Hello and welcome to the Mark Gros podcast. Today I'm coming at you this Saturday morning with

espresso espresso shot of an episode. Here we go. In all relationships, we're asking two questions.

The first one is, am I safe? The second question is, am I safe to be myself? When being ourselves threatens question number one, am I safe?

We'll forego who we are in order to maintain safety.

Now this is ultimately at the root of codependency, this idea that I'm going to abandon and erase who I am, what I want, what I desire, what I need,

in order to stay in connection with you.

Because ultimately, if you keep choosing me, then I'm safe.

This is a misconception of safety.

It's an immature conception of safety because it comes from our childhood,

where we had to learn to forego aspects of ourselves in order to maintain connection

and safety and closeness with a parent or with our parents in general,

with our family, with our culture, with our parents in general, with our family,

with our culture, with our religion. So as we grow up, we realize that being in relationships

where we don't have our own needs being met, our wants are not wanted, where the relationship

actually requires that we abandon who we are. We know that eventually that's going to lead to anxiety,

burnout, depression, all the different things. And these rock bottoms that we experience are these

moments where we get to say to ourselves, what matters to me? What matters to me? What do I want

out of life? Rock bottoms are the moment where we stop anesthetizing our pain of the disconnection from

what we truly want. And we are invited to create a life that is based around what we desire.

A lot of the times when I work with someone, I ask them, what do you need from a relationship?

What do you need in your life? What do you want in your life? What do you dream about? What do you value?

It starts with, I actually don't know. Because maybe you've spent a lot of your life orienting around

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