You Might Be Codependent. Learn How to Set Boundaries & Build Healthy Relationships!

Is codependency secretly sabotaging your life and relationships? Are you losing yourself while desperately trying to fix someone else? Mayim and Jonathan explore how to spot the telltale signs of codependent behavior and distinguish it from a healthy relationship, romantic or otherwise. Using the book, “Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself” by Melody Bettle as their guide, Mayim and Jonathan break down how trauma and family dynamics can create codependency and how to break those codependent patterns. Learn why pressuring others to change never works, the physiological toll of codependency, and how to set powerful boundaries to protect yourself. They share tips on how to overcome codependency, such as how to increase emotional resilience, build your self-esteem, recognize your needs, and practice healthy detachment—without losing yourself. Plus, see how Jonathan did on Mayim's codependency quiz! Check out CODEPENDENT NO MORE: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself: https://www.melodybeattie.com/codependentnomore BialikBreakdown.com https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ YouTube.com/mayimbialik https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOocPnDh2YQZZwh86K2OxA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mayim Bialik?

  Are you ruminating and saying, "I always try and help this person. Why don't they fucking listen? Why don't they get it? I'm anxious. I'm sad. This is unfulfilling." Why does trying to force someone to do what you think that they should do actually not help them? People don't change until they're ready to. You don't know what someone's bottom is when you try and insert yourself and say, "Now is the time for you to dump him." That person may actually not have the tools necessary to extricate themselves from the relationship in a healthy, sustaining way. You're inserting your thoughts and behaviors into someone else's life when they may not have the skills to actually follow through

• 0:44Mayim Bialik?

  on what they need to do, which is not your business. It's between them and their higher power. We are robbing that person the dignity of their own in sometimes shitty mistakes. We lose a part of ourself when we so step into trying to solve someone else's crisis.

• 1:04Jonathan Cohen?

  People have their own path and they have to learn things in their own way. You can't prevent someone else's learning.

• 1:18Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 1:19Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:20Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our breakdown. Today, we've got a very special MBB explorers. We are exploring codependency today.

• 1:29Jonathan Cohen?

  I couldn't do this without you, Mayim.

• 1:31Mayim Bialik?

  It's because you're codependent.

• 1:33Jonathan Cohen?

  I want to do everything together.

• 1:35Mayim Bialik?

  You're codependent.

• 1:36Jonathan Cohen?

  I like to go to the grocery store together.

• 1:38Mayim Bialik?

  You do.

• 1:38Jonathan Cohen?

  I like to cook together. I like to decorate. I like to podcast. I like when you go on walks with the dog with me.

• 1:45Mayim Bialik?

  Great place to start. Is being a congenial, friendly partner the same as being codependent? No.

• 1:54Jonathan Cohen?

  It only depends if your partner wants to do those things with you or not. If they don't want to, then you're codependent. If they do want to, then you guys are living your best lives.

• 2:03Mayim Bialik?

  So Jonathan's having a great time teasing about the actual definitions of codependency. But right off the bat, I think it's important to point out All codependents are people pleasers, not all people pleasers are codependents. So that's a good place to start because a lot of people might say, what's with this word codependency? Everybody's throwing it around. Maybe it just means that I'm like, okay with making you happy.

• 2:28Jonathan Cohen?

  Let's talk about how many people this actually affects to understand the scope of what we're talking about.

• 2:36Mayim Bialik?

  Well, if we trust Valerie, which we do.

• 2:39Jonathan Cohen?

  We couldn't do anything without Valerie.

• 2:40Mayim Bialik?

  We couldn't do anything without Valerie.

• 2:42Jonathan Cohen?

  We're codependent with Valerie.

• 2:43Mayim Bialik?

  But Valerie's research indicates that, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, the majority of people experience some level of codependency. The, one of the easiest ways to sort of measure codependency is by estimating how many partners of alcoholics and addicts there are. Because while that's not the only kind of people that are codependent, the early kind of examinations into codependency came when reflecting on partners of addicts or alcoholics. So it's a really big number either way.

• 3:20Jonathan Cohen?

  It's a really big number, and if you're trying to understand, well, what's the implication here, right? We're gonna explain it. We're gonna break down, what does it mean to be codependent? When does it tip the scale from maybe people pleasing and something that you just happen to do to an activity that can actually harm your life and your well-being?

• 3:42Mayim Bialik?

  Codependent is referred to as a progressive condition in that the behaviors that you partake in when you are in codependency will likely continue to impact you in cumulative ways and can be very detrimental to your health. And we're gonna talk about what some of the decisions are that people make along this road that can lead to progressive codependency.

• 4:08Jonathan Cohen?

  Let's step back for a second, Mayim, and if someone is to say... You have your fancy labels. Everything needs a label these days. I'm just living my life. Tell us why we should be pay attention to the idea of codependency and try to understand where we fall on the spectrum.

• 4:28Mayim Bialik?

  Well, Jonathan, I'm glad you asked. I'm going to be talking about one of the classic books in the codependent literature. It's called Codependent No More. You may have heard of it. This is the revised and updated edition. It was originally written in 1986 by Melody Beatty. The reason I'm glad you asked the question this way, Jonathan, is it does take a little bit of history to understand the evolution of this term and how we understand it. So in the 1940s, after the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous, a group of people who were primarily the wives of alcoholics started hanging out together.

• 5:07Mayim Bialik?

  And what they found was that they needed to do their own kind of recovery and work in order to stay away from meddling with their alcoholic's behavior. So what was what was noticed, and this kind of wasn't elucidated till the 70s and 80s, was that people in close relationships with certain kinds of people developed patterns of reacting and coping that resembled the coping patterns of people who were in relationships with alcoholics. So what what kind of doctors, what therapists started seeing is that certain kinds of people

• 5:49Mayim Bialik?

  tended to have behaviors similar to as if they were in a relationship with an alcoholic. So what it started expanding to was understanding that people who had come from families where there was A sort of unwritten, but silent rule about how we interact, how we interrelate, and how we communicate, sets people up for certain expectations in relationships. So, her definition of codependent is someone who has let another person's behavior affect them, and who is obsessed with controlling that other person's behavior.

