thing about our friends and what I've learned to be really careful about is sign bad things about a relationship they're still in because they will rekindle those connections and then they'll get mad at you for being mad at their person. Have you ever experienced that? I have experienced once. Yeah, in a slice. Yeah. But you told me this stuff, right? And so, I have to, because I want to maintain our friendship, I have to be careful before you actually are ultimately out of it of saying anything that's like going for the juggler. So I'm typically like, well, you know, you should talk that you should, you know, I'm trying to be neutral. Now, if you say we're getting into worse, I'm like, you know, I'm so happy. I've been tied to him for two years. The damn breaks, the limp parts, all of a sudden, because Florida. Now, I have had a couple of situations where, you know, you think that somebody's looking for a certain kind of support, you think that you're joining with them because they're incompliant in that moment and, you know, you kind of want to support them in that complaint, then it's interesting how it can kind of flip because, you know, they are still bought into it and they are still wanting to support the relationship and all of that. And they're themselves like you're saying they're swinging back and forth. Like the reason that this keeps happening is because it's just, you know, it's going like this, it hasn't really stabilized around, oh, okay, that kind of clarity we're talking about earlier, right? Where you go, this is what's happening. This is the way that I am. Now it's time to try something different. Yeah. So we have to manage the way in which we give others feedback. And, you know, one of the things that I mentioned in the book is if, if people have enough folks in their community, we're not always hearing about a topic. Because they have spread that information, hopefully, to some other people. And so maybe I'm only hearing about it once a month because you've talked to all these other people. So it's not as intense to me. I think when you have a friendship with a person who has few people and it's like, you're there go to person because they don't feel comfortable talking to other people. Or they don't have other people. That's when it's really like draining on the friendship. It's like you need more community. You need more people to be in this with you because this is very intense for me to be the only person in it with you. Just thinking more generally about that line, like accepting the conditions of the relationship if you're staying in it. Whatever the relationship is, family relationship, romantic friends, whatever's going on for you. We kind of got three options in life for most things. We can accept something the way that it is and go, you know what? This is what it is. I'm going to do my best to kind of come to terms with that or make peace inside my heart. You know, I love this relationship. 80% 20% it drives me crazy. And I'm kind of okay with that at the end of the day. I will sign up for the 20 because I love the 80. Okay. Sure. We can try to change stuff. On the other hand, we can say, hey, buddy, I love you 80, but this 20 is really bugging me and it's kind of a deal breaker. And so we got to do something about this 20%. The real suffering for people is when they haven't chosen either one and they're just hanging out in that messy middle where they haven't really accepted it. They're not really trying and really committed to changing it and they're just in suffering. And I think about my own life and that's where most of my suffering has come personally. When I haven't committed to either path, really. That is a beautiful point. We can figure out a way to tolerate people even in their stuff. I think about sometimes this idea that we may be seeking perfection in some of our relationships. And it's just, it's not going to work out that way. I was doing a retreat last year and I was talking to some of the attendants about this idea that if someone, if you have this co-dependent relationship with someone, the best way to deal with the co-dependency is to cut them off. And you can't have relationship with people with substance use issues. And I say, it's not true. I think you can have boundary relationships with them. If you have a person in your life who has an issue with alcohol and they're calling you and they're sound a little drunk and they're talking a little weird, you can say to them, hey, this doesn't sound like it's a good time for us to talk. Let's talk later. You know, I tend to relationship, but you can choose how you show up in that interaction. You may not, or you can, like you said, you can be in that limbo. Oh my gosh, this person's drinking. They need to stop it. I can't believe it's like they have an alcohol issue. And here's the way I can deal with them in that issue. It doesn't mean that it doesn't bother me. It doesn't mean I'm okay with your behavior, but I'm choosing to be in this relationship. And if I'm going to choose to be here, here are some boundaries, I need to have to continue to show up in a relationship. But yes, if I'm in limbo, it's like, oh my gosh, they've got to change. They've got to do this. This needs to happen. It's like, maybe not. Maybe it won't happen that way or you can, you can hope that, but it doesn't mean that that person will, will change. But you certainly can change the way that you tolerate it. Moving maybe to the other side of the spectrum here. There was a different part of the book that really spoke to me, which was about this, you know, James and quotation marks. Person who seemed externally popular had mostly developed a lot of superficial relationships, like sharing a lot of hobbies with other people, a lot of friends of