LL Ep 14
===
Ikenna: All right. So , for some reason early in the morning, we like to call ourselves out.
Safrianna: I literally woke up this morning and. Violence against my past self.
Ikenna: Oh God. that sounds,
Safrianna: I'm being, don't do this at home. People I'm being sarcastic, mostly
Ikenna: Trained professionals
Safrianna: but literally I like woke up and just immediately started deep diving into all the things that I needed to be honest about in order to get my life back on track.
So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I chose violence.
Ikenna: Fun. We've been having these conversations the past several weeks months where we've realized how codependent and people pleasing, we have been without realizing it,
Safrianna: yeah. I remember you sending me this little meme about how codependency was like taking on other people's feelings so that you don't have to feel your own or something like that.
And I . It was not okay.
Ikenna: you were like, oh no.
Safrianna: I was just like, oh God. Okay. Because codependency, like, I feel like we always picture codependency
Ikenna: as like clingy uh,
Safrianna: yeah. As like super clingy in a, not sweet romantic kind of way. Like not everybody's on board or it's.
Codependency. We think of looking like a relationship between an addict slash abuser and a victim and the victim is codependent, right? That was
Ikenna: like power play.
Safrianna: That was like my exposure to codependency. So when I looked at past relationships, I could be like, oh yeah, Ooh, yikes.
But then when I looked at my current relationships, I didn't wanna put that same lens on it. Yeah. Because the relationships felt different. So realizing that codependency looked like more than just really big, obviously scary. Dynamics between people that it could just be pink flags and
Ikenna: and the thing is that.
Safrianna: You can't just start in a different relationship and have all of those behaviors, just like, oh, this beha this relationship isn't abusive. So all of my behaviors that were in response to this abuse are not gonna exist in this relationship. Like yeah, no, we just apply our lens our trauma lens until literally everything.
Ikenna: Yeah. Cuz like it just means that the small, like there's the responses that give your brain enough proof that feel similar to the abuse that makes you go into the fight flight freeze response or fawn right.
Safrianna: And like, even though my window of tolerance now is 5,000 times better than it used to be. . Still not perfect. It's never going to be perfect. And I think a lot of people probably run into this, but I feel like you and I landed in almost like a frog in the boiling pot scenario where at first those little codependent behaviors were.
Minor like they weren't egregious. They were just, oh, they're
Ikenna: I don't want you to feel bad.
Safrianna: Yeah. You're going through a rough time right now. So I'm just gonna withhold this little piece of information and save it for another time. But then that gets kicked down the road.
And the temperature in the pot starts to go up and I feel like both of us recently landed in Ooh. like the water's gotten really hot. We can finally notice but the problem is that now it's on the edge of, I'm, we're not having relationship struggles. Y'all like, this is just our deep processing all the time promise.
But like we got into this scenario where we're both like, oh shit.
Ikenna: I would say like, we're allowed to say we can, we are two therapists that. Are human. And I would say that struggle is a well,
Safrianna: yeah I'm reassuring them that we're not about to get a divorce or so no we're struggling, but in the like healthy, what couples ideally do, which is,
Ikenna: this is the sort of stuff that like people, this is the stuff that people don't want you to hear behind closed doors, or like, this is the stuff that your friends might vent to you about, or that, you don't hear.
Couples just outwardly talk about their issues to each other. Like we wanna give you a lens of transparency of showing like, this is how you can process through things and recognize that you are always growing and figuring out, how. Past stuff comes up in your current relationships and how you can move on from that.
Safrianna: Yeah. And all relationships is there. There's another meme. That talks about how the hardest relationship is always the one you get into like after a bad relationship. And I, a hundred percent have lived that , with you in all of my. Struggles with codependency.
Ikenna: Yeah. So, yeah, and my history of people pleasing and not wanting to be in conflict with anyone, not wanting to be the person that causes someone else to have bad feelings, although you can't control that, like you don't know what everyone's triggers are.