• 6:33Mayim Bialik?

  So I often identify codependency as like, "I'm not okay unless you're okay." But this is a much more specific explanation. Someone who lets someone else's behavior affect them to the point that they obsess about controlling that person's behavior. And I know a lot of you are like, "I don't control her behavior. I don't control his behavior." That's not what's going on. Guess what you probably do? And we're going to talk about the details as to how this actually looks in real time.

• 7:01Jonathan Cohen?

  I like where you're going here. Can you explain a little bit more? Like, give me some specifics. What does it mean to have patterns similar to those of dating an alcoholic? Like, if someone doesn't know, if you haven't been in these relationships, what do these patterns actually mean and look like?

• 7:18Mayim Bialik?

  Here are some of the things. Controlling, obsessive, helping. I'm just trying to help her. Care-taking, coupled with low self-worth that often borders on self-hatred, an abundance of anger and guilt, a peculiar dependency on peculiar people, an attraction to and tolerance for bizarre other-centeredness that results in abandonment of self, communication problems, intimacy problems, and this is fascinating, an ongoing whirlwind trip through the five-stage grief process. So for anyone who's ever been in a relationship that like, keeps breaking up, you're not sure if it's right,

• 8:02Mayim Bialik?

  you keep getting hurt, you keep going back, you keep going through like, denial, bargaining, these things can be features of your own codependent patterns.

• 8:13Jonathan Cohen?

  Let's take one by one. I'm really looking for a little bit of narrative here. I'm in a relationship. How do each one of these things actually look? I'll give excessive helping, for example. You see your partner... And you know, they need to do something for their mental health.

• 8:30Mayim Bialik?

  Stop talking about me and me needing to get sunlight in the morning. Nobody wants to hear about that. All right, here we go. I'm gonna keep trying to get at this in the way that satisfies Jonathan, which isn't codependent at all. Codependents want and need sick people around them to be happy in an unhealthy way.

• 8:48Jonathan Cohen?

  What does that mean unhealthy way? Why, I want people to be happy because it makes my life better.

• 8:53Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan, I need you to take out a piece of paper or your phone. This is, this is a yes or no. If it's a yes, just mark down a hash mark and everybody listening can play along. Have you ever worried yourself sick about someone else?

• 9:10Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, ever is a long time.

• 9:12Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, that's a yes for you. And worried yourself sick about other people means you're up at night thinking about someone else. You're coming up with solutions for problems they haven't asked you to solve. You're spending your time thinking about the other person when it's not required. Have you ever tried to help in ways that didn't help?

• 9:41Mayim Bialik?

  Have you ever, doesn't have to be with the same person, just in, in all relating. Have you ever said yes when you meant no? And in case you're like, of course not, think about sex, people. Think about sex.

• 9:56Jonathan Cohen?

  When maybe you're thinking about helping people move.

• 9:59Mayim Bialik?

  Have you ever tried to make other people see things your way?

• 10:04Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, if you don't try, how can they see them?

• 10:06Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, are we keeping track? Have you ever bent over backward to avoid hurting people's feelings? And in doing so, hurt yourself?

• 10:15Jonathan Cohen?

  Give an example, give us an example.

• 10:18Mayim Bialik?

  To avoid hurting somebody's feelings, going on a date with someone when you knew you didn't want to go on a date with them, giving up your time, buying someone tickets to a concert because you thought it's what they wanted, even though you don't want to waste that money and don't have the money to spend. Have you ever been afraid to trust your own feelings? Have you ever believed lies and then felt betrayed? Meaning someone lied to you and you got hurt because of it. Have you ever felt the need to get even and punish? This is a good one. Have you ever felt so angry you wanted to kill someone? Have you ever struggled for your own rights when people told you you didn't have any?

• 10:59Mayim Bialik?

  This looks like trying to assert your needs, your space, and being told you're not important. And finally, have you ever worn sackcloth because you didn't believe you deserved silk? This is self-abnegation, is what that's called. Have you ever worn sackcloth because you didn't believe that you deserved silk? So, this is 11 questions. Not bragging, I got 10 of them.

• 11:27Mayim Bialik?

  So, what this is painting is a portrait of not just someone who's doing for other people or obsessively worrying and caretaking other people. It's the set of behaviors that leads to these feelings of low self-worth, anger. You know, it's when people say that their non-alcoholic parent was more troublesome than their alcoholic parent. It's when the person who is trying so freaking hard to keep it together and trying so hard to manage, control, fix, make it right, that they become a mess. That is... That is what this book is exploring. These patterns.

• 12:11Jonathan Cohen?

  Before we get there, what's the cutoff?

• 12:15Jonathan Cohen?

  What do you have to score on that quiz to say this is just normal functioning? Because, look, when you say, and I'm gonna play the devil's advocate here, but when someone says, "Have you ever?" Well, you're a young person, you don't know what the social expectations are, you don't know how to stand up for yourself right away, versus how often is this happening in your life in the present moment, in the last year? Those are very, very different.

• 12:39Mayim Bialik?

  The idea is, are you seeing this as a pattern? Are you the common denominator in all of these kinds of interactions? Progressive codependency, meaning the way to know that this, you know, has sort of become a cumulative and progressive problem. Is often depression. It's often isolation, feeling hopeless, becoming seriously emotionally, mentally, or physically ill, eating disorders, addictions to alcohol, drugs, right? So these are the kinds of things that that she identifies happen in kind of later, you know, codependency. But the earlier stages, it can be really confusing.

