This is Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby and you're listening to the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast.

That song is called Ophelia. The artist is Les Hayden, and I chose that song for us today, not for his lyrics so much,

but because of the tone of the song, I think, but also to have the opportunity to speak with

you about the lesson of Ophelia.

If you remember from your high school, high school Shakespeare days,

Ophelia was a character who was so overly involved in her relationships with other people

that when those relationships were disrupted, it absolutely ruined her.

And I know that's kind of heavy, but I thought it was an appropriate kind of symbol for our time together today

because today we're going to be talking about something that has that impact on people, might even be impacting you and your life and

your relationships and the term for it is codependence when we talk about

codependence we're talking about being so focused on what other people are doing or not doing, particularly

our romantic partners, and feeling like unless and until they can get it together, you

cannot be at peace or happy or satisfied with your life and so so much energy goes into trying to help

another person function at the level that you want them to function to that in the meantime

you yourself are just awash in stress and anxiety and anger and all kinds of negative emotions

that takes such a toll on you. So on this episode of the podcast, I wanted to explore this topic

with you in particular so that you can understand what it is and, you know, how it shows up in relationships and kind of

think about whether or not it might be happening in yours, but also I'm going to be leaving

you with some ideas that you can use to begin shifting this dynamic so that you can feel

happier and more at peace and more in control

and paradoxically create positive change in your relationship without all of the drama and

stress and pain that you might be experiencing now. I know that sounds crazy when you let go.

...