But I just would feel so terrible. About the fact that I would be causing, like I thought I was causing the pain. Even though I was trying to be as honest as possible with whoever. So it can be tough. And I know that our relationship definitely is one where I'm someone who likes direct communication.
Like, it's hard for me to read in between the lines. Like I can try, but I do read in between the lines, like I do the people pleasing nature that I've gotten in order to make sure that I keep the peace with whoever rather be family, friends, whatever I would read into any sort of wording tone, anything to mean.
What can, where am I messing up? So it's like, or what can I do to make this better? So if someone's complaining about not having enough time in their day, or if they're not, if they're stressed out with something or, I read into that as a. Are you wanting, are you throwing this out into the void and I'm here to listen.
So I'm going to be the person that's going to help you through this. Like, am I in terms of like, I'm gonna solve your problem for you? Like, I'm gonna step in be the knight and shining armor. And you say that you're struggling with this and you're venting to me about it. What can I do?
That's not necessarily like we are hearing more and more that like people vent to just hear support, right? Like just to be validated
Safrianna: and we should not try to fix, unless there's a, Hey, please help me. Can I have this help? And I feel like you, you jump on or have jumped on the opportunity to quote unquote fix or help because you've.
felt, called to be the white Knight versus with me, when I look at my co-dependency mine stemmed from fear of the other person blowing up or the fear of the other person accusing me of something gaslighting me making me keep a secret, et C. Yeah. So I think that's another thing.
People, if you realize you're struggling with some codependency, which
Ikenna: most people probably are,
Safrianna: most people probably do because it's people pleasing. It really is people pleasing. It's caretaking. It's like all the over functioning towards others.
Ikenna: I remember that being a trait that I prided myself in.
Yeah. I actually. Was in the process of making resume, after my undergrad and I was having my mom look over it and they were like, you have like a list of like values or traits or whatever, like, can work in a team or whatever. And I put people pleaser on there being like, yeah, this is something that businesses probably value.
And it's like, Probably like, that's the thing is that society does like romanticize the people pleaser at times. Cause they're like, oh yeah, they're gonna bend over backwards for us. And it's gonna be great. So that's, so when we've romanticized that it puts us on this pedestal, until you realize that you've completely and utterly not listened to your own needs yeah.
Or. Been honest with people, like you've basically it's like a lie of omission. If you're trying to protect someone else's feelings
Safrianna: by not exposing a part of yourself
Ikenna: by not exposing a part of yourself, then you're essentially lying. Like, and yeah, that's a hard truth too.
, that's like a catch 22 cause.
Safrianna: And going back to why, what I was gonna invite people to think about is if you're noticing that you have these co dependen. Traits patterns in the background, getting to your why, what is the story there? Because for you it was people pleasing out of like wanting to be lovable and be seen and validated and to feel helpful and useful to be enough.
Versus for me it was protection. Like it was it, yours is protection too, but mine was protection on a visceral level from pain, survival abuse. Yeah. Survival. And I think it's really important that people get into the why, because that's gonna also have to do directly with how do they undo how do they unlearn those behaviors?
Ikenna: Yeah. And I've been doing this EFT tapping of the, you are enough every morning and because of the fact that I'm recognizing that my codependency is based off of that and. I'm recognizing how it is helpful because with you like you've been very burnt out, like very burnt out and
Safrianna: lays on wall again.
Ikenna: Yeah. and you are you were explaining to me like, where you were at, like, just venting of like, oh, I'm so I'm struggling so hard with this and like this, you're messaging all of this to me and I could feel a little itch from like the, I want to be enough part to be like, what does this mean? Like, what is Safrianna telling me is Safrianna passively explaining.
I would like you to do this in order to make my life better, or is she just like currently needing to vent about this and. Once, we have like a day of rest. Like we can sit together and maybe figure out a game plan, but for right now, this is not us figuring out a fix it plan, cuz she has no spoons right now.
