The Codependency Trap: Are You Falling in Love or Falling Into Someone?

Are you falling in love, or slowly disappearing into someone else? In this honest and introspective episode of Inside OUT, Jojo breaks down the codependency trap and how it can show up as love, connection, and even intimacy... until it isn't.

From losing your Friday night plans to giving up your favorite jeans because someone didn’t like them, Jojo shares personal stories and real talk about the slippery slope of emotional outsourcing. You'll hear how codependency can erode your identity and how to shift toward love that leaves room for your individuality.

In this episode:

• The signs of codependent behavior most people miss
• How love rooted in fear leads to self-abandonment
• The difference between being a leaf in a hurricane vs. a rooted tree
• How to hold your own energy, emotions, and identity in a relationship

This is a call back to yourself, a reminder that love should never require you to go missing.

Perfect for: Anyone healing from toxic or overly enmeshed relationships, learning how to stay grounded in love, or redefining what healthy connection looks like.

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Transcript

Jojo (00:07.437)
Welcome to the Inside Out Podcast. I'm your host JoJo and this is where we will navigate the mess together. That is mental, emotional, and spiritual. Let's get messy.

Jojo (00:27.119)
Hi everyone, so today I'm gonna be diving into something that really hits close to home for me. my goodness. And that is the topic of co-dependency. It's that feeling where we start bleeding into somebody else's life or we lose our routines or our boundaries or our identity. And I think this happens all in the name of connection and we want to be liked and we want.

that relationship, we don't want to be alone and everything, but we end up kind of losing ourselves. And this is something that I wanted to address because it's one of the main reasons that I have decided to be on this singular journey that I've been on for almost two years and really focusing on myself. I was chasing perfectionism. I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be perfect, I wanted to be funny.

And that's just not always my reality. I'm not gonna always be perfectly put together. I'm not gonna always be funny. I'm not gonna always just have everything together. For instance, after my last relationship ended, I was even like, what am I gonna do on Friday nights now? I was always with this person and we always did his thing. And it was like, I didn't even have my own stuff to do. And now...

because I've the last almost two years really building out my life and making sure that I, A, first of all, have a life for someone to step into and B, that I'm not getting thrown off course by someone else's anything, life, emotions, interests, that I'm very clear on who I am. But this is something I really wanted to talk about because I think through a lot of conversations that I've been having lately, it's where do I...

and the other person begins and it's navigating that space and having these two very strong pillars of individuality and building a foundation on that rather than if one person's crumbling, everything's crumbling or if one person's doing this, then we both have to be doing that. And it's like, whatever happened to really building our own lives? And I think there's a lot of fear about connection and getting into relationships.

Jojo (02:50.341)
because if you've been anything like me in the past, it's been all consuming. It's been completely about that relationship and that other person rather than you are two individual people living simultaneously and toward a collective future and building that together, but also knowing you're both still your own person.

And if one of you is in a bad mood, doesn't mean both of you need to be having the worst day ever. And I think it's understanding that dynamic and that structure. And it's not easy. And I want to break down what codependency really looks like. And these are just a few possibilities. But you think about their needs more than your own. You shape your opinion based on their opinion. You struggle to make decisions without checking in.

Or in my case, I remember I used to go shopping and I'd be like, well what if they don't like what I'm buying? Are they gonna find me attractive? Like ridiculous things like that. And half the time, there would be a pair of jeans that I would try on and that boyfriend at the time would be like, I don't really like them. And I wouldn't buy them even though I loved them. And that's codependency at its finest. Now that's kind of a silly example. But it's also, what am I gonna do on Friday night now that we've broken up? That's also codependency.

What does my life look like now that they're not in it? Who am I when they're not around? So this is a very mirroring and maybe even confronting topic, but I think it's worth talking about because I think also if I'm being honest with myself, it's held me back from even being able to own that, yeah, maybe I do want to be in a relationship at some point.

or maybe I want to be in a relationship, period. But there's so much fear about losing myself or not being able to do the things that I still need to do or want to do because now I have someone else to worry about. That is codependency. I almost want to say maybe to that point that you could be holding yourself back from something really good because you're too scared to try because of past patterning or because of

Jojo (05:16.14)
you're not trusting yourself enough to hold your own rooting. I really believe that love allows space. And I think another sign of codependency is when there's constant communication, constant back and forth, constant like, what are you doing? Where are you? Hello. It's to me, that's almost smothering. And I've done that.