friends, known a lot of these people for a long time. But it was sort of rare for conversations to move past, like talking about what they did together into some kind of a deeper space, you know, talking about who they were as people, feelings, important stuff in their lives, all that good stuff. And it spoke to me because I, at least to some extent, kind of am James. I think a lot of people are particularly a lot of men where I've moved through a lot of social settings where, you know, you know, people for a long time, but you just kind of struggle to have the conversation change to something more meaningful. And thankfully over time, I feel like that's gotten a little bit better for me. And I'm wondering how you've seen that get better for people like are there things that a person can do using? Feeling words help and not just talking about things that are happening in the world, but actually how you feel about the things that are happening My daughter is graduating and I'm so proud Versus I got to go to my daughter's graduation So I think inserting some feeling vocabulary in our language could be helpful I think another thing is is sharing more sometimes our people don't know anything about us for real They couldn't sit in a room together and piece together five stories. I mean even the personal stories I've I've shared with you. There are some people where folks don't know two of their personal stories Yeah, I've I've met a lot of adults who can say I don't know anything about my parents Like they don't talk about them sale so there's no vulnerability in that relationship in terms of Talking about yourself, but that's what a throwback story shares that oh my gosh I remember I was eighth grade this guy ate so much bubble gum whatever the story is I don't know It's like it gives people some indication of you in your historical context and you know, it is it is this connection point I love having old stories with my friends when I can call a friend and be like Remember that guy's tires got stolen when we went to that party like it's just like a great I don't know it's like some history that we share it is a story and some of us we're not talking in that context with our friends Sometimes we are not using feeling words where they even know that we think deeply about a topic sometimes we are Going through Terrible things and no one knows it because we haven't told them we haven't told them the issue we're having at work or with our partner We talked a little bit ago about the friend who's always sharing where there are some friends who share nothing There are some friends who seem like they are problemless There's some family members who are like that. There are some yeah Husbands wives girlfriends boyfriends who are like that. Where's like do you have any problems? Are you real? Because they're not sharing anything like who are you grandpa? Totally and it can be this kind of like trap of over functioning I that might be like too technical a way to talk about it But I think you know what I mean. I definitely have some experience with this where if you're just the person who's constantly solving problems Including your own problems all the time without ever telling anybody about them It's really easy for other people to be like oh, they just got it You know, they don't need help. You know, they're all right. They'll be okay And sometimes we feed into that. Oh for sure we do for sure We feed into that. I think Sometimes when I talk to people who are like everybody thinks I have it all together and I don't and I might be you Tell them you don't tell them about it. Absolutely. Yeah for sure. Yeah, sometimes we're not even telling them like I don't have it all together here are the five things that are that are undoing me at this moment. Yeah This was a big problem for me. So I'm intimately familiar with this one For sure. Yeah, it's like you know and and we have to sometimes as humans I am guilty of this we look at other people's problems and we'd be like oh I cannot share this problem I have because their problem is so big sure and and and what I What I say to people is all of our problem is big to us if your problem is I Don't know your partner just lost their job and somebody else's problem is You know they have some curable disease that they can get some medication for it's still a problem It's still a problem. I don't think we need to say well this problem is bigger than that problem because X Y Z They are both problems in your body You likely feel the problems in the same way It's not like you know what this was such a little problem. I don't even care about that that health issue I'm having it's like no It feels terrible to you just like the person with this partner doing X Y Z So when we hear these stories from other people sometimes we say well, I don't want to tell them because they're dealing with too much You know what I love to say to my friends and I just did this about two weeks ago My friend she called and she was like I know you you deal with something and I have some going on I said please tell me distract me from my life. Please please tell me what's going on. I'd love to hear your problem Can you have more problems tomorrow because I'm tired of being in my head about my own problem? Yeah, it's funny to say but like sometimes if It's kind of healthy to I'm an Elizabeth and I have experienced this some it can be healthy to kind of flip a relationship upside down a little bit Like if there's one person who tends to ask for help more Putting them in a position where it's like hey, can I get some help from you? Not because I'm trying to like be on balance the scales here, but because I'm trying to put you in a position of the problem Solfer like the one who knows you know the authority in the situation. You're