Knowing Yourself – What Happens After You Feel Safe Again
By Marshall Burtcher.
Codependency is a strategy – not a disease, identity, or character flaw – that results from your nervous system’s attempt to create safety, belonging, and worth.
I repeat this because this understanding is crucial to actually creating the change you seek in your life.
Boundaries, saying no, speaking up, choosing yourself first, trusting yourself, loving yourself – these are all expressions of a nervous system that feels safe enough to expand, breathe, play, experiment, and rest.
This is why my work focuses so deeply and heavily on building safety into your daily life through re-calibrating the nervous system and shifting your identity from the survival state to the creative state.
Once you have this in place – and you’ll know you do because you’re resting better, playing more, becoming curious again – it is time to start to know, love, and become yourself.
This stage I call, “The Heal And Grow Phase”, and is the 2nd of the 3 phases of The Self-Authority Journey. Phase one is Survival, which is where we address safety, and the 3rd phase is Creation, where you master your ability to create outcomes you desire in your life.
The Heal And Grow Phase is where the deep work of unbecoming starts. Much of what you believe about who you are is not actually who you are. It is who you’ve had to be. I call this the Survival Identity. It is everything you thought you had to be to survive.
When we start to grow, we’re going through a process of “individuation”, or becoming defined by our own sense of self and experience. This is the “teenage years” of healing, per se.
This phase is a confusing one, as a lot of the values, expectations, desires, and dreams you had in your Survival/Codependent Phase will evolve or change, leaving you wondering who you are and what you want.
This is *good*. It means you’re stepping into the space of curiosity about yourself and who you are.
In the Heal & Grow System, students tap into this phase with curiosity, experimentation, and body-oriented awareness practices. The goal here is to start understanding who you are through the information you gain through your body, intuition, and senses.
We start first with detection of one’s Real Voice and discerning it from the other voice we have: The Programmed Voice. The real voice is calm, grounded, centered, curious, and body-centered. It doesn’t come up from the chatter of the mind.
The Programmed Voice is loud, often cutting or shaming, and is absolute in its claims. It often causes anxiety, upset, confusion, or shame. Watch out for this. It is not YOU talking to you.
When you’re able to detect your voice, then the more advanced work of self-authority comes alive. This involves knowing your value system, your priorities, and then the important nuanced work of relationships and communication.
Real healing from codependency is a journey through three phases: Survival → Heal & grow → Creation.
We will repeat this as a loop because we’re slowly discovering ourselves more and more.
This is why there’s the experience of two-steps forward, one-step back, and it is completely normal. Trust that this is helping you heal and thrive and you’ll start to see it doing just that.
Remember, this is hard work. You do not need to do it alone. I offer community programs and live-taught trainings to take the challenge out of the journey.
Go gently and kindly in this.
See you next month!
Marshall Burtcher turns codependents into confident, fulfilled creators of their lives. Begin your journey back to peace, power, and security with his free workshop,”The Cause and Cure of Codependency” here: https://ccc.freetheself.com