• 13:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Understanding boundaries, understanding what the social expectations are. A lot of this stuff feels like, until it becomes a habitual pattern, we are just trying to figure things out. My MB Alex Breakdown is supported by Article.

• 13:33Mayim Bialik?

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• 14:28Mayim Bialik?

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• 14:53Jonathan Cohen?

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• 15:03Mayim Bialik?

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• 16:14Jonathan Cohen?

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• 16:18Mayim Bialik?

  What Codependent No More talks about is some of these patterns that arise in dysfunctional homes, even if there's not alcoholism present. In dysfunctional homes, homes with abuse, even homes that aren't dysfunctional but have someone who's chronically ill, you can see these sort of patterns start to emerge. And what it is, is it's people trying to make sense of a situation where, in many cases, as a young person, if you're a child, your needs may not be met. And so you get esteem from being helpful, from being involved, or from being silent and not having any needs. And codependency is one of these things, as I'm reading this book.

• 17:03Mayim Bialik?

  You can have both sides of behavior. You act out, or you don't act at all. But in general, the pattern is someone who will be in a pattern that they feel they cannot escape.

• 17:18Mayim Bialik?

  Or they will pursue relationships that they cannot escape. And that kind of becomes the cycle.

• 17:25Jonathan Cohen?

  So there's two sides of this codeine you're describing. One is that you get your self-worth from helping whoever's in the most need. So if that's an alcoholic parent or dysfunctional parent, they may not have a schedule. They may have health issues. They may need you to cover for them. They may be younger children in the house where you have to take care of them. You may have to go grocery shopping. You may have to deal with adult aspects because they're not taking care of things. If that's a sick family member, it may be the same because that sick family member can't take on the responsibilities. So you may be caretaking for them and stepping into that role where you're getting your self-esteem

• 18:04Jonathan Cohen?

  and that validation and that acceptance from the family by doing things that are not inherently building yourself up. And that sets that pattern. So in a normal household, or if there is such a thing as quote unquote "normal", in an ideal situation, the majority of the interaction for the child is that they, the activity centering around bettering them, furthering them, pursuing an activity for them. They're able to explore their own needs and emotions in, without the pressure of someone else's needs and emotions overriding what they might need.

• 18:41Mayim Bialik?

  So what that looks like though, when you get into a grown-up relationship, because you're no longer in your family of origin, what does it look like? So this falls under sort of the caretaking category of codependency that she talks about. Thinking and feeling that you are responsible for other people. Meaning, not just that you have responsibilities to another person, but that you are responsible for other people's feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being, lack of well-being, and ultimate destiny.

• 19:13Jonathan Cohen?

  Ultimate destiny, that's a big one. If you don't intervene.

• 19:16Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 19:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Their life is gonna go off the rails so much as to not fulfill their destiny, or that you are responsible for them in some sort of really significant way.

• 19:25Mayim Bialik?

  Feeling anxiety, pity, and guilt when other people have a problem. So this is the kind of like, in the middle of the night, you're thinking about a problem that's not even yours. Feeling like because you can't fix it, it's your responsibility to do so, even if it's not your problem and you haven't been asked to fix it. That's a feature of a caretaking, kind of codependent, pattern.

• 19:50Jonathan Cohen?

  And how many times have we heard and people have talked about the power in letting someone have a really big emotion and not reacting to it? Not taking it on. Whether that be they're upset and angry and you know that you've made a decision that they've reacted out of anger, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't have made that decision. Or they're really upset and you can't fix that upset. Maybe they're sad, maybe they're going through something and you just have to be there and are able to hold space for them to work it out themselves. It's not something for you to take on and fix.

• 20:20Mayim Bialik?

  Here's a feature of caretaking that I think in our culture is especially emphasized for women. Anticipating other people's needs. So there's nothing wrong inherently with anticipating somebody else's needs, especially if you're a parent. It's kind of your job to anticipate the needs of a child. But over-preparing and over-prepping because you're afraid of someone else's needs or reactions, that's where we get a little bit fuzzy here.

• 20:50Jonathan Cohen?

  Explain that one to us. How does it play out in practical terms?

• 20:54Mayim Bialik?

  If, let's say you have a partner and your partner, let's say you're in charge of dinner for the night. So to me, like, having dinner ready when your partner comes home, there's nothing wrong with that that doesn't feel codependent to me, right? We're all in the clear about this. However, if you have a partner who...

• 21:14Mayim Bialik?

  If they don't have things just so, they will get upset. And this leads you to, let's say, doing extra cleaning around the house. You know, preparing their drink just so. Preparing something for them. This is something I've done before. You're preparing like a drink for someone and like, oh, it's not right. I gotta start again. I gotta start again. It's not the right proportions. I gotta do it again. Right? Like, that kind of anticipation of if this is not right, what's going to happen? Or, gosh, they had a hard day at work. And it's one thing to say, someone had a hard day at work. I want to do something nice for them. Again, we're in the clear. Where it tips into like, err, is, I really have this class I was supposed to go to,

• 21:59Mayim Bialik?

  that I really enjoy. But they had a hard day, so I should stay home and make sure that they're okay. I should, you know, set things up so that when I get home from my class, they're not upset that I went out when they needed me. Right? These kinds of things. Do you see how much time it takes? And I think that's one of the ways that I'm sort of deciding, what's just like being a nice partner or a friend? What's the time that it takes? What's the calculation that I'm doing to try and prevent or arrange a mood of the another person?

• 22:34Jonathan Cohen?

  I think that's a great example. The difference being, I have a class. I want to go out. I know they've had a hard day. Is it in my schedule? Is it in my bandwidth to do something nice and set something up? That doesn't feel like it's taking away the thing that I need to take care of myself? Or is it what you described, where you're going through mental gymnastics in a way that there feels like there's a negative repercussion that you're afraid of if you don't take these actions?