She just needs this time to vent. So instead of me having this and if I come from the, I need to be good enough part, I am not in a space to. reflect back your like, emotion, like be empathetic and be like, yeah, that sounds really exhausting. Or that sounds really hard. And instead I would be in a space of like tenseness of like, oh no, what are you gonna ask of me?
Like, what do you need me to do right now? , what's gonna happen. And like, that's not re that's not helping me provide a safe space for you to. Express those things. So the fact that, that was what I was able to provide when taking away the concept of like, this is not white knight territory.
Like it's never really, it's never white knight territory, but this is, I recognize that my white knight wanted to come out to cause the tenseness. And I was like, this is venting. This is you needing just flat out support in terms of like providing space for you. I know that's different compared to me wanting to offer the white knight but I don't know if you noticed the.
Softness. I was like softness versus tenseness from my aura
Safrianna: I do read them auras. Yeah. To be fair when I reach that level of burnout, I'm not noticing much of anything
Ikenna: I figured, but no, and I'm not reaching out of being like, validate me. Like I'm just I wanna be aware of like, is there a way I could make that space safer or, softer
Safrianna: I can't think of anything currently. My invitation to the fixers and the white knighters would always be. Just ask before trying to fix Hey, do you, oh, thank you for sharing this with me. Did, is there anything I can do around it or
Ikenna: it can't well, and also you can notice that if they just need time to vent or they have no spoons to do anything, it's like, it's hard.
Like for example, you hear like there's all of these things in my brain that are like, mycelium networks of all of the things that have to be done all the time. But when you're super burnt out, it's like you extra can't make that choice. You extra don't know.
Safrianna: And yet I continue to see all of the web
Ikenna: that sounds like torture.
Safrianna: It is it's something, it's a gift and a curse. Yeah. We all have our gift in our curse.
Ikenna: Yep. It's great. Double edged swords. .
Safrianna: That is this whole being human and being divine, being spiritual and physical.
Ikenna: Gotta love it.
Safrianna: Yeah. That's a, that's more for the Safi Lu Woo podcast.
Ikenna: Ooh.
Yeah, we're coming into that. I still need to make you an intro. Yes. For that. Should I have some sort of like lyric. For it.
Safrianna: what would the
Ikenna: Safi Lu Woo give me a it's like Blues clues
Safrianna: oh my gosh. Okay. That can be the meme intro, but not the real one. I couldn't take myself seriously.
Ikenna: and I'll just have a bunch of little xylophone.
Safrianna: Oh my gosh. No, I love this. I love this. That just might be the Safi Lu Woo.
Ikenna: Meme. So we'll have living Luna after dark and then we'll have the Safi Lu Woo memified
Safrianna: Safi Lu Woo moon, moon.
three Wolf moon. Just total spiritual derp
Ikenna: yep. total spiritual derp. Amazing.
Safrianna: Oh, so codependency, ah. Yeah, it exists. It's so hard. It's so hard. I feel like so many of us are more codependent than we ever realized. I think about every client I've ever worked with and the major fears that come up and we're all just United in this fear of being misunderstood by someone else of being too much or not enough of feeling like we have to strive to be lovable.
all these things. All these things. We,
Ikenna: it's a way of feeling in control. That's the biggest thing.
Safrianna: And it goes back to that the masks and masking that we talked about of why we put on these masks and it is because of underlying co dependent qualities or, but society, somebody has fear adjacent, forced the codependency, right?
Ikenna: That's the thing is like we are codependent on society
Safrianna: and yet here's oh boy. Here's the ultimate.
Ikenna: I can sense this tangent. It's gonna be great.
Safrianna: The ultimate irony of all of this. Yeah. Is the is that we're supposed to be a species that thrives on community. Community. Yeah, not codependency. Yep. And there's a difference between being codependent or people, pleasing, care taking, et cetera, martyring yourself on behalf of others and taking such exquisite care of yourself that you can show up for your community in times of need that's what I said last night in my my big old text wall rant was I don't wanna have to be the strong one. Because one, I don't want to be the one that always feels like they have to keep it together for everyone else. Because I want everyone else to be taking care of themselves and giving me permission to take care of myself so that when one of us does stumble, the whole community can show up.