Every relationship I've done that, like I always know where they were, what they were doing, maybe even had their location, just absolutely knew everything all the time about their lives. That's not natural. That's not normal. And also doing every single thing with that person is not normal. You can't go out to dinner without them. You can't be with your friends without them. You can't go to a party without them. You need to have your own life.

You need to have your own interests, your own hobbies, and maybe they intersect, but maybe they don't always have to. I mean, I think the foundation of a relationship, A, first and foremost, is morals and loyalty and respect and truth and all of those things, but also commonality in certain things, the direction. But it doesn't mean that you have to, like, if you both like...

bowling for instance, you always have to go bowling together. Maybe you wanna go bowling with your friends without that person. Like you don't always need to be attached at the hip. And I think at least from my experience and from collective experiences and people that I've had this conversation with, it starts to blend. Your world start to blend in ways where you truly don't know who's who and what's your thoughts and what's their opinion, what's your...

And it just gets messy because then all of a sudden they're having an off day and then now it's affecting your mood and you don't have your own equilibrium anymore. And to me, that's why I've been so scared and so reluctant and unwilling to even explore anything until I've gotten so clear of myself. I really like this analogy. It's been coming up a lot for me lately, but it's...

Jojo (07:38.414)
The analogy of a leaf and the analogy of a tree. And this has to do with the emotional health of a relationship and that codependency aspect. But a codependent relationship looks like a leaf in a hurricane. You're the leaf, their emotions are the hurricane, and you're getting tossed around and you don't know what is up, what is down, you're just getting thrown all over the place. Whereas the tree in this analogy is you.

know your center, your roots, your values, your core, your essence, and your roots run very deep, you know exactly how you feel about certain things, and there could be sunshine, there could be rain, there could be a tornado warning, there could be a hurricane, there could be a tsunami. But you are rooted, and you are planted, and that tree's not going anywhere. It might sway around a little bit, but you know what's up and down. You know what's left and right. You have your...

foundation and to me that is the epitome of emotional regulation in a healthy relationship because if you're unregulated you become reliant on their mood their energy their everything for for yourself for your own sympathetic nervous system to even be in balance what if this person doesn't text you back all day are you gonna spiral are you gonna just upend

everything and feel like the world's ending. I've been there. I've been there so many times and it's insane to be honest. And looking back, it's like, whoa dude, like why are you freaking out when this person hasn't responded to you? But that's codependent or that's a codependent mechanism, whether or not they're being codependent on you or not, you are being dependent on them. And that is probably not a very healthy thing to do.

I do say so myself. I met someone recently that really shifted this for me. We got into a long conversation just about identity, soul, purpose. You know me. I just like to go deep very quickly with random strangers or with people I just met and that's how I know if we are kindred souls or not. But this person and I sat down and talked and he was telling me about the relationship that he has with his wife and that

Jojo (10:04.702)
You know, they have children together and it's a beautiful thing, but they are so solid in who they are as individuals that they've been able to build this beautiful life together and this beautiful foundation to have life be built on, i.e. bringing children into this world and three of them for this person. And there's not that codependency or like,

everything needs to be done all the time together or the world's gonna fall apart if that person's not around. It's very much she is a powerhouse in and of herself. He is a powerhouse in and of himself. They both have their independent lives and they're merged beautiful family and life and deep love and deep admiration and beautiful friendship. And after I had this conversation with this person, I was like, wow.

That is the epitome of what I want to build with the human being that I spend the rest of my life with. But it has to be built on that because I don't want to be with someone that I have to be in constant communication with, that I have to constantly be like, I'm doing this, I'm going there. I want to cultivate independence and interdependence while still being connected. And I think that's

very hard to do if you've only ever known codependency. And when you emotionally outsource or your emotional regulation is only based on them, if they're happy, then I'm happy. But if they're distant, then I'm spinning out. And maybe that kind of comes from a survival mechanism, from a deep rooted issue of childhood or whatever. But I think we so often confuse love with needing to be needed.

And that then creates the self abandonment rather than just truly, I believe that truly loving someone is allowing the space for them to be who they are and choosing them regardless. Because emotionally you are grounded, you are okay because of yourself. Not because they're saying they love you back or giving you reassurance or external validation or whatever it is, words of affirmation.