• 23:01Mayim Bialik?

  Right. And so that, you know, kind of goes into also one of the other aspects of codependence is the controlling. And a lot of people think of controlling as like, my mean dad was controlling. But controlling can look like a lot of different things, and it can often look like over caring. So many codependents become afraid to let other people be who they are and allow events to happen naturally. So the behind the scenes aspect of I'm gonna control this situation. I'm gonna control these friends who I'm afraid won't get along. And so I'm gonna do all this backchanneling and I'm gonna arrange it just so. Or I'm gonna uninvite this person, or I'm gonna lie to this person so that they don't

• 23:45Mayim Bialik?

  know that I'm getting together with these other people because they might be upset. You know, like that kind of, that's controlling. It's a way of trying to control a situation, honestly, for our comfort. Interestingly, many codependents who control feel controlled by other people. And it's sort of this push-pull, right? Of like, I never get my way. Why can't it just go the way I want? I want to emphasize again that the other aspect of codependency, the things that we're talking about in and of themselves, those don't make for codependency. The personality type that was identified was one that in addition to these kinds of

• 24:24Mayim Bialik?

  behaviors, you also see low self-worth, denial, a lot of attachment problems, seeking love from people incapable of loving, always having to prove that you're good enough to be loved. These are things that you sort of look at that go together. So it's not just the aspects of being overinvested in other people's lives. It's that you grow an anger and a resentment and a sadness as a result of the inability to effectively control situations and people.

• 25:01Jonathan Cohen?

  We know people, sometimes they get into relationships and that person loves this particular activity. And now the couple is really into pickleball, for example, or gardening, or birdwatching. And there's a healthy level of mutual interest. But when someone starts to lose themselves, well, what does it mean to really know yourself, have your own desires, have your own sense of self while still being in a healthy relation with other people?

• 25:29Mayim Bialik?

  What are your needs? What do you like? What do you want to do, right? And so many of us are used to saying, well, whatever they want to do. Or whatever they want to do, because if we don't do it, they will be, and then fill in the blank, upset, disappointed, upset, you know, or angry, whatever it is.

• 25:50Jonathan Cohen?

  Or if I say what I want to do and they try to come with me, they're going to make it miserable and I'd rather not bring them.

• 25:57Mayim Bialik?

  Didn't need to get personal, Jonathan.

• 26:01Mayim Bialik?

  So yes, one of the things that is recommended is learn about yourself and your needs without thinking about other people's needs. Meaning if those other needs were not necessary for my functioning, what do I actually want and need?

• 26:19Jonathan Cohen?

  Some people can think, well, I'll just make this accommodation. I don't really care. I don't have an opinion. I'm just going to go along with it. It's easier, right? And we actually talked about this on the Mel Robbins podcast. She asked me something, I forget what she asked me, but my answer was I had spent so much time thinking, well, I'm going to manage this situation over here because I know that if I want to go do something else, like, I don't know, even go to the gym or do something else, but that takes away time from family time. Then my ex was going to be upset. So it was easier for me not to do that so that my ex wasn't upset. And but what ends up happening as we subjugate our needs and we don't know what it is that we want.

• 27:02Jonathan Cohen?

  We actually lose a level of personal agency and vitality. You know, if we think about, again, spiritually, that we're all here and we have needs and actually taking steps to serve our own needs, find out what we like, find out what our preferences are, are an act of self-love that energize us, that give us desire to live. As we slowly chip away at that and start to give up that opportunity to know ourselves in that way and to actualize ourselves in that way, that's where we get on a chronic basis, anxiety, depression, emptiness, feelings of powerlessness, diminished sense of self-esteem, hopelessness. We aren't able to give.

• 27:48Jonathan Cohen?

  ourselves or be present with our partner. So we end up not really having much left over when we think we're making the right choice to remove conflict.

• 27:59Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I mean, that's all fine and good and true. But if, if anyone out there has ever dated a train wreck and you feel that you are responsible for their survival, all that goes out the window. That's what it feels like. It feels like my job is to make sure this person doesn't, fill in the blank, get drunk, get high, yell, hit, like whatever it is. Someone dubbed me, the owner of all the rights and privileges to fix that other person. And, you know, I think what it is, is it's really uncomfortable and in many cases unsafe, you know, for another person to be out of control.

• 28:44Mayim Bialik?

  But what this book and what sort of all of these, you know, tips and tricks that we're going to be giving are hopefully going to provide is a sort of framework to understand what it means to not try and stop a crisis, meaning we're not that powerful and we lose a part of ourself when we so step into trying to solve someone else's crisis.

• 29:10Jonathan Cohen?

  I like that. We lose a part of ourselves when we step into solve someone else's crisis. And this can be especially hard for people who are intelligent, insightful.

• 29:22Mayim Bialik?

  Empathetic.

• 29:22Jonathan Cohen?

  Have a lot of empathetic, have a lot of answers.

• 29:25Mayim Bialik?

  I have so much love to give. Everybody just should accept it.

• 29:29Jonathan Cohen?

  But people have their own path and they have to learn things in their own way. You can't prevent someone else's learning.

• 29:36Mayim Bialik?

  This is also not just a feature of romantic relationships. This is a feature of friendships as well. And I've seen enough TV shows about lady friendships to know that this is a common theme that often happens. If you've ever had a friend who's a train wreck and, you know, you want to rescue, you want to help, you want to be there, um, you know, who's the person at a party when like someone's getting sick, who's the person holding their hair and stroking their back, right? Likely a future codependent.

• 30:12Jonathan Cohen?

  It can also be people who give the best advice. You're like, "Look, I know your life will be better if you quit that job. You stop dating this person. You do this exercise. You take this vitamin supplement. Like, oh, you're getting the flu every three weeks."

