THE CO-DEPENDENT BODY RELATIONSHIP
Unhealthy body dynamics
Most people are aware of co-dependency in terms of relationship dynamics. Co-dependency often looks like ignoring one’s own needs, wants, preferences and desires in order to meet someone else’s needs or wants. This is done because we perceive more threat or loss in not meeting what other’s want than we do in not meeting our own needs or wants. Underneath it all we fear loss of love, connection, support, belonging, safety, admiration and inclusion. Our needs for all of those things triumph over what is actually true or authentic for us in a given moment. We believe that another person holds or contains those things for us, and if they are upset or not satisfied because we won’t meet their needs or wants, then we might lose what WE need. This is the nature of co-dependency. To put it simply it’s the belief that someone else is the source of what we need or want. When we hold this belief we manipulate ourselves to be other than we are so that we will be ok. While it seems like our behavior in appeasing them is about them, it is actually about us. This is co-dependency.
If this all seems familiar to you it’s because most relationships are co-dependent from both sides of the relationship. We either believe that others have what we need, so we twist ourselves to make sure we get it from them. Or we believe that others should give, do and be how we want them to be and we withdraw our love if they don’t give it to us. Both of these perspectives are an outsourcing of our power. We project that what we want or need lives “over there” and this puts us out of our center. We feel lack from where we are positioned and think the only way we can experience fullness is if we get what we think we need or want from the person (or thing) we think we need or want it from. Almost everyone is living this way because this is the backbone perspective we are taught of relationships.
Let’s bring this around to our body. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, we have a relationship with our body. There is you here, which is what is aware now reading this sentence. Then there is the body that has a form and a shape and is breathing, all while running thousands of cellular processes in this moment, of which you are completely not aware of. The body is a being. You are in relationship with this being just like you are in relationship with other humans in your life. Have you considered the nature of this relationship? For a moment think of your body as if it is another human being. What is or has been the dynamic of this relationship? Do you expect your body to give, do or be a certain way? If it doesn’t behave how you think it should, what do you do and how do you treat it? Do you try and get it to change and be different? Do you try to appease it, plead with it, give it everything you think it needs so that it gives you what you think you need?
A SECURE BODY RELATIONSHIP
Coming into harmony & acceptance
Just like you have your own path, the body has its own path. Just like you have cycles to your learning, it has cycles to its learning. Again this is a relationship, not a deterministic sentence. There is nothing that says that the body should or shouldn’t do this or that thing, or behave, express, move or not move in any particular way. There is only you that says those things. Imagine for a moment that you want to learn how to play the guitar. Now picture the body saying – no, no, no – we don’t want you to play guitar. See the body doing everything in its power to stop you from playing, maybe breaking its fingers or scrambling the brain so that you can’t read music. The body DOESN’T do this. It is not sadistic. It just lets you learn how to play guitar. YOU might create obstacles to learning how to play, but the body doesn’t. The body doesn’t have a will to power over you, but you as a human have a will to power over it. Most humans exercise that will all of the time, and we all know how well power over dynamics work in relationships. You can only attempt to suppress something, someone or an energy for so long before it will explode or degenerate completely.
If you have a belief that the body is out to get you, that is you projecting your own “out to get yourself-ness” onto the body. This is good insight for you into the nature of your relationship with your body, and likely with other people in your life. The body can be a mirror for us. If we feel like a victim to our body, we likely feel like a victim in relationship to our life. If we feel trapped in our body, we likely feel trapped in the dynamics of our life. If we feel in love with our body, we likely feel in love in our relationships in our life. It’s really that direct of a reflection.
When we relate to the body as if it has to behave a certain way in order for us to be ok, then we are in a co-dependent relationship with our body. Our well-being is dependent on its expressions, behaviors and needs because we believe it’s well-being is our well-being. We think that if we don’t give it everything it “demands” then we won’t be ok, and to make this even more layered, because we believe we ARE the body rather than just using the body, we think that if the body isn’t ok we will die. That often seems like the biggest threat of all to our mind.
The body is going to do what the body is going to do. We can be in active relationship with it. We can listen to it as it listens to us. We can come into harmony and also accept when we have differences in trajectories. The body doesn’t always have to agree with everything we do, and believe it or not come along with everything we do, and we don’t always have to agree with everything it does or go along with it. We can let it do what it does as we do what we do. This is a secure relationship. One that allows for each being in the relationship to be itself. How do we do this with our body, which seems to go everywhere we go? We do it by tending to the body in a way that feels best, authentic and aligned for us, all while doing and being however it is that we want to be. The body doesn’t call the shots for our perception of well-being, just like we don’t call the shots for its perception of wellness. The body just is. It’s has no opinions. It’s inherently well even as it’s taking its last breath. Who’s there to say otherwise from the perspective of the body? Same is true for us. We decide our wellness and when we unwind our co-dependent relationship with the body, we come to realize that we are the only one that can take our well-being away.
Dr. Amanda Lalita Love, Network Spinal Chiropractor & Subtle Energy Healer, Boulder, Colorado
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