Spiritual Spotlight
Discover a world of healing, holistic, and spiritual modalities with the Spiritual Spotlight podcast. Every week, we introduce you to diverse spiritual practitioners, including psychics, energy healers, life coaches, spiritual thought leaders, and witches. Each episode offers inspiration and enlightenment through the unique journeys, experiences, and divine abilities of our guests. Perfect for those on a path to spiritual awakening, this podcast blends science and mysticism to expand your understanding of spirituality. Our mission is to open your eyes to the world around you, making complex concepts accessible and enlightening for anyone seeking spiritual growth. Whether you're new to spirituality or looking to deepen your knowledge, the Spiritual Spotlight is your go-to resource for awakening and transformation.
Spiritual Spotlight
Breaking Free from Codependence: Cheryl Fidelman's Journey Towards Conscious Recovery and Self-Connection
Are you ready to reclaim your life from the clutches of codependence? In this enlightening episode, our special guest Cheryl Fidelman - a conscious codependence coach with over three decades of personal recovery experience - shares her deep insights and unique approach to overcoming codependency.
Cheryl unveils the significant role of childhood trauma in shaping codependent behaviors and the imperative for setting boundaries. We navigate the often challenging terrain of romantic relationships, revealing how they can often illuminate codependent patterns.
Prepare to be inspired as Cheryl delves into her transformative journey of overcoming codependency.
We extend our exploration to the principles of the nervous system and healing, as Cheryl provides invaluable tools and guidance to distinguish between healthy service and codependent behavior. We examine the concept of role trauma, the early-onset mothering role many of us adopt, and how these elements can shape our sense of identity.
It's not just about setting boundaries for others; it's about understanding and feeling our own boundaries. In this journey toward recovery and self-discovery, Cheryl's insights act as a compass guiding us out of the labyrinth of codependency.
Finally, we paint a picture of Cheryl's vision for the future of co-dependence recovery. She is on a mission to normalize co-dependence and improve relationships with oneself.
Cheryl shares her efforts to raise awareness and guide individuals towards self-connection, emphasizing the significance of our relationship with ourselves and its impact on all aspects of our lives. Embark on this journey with Cheryl towards breaking free from codependency and embracing the transformative and healing process.
Join us as we step into the empowering world of conscious recovery.
Cheryl Fidelman (she/her)
The Conscious Codependence™ Coach
I stand for BIPOC justice & LGBTQ+ Rights
Get your FREE Conscious Codependence™ PDF on:
The 3 Tenets of Conscious Codependence™
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Hello everyone, welcome to our spiritual spotlight series. Today I am joined by Cheryl Vidalman. She is the conscious codependence coach. She is a leader in the human potential movement. For the past 15 years she has been focusing on codependence because it's one of the most obvious ways that we demonstrate our unhealed trauma in our relationships. Her conscious codependence methodology blends a mix of somatic experiencing, cognitive, behavioral therapy and intersubjective meditation to reestablish her client's self-worth by cultivating a deep sense of belonging within the psyche, spirit and nervous system. That's a lot. That's amazing. Thank you so much for Como's spiritual spotlight series. I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Rachel. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Your journey from 25 years of codependence to conscious codependence recovery is nothing short of inspiring. Can you maybe share a bit more of what codependence looked like in your life and what prompted your realization that it was running the show?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I'm going to have to update that on my website because I've been in codependence recovery now for 32 years.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, 32 years is a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a long time I started in a program called Codependence Anonymous. For some of your listeners who may be wanting a free resource, I highly recommend Codependence Anonymous. It's a wonderful community. They do really brilliant work around codependence. The support is amazing there.
