This is my personal divorce story through the lens of codependency patterns and how my “mess became my message.”  Hopefully my story helps you to understand my motivation to help women stop people pleasing and become Loving Self-Advocates who take a stand for themselves and their kids before, during and after a divorce.

I define codependency as blaming others for how I feel. Instead of getting curious about what’s really going on for me, I shut down and get defensive. The good news is that our codependent self is not our true self; it came about to survive our childhood. Who we really are is always safe, lovable, worthy and good enough.

Bottomline: I must learn to have compassion for myself, give myself the benefit of the doubt, and speak kindly to myself.  As adults, we can’t expect our parents, spouse or anyone to do this for us.  No one is coming to rescue us, but us.