Onto revisiting day 5 & 6
In the January 30dc by day 5, he started seeing how stressed members were with just 4 days of exercises….. and over-corrected with this post….
Deef Hahaha!!! I was right… RG is noticing the same, as noted in this updated guidance for day 5!!!
Part of it is his codependence is getting triggered… but this new suggestion of finding a training partner from the forum??? interesting???!!

Then dropped the ball a bit with Day 6… poor delegation, or just sloppyness..
Deef Followers were starting to panic cuz Day 6 came a little late…. so RG apologies this way:

So instead of people focusing on their work, they getting lost with inconsistent structure of the program? The sudden easing, which contradicts the energy of the prior homework prompts… then add on tip of finding a training partner suggestion, which didn’t have any follow-up repetition or additional tips…
so…. now onto Day 5 & 6 and evaluating the exercises -
Deef
Day 5 Exercise : Authentic Self Blockers
- List the external things that you think STOP you
- from being your authentic self
- giving up the addiction to a codependent response.
- List the internal things that you think you stop you.
1- external focus on what’s in the way…. not terrible.. but the targets… of authentic self that could be a bit shaming and a bit tricky as the target is abstract…. is it reasonable to expect a codependent to have a clear idea of what authenticity is like? If it’s a life of denied expression and constant fawning shape-shifting to stay safe and survive.. I’d argue that codependent’s have no clue what their authentic self is…. so trying to identify what’s stopping you from it… that’s kinda like a mental puzzle….
the 2nd part of addiction to codependent response… If you’re using addiction metaphor… then only if it were so easy as just stopping the addiction.. going cold turkey….. it typically doesn’t work so easily with chemical addictions…
Though… maybe one could try to change their social networks and peers to less enabling, and more encouraging and challenging towards shared reality, working towards one’s better self, and less avoidance…. but that’s not so easy, when enabling and empty validation is the norm of support communities, therapists, wounded healers, and also society in general….
#2 - internal things? uhm…. inner critic, terror of negative emotions….. trying to list all this stuff out does exactly what??
On the surface, clarifying obstacles can be useful…. but in this situation with codependence….. I’d argue it’s more about unmet needs and undeveloped skills vs obstacles that are in the way…. that’s playing into guilt issues, which is already overdone….
Day 6 Exercise: Controlling Inner Dialogue and Creating Affirmations
- Create 3 affirmations that are around the belief
“it is ok for me to assert my boundaries” and
“it is good for me to choose to no longer be in abusive relationships”
- The affirmations should be close to your current LIVED REALITY and not create a superego injunction of “bs!”
- This means you can start with qualifiers like “I can learn over time to be more…”
- Explore and experiment.
Hmm….. this isn’t so terrible, with the #3 qualifier…. that at least makes the affirmation a bit more balanced over time… instead of magical thinking….
Controlling inner dialogue though, is sort of the territory of shrinking the inner critic in Pete Walker’s model…. and just
developing affirmations that give yourself permission to set boundaries and leave abuse…. how well do these affirmations work when you’re under love bombing or gaslighting from an aggressive monologuing manipulator who can project a dissociative entrainment mental field???
Fighting a professional monologuer with your own rail roading monologuing inside…. how well does that work?? at best it’s neutral, or stale mate… except the manipulator is often better at telling a story and pulling emotional strings… so countering with self-gaslighting… is questionable….
5m17s
however adding some qualifiers, is adding some perspective and weakening the time urgency…… though i’m doubtful how much repeating an affirmation actually anchors into one’s self…..
I might lean more on somatic grounding techniques…… flooding yourself in nature, hot baths, slow breathing techniques, eating or drinking something heavy, going for a walk/hike, screaming, etc….
and if the inner dialogue is the issue, then is it the inner critic…… I’d also lean towards self-inquiry practice and starting a dialogue with your inner voices and protector/manager/fire-fighter parts, in order to sort through all the noise by giving it space, entertaining their concerns, and trying to work with them, instead of fighting fire w/ fire…. which is sort of playing into extreme fire-fighter’s goals of distraction….. tsk tsk…
……. oh…. also the flow of the exercises isn’t that natural.. they don’t link well, or they’re not additive with the prior ones…. that makes it harder for the mind to digest and integrate…. without that, it might be reinforcing fragmenting and compartmentalizing….. which is already overused by codependents…..