Speaker 2:My simple definition of codependence is a dissociation itself when we're more focused on one or more other people's realities than our own, when we are sourcing out our feelings. So in other words, I don't feel safe because of you, or I'm happy because of you, or I'm sad because of you, or I'm confused because of you. Our nervous system is coped on another person or we repress ourselves because we think that somebody else can't hear us or doesn't have the space for us. We then take up the amount of space that we think another person has for us. Romantic relationships really highlight our codependence the most because once romance is in the picture, our whole unhealed childhood traumatic paradigm comes up. But it happens in other places too, with family, friends, coworkers, bosses and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:For me, what I was going through when I was a kid was I was pretty much born into codependence. I was born into a dissociation and disconnection to myself. My mom was mentally ill and my dad left, but not because he's a bad guy, but because my mom tortured him and almost killed him so he had to leave. When he left, I watched my dad be codependent with my mom, constantly overlooking himself to calm her down and calm her down and calm her down. What happens with a lot of us is we're nearer when we're more of our parents' nervous systems. So then my dad left and then I was taking care of my mom's mental health and I overlooked the impact she had on me.
Speaker 2:A lot of us when we were children, if we had an accurate emotional response to the stimulus if I had an accurate emotional response to the stimulus of my mother's anger I probably would have jumped out the window and screamed for help right, but we don't have. But an accurate emotional response to the stimulus would get me even more trouble. Like if I was like ouch, mom, that hurts or that doesn't feel good, then she would get more angry. So I learned, and a lot of people learn, to shut out our emotions, shut out our inner world, dissociate from self and just take care of the other person. And so that's what I did, and it became an identity Like. I became like the cool chick who didn't need anything and was like so everything was cool, everything was fine.
Speaker 2:And so in my work, a lot of what I do with my clients is I help distinguish our traumatic identity from our true nature, the identity that developed within you in order to survive your parents or guardians, reality or psychology. So when my mom, my mom, like she wasn't without trying to get help and like she was in and out of mental hospitals and she was like constantly trying to get help and she found this program called Code Dependents Anonymous, and so she there was a program called Code of Teen in the basement of the church that she was going to her meeting. So she's like you wanna go to this Code of Teen thing. And so I went and I didn't stop going for five years.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Because there were other teenagers in there who were like talking about what their parents were doing to them, and I was like, oh, like I'm not alone, and this is what a boundary is, and this is like I don't have to just sit there where my mom screams at me Like I was like I get all these new concepts that I didn't you know, I thought as like the only one in the world who didn't know those things, and that this was happening too, wow. And so, and plus, there was an adult, because they have adult sponsors in there. There was an adult sponsor who knew my mom from the adult program and was like you know, at one point looked me straight in the eyes and was like I know your mom and I know she's sick and I'm sorry and I know what you're going through. And so it was like, you know, like an adult, like seeing me and being and, like you know, getting into my reality and like validating it.
Speaker 2:And so then I started putting boundaries up with my mom and but it took me, I would say, maybe 15 years of codependence recovery to return back to myself, in other words, to stop dissociating for myself, to stop disconnecting from my feelings, to stop trying to fix and change others so that everything could be okay. You know, still outsourcing my experience, I was still focusing, you know, every romantic relationship I have, just I just kept recreating my childhood dynamic with my mom. So when I started being a life coach like it was a few years at the beginning where I didn't have a niche, I was just like a trained life coach and anybody who has a problem.
Speaker 2:You know, whatever it was like general, and then I just started seeing codependence so consistently in people. I don't know if it's because that was the lens that I was looking through, cause, that's what I knew. But so then I decided to choose a niche and I developed my own methodology. And codependence, I feel, is an epidemic. It's rampant and so common, and it's not just in like really overt, obvious situations, it's like weaves its way sneakily, like through people's lives. And so and I think it's very normal, I'm out to normalize it and Sorry, I mean cut you off, it's so true, I just say, oh my goodness, I identify with all of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so unbelievably common for people to live life in dissociation of themselves. I work with high-functioning people who identify as codependent. I focus on high-functioning people because these are the people often where it's easy to overlook it. Like, hey, I got a decent job, the bills are paid, me and my spouse, everything looks fine, got a decent car, and so it's easy to overlook the fact that maybe you don't feel safe in your partnership or you're repressed around your boss and you feel dominated, and so there's pockets of places where you feel like you're not your full expression because you're looking more towards the other person to give you permission as to who to be. But it's just so easy to overlook that. So I think that's the simple answer to your question.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's a beautiful answer and you brought up so many valid points, while you're just explaining just that snippet of your journey and I appreciate the fact that you've actually been on this journey a long time so to then be able to help others like you've walked the talk, you've lived it, yeah, and I've taken that decades of my own codependence recovery and I've put it in my programs.
