Codependency means putting other’s needs and feelings ahead of yours, at your expense.
Codependent people 
let other people’s actions and attitudes determine how they respond and react. They live with the fear that they will be rejected or hurt someone’s feelings. They often feel they like a victim, doormat, or martyr and that people take advantage of them. They can be overly loyal, even when the loyalty is unjustified and personally harmful.
The problem with this is that it keeps you from knowing and expressing your own values and beliefs. In order to avoid conflict, you lose your sense of who you are. This often leads to feelings of powerlessness, anxiety, shame, depression, and helplessness. It also negatively affects Self-Esteem. Self-Esteem is essential in life because is proven to affect our health, relationships, work performance, and attitude towards others. High self-esteem:
– Increases the chance of finding happiness
– Makes it possible to cope with disappointments and changes
– Affects how we see the world and our place in it
– Affects choices we make
-Positively affects our health and sense of well-being
– Affects our ability to give and receive love
We all teach people how to treat us.
To help us teach people how to treat us, we need to understand how to assert ourselves and how to communicate with people effectively. Denise has written a workbook that is now on Amazon for this very purpose!
“Personal Boundaries and Effective Confrontation”- Creating a better you by defining, loving, and protecting yourself – a WORKBOOK.
This book will help you:
- Understand the difference between passive, assertive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive personalities and how to deal with each style effectively.
- Know the difference between healthy and unhealthy boundaries
- Be able to identify when your physical, emotional, spiritual, or sexual boundaries are being violated
- Develop effective methods to overcome self-sabotaging behaviors such as guilt, shame, and codependency
- Learn boundary-setting tips to support you to stand up for yourself with ease
- Learn how to develop confidence and self-esteem
- Have a step-by-step method of how to confront someone effectively, while overcoming ways to be manipulated, controlled, and intimidated.
- See how personal boundaries can support you to create clarity, confidence, personal integrity, healthy relationships, and peace of mind.