Yep. Instead of the one.
Ikenna: Yeah. And that's the thing is like, it's been a time to. Do a lot of deep reflection, do the fact that I'm still waiting for my license from the board
Safrianna: that mother fucking board don't even get me started. That'll bring my, that. That'll bring my anger to the surface.
Ikenna: No, the the board in general, blah, but like the person that I've been talking to is, has been very lovely.
Safrianna: That's good.
Ikenna: But anyway it has been given me a lot more time for reflection and time to really figure out like, what is the stuff that I need in order for like, what is my oxygen mask?
Like what is the vital stuff I need daily, weekly, monthly to help me be in that space to not necessarily white Knight, but help a stumbling community member and not feel like I. Depleting my one spoon left.
Safrianna: that one little spoon.
Ikenna: That one little spoon. And , so like I'm working on weightlifting for not only me feeling good about like, feeling strong on my own, but also like, everyone is giving me this look like, oh, strong you say, but also
Safrianna: I was like, and the also. For your wife, right? anyway.
Ikenna: Yes, but also is that codependency yes.
Safrianna: That's hence is it codependency or is it just people pleasing? Yeah. It's that whole, you've gotta wanna do things for you at the end of the day.
Ikenna: Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's the biggest thing is like we, I it going back to when we first got together, I remember you asking, like, there were certain aspects to our dynamic that you were like, I don't want you to just say yes, because I want it and I was like, what?
I don't know what I want. Like sure. Tell me what I want. Like sort of thing. And that's codependency like yep. Figure out what you want. If you don't know what you want wi like, if you were to take out what you think everyone else wants from you and you sit on your own and be like, this is something that I want.
If you sit with yourself and are like, oh shit, I have no idea what I want outside of. Pleasing, some other person like, I'm gonna work on my weight because my mom told me to, I'm gonna work on my
Safrianna: every single AFAB ever practically I'm going to work on
Ikenna: my like spirituality, because one of my good friends that I look up to is wanting me to do this.
Like. Yes. There can be people who help with accountability. Absolutely. But there's a difference in you stepping into that space of hi, I want to be held accountable compared to, I want to do this for this person.
Safrianna: And then there's almost like this reverse codependency with the whole, like asking other people to help is if people say, yeah, I'll help you.
And then they don't. we have to allow ourselves to look for support elsewhere. We can't just like lay down and give up because someone else wasn't on board like that's just as, as potentially damaging to all parties involved. I pulled up, I wanted to make sure that we touched base about like some other people pleasing sort of red flags.
You had posted this in our living Luna discord server, but people pleasing being saying yes. And then feeling regret or resentment later. So I think we've all been,
Ikenna: we've all been there.
Safrianna: we're because we wanna be yes men in our society. Like, that's that going back to your whole putting people pleaser on your resume.
Yeah. Because capitalists love that. They love people that are gonna say yes to everything. Keeping feelings and needs to yourself out of fear or shame. So, and you and I talking about our codependency stories, like little bit of all the worlds.
Ikenna: Oh yeah. Like, definitely like the past couple of weeks, we're like, here are some truths that we have not mentioned in our whole relationship, because we are afraid of what the other person's going to think or react or feel.
And it's like, yeah, I want to know the whole you,
Safrianna: which goes into the next one, allowing harmful behavior in order to not lose someone's love so for you, it's mainly the fear of the loss of love, right? For me, it's mainly the F. Fear of the loss of safety. Yep. And denying our reality or taking on someone else's truth.
So that going back to almost every AFAB ever, that I've ever talked to and their mom shaming them for their weight. Like we can absolutely take on other people's insecurities as our own. Oh yeah. Which can be a codependent type behavior.
Ikenna: Have you ever had a parent. dealt with, like, that place, the embarrassment that they felt of your behavior in public, on you.