Speaker 2:I have a six month program, I have a six month private program, I have group programs. I've condensed it because I've been looking through the lens of codependence for so long and I've been helping people heal it and so I've been tweaking it and data testing it and some people say it's like 10 years of therapy in less than a year. And I'm fully committed, like my purpose in life is to help my portion of humanity, whoever I reach, return back to themselves their talents, their gifts, their passions, their true voice, and to know what their true voice is, because a lot of us we don't know if it's the voice of our trauma right or the voice of our true nature, the one that's speaking inside.
Speaker 1:So one of your, your, your is the trauma to truth process. Is that the six month intensive or is that a different? You have a path of conscious codependence recovery. It covers a wide range of distinctions and theories related to the nervous system, healing and codependence recovery. Can you maybe give us a glimpse into some of the core principles or insights that participants in this program can expect to explore?
Speaker 2:Sure, absolutely. That's a good question. You formulated your questions really well. I appreciate that. So the foundational methodology of my work, the foundational principles, are the three tenets of conscious codependence. And so those of you watching or listening you can go to my website, cherylfidlemancom, put your email address in and you'll get an eight page PDF that covers the three tenets of conscious codependence. And when you give me your email address, I don't go nuts with it. You get like one email a week. I have some free resources and videos and stuff like that. So, and the, the conscious codependence community, gets together once a month and you get discounts on programs and stuff. So the PDF covers the three tenets of conscious codependence. They want to be wanted, which is rooted in our sense of belonging, the need to be needed, which is rooted in our sense of safety, and the need to prove oneself, which is rooted in our sense of identity. Do I want to repeat that? I saw you? No, no, no, I'm taking a no.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about another question. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So the PDF will break down the three tenants. Okay, you'll have your common developmental roots of each tenant, common behavioral patterns of each tenant, and there's some questions in there to customize them to your own experience. And so this is really the framework of my work, because the three what? The three tenants? It's a reference point to be able to tell if you're coming from a codependent habit or behavior, because a lot of us in codependence it's like is that codependence or is that my natural want to serve and help? Because that's real too.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not saying that all serving behavior or supportive behavior is rooted in codependence. And so the three tenants help us discern. You know, is this healthy dependence, is this a healthy service from your heart or has it gone into the red zone where you are operating to handle another person for your own safety, for your own protection? Are you operating from a place of I don't have any other voice right now, I can't reach my own truth, so I'll reach your truth and serve your truth, right. And so this is what we start to distinguish, and the three tenants is like sort of the home base framework for all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:I really like how you have in three different tenants and each one of them sounds so profound and as you say that like the need to be needed, like I could imagine so many moms fall into that Like it's just oh, I just well that's a really great point.
Speaker 2:I work with a lot of moms because we're trying to tease out Is that codependence or is that maternal instinct?