• 30:28Mayim Bialik?

  Let's see if, this is a, can you get this right? Why does trying to force someone? Why does even encouraging someone to do what you think that they should do actually not help them?

• 30:42Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm gonna get this answer wrong because I'm gonna double down on the people who have a little bit of codependent tendencies, who are like, "I'm doing good in the world." I am of the belief that a lot of people out there just need a little bit of information that they don't have.

• 30:58Mayim Bialik?

  Nope.

• 31:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Now, the balance is in, how do you give that information?

• 31:06Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 31:06Jonathan Cohen?

  We've had the-

• 31:07Mayim Bialik?

  You're getting everything wrong. You're getting everything wrong.

• 31:10Jonathan Cohen?

  We've had the privilege on this podcast of speaking to like 50 experts, and they've given us all this advice. And people are, have deep dived on health solutions. And some friends called me up and be like, "Hey, I have this problem." And I'm like, "Oh, we spoke to someone. They kind of have this answer and I direct them to that." I don't think that's codependent.

• 31:28Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so what, okay, so hold on. So what you're describing is, "Oh, this person is interested in information. I'm giving that person information." If you can do that for fun and for free, great. Mazel tov, happy for you.

• 31:40Jonathan Cohen?

  What I'm not doing is following up and saying, "Did you do this thing?" Oh, pointing out the fact that your life still has this problem because you didn't follow my advice. And here's the follow-up protocol. And really, you know, texting them in the morning, "Did you go get your natural light? Is your circadian rhythm broken? Are you still looking at your screens before bed?"

• 31:58Mayim Bialik?

  Losing sleep, wondering what they're doing. And this doesn't have to be a romantic partner. This could be a friend. You know, finding or searching out additional information for that person. Those are the ways that it becomes problematic. And the second component I'm talking about, not just the behaviors, but the feelings that come with it. Are you ruminating and saying, "I always try and help this person. Why don't they fucking listen?" Why don't they get it? I'm anxious. Now, I'm sad. This is unfulfilling. That's sort of the two-handed codependent. Now, what I was looking for you to say, which I think Mel Robbins talked about it, and we've talked about it a million times. People don't change until they're ready to.

• 32:40Mayim Bialik?

  And the fact is, you don't know what someone's bottom is when you try and insert yourself and say, "Now is the time for you to dump him. Get out of that relationship." That person may actually not have the tools necessary to extricate themselves from the relationship in a healthy, sustaining way. So what you're doing is you're inserting your thoughts and behaviors into someone else's life when they may not have the skills to actually follow through on what they need to do, which is not your business. It's between them and their higher power, right? So when we insert ourselves, we are robbing that person, what they say, the dignity of their own, in sometimes shitty mistakes. They get to do that.

• 33:24Mayim Bialik?

  They get to live that. Now, when I think about as a mom, when people are told to do this with their kids, and she talks about this in the book, when your kid is wreaking havoc in your home, when they're dealing drugs, when the cops are coming to your house repeatedly, what does it look like to balance out not wanting to step in and stop this crisis versus does this person have to have their own experience of life and have it run its course? What if they die? What if they don't make it, right? So a lot of the tips about codependency, which I'd like to get to, do involve ways to bolster yourself so that you're better able to discern when you do need to act and

• 34:06Mayim Bialik?

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• 34:46Mayim Bialik?

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• 35:31Mayim Bialik?

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• 36:04Jonathan Cohen?

  The topic of children is exceptionally complicated because we have a role. We know that the prefrontal cortex isn't finished developing until they're 25. They're not able to have the foresight necessary to make better decisions for themselves. So we, as parents, are that for them. They're relying on us. And so that one is a really, really difficult one. But the similarity in the other pieces that you talked about are this idea of knowing... What the need is and the sense of, you know, a codependent can feel very guilty when they assert their need because they're used to having to suppress it or not be connected to it.

• 36:43Mayim Bialik?

  And if you constantly feel like you're giving advice and nobody's listening, yeah, it has its own kind of pattern that it then creates in you of what's my worth? What am I here for? It can be very kind of self-defeating and it is. It's a very, it's a very insidious kind of pattern of feeling so, you know, so important and so able to control and help other people. And yet feel so depleted yourself. And what that is, is exactly what you talked about, like the metaphysical of like, oh, it's their life force. It's energy and resources. If you are constantly consumed with giving your resources to other people instead of yourself.

• 37:25Mayim Bialik?

  And if you are deficient in self-care, self-love, things that give you esteem about yourself. Yeah, what we know from pretty much every other episode that we've done in the last two years is that your immune system will not function the same way. Your physiology will not support that kind of energetic output of worry and anxiety. It just won't. And that's where the progressive codependency comes in.

• 37:54Jonathan Cohen?

  So let's talk about the steps that help people start to identify their feelings, start to learn to understand what they need, when a boundary is being crossed, how to feel okay setting and articulating what they need and asserting themselves. These are all the ways to get out of chronic anger, to get back into knowing how to make decisions. Because, you know, what I could really relate to in, in a lot of what we're talking about is the symptom of being unable to make a decision. And if you can't make a decision and you're spiraling like that, the likelihood is you don't know what the need is. You don't know what the primary feelings are and you don't know what the need is.

• 38:37Jonathan Cohen?

  Once you can articulate, what do I need in this moment? Then the decisions become much easier. And if you don't have guilt around the need, then the clarity of what action to take reveals itself.

• 38:49Mayim Bialik?

  So the first, the first tool that, that Melody Baby discusses is detachment. Now, when you think about detachment, it's kind of a word that's thrown about.

• 39:03Jonathan Cohen?

  It could have a negative connotation. You're like, I'm so detached. I'm just above this all. I'm not really engaged with you.