Being like I'm you are embarrassing me. Yep. Like if that resonates with you, you are probably people pleaser
Safrianna: you have probably shoved yourself into a tiny box to make sure that no one else is ever disappointed in you. yikes. And then this last one goes hand in hand with, I think, I feel like a lot of what we've talked about, feeling like we need to fix or rescue someone.
They quote, unquote need us. Yep. That's me to a T. Oh, and I've been there too. I, yep. And that's another, so most of my interpersonal relationships, my intimate relationships come out of that place of fear of wanting to maintain safety and not knowing if they will explode if I speak a truth.
And literally years and years of being told to hide the truth. But the other part of it is that like, oh, I've got my stuff more together now. So it's like my role in life to help save all the other people. And that's been, I posted about this on my personal Facebook the other day, realizing that I've been on this journey over the last year.
Really year in three months, maybe. So my father was diagnosed with brain cancer. A I'm wanting to say two to three years before he actually passed from it. But when he started to go severely downhill, I don't even remember exactly how this happened anymore because trauma, but he contacted me. To try and get his affairs in order after literally not speaking to me for years.
And after I told him basically not to bother me, because he had said some really harmful things. And he comes and he's sick and he's like, oh, your stepmother and your sister, and what are they gonna do? And this, that, and the third. And there, I was driving to New York on my birthday weekend.
Yep. To try. Which I had plans for my birthday and I was like, I'm gonna have a nice birthday for once. And instead drove to New York to deal with my father's affairs.
Ikenna: I remember that, like me being worried about you because of how burnt out you were and just how like, resentful, like you had the resentment and like, you really didn't really want to do this, but I was like, why are you killing yourself over this?
And you're like, yep. Who else is gonna do it?
Safrianna: Yep. Oh man. So that started, I really feel like that was the Kickstarter of this journey of healing from that codependency, because I went up and I tried to help my dad make a will in advance of his death, like he had several months to get this will in order and he didn't do it.
So when he died, he didn't have an official will, even though I wrote it up and all he needed to do was have it signed properly. And he didn't do it. And then when he died, everybody was looking to me like why isn't shit figured out? And I was like, why can't you all see that this is not my responsibility, but my family was, you
Ikenna: placed all the responsibility on you.
Yeah. Like they, you were the responsible one
Safrianna: because yes, because I was the responsible one and the strong one, et cetera, even though again, this. This was a man who I did not have a relationship with because he was a total asshole in life to me. yeah. And invalidated all of my earthly experiences until the final few years were at least, he was like, I'm okay.
That you're gay now. Like wow. Even though thanks, bud. Yeah, even though it was a literally Like five, six years prior to that, he'd told me that there was no such thing as bisexual only trisexual and basically implied that I was a whore. So
Ikenna: OOF
Safrianna: long story short, even in the midst of him dying. I was able to not come completely from a place of co-dependency, but just compassion, human to human and send him prayers and sent him energy.
And I cried on behalf of his suffering, even though I didn't want a relationship with him. And I would've been fine with that, with him passing. Peacefully as much as he could. And a couple of conversations before he passed, that was fine human to human. But then everyone expecting me to get his affairs in order after he died.
Like he can just show up in my life and place it on me. And everybody said,
Ikenna: and then everyone else agreed with that.
Safrianna: Yeah. Like, oh yeah, that makes sense. So this whole journey since then has been me really looking. And I, I literally didn't realize this until the other day. That all of this goes back to codependency and my father and his patterns.
But I was really able to recognize through that, how that was showing up in all of my other relationships. Cause that's what dad did. Dad overdid it. Yeah. He worked himself to the bone and he was resentful for. No one else working as hard as he did, but he didn't stop. And he just fell on some really bad coping mechanisms that probably directly contributed to his body not doing well.
So I don't want to go down that path. That's terrifying to me. And. , I don't want anyone else to go down that path either, but I can't make them step off.
Ikenna: So if you were to experience that this year, if you were, if your dad died this year and people place that expectation of, oh, you're the responsible one.
He wants you to do that, what would you do?
Safrianna: How would I respond differently after everything that I've learned over the last? Yeah.