kind of reaching out in that way and then I'm other side of it. It's nice for me a lot of the time to be like Yeah, help me sometimes not just inside of my relationship But with just with friends and things like that we have to force our help sometimes on our on our Avoided or or hyper independent or seemingly having it all together people. We have to just like shock them like I brought you dinner and now what you gonna do. I knew you was hungry. We all eat and ask somebody who has some of those tendencies I got to tell you that's like such a beautiful thing. Yeah, it's like We have to send them a text even though they never seem like they have I have someone on my heart right now I'm gonna text them today super avoided it never seems like they need anything But if they do not receive my Christmas card by a certain week in December they will send a text now other than that They don't need anything in the world But that is like a centering experience for them to get my Christmas card But I just you know every once in a while. I'll just text them or call like hey, how are you doing? What's going on? No, no, I'm fine and I know they appreciate it I know they appreciate it even though they always say my no, no don't fuss over me. Don't know Everybody needs to be fussed over even the people who say my they don't they want that fuss I don't let them convince you they don't want that fuss at least a little bit of fuss Everybody wants a little bit. Yeah, they want a little panda monium a little panda monium, but And it might feel uncomfortable and awkward and all that stuff But they like it a little bit, you know, and so even with people who don't seem like they need much from us We have to figure out a way to still give them something and I think this is a Interesting area in parenting Because it's like the the child who seems to do the best they are not tended to and in the world They become that person who is not tended to so in their head They they start to think like I don't have needs everybody else needs are bigger and it's like No, you do have needs you've just figured out how to meet them on your own or how to be quiet about them But you see all these something do you need the level of Care or strategy that your sibling needs maybe not but there's something there that you need so you know We're not needless even if we have grown accustomed to not expressing those needs or trying to meet them on our own We still need things and so yeah if we have relationships with people who have that tendency to be like always okay not needing anything We have to figure out a way to really get in there and and Do something I think that so much of of this Is a great description of what healthy dependency looks like as we kind of come to the end of this whole thing right like What have we been talking about today ability to ask for things if you need them ability to receive something? If somebody else is given up to you, you know the ability to tolerate a little bit of distance if Your friend or your partner wants to go do their own thing for a minute Yeah, you know the ability to like step into a relationship a little bit more use those feeling words like you were talking about have those moments of vulnerability Where you go hey, you know I could really use some help here So it's all yes and and you're you're balancing these two These two sites of it of that autonomy or that independence and that like closeness and connection because you want to be able to play with all the toys Like you want access to the whole thing. Thank you for that. I feel like you've just made us so digestible. Thank you for that I appreciate that is there anything you would want to add to it as we kind of get to the end here? Yeah You know, I think we We need connection and we have to figure out ways to Have that connection with how de-centering ourselves in those experiences with people and that Can be some some serious work for some of us to figure out what that looks like in our relationships how to have enough boundaries but not too many to have how to have unique and varied Boundaries depending on the person and the relationship and how we can be Flexible with our connection to others. So I hope that is what people get out of this book. Really appreciate you doing this with me today, Natura. It's a great conversation. I really, really enjoyed it. And is there anything else you want to let people know about where they can find you? You know, I think the book, when we air this, the book will just come out. So it should be available for people if they want to get it. Yes, you can find me on socials at Nedra Toa. Please check out my website. And yeah, buy my new book. Thanks again, Natura. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I had a great time talking today with Nedra Glouffert toa. But we started the conversation with me asking her whether her new book, the Balancing Act, was a kind of response to the cultural conversation that had been happening about boundaries. How many people took her work and of course the work of other people as well. Nedra wasn't the only person talking about these topics, but she's got about two million social media followers. She was one of the very prominent people in that space. And she basically said, yeah, I think that people kind of took it too far where there were people who took the concept of boundaries and started applying it in more extreme ways. Talking about how, you know, if anybody activates you, you need to just cut them out of your life. You need to protect your piece no matter what. This can cause us to isolate ourselves, reduce the number of meaningful relationships that we have in our lives. And broadly, it's great to have a tool. Boundaries are a really, really good tool. But we want