• 39:10Mayim Bialik?

  Right. And that's not what this detachment is talking about. The notion of the need for detachment in order to start repairing some of these codependent patterns is the acknowledgement that the attachment that you have is detaching you from yourself. That's kind of the most basic concept. My over attachment, whatever that looks like, whatever it feels like, that is detaching me from myself. So detachment is not a cold hostile withdrawal. It's not a resigned despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way. It is not a robotic walk through life oblivious to and totally unaffected by people and problems. It's not a Pollyanna-ish ignorant bliss. It's not a shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others.

• 39:55Mayim Bialik?

  And it's not a severing of our relationship, nor is it a removal of our love and concern. So that's already probably surprising to people because most people think like, oh, that sounds like what I'm supposed to do when you tell me to detach. So detachment is releasing or detaching from a person or a problem in love, meaning lovingly.

• 40:17Mayim Bialik?

  Lovingly, we mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically disengage ourselves from unhealthy entanglements with others' lives and responsibilities, and from problems we cannot solve.

• 40:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Very powerful, and you can even visualize it, right? If someone has a problem and they've shared it with you, and you can almost feel it washing over you and you carrying it, and you can tell if you're doing that by, are you starting to get more anxious? Do you feel unsettled? You know, is there really a very somatic difference in your sensing after someone has shared something with you? And you can do a quick visualization of closing your eyes and imagining everything that that person just said to you, them holding it, and you being separate from that, and that visual of that space between you two can allow you to reconnect to yourself, and you may even see remnants of what they shared with you.

• 41:17Jonathan Cohen?

  If you see it as a color, or you see it as a shape, it can be passed back to them. And again, creating that space between yourselves can allow you to then breathe, feel lighter, and reconnect to what you feel like without holding on to what they've just shared with you.

• 41:34Mayim Bialik?

  One more note on detachment before we get to the next tool. If you've spoken to any child specialist, like Dr. Siggy, who I've done Instagram Lives with and who I talk about a lot, when a child presents a problem, it's actually not your job to fix it. So even with our children, we're getting the opportunity to practice this tool. We are told to do reflective listening. Dr. Becky talks about this also. I mean, this has been spoken about in Lalechi League circles and gentle discipline circles for a million years. Reflect back what you heard. And see what your child thinks some solutions might be.

• 42:14Mayim Bialik?

  You don't have to fix every problem anyone has, even if it's your kid in the moment. Huh, what do you think a solution to that might be? I think my kid's not going to get enough community service hours that he's supposed to get this year, but I'm just gonna wait and see what happens. I'm just gonna wait, try not to think about it too much. And if we do get that email, what I plan to say is, what do you think we should do about this? Right? So that's an example of detachment. And detachment is also about acceptance. It's about accepting the reality of a situation, accepting the reality of someone else's situation, and accepting the reality that you cannot change their reality for them. That's detachment.

• 42:59Mayim Bialik?

  So that's the first kind of category that we need to learn about.

• 43:03Jonathan Cohen?

  Absolutely. The detachment is also in slowing down because we immediately go to these reactions of, oh, I'm gonna get him those hours. I'm gonna call, I'm gonna sign him up, I'm gonna make sure he goes there. Versus, hmm, isn't that interesting? Something Suzanne Geissman would say, hmm, isn't that interesting? Slows everything down and makes us not the immediate problem solver.

• 43:30Mayim Bialik?

  Another tool, and I really, I highly recommend, I mean, this is such a classic codependent no more. I can't believe I've never read it. You know, I've heard about it for years, but I really, really, highly recommend it. We're just gonna be talking about a few of the tips. Also, at the end of every chapter, there's writing activities. You can kind of, you could do it with a group, you know, a friends as a workbook. But don't be codependent if they don't do it on time or the way that you need. Just do your own thing. Another category, or another tool that she talks about is don't be blown about by every wind. And what she talks about is that codependence are often reactors, but not actors. Meaning, we're really good at reacting to things.

• 44:14Mayim Bialik?

  Getting upset, planning, fixing, stepping in, like everything's a crisis, like fixing every crisis. But in terms of acting on behalf of ourselves, usually hard to do. But we do love a good reaction.

• 44:31Mayim Bialik?

  She says, "I reacted to almost everything that came into my awareness and environment. My entire life had been a reaction to other people's lives, desires, problems, faults, successes, and personalities. Even my low self-worth had been a reaction. I was like a puppet with strings hanging out, inviting and allowing anyone or anything to yank them. Most codependents are reactionaries. Some use anger, guilt, shame, self-hate, worry, hurt, controlling gestures, caretaking, depression, desperation. But it's all about that reaction. And so what does it look like to lower reactivity? We've talked about some of these things. You know, we've talked about what it means to lower your own nervous system's ability

• 45:14Mayim Bialik?

  to be reactive, right? We talk about a reactive nervous system, or an overactive sympathetic nervous system. We talk about breath work. I mean, we've talked about it with, name the person. We've talked about it with Sam Harris, with Peter Attia. We've talked about it with Joe Dispenza. I mean, like, everybody, this is a thing.

• 45:33Jonathan Cohen?

  If you're reactive, you are not dictating the actions that will help you the most.

• 45:40Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. And help the other person the most. Because what happens is you get into this sort of spin, and you're now in a reactive sort of relationship that just perpetuates, actually, a different kind of chaos, which likely is not going to help anyone.

• 45:55Jonathan Cohen?

  We also know that the first reaction is likely not the best.

• 46:01Mayim Bialik?

  My first thought is horrible.

