Hi, welcome to this video. My name is Tom from thelifeacademy.com, and in this video, we will make visible what the real root cause of codependency, also known as pathological loneliness, really is. Because on the internet, I see so many videos analyzing, blaming, or labeling the narcissist and how we can protect ourselves against these other people or how to recover from them and their actions. But I've experienced myself that watching these videos with belief solutions didn't solve the actual problem at all. Not even leaving manipulative people will solve the root because it's most likely we will start anew with a similar kind of relationship afterward, and this is because the root of the problem hasn't been solved within ourselves yet. Now, by watching this video, this is about to change for you. Only when we know what the real root cause is can we heal the root and therefore automatically liberate ourselves from every other victim symptom, such as staying in the role of being a victim, feeling powerless, dependence, stopping pleasing others, and letting ourselves be manipulated by not staying true to our "yes" and our "no" and letting other people control us. We experience the feeling of being tired or even exhausted, and some of us stay within the role of being emotionally and even physically abused, finding ourselves living in a dark world where we are being dominated and finding ourselves being trapped in mind games. From the moment we know what the real root of the problem is, we will be able to stop being codependent completely and for once and for all. You don't have to feel ashamed for the fact that you are still codependent because we all encounter this somewhere in our lives before we choose to start healing the root cause. Now, the only difference might be that some people might be better at hiding the fact that they are codependent behind a shiny mask in society until that mask cracks. Obviously, being codependent comes down to one thing: the fear that ever crosses your mind—the fear that we will be abandoned while being our true selves. Do you know why we are so afraid to be abandoned and to be left alone with ourselves? When we are left alone, there wouldn't be any distractions left from our own unsolved pain that we do not want to feel. So, pleasing others, letting others control us, or letting others cross our boundaries, blaming others, being manipulated, being a victim, and even being emotionally abused, it is all better as a distraction rather than being left alone with our own unsolved pain and our own feelings of unworthiness. Now, we can learn all kinds of valuable techniques, for example, by not ever going into the story of the manipulator, or you can avoid going into the story by responding, "Interesting, I wonder why you think that of me," or, "I would love to continue our conversation when you have calmed down." That is possible, to not go into the story anymore. But all those techniques won't solve the root cause of the problem yet. The root cause of being manipulated or of being codependent is that, unconsciously, it still serves us as a distraction from our own unsolved pain. At the same time, it is limiting it to live the true, the free, the authentic, and the natural life that we are born for. Instead of solving the root cause of being a victim of manipulation, myself, I used to blame, analyze, label, or try to change the manipulator for my own protection or for my own benefits. But that approach didn’t work, and it never liberated me from my own victim reality. On the contrary, turning someone into a label turns them into an object, and for our own benefit, and that is exactly what a manipulator does too. What will help you from the root up is changing our own dark place, or the own dark world where we're living, and turning on the light ourselves. Because when we turn on the light ourselves, there isn't any darkness possible around us anymore. But in order to be able to turn on the light ourselves, not just a tiny bit but completely, we will have to face all of our fears and all of our pains and solve them from the root up. And it is then, only then, we will be able to change the way we look at things, and then, only then, the things we look at will change too. We will stop blaming others for our own darkness, and we will start taking our own responsibility. We will start shifting our reality from being a victim to being independently fulfilled and driven by inner power. I'm very glad that after many years of struggling, I finally found a way to solve the root of all pain, and very importantly, without having to feel that pain again. And once you know how, it isn’t that difficult either. Solving our own pain doesn’t just liberate us from the victim reality and from the distractions, but it also creates an opening to the unique life each and every one of us is actually born for. Now, to enter the root of the problem, together with all its symptoms, for once and for all, and therefore to shine the light onto our dark codependency or onto our dark fear, I came up with a fundamental drawing to show you. I don’t want to give you a superficial solution, so I want to take you back to the origin, to the moment we were born. Let's represent this heart as a symbol of our free, pure, and fulfilled feelings from at our birth. Then, from the moment until now, we all have encountered painful emotions, and none of us have learned how to solve this pain, and the pain sets around our pure and fulfilled feelings. Of course, none of us really want to feel this pain—that's why we all found a different way of dealing with this. Do you know how? By building a wall of control around it. And how do we build that wall? We all know this, I guess. From that moment, we stopped living from our feeling and we started living from our mind or our thinking. Let me symbolize this brain for our thinking. From that moment, we use our thinking non-stop to search for distractions outside ourselves that have to prevent us from feeling pain. And these distractions or our non-stop thinking is, of course, "I should be doing this," or "I should be doing this," or "Otherwise it wouldn’t feel right," this and that, and this annoying little voice inside our head—I’m sure we all know it—serves as a bandaid on top of our wall of control to prevent ourselves from feeling. The problem is that we do not just cover up our pain but also our pure feelings, and within our distractions, we are still looking for a feeling. For example, in creating success, we are actually looking for a feeling of fulfillment, or by starting a relationship because we’d rather not be alone, because then we are not distracted anymore, and then we feel pain. So, we are searching for a feeling to fulfill ourselves with a relationship. And even in simple things, a new smartphone, a new car, a new house—we search for this long-lasting feeling of being complete and fulfilled by running away from our feelings. The contradiction shows itself very clearly, yet we do not question ourselves about these choices and the routine that it has become for so many of us. We would rather invest all our money and time to build a life filled with these distractions that never work permanently, that create something like a reality replacement for the feeling that we are actually missing. And this becomes a replaced identity of ourselves, and we start to believe we have become this illusion. The problem is that when we are running away from our feelings and at the same time are looking in these distractions for a feeling of fulfillment that never comes, then we will have to continuously search for new distractions—new, new, etc., etc.—until we can't keep up anymore. This pattern is extremely exhausting—we all are aware of this. Let me symbolize sweat drops for this. This is an imprisoning pattern—let me symbolize this lock for this. Now, what is fear? Fear is just a resistance that we would fail in getting our next distraction, or that one of our creative distractions will disappear or will be taken away from us, because then our bandaid will no longer work, and then, obviously, we will start to feel the pain again that we haven’t resolved yet. I hope by showing you this drawing that fear has a very valuable function, that fear is not only pretty annoying, but it’s also a wake-up call that this replacement reality doesn’t work. So, as long as we still experience fear, it tells us that we are still having unsolved pain and are settling for a replacement reality instead of independently feeling fulfilled in a life in freedom. There actually is a reality possible in which we can choose to live the way we really are—feeling independently fulfilled without fear and unsolved pain. If you learn to solve all of our unsolved pain and fear, then our restless thinking to escape in distractions isn’t necessary anymore either. And only then we can start to create in freedom. Only then can we create a relationship in freedom or success or whatever we feel like creating. And only then, we don’t have any fears that it will disappear again. And only then can we truly enjoy to the fullest, and we don’t have any fears anymore that things, people, or our achievements may be taken away from us, because we feel complete and fulfilled independently without experiencing fear and having pain anymore. Do you know the difference between creating something as a distraction, or as an addiction, or as a compensation? Because this is the mask we all are wearing—the mask of pretending. Do you know the difference between doing this and doing something upon free will? An easy way to check: if you stop doing what you are doing and you are still feeling completely fulfilled, then you are acting upon free will. On the other hand, when you stop doing what you’re trying to do or achieve and you start feeling restless,Do you know the difference between doing this and doing something upon free will? An easy way to check: if you stop doing what you are doing and you are still feeling completely fulfilled, then you are acting upon free will. On the other hand, when you stop doing what you’re trying to do or achieve and you start feeling restless,