Jojo (12:30.802)
I think in codependent relationships, we so often step off our own path too. We go into their world so much. I I have. And we start to make our purpose whatever that they're doing. And we stop following our purpose and start orbiting someone else. And I think that's the fastest way to diminish our own light, our own calling, our own reason that we're in this world, because the most powerful feeling

if I get really quiet and I look inward is having my own interests and desires and passions and thoughts and knowing full well that someone else can come into the room and say whatever they want, but it's not gonna throw me off that. That I'm gonna know, okay, that's their opinion. And knowing that rather than being like, well, maybe they're right or maybe they're this. But if you don't have that true sovereignty of yourself,

getting into a romantic relationship where if this is the person you spend the rest of your life with, you're go through some crazy shit. You're gonna lose your parents. Sorry to put it that harshly. You're probably gonna bring children into this world. There's gonna be illness. There's gonna be disease. There's gonna be death. There's gonna be all of this stuff that life is gonna throw at you, but if you don't have the ability to stay grounded, to stay present,

What if that person disappeared off the planet tomorrow? What if some freak accident happened and they're no longer here? Does your world fall apart without them? The answer should always be no. Yes, your heart is gonna break. Yes, you are gonna grieve. A million percent. But do you collapse in that? Or are you able to pull through because you are your own source? You are your own light. You are your own human. And if you really need someone else,

to fill that for you, be real with yourself about that. And that's probably the moment that you need to end that relationship or take space for a while or go inward or deal. Maybe that's therapy, maybe that's something else, but you really need to look at that because that is so much pressure on that other human. That's so much pressure on yourself too because you don't even know who you are and therefore anyone who comes into your orbit, you're so reliant on them.

Jojo (14:54.74)
I think also one thing we do is we want to be validated, we want love, we want connections so badly that we actually step off our own path to keep someone. Or we don't truly go down the path that we know we're meant to. Whether that's moving to a city and taking a new job or saying yes to something. Even if it's a party or going out with your friends because, I don't want to piss my partner off. They're going to be jealous, they're going be insecure if I'm out all night. Isn't that?

Isn't that taking away from the quality of your own life if you have to constantly be worrying about what they're gonna be thinking, how they're gonna be responding or reacting? I will argue, till I'm blue in the face, that the right person is never gonna diminish your light. They're never gonna want you to hold yourself back. They're gonna cheer for you, they're gonna root for you, they're gonna, there's gonna be times where they can't even spend time with you because they have to go do something and you're still cheering them on because they're going off and doing whatever they need to do.

but you're not making them feel bad about it. That is love. That is true partnership. That is true individuality. So let's get messy with this mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Mentally, I want you to ask yourself something and maybe get out your journal and write or just sit quietly and really think about this, but I want this to be active and not passive.

What beliefs do you have around love that might be disempowering? For instance, love requires sacrificing. If I'm in a relationship, then I can't be free. I can't go off and do what I wanna do. I can't spend time with my friends. can't... What are those limiting beliefs that you have around love?

Emotionally. Are you emotionally giving love freely? Because you're hoping to get it back like in reassurance or validation? Because maybe you're overextending yourself emotionally because that's what you're looking for rather than being honest with yourself and self-sourcing that fulfillment and validation. And spiritually, do you believe that you

Jojo (17:11.012)
really need someone else to be whole? Or are you practicing that feeling of being whole on your own? And if you got really quiet, what would your soul say right now? Would it say, this is a codependent pattern? This is a codependent relationship?

You're seeking external validation. You're getting pulled outside of yourself. You're overextending. You're exhausted. And then the next thing I want you to look at is where you tend to lose yourself in relationships.

because codependency doesn't always have to be super loud and obvious. Sometimes it's a very tiny little whisper that says, let me dim my light so that I don't outshine you. But you guys, healthy love doesn't ask you to disappear. It asks you to really stay present. It asks you to be yourself because the right love.

The real love, the true soul aligned love is gonna set you free. So thank you for getting messy with me this week. You guys can find me on Substack. Link is in my bio at underscore inside out dot podcast, which is on Instagram, but I'm stepping away from Instagram. So if you wanna stay in the know in the community, having these questions, keeping up to date, Substack is really where I'm pivoting to have

of those interactive conversations and I will see you guys next week. Make sure you share this with a friend and have a great one. Bye!