• 46:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, it's kind of like the inverse creativity. You're like, "Just say the first thing, and it will lead to the next better thing." Well, sometimes, we just have to have an emotion, we have to have a thought, and, you know, maybe like, "Oh, F-ing, what the he-" but that changes, right? You're like, "Oh, it's actually not so bad." We are pre-designed to not want change. And so when we are upset, or when we get blindsided, or surprised by something, our tendency is to hold on to the reality that we've had. But- Taking a beat, letting the thing unfold, using a phrase like, hmm, isn't that interesting? Or what might this be telling me?

• 46:47Jonathan Cohen?

  Seeing it from a different perspective, not going from that animal instinct, helps us find a larger meaning and acceptance in what's happening. And then, that's where the magic happens because a new option will present itself to us that we would not have had if we moved too quickly.

• 47:03Mayim Bialik?

  I'm also thinking of Martha Beck. I'm also thinking of Byron Katie. Because what if you just take an exercise? Do it for an hour. Do it for three hours, six hours of the day. Do it for one day. See how many times you are reacting to something that may not need a reaction. Meaning you realize later like, oh, he didn't really mean that. Or, oh, that email was clarified, right? How many times are you reacting? And what are the externalizing behaviors that you're doing when you're reacting? Just see what happens in a day. I mean, Martha Beck said when she stopped lying, right? Lying about little things, big things, lying.

• 47:45Mayim Bialik?

  Her physiology changed, her nervous system changed, right? I kind of wonder with reactivity, if it's a similar thing, right? If we can just start having awareness about how much of our day, how much of our energy is spent in reaction? How much that could change?

• 48:05Jonathan Cohen?

  If the situation turns out to need the same reaction that you had right away, you're not going to miss the opportunity.

• 48:16Mayim Bialik?

  Very few things are urgent. Like, very few things are life or death with a lot of these things. And that's actually one of the hardest things to do. And I think that's the sort of magic tool to stop reactivity. It's called pause.

• 48:32Mayim Bialik?

  I've heard postpone action until serenity ensues. It's an acronym. Postpone action until serenity ensues. What happens if you pause? What happens if you just wait? Just wait, see what happens. How many times have I literally reacted to an email, a Slack, a thing, and it turns out there was more information?

• 48:56Jonathan Cohen?

  It's so easy, especially with texts and Slacks and things that come in really quickly. And you're doing a few other things. It's just like, ah, why is that thing happening?

• 49:06Mayim Bialik?

  The third tool that I'd like to talk about. So we talked about detachment. We talked about reactivity. And I'd like to talk about anger. No, we don't want to talk about anger. Anger is really, really rough. Anger is a hard one. And turns out, so happens, people who grew up in complicated homes, alcoholic homes, abusive homes, dysfunctional homes, homes with chronic illness. Apparently, if you're a child growing up in that kind of house, you have a lot of anger. You have a lot of anger. And in many cases, it's covering up sadness. Sometimes anger is easier to feel than sadness. But even people who don't think they have anger, you have anger. And it gets stuck in your body and it does all sorts of prickly things.

• 49:49Mayim Bialik?

  So she has a list here of things that many of us believe about anger. I'm just going to list the ones that I believe. It's not the whole list, but anger is a waste of time and energy. Nice people don't get angry.

• 50:06Mayim Bialik?

  If we allow ourselves to feel our anger, we will lose control of ourselves. Here's my favorite. People will leave if we get angry with them. Wait for it. People will leave if they get angry with us. And I'm a real like, oh, I don't want to show my anger because what if they leave, right? Because it's like a core principle of mine. It's like, I don't want to be left. But it never occurred to me that other people experiencing anger causes the same fear. That like anger means leaving, right? If people get angry with us, we must have done something wrong. I always assume I've done something wrong.

• 50:48Mayim Bialik?

  And like, it can be someone, like, if someone thinks that I made a wrong turn in a parking lot, even if I know that I haven't, my reality will get twisted by your anger. That's how powerful and scary anger is to me. I begin to doubt myself, right? If we feel angry with someone, the relationship's over and that person has to leave. I'm like, mm-hmm, that's totally it. That's, makes total sense to me. Why is that in this book, under things that aren't true about anger? If we feel angry, we have to shout and holler. I know no other way to be angry. I don't even know what it looks like. What, you can say I'm angry without screaming and throwing things? Doesn't make sense to me.

• 51:30Mayim Bialik?

  If someone feels angry with us, it means they don't love us anymore. Like, I think that's an organizing principle for me. And here's the last one I want to highlight. It's okay to feel anger only when we can justify our feelings. Meaning, if I don't have a legitimate, objective right to be angry, I shouldn't be angry. As opposed to like, anger's an emotion that happens to us. It indicates something, apparently it's helpful to process it. Like, none of these things occurred to me. These things feel like truths. Like, when I look at this list of things, like, the myths about anger, I'm like, nope, these are the truths about anger.

• 52:14Mayim Bialik?

  So she talks about this provocative emotion of anger, and how it can be so destructive, not just for us, but for other people. And it's the way that it can be explosive when it's pent up, or the way it can hurt us when we don't express it.

• 52:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Unexpressed anger is extremely toxic, like-

• 52:36Mayim Bialik?

  I got so much of it.

• 52:37Jonathan Cohen?

  That stuff just is insidious. It attacks us. It destroys our joy. It destroys our motivation to, uh, really destroys our motivation to, to live, because it is such a heavy weight.

• 52:54Mayim Bialik?

  I'm laughing, but that sounds really bad.

• 52:56Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, it is a signal that something has violated a need or a boundary of ours.

• 53:04Jonathan Cohen?