Ikenna: For example, like when people had the, oh, Safrianna has this in the bag, were you afraid that you were going to let people down or were you like, what were you fearful of if you said no, if you were like, someone else needed to take care of this?
Safrianna: I I walked through all the gauntlet, everything that I was afraid would be said to me was said to me, and I just had to, because eventually I just started saying no to people. I was like, Nope. Nope. Nope, Nope. Not doing it. And the house is falling apart. people came in and looted it.
And I don't care, but. I, and I tried to do what I would do now, but people weren't really listening. So if all of that happened again from the get go, I would have just said, I'm sorry, that's not my responsibility. And I know that this is difficult for you, but. These are your other options. Like, I would've still offered other options, but I wouldn't.
Ikenna: That's what we do as therapist.
Safrianna: And that's what I did do. I was like, here are all the other options. You can contact this person, I did the legwork, but I wasn't going to do it for them. And a lot of people didn't do it. Yeah.
Ikenna: And that, but again, like that's what we try to show people as therapists of we'll do the legwork of offering referrals.
But we're not going to call the other person for them. Yep. Like there's
Safrianna: but some people expect that we will.
Ikenna: Yeah. So that's the thing is, we can offer some options, but it's. Not our responsibility to say yes to everything. Yeah. And that's so hard.
Safrianna: It is. And I wrote in this post on Facebook that now that it's been about a year since he passed, I realized that the ultimate lesson was, I can't save everyone.
I can't please everyone. And. I shouldn't be killing myself over other people either. None of us should no. And so I hope someone out there really takes from this, this transparency that you don't have to do it all. You're not, you are not required. You're not obligated. You may think that you are, but at the end of the day, if you're an adult, you have every right to make every legal right.
To make all decisions for yourself. If you're a child, it's another story, unfortunately. Yeah.
Ikenna: But, and and we do have responsibilities as adults, of course, like, there, and that's going to. You'll have to weigh your options there of like, like our HVAC system fucked up the other day.
And there was a bunch of water on the ground. I could have said, fuck that. I don't want to clean up the water, cleaning up the water, but then I was like, Who like I it's the house we purchased the house. It's our responsibility. We have to take care of this. Yeah. And I also hate when waters around the house like this,
Safrianna: that is one of your triggers.
Ikenna: Yeah. Ironic as a double water sign. Double. I hate when double places I hate when water is like, when water gets spilled. Yep. And I spill it all the time. Yep.
Safrianna: So all of this to say, please take care of yourself. And if you have underlying codependent traits or you're hearing that word and you are cringing at that word, you are not alone.
It's not a. , it's not an Albatros, it's not a death sentence. It's something that can be worked on, but it's terrifying to work on because that means getting really fucking honest with yourself. and then being able to translate that out to others, but it is an inside process. Yeah. First in my opinion, at least,
Ikenna: and also.
Realizing that you are not responsible for how people react to it. That's the biggest thing we get. So worried about how people are going to react to it. So we just don't. Yep. And so that's how. That could be one of the first things that you work on is like your frustration tolerance towards people reacting poorly.
Yeah. Or like, what is your worst case scenario? Like how bad could someone react to you? Giving them those truths and some people like for me, it's abandonment, and that's. Terrifying, but I have left relationships before, or I've had relationships fall apart and I've moved on. Like in the moment it was scary and terrible, time does heal a lot of wounds and I was able to move on from it.
And it's just those sort of things. It's like, you need to also have a good practice for people who realize that they're people pleasing codependent. Like I said earlier, is think about what you actually want. Like, what are your actual passions and things that you enjoy? And if you have no idea outside of what other people enjoy and what you want to fit in with them and enjoy those things too, but you don't actually enjoy those things, then start exploring for yourself.
Safrianna: Yeah. Heckin explore.
Ikenna: Heckin explore. We believe in you. You are worthy.
Safrianna: We love you. Heck we heckin love you. Heck. Wow.
Ikenna: That's the ominous I am Batman. Byeeee
