Nice for What? Breaking Up with Codependent Networking Habits
I have to begin this article with a clear statement that I am not a mental health professional, though I am an avid mental health advocate and personally adhere to a rigorous commitment to consistent mental health hygiene. That said…
Have you ever heard the term "co-dependent"? When you heard it, did you repudiate any consideration of whether you have any codependent traits on the basis of your fierce independence and autonomy? Well, guess what. You can be independent and codependent. You can be a superwoman and codependent.
The concept of "co-dependency" first appeared in my life following my divorce. My therapist at the time encouraged me to read "Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Caring for Yourself,” by Melody Beattie. Beattie's initial definition of a co-dependent person did not resonate with me initially: "A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior." I certainly had let another person's behavior affect me, but I did not consider myself obsessive. But, at my therapist's urging, I dug deeper. It was within the characteristics of co-dependency that Beattie lists with jarring clarity that I saw myself. I didn't just see myself in those pages in my home in my personal sphere. I saw myself presenting those characteristics at work, at networking events, in my business life, and that rang for me a painful and awakening alarm.
In the years preceding my discovery of "Codependent No More," I tried networking in the far suburbs of Chicago, trying to make rain in spaces where few people in the room looked like me, either because I was young, female, or brown. I would leave each networking event deflated, and at night, I would lay in bed wondering what I had done wrong, asking myself if I had laughed too loud, if I had said something inappropriate, questioning why no one took a particular interest in me. I obsessed over being accepted by the local legal community, and this obsession with getting them to like me - essentially, with controlling their feelings so that those feelings resulted in a feeling of want toward me - began to destroy my self-respect. It affected me. Now, I see how the definition applied to me, beyond my personal life and my divorce.
You may be reading this and thinking, "Well, I'm an independent millennial, and I don't suffer from codependency." Well, I'm here to tell you, that you may be right, but it may not be as black and white as you think it is. Beattie herself says that the definition of codependency is fuzzy, but perhaps some clarity can be found by exploring the intersection of co-dependency and the social acculturation of traditional gender roles. In a Psychology Today article titled "Are Women More Codependent Than Men?", Dr. Shawn M. Burn, Ph. D. writes: “…[F]or some of us, gender is a piece of our personal codependency and enabling puzzle. In our quest to be good women or good men, we go a bit overboard in enacting the parts of our gender role that prescribe helping and giving. Among the outcomes of too strictly conforming to those parts of our gender role: imbalanced relationships, enabling others' poor functioning, rescuing people that would be better served by bearing their own consequences, and exceeding our energetic and material resources."
During those early years of networking, I felt compelled to spend money treating others to cocktails that I simply couldn’t afford on a baby lawyer’s salary. My timid attempts to connect with other professionals fell flat when I couldn’t muster the energy after a long day of work to be charming or think about how to make them like me. My resources were not scant, but they were not sufficiently plentiful to accommodate networking in order to make others like me.
Dr. Burn goes further to explore how social acculturation fosters codependent behaviors in women: "…unhealthy helping and giving can arise from behaviors and traits that are culturally approved and encouraged for women. Females are expected to put others first and to be nice and considerate. Traditional feminine roles such as wife, mother, daughter (and daughter-in-law), direct women to take care of other people, make other people’s lives easier by doing things for them, and to care for those that are dependent (providing what is called care labor)."
So, why am I writing about codependency in a networking blog? Because, as Drake says, "Nice for what?"
How are the traits of being a "traditionally good woman" translating into your networking style? Consider the following questions in assessing if you exhibit traits of co-dependency when you're networking:
· Do you take on the host role, even when it's not your event? Do you busy yourself with getting refreshments for other guests or helping with event coordination?
· Do you neglect to say positive things about yourself in fear of intimidating others?
· Do you often worry about whether your physical placement is comfortable for the other people that are around you, such that you miss out on opportunities to connect?
· Do you allow everyone else to talk to a guest of honor or featured speaker instead of working your own way to the front to meet this individual?