  And if we then say, I'm not allowed to express that or experience it even or acknowledge it, then it cuts to our fundamental life force of having needs, having desires, having self-agency. What I think is fascinating is this idea that if you're in a parking lot and someone gets angry at you, it's your fault. Now, if you understand that most people are highly reactive, it may be that they are reacting to something that has more context, or it may be that you made a wrong turn and that is okay that you acknowledge, oh, you put your hand up, I'm so

• 53:45Jonathan Cohen?

  sorry, I really was not paying attention and I did something wrong. And depending on their level of rage, of course, we should be scared because people fly off the handle. But in a normal circumstance, that would just be a moment of boundary of, oh, you cut someone off or you almost had a small fender bender in a parking lot. Yeah, you got to pay more attention. But to internalize it like that before evaluating-

• 54:10Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and I think it's more about that interaction that for me, anger means they're right. Right? Like whoever whoever's yelling-

• 54:20Jonathan Cohen?

  It just shuts down.

• 54:21Mayim Bialik?

  Right. Like whoever's whoever's yelling, I must have done something wrong. It's me. And that is its own kind of, you know, reaction to someone else's anger because it's me questioning my reality. It's me not asserting myself. It's me not having enough boundary to say like, oh, someone else might be upset that, you know, I turned this way or whatever. And I am very notoriously very difficult in parking lots. I don't understand which way to go. Like, it takes me a second to clog which way the cars are parked and I'm going the wrong way. Like, I don't excel in parking lots.

• 54:52Jonathan Cohen?

  Let's talk about the difference between anger and rage. It's something that I've recently done a lot of exploration on.

• 55:02Jonathan Cohen?

  We assume that anger is not safe because we associate it with rage. Rage is a destructive force. Anger can be a very productive force.

• 55:10Mayim Bialik?

  Says you.

• 55:12Jonathan Cohen?

  Anger that boils into rage is then usually directed at someone, not in a healthy manner. It can be, instead of, "I feel angry with you, I need a minute to cool down," or "I need to move my body to let the anger out." Instead, it's, "You're this problem, you're that problem, you did this." It's a lot of "you" statements that can then attack the person. It can also be breaking things, throwing things, slamming things. And again, that destructive force.

• 55:42Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, and I think, and also just to sort of like loop it back to learning about anger. If you grew up in a home where anger and rage were married, of course, you're gonna have, you know, this sort of lack of understanding of the purpose of anger. You know, when someone, I've heard healthy people say like, "Oh, I expressed my angry feelings and, you know, the other person, you know, really heard me and I just, I felt so much better." I'm like, "What's that like? What is that? What does that mean? What? You didn't break up? You didn't have to like duke it out in the parking lot?"

• 56:16Jonathan Cohen?

  If you can say to someone, "I'm really upset," but if you can say that, you can be angry, you cannot be threatening, you're not standing over the person using physical intimidation, you're not waving your arms in a close, uh, close environment.

• 56:32Mayim Bialik?

  Again, this is getting very personal, Jonathan.

• 56:36Jonathan Cohen?

  You're expressing upsetness.

• 56:39Mayim Bialik?

  "I'm angry that you did this, it made me feel like this."

• 56:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Or, "I'm just upset, I'm really, really upset right now, I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to explain it, I'm just gonna be able to huff and puff and let that out." It's a valve release.

• 56:55Mayim Bialik?

  And, and men do it differently than women, and some women do it differently than women, but there's also, there's differences in how people do that. And sometimes I find that scary.

• 57:04Jonathan Cohen?

  For sure, but when you don't have that, because a partner may be like, "If they're angry, I have to fix it. And I need to know what you're angry about, so we have to justify it and talk about it, and, oh, I want to explain to you why you shouldn't be angry." The valve never gets released. Or if I'm afraid to be ang-, to express my anger because I'm afraid that my partner is gonna crumble. And start crying and make their emotions bigger than mine and then I don't get to have anger. Then no one is able to get that valve release and then you get to a point where the boundary keeps getting pushed, pushed, pushed. People are suppressing that anger and then you get the rage moments where these unresolved issues culminate and then they eventually explode.

• 57:47Jonathan Cohen?

  That's when anger becomes destructive versus a productive force.

• 57:51Mayim Bialik?

  There's so many other tips and tools and I just really was so moved by finally reading Codependent No More that really wanted to share it. You know, other kinds of tools that are talked about in the book. Have a love affair with yourself. What does that look like? Feel your own feelings. There's a whole chapter on communication. There is information about 12 step programs that she talks about in the book. Soothe yourself. Learning to live and love again. It's a really, really, it's such a great classic and really appreciate being able to talk about it a bit as I've been reading it and enjoying it.

• 58:30Jonathan Cohen?

  What do you do if you have a loved one who's codependent, who you think is codependent?

• 58:33Mayim Bialik?

  If you have a loved one that you think is codependent, you're probably codependent.

• 58:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Go to Coda together.

• 58:39Mayim Bialik?

  It's true. She literally says in this book, if you're reading this book for someone else, you need to read this book for yourself.

• 58:49Jonathan Cohen?

  If that's the case, share this episode with the person you think is codependent and you can both listen to it together.

• 58:55Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, look, it's, it is, many relationships have components of codependency in both directions. Typically you do see, you know, one partner sort of being more of that kind of codependent, you know, caretaker with, again, the associated, you know, kind of emotional features that, that she talks about, you know, the low self-worth and the thinking everything's your fault and feeling resentful that no one's listening to you, things like that. So, yeah, we, we hope this has been helpful. And happy to hear what you think about codependency. So make sure to comment below and yeah, share this episode with someone that you think might be codependent.

• 59:36Jonathan Cohen?

  We are fascinated to hear your score on the test, on the little quiz that happened. It was out of 11, so post the number of yeses you got out of 11 in the comments. If you enjoy these explainer exploratory breakdowns, let us know in the comments. That's also helpful. That's a new format we're trying out. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, it does help us out. Click the little bell notification on YouTube or subscribe anywhere you get podcasts. We really do appreciate it so much and it helps us make more.

• 1:00:09Mayim Bialik?

  From our exploratory breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.