Hello and welcome to another episode of the Mark Groves podcast where we talk all things relational.

And there's so much value to be found in assessing our relationship or our challenges, let's call them, in our relationship

to anything, you know, whether it be food, I was about to say water, your relationship to water

should be hydrated. That's the only way it should be. Food, money, drugs, sex, but people, you know, people really magnify it.

That's where romantic relationships offer us such a window into ourselves.

And, you know, I think about my own assessment of where codependency can live within my life because you know the

really codependency is where we are willing to abandon ourselves in order to stay connected to another

and so we prioritize being connected to them over being connected to us and i noticed that show up in

fear about having conversations

that are hard talking about subjects that are scary. But I know that if I only did things for

applause or to be liked, I'd never really get to fully be me. And I'd also never make mistakes.

And I'd also never be invited to find new language and new conversations and new ways of being.

It's kind of like if I'm always defensive or critical in conflict, then I'm never going to know what the deeper intimacy is that lies beyond not being defensive,

learning how to heal that way of being in relationship.

And the model of relationship that we were taught,

that we have inherited, that we have observed,

that we generally participate in is codependency.

It's what we're taught through the patriarchy,

and that's for both genders, any combination of genders,

is self-abandonment in order to be in relationship,

not knowing how do I be me, how do I be a fully expressed self and be in relationship?

I'm either really good at being alone or really good at being in love, which I would say

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