It’s a tough one to go into but as part of healing and the taking of radical responsibility it can always be useful to think of the payoffs we actually get/got from our codependent roles.  I work with clients often who have been squashed into roles of the daddy’s girl, scapegoat, mum’s helper etc etc.

It’s always helpful to empathise with the victimisation which took place and the shame which is underneath these roles and work to dissolve it through the power of empathy which can be like a chemical reaction to lead to seeing the innocence within.

It’s also helpful though to look at the payoff we got from being in the role.  If we work with the idea that we change when it is truly less painful and more pleasurable to change it’s helpful to examine what we got from being in the role.

It’s often hard to admit but when our identity has been a certain way for a period of time there is a buildup of pay offs there.  We will likely get certainty needs met as we know thihngs are going to be this way constantly.  There is also a level of connection taking place.  It’s maybe not as healthy as we would like but there is connection.

To mix in with this it can be helpful to use Tony Robbins 6 core needs and look at how you are actually getting them through being the person you have been doing.  Then you can look at how you would like to get your needs met.

Maybe you get a certainty need met by always having a certain argument with a spouse.  The knowing it is going to happen while painful fills a need.  Maybe though we can now decide to channge it by filling it by always going to a personal growth group each friday.  Genuinely looking at the payoffs we are actually getting can be helpful to move us out of a victim state and to see that part of the reason we are there is because we are getting needs met from it.

By seeing this and then looking at how we would like our needs to be met we can then look at the ingredients needed to generate in ourselves to move from one way of being to the other.  Often courage is a crucial ingredient to move out.  Mixed in with this too we can feel into how painful it would actually be to stay in the same situation.  Are brains typically are geared to keeping us safe so we really need to lean into how our lives would truly be if not of this ever changed then ‘decide’ what it is we want to do and where we want our needs to be met in order to truly create a life of design.