Speaker 1:So true, yeah, and I think about it. I mean, we have a similar experience with my mom was also in a mental institution for many years of my childhood and it's interesting because I feel that I shifted into a mom role at a very young age and I'm like, oh, I might need to, I need to, might book a session with you. I mean it's interesting how, as you're talking, like these pockets of moments and giving away to our, you know, our self worth, to other things and other people, like it's very fascinating, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2:It's very fascinating. It's interesting that we have that in common. What I want to bring up is I have a few different distinctions that I've created around different types of trauma. Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2:And so what I want to bring up considering we're talking about mothering our moms at a young age is what I call role trauma. Okay, so, you know, I don't know if I, if I've totally pioneered this idea there's probably other healers were saying something similar in a different way but I call it role trauma. When we, when the roles are switched at young age, when we're not playing the role that is appropriate to our age, we have role trauma, right? So your moming before you've even like menstruated, right? I mean like yes. So so then, as we get older, we get confused as to what, what is the appropriate role in lots of different situations, right?
Speaker 2:And this is where a lot of like weird, like dysfunction happens in relationships because we're playing a role that is not appropriate to our position, either romantically or professionally, or in our family. And for me, for example, you know, I was moming. All these guys that I was dating they knew weren't even asking me to write, right, it was just. That was my traumatic identity and I thought I just had a bleeding heart, you know. And that's also the other illusion about codependence. When we're unconscious to our codependence, it often shows up as like I just love you and I just want to help you, and I just from that's who I am. You know, I'm just a bleeding heart. This is why I am, and so when we become conscious to our codependence is when we start to go oh, I actually have a limit and I'm going beyond my limit of giving, and I didn't know that, because I can't feel my own limits?
Speaker 2:Right, because when I was a child, we couldn't have a limit. We had to give and give, and give beyond our, beyond what we could spare.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:This is where the idea of boundaries comes in. Oftentimes, boundaries are talked about for other people. We have to have boundaries for other people, right? My work has absolutely nothing to do with anybody but us. I like that. The boundaries are within us. I can feel my own boundary. I can feel when I'm done. I can feel when I'm a yes. I can feel when I'm a no. I have a boundary with myself. I'm not allowed to give beyond this particular feeling, right. Or I'm not allowed to switch my knowledge to negotiate with myself and say yes when I need no or no when I'm a yes. So everything has to do with ourselves.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. You offer a workshop, the listening workshop. This focuses on how our trauma can be found in the filters through which we listen to others and ourselves. Can you maybe elaborate on this concept and how it forms a crucial part of your approach to codependence recovery?
Speaker 2:Yes, I see a really good question. There's so much. Nobody ever asks me about that program and that's a really great program. I'm actually starting this program ever. I'm starting group 13 soon. Yeah, I love that. So yeah, so OK, my private program, which is my flagship program, the Conscious Codependence Private Program, is six months and it's phase one, two and three of the Conscious Codependence Trauma and Truth process.
Speaker 2:The listening workshop is phase one. It's in a group. So some people are like they want to jump into the private program, they just want to do the whole thing, and some people are like, let me not do the whole thing and get a taste. So we have the first two months phase one in the listening workshop. And so in the listening workshop, I have seven listening distinctions and so what we do is we get in there. Really, look at the filters through which you're listening to other people. When other people talk to you, what are you filtering them through? Are you filtering through a list that you have on them? Well, they did this, this thing in 2004 and that thing, and I don't feel comfortable around them. What are your listening filters? And not just. And also, when people have inflections, right, like someone says, I'm sorry, or I'm sorry, or like whatever you know.
Speaker 1:We look at the music.
Speaker 2:We go with what I call the lyrics, the music and the mood the content, which are other words, the music, which is the inflection of the voice, the mood behind what someone's saying. You know, a lot of us codependents are highly sensitive. We either identify as actual highly sensitive people at HSP's or we just have a very keen sensitivity to the frequency somebody is occupying, because a lot of us, when we were kids, we had to be really tuned in to our parents to figure out what their mood was and where we stood in relationship to their mood. And so in the listening workshop I'm training people on how to listen from a clean place, filterlessly, pure presence, and not just to other people.
