Freeing yourself from emotional dependence
74. Freeing yourself from emotional dependence
You know very well that this relationship brings you nothing, or is even harmful or, worse, is slowly destroying you.
Yet you cannot end the relationship, because deep inside you there is always this glimmer of hope telling you that the relationship can still change. You don’t even recognize yourself anymore.
Or the other is like a drug you cannot do without.
Do you wonder why you are like this?
In episode 73 I detail the different forms of dependence and in this episode 74 I give you, with my 8 years of practice, more information on where this emotional dependence comes from and how to get out of this dependence.
Here is a summary of the possible causes:
Lack of self-love
The first cause is a lack of love toward yourself. Are you trying to fill your lack of self-love with the other’s love?
The problem is that the other cannot fill a lack for which they are not responsible.
To identify whether your emotional dependence comes from a lack of self-love, ask yourself the following questions:
- do you love yourself?
- do you take care of yourself? of your appearance?
- how do you accept your flaws?
- do you have a harsh inner dialogue toward yourself?
- what is the influence of other people’s opinions on you?
If you notice that your level of self-love is faltering, start by giving yourself this love. By filling your own cup of Love, your dependence on the other will automatically decrease.
Listen to this self-love meditation for 40 consecutive days to fill your cup of Love.
Lack of emotional nourishment
The lack of nourishment can be described as a feeling of lack/emptiness, a feeling of not being well without outside comfort (food or the other). It is as if you were trying to fill the discomfort of an inner emptiness that you feel with an outside source (the other or food) instead of trying to fill this emptiness yourself.
This reflex has a major consequence:
You reinforce the dependence on this outside source, which in a relationship can show up either as the need to merge in the relationship, as the tendency toward emotional dependence, or as the inability to be alone because you think that only this outside source can help you.
Yet this new source cannot help you because this lack comes from a past shock that your body has recorded. The lack of nourishment is often linked to an experience from the past related to a sudden separation from loved ones such as a birth with separation or the endangerment of the child or the mother, an accident, the death or illness of a loved one, the child was left alone at home or in bed.
I must sacrifice myself to be loved
Another possible cause of emotional dependence arises if you have recorded in your past that to receive Love you have to give beyond your capacity or you have to suffer. If your parents gave you a love that was highly conditioned on what you do (your behavior, your good grades….), if you had to give without necessarily receiving, you will simply repeat this habit in your romantic relationships. To identify what is at the origin of your emotional dependence, ask yourself the following questions:- how did my parents love me?
- how did they react when I was myself?
- did they meet my needs?
- did I feel entitled to ask them for help?
❤️ Watch my webinar on how to finally be happy in love!
How to free yourself from emotional dependence?
There are 2 steps: 1. If you want to heal these behaviors lastingly, the first step is to identify the wounds of the past that generated this dependence. Then you need to deprogram them so that they no longer influence the way you act in the present. And for me that goes through the body, 2. Cultivating healthy habits consists of developing kinder habits toward yourself, namely giving yourself the emotional nourishment you need. to cultivate your independence in relationship, to learn to be in relationship without sacrificing yourself. It is a bit like eating disorders. You are in constant contact with the other and you have to relearn your interactions with the other. You cannot cut off all contact. To go further, my program Opening up to love helps you discover the origin of your emotional dependence and put in place the right habits to love without damaging yourself and/or forgetting yourself. You can take the Day of the Past option, a day of Somatic Deprogramming: a psycho-corporal practice to deprogram the automatic patterns of the nervous system and reprogram new relational reflexes.
Sandy Kaufmann
is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Éditions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir à l’amour“, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.
Table des matières