to be thoughtful about how we're applying it. So the goal here for us is to find a kind of healthy middle path between intimacy on the one hand and autonomy on the other. And that's what we talked about today. Nedra talked about the spectrum of dependency, which has two extremes, codependency on one hand and counter dependency on the other. And codependency is when we expect people to fulfill needs for us, while not meeting any of their needs. A person can experience codependency in some relationships while being totally healthy in other ones. And dependency in general tends to track both boundaries and attachment style. Codependence tend to have more poorest boundaries, counter dependence tend to have more rigid boundaries. Codependence tend to be more anxiously attached, counter dependence tend to be more avoidantly attached. This then took us into a conversation about some of the misunderstandings around attachment theory. How people often think that attachment theory is both fixed and unitary that we have one attachment style. And we apply it to all groups of people. If you are anxiously attached, you're anxiously attached with everyone and you're anxiously attached all the time. And as we've learned more about attachment theory, we've discovered that that probably isn't true. You can have different kinds of attachment styles with different groups of people. Yes, you might have a primary one that tends to flow through your relationships, but in certain situations you actually feel totally comfortable. You might be somebody like me who tends to be securely attached in general, but does sometimes flirt with a little bit of anxiety inside of my more my friendships, my social relationships, things like that. And we talked a bit about how our personal stories can influence our relationship with dependency. How people tend to carry around a narrative, a story that they tell about themselves. And that story then influences their behavior. They become the kind of person who fill in the blank, who doesn't show up to things on time, who falls through on their obligations with other people, who gets really mad when the other person doesn't text back immediately. Whatever it is for you. And the story that we tell becomes a kind of self-affilling prophecy. I am that kind of person. So of course I'll keep on doing that thing in the future. But the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result. There's a huge place here for self-awareness and self-evaluation and looking at your patterns and going, wait, am I really that kind of person? And even if I've been acting that way, do I have to be that kind of person in the future? And then over time we can build up both a more dynamic and more resilient sense of who we are. I'm a this person and I'm a that person. I can be really relational with other people and I can also be comfortable on my own. I can be close and attached to my partner and it's also okay for them to go and do stuff without me. And that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't love me anymore. We also talked a bit about opposite action through the lens of my relationship with Elizabeth and how she's talked about this pretty publicly. When she first got into the relationship what she kept saying in her head was I'm just gonna do everything differently than the way I've done it before. It hasn't worked out in the past so I gotta try something else and I think that that's just an enormous demonstration of self-awareness on her part. And it was one of the things that really helped our relationship go well. But in order to do that opposite action, you gotta have pretty good self-awareness. You have to have a sense of what your common issues are in relationship and then you're talked about a couple of ways that people can explore that. And this then let us into talking a little bit about trusting your gut and going with the flow versus what we were emphasizing during the conversation which is that you can't always trust your gut and you shouldn't always go with the flow. You know the path of some resistance is often the really meaningful path in life and we've built an idol culturally out of oh your intuition will guide you. I mean your intuition might guide you but is that your intuition talking to you or is that your desire to avoid discomfort. And I mean this in a pretty non-judgmental way. I've done a lot of stuff in life to avoid discomfort and a lot of it frankly at this point I regret. I wish I had done kind of a little bit differently. I wish I had taken the path of a little bit more discomfort that led me to a place that I really wanted to go. Then at the end we closed with the kind of definition of healthy dependence and it's something I talk about a lot on the podcast I offered this and then that expanded it a little bit. You want to play with all the toys you want to have access to everything this is why we talk about the middle path of the time you want to be able to ask for and receive from and tolerate distance and be comfortable and closeness and be able to repair with other people you want it all because why not right we've got one life we want to live it the best that we can. I want to get the most out of it that we can why not aim for all of it and that's one of the reasons that I appreciate Nedras work in general in this book in particular because I think it's a great description of how to get all the things. I hope you've been enjoying the podcast if you have and you made it this far if you can take a moment to subscribe to it maybe hit the like button if you're watching on YouTube you can leave a comment rating a positive review if you're listening on apple or Spotify both of those things really help us out. I'll see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]