Speaker 2:But how are you listening to what your mind is telling you? How are you listening to what your body is telling you? Do you have a clean listening pathway from your body to your mind or are you interpreting your body? Oftentimes we have a feeling in our body and we interpret it as I'm not safe, I need to shut down, I need to not speak, and so we're interpreting our body sensations oftentimes inaccurately, because our body is conditioned to tell us and protect us the way it did when we were children, and so now it's still protecting us because it did. It has lost the ability to tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat, so we're perceiving threats quite often that might not be there because our power is in other people's hands.
Speaker 1:I love that idea. Please continue yeah.
Speaker 2:So the listening workshop is a wildly powerful program and it's done in a group and I keep my groups really small, less than 10 people. Intimacy and like a small safe container is really important to me, and I'm also actually the listening workshop right now. I'm also bringing it to businesses. So it's also going to be a business workshop where I train businesses and small organizations and the art of listening, because listening is connection and connection is commerce, and so for businesses, I'll be taking out the codependent element and just delivering it to businesses. So so it does take place in my codependence business and it will be also a business training as well.
Speaker 1:So, as you were saying it, I was thinking about, I actually run a doctor's office and I, as you were saying, I'm like that'd be perfect for my business. Yeah, Because we listen with filters on and we have judgments and you know we're not truly listening. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not truly listening and we're not just having filters to other people. We often, all often, are projecting into their minds and then reacting to the projections that we put in their minds. So so this is really truly about presence.
Speaker 1:And it's what people don't have right now is to really truly be present with themselves.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say right now, but perhaps historically. I mean, you know, this stuff is embedded in the human condition. Most of us were raised by people who were connection, connected to themselves, so we were a demonstrated that it isn't the culture at large, but even in our just nuclear families.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree with you. Everything that you're saying I'm like I can relate it to as a child, as an adult, as an adult, like as a, an entrepreneur, being in a business, like everything that you're saying.
Speaker 2:The category I mean, I could.
Speaker 1:I'd be like yes, yes, cheryl, sign me up. Like honestly it's it's, it's profound. So let me ask you this, as someone who has undergrown a profound transformation maybe what advice or guidance would you offer to individuals who may be struggling with co dependence and seeking a path towards recovery?
Speaker 2:What would I recommend?
Speaker 1:for your white. What kind of my program program.
Speaker 2:You set the plug by computer.
Speaker 1:Sign up for your program. I love it, well, you know. Get the PDF. Yeah, read the PDF.
Speaker 2:It's not a hard read, I mean it's just it's, it's eight pages, big type letters it's not like a lot, a lot, a lot and see if you find yourself in there, see if it resonates for you, see if it lands for you, whether or not you sign up for one of my programs. I think that PDF PDF will be helpful If you know, one of your listeners really feels like now is the time. I don't want to live any more of my life dissociated from myself. Right, I'm done with that Book. A free session, the consultations are free, we can talk and see if it's a match.
Speaker 2:A lot of my clients they you know I have. I have a couple hundred videos on YouTube. Your listeners can watch those as well. I'm starting with Instagram. I've been a little bit allergic to social media, but I'm starting to heal that allergy.
Speaker 2:A lot of my clients are like just at the point where they're like I'm finished living from the point of view of my traumatic identity. Right, I'm finished with not trusting myself. I'm finished with living in other people's worlds but my own. Just done with being like afraid of people and afraid to have my truth. I'm done. I'm not going to be done with it and I want to go through the metamorphosis that's actually going to feel that out of my nervous system so that I don't default to this anymore.
Speaker 2:You know and cause you know, a lot of people, myself included, are like I know this stuff intellectually, like for so long I was like I know it intellectually. How come it's still happening, like, not like what I'm saying is rocket science, right, it's like understandable and understandable to some people. But we have to have your emotional life and your nervous system as intelligent as your mind, absolutely. And that's why I call this stuff conscious codependence, so that we become conscious of our codependence. It's not like. My intention is to like promise that you'll never be codependent again. That would be nice, but ideally is you just become aware of these automatic habits and you don't. They're not your default anymore.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Throughout your journey, you emphasize the importance of deep, intimate, healthy relationships. How has your own experience of relationships evolved as you move from codependence to conscious?
