But very often when you're hyper independent, you just retreat. You go further into yourself

and your inner world becomes louder and you forget that there is community here to support me.

There are people who can help me be well. When someone has said, do you need help with anything?

And you've been like, no, who was that person? Go back and call them and say,

hey, last week, I told you I was having a rough week and you told me to call you if I need anything.

And today, I am calling because I do need a distraction. Would you like to go and have dinner?

Yeah. to go and have dinner. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of The Best of You. I'm Dr.

Allison, and today we're talking about something many of us struggle with, especially

those of us who are highly empathetic, who care about something many of us struggle with, especially those of us who are

highly empathetic, who care about a lot of other people, which is pretty much everybody

listening to this podcast. We're talking about codependency. Overfunctioning is another word

for it and what it looks like to build healthy trust and connection with others without losing

yourself. I want to anchor today's conversation in a story from scripture that doesn't get

talked about nearly enough, but it feels so relevant to modern life. It's from Exodus 18,

and it's the story of Moses and his father-in-law, Jethro. Moses has just led the Israelites out of Egypt.

People are coming to him all day long from morning until evening with their problems,

their conflicts, their questions, and Moses just listens.

He shows up.

He carries everything that comes at him every single day.

I think so many of us could relate to how Moses feels, you know, in these moments. He's really trying to hold everybody together. And from the outside, it looks really noble. It looks faithful. It looks responsible. He's the good guy in the story. But Jethro watches this and says something that stops Moses in his tracks. And he kind of confronts him.

He says, what you are doing isn't good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves

out. And then Jethro names something important. He says to Moses, you cannot do this alone. And you weren't meant to. He tells

...