Speaker 2:codependence? Good question. You know, I used to have feelings in relationships like I feel very uncomfortable, I don't feel safe, I am confused as to what's happening. I feel like this person's mad at me and I need to make them unmad at me. I feel like I'm punished and I need to, like prove that I shouldn't be punished. I would notice these things but I would stay anyway and I thought they were the truth. Like this person's mad at me and I should make them not mad at me. Or like this person wants to punish me and I should make them not punish me.
Speaker 2:And through a lot, a lot, a lot of my healing, I, from number one, don't believe those things that my mind is telling me anymore. It's not that I don't have those thoughts, it's that I don't believe them and I have feelings and emotions and reactions that I trust. And so and I have become my current age in many areas of my life because codependence is regressive, it's us operating from a younger version of ourselves. Now I think it's important to maintain some youth and some play and some fun. So I'm not out to make people boring and like stale old people are playing, I promise. But we want to heal all of those protective mechanisms that were created when we were younger that have us in mesh and lean into not being seen, as opposed to lean out of not being seen. I used to not be seen by people. I would date and then beg to be seen. It's like you're begging to be seen from the blind. Why are you doing that? Because you're in a younger version of yourself, begging your parent for that, and not just that.
Speaker 2:I had a rough go for a while. I was fired from six jobs. I couldn't operate at jobs. I just thought everybody was mad at me. I always thought I was going to be fired. I always thought I was going to be in trouble. I had so much anxiety Just being around people and being a part of things and that's another huge result of my work is the anxiety massively decreases Because the anxiety is our nervous system going you're not safe, you're not safe, you're not safe, you're not safe. And that wasn't necessarily true. And your viewers can also go to my website. I have a lot of testimonial videos where a lot of my clients say through this work, it decreased their anxiety. They were living more from their body than from their mind. They're living more from their true intuition.
Speaker 1:So before I ask you the last question, if anyone is interested in working with you, can you tell us one more time what is your website?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's CherylFidlemancom. So your vision? Oh, go ahead. Can you put it? Will it be like in the description of the okay?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I will make sure to link her on website in the show notes. Don't worry anyone if anyone can't spell it. So your vision is to leave a legacy of specific and expedited co-dependence recovery for all humans.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So your vision, this work impacting the broader human condition, and what changes do you hope to see in individuals who embark on this journey?
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. I know they're a good question.
Speaker 1:I did do homework.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing I'm out to normalize it. I'm out to normalize co-dependence. You know, as I just keep expanding my marketing efforts, I mean that's the idea is, that's just how it's going to happen. Just keep expanding, just keep getting the word out more and more interviews. I'm doing lots of articles and just the more people I heal, the more people I help be in relationship with themselves, the more humans out there will be in relationship with themselves.
Speaker 2:The number one, most important relationship, I promise, is the relationship with yourself. It's not the relationship with your spouse, it's not the relationship with your partner, it's not the relationship with your mother or your boss, it's with yourself. Everything is sourced from our relationship with ourselves. We see a source from our intimacy with ourselves. Connection is sourced from our connection with ourselves, and so ideally, yes, I want to leave a legacy of more and more and more people connected to themselves, and then those people will have children and train their children to not separate, to train their children to have consistently regulated nervous systems and speak from their truth and their intuition, because codependence is a separation from our intuition. Codependence is when we think it's our intuition telling us what we think somebody else needs, as opposed to listening to our intuition as telling us that we need and actually having that be a priority.
Speaker 1:That is so, so true. I love that. Well, cheryl, I want to thank you so much for coming to the Spiritual Spotlight series. You are amazing. I definitely look forward to checking out more that I know you're going to be offering in the future.
Speaker 2:Thank, you so much, thank you so much, thank you very much.