· Do you drink or eat items just because others are encouraging you to? Do you fake drinking alcohol to fit in?
· Do you keep your mouth shut when a controversial topic comes up in an effort to make everyone feel comfortable?
· Do you seek out others who are even more terrified than you and stick with them throughout the evening, almost as though you are rescuing them?
If so, you might want to check out "Codependent No More,” a modern classic in self-help by Melody Beattie. In a sincere effort to be viewed as a polite and a selfless individual that lives to care for and accommodate others, we forget that these characteristics are "sold to many of us as a defining feature of the good woman." As women, we are forever faced with the catch-22 conundrum of how to be “good women,” as defined by antiquated social norms, while being fierce in our business endeavors?
The cycle must be broken. Just look at successful women - the women that we envy and admire, like Madeline Albright, Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Lilly Singh, Mindy Kaling, Elaine Welteroth - these are just some of the women that broke free from the binds of traditional definitions of what makes a woman “good.” Does this mean that these women don't care about their families, are bad mothers and partners, or are somehow not good people? No. In fact, many of these women are visionaries, community advocates, and true exemplars of conquering for causes of positive consequence. If you dig deeper, the stories of these women show a pattern of bravely embracing the un-traditional. For Madeline Albright, it was forging forward with finishing her Ph.D. and mothering her two daughters after divorce from her husband. For Michelle Obama, it was breaking with the expectation that every good lawyer work at a massive law firm and embracing her desire to be a community advocate. For Valerie Jarrett, it was realizing that being unmarried was better than being married to the wrong person.
"A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior."
What if the “other person” is society, and being obsessed with controlling that behavior means making society like them? That sounds like co-dependency to me, and it sounds like how I used to act when I tried to make business connections.
For me, emerging from my codependent self – a woman who lived her life to be liked by others, to serve her boyfriend’s basic needs, to be good, quiet, and submissive – meant embracing my freak flag. It also meant somehow getting to a place where I didn’t give a shit if I was taking care of every single person in the room, finding a way to make myself understand that my value has nothing to do with whether I play mommy to everyone else. Does this mean that I am a jerk and don’t ask others if they need something when I go to the bar? No. It means, though, that I don’t forget to order myself a beverage first.
Dr. Shaun succinctly assets her "bottom line" in the discussion of women and codependency: "The way some women understand and identify with their gender and culture promotes unhealthy self-sacrifice and martyrdom for others. They go overboard when it comes to enacting cultural values that emphasize taking care of others. They have trouble telling the difference between excessive caretaking and normal nurturing. They aren’t emotionally or psychologically sick for following this cultural prescription, they’re just trying to be good women in societies where women are expected to subordinate their needs to others."
For me, breaking up with my codependent self personally and professionally came as a result of personal events. Being launched into singledom in the great city of Chicago without a steady job and just a handful of law clients meant I had to learn how to get clients and date at the same time. For the first time in 8 years, I didn’t have someone waiting for me at home at the end of the day, waiting for me to make dinner and talk to him about his day. I also didn’t have the steady salary that I had at my old firm. Just a handful of clients, a studio apartment, and a very busy city. For the first time, I had to take care of me – just me – completely on my own in practically every respect, and even my amazing family couldn’t make a new significant other or clients appear for me.
I began reading and exploring the world around me, following curiosities as a new hobby – one that my previous life had not encouraged – and grew my understanding of everything. I learned about podcasts, and YouTube, and dating apps! Around this time, I stumbled on a podcast of Oprah’s Super Soul Conversation5 with Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon. Oprah exclaims, questioningly: “You both don’t like the work likeable!” “To me, likeable is likeable to men, to me…I think relatable is important. I like that word…Knowing the difference has been important to me,” responded Kaling.
If we think about the desire to be liked as a trait of codependency – a desire which, for me, drove many of my awkward attempts to make connections in my professional sphere straight into the ground, then, perhaps, the antidote is seeking connections with others based instead on relatability. After considering this difference between likability versus relatability, I began to let my own interests drive the conversations that I started at networking events. I began saying no to events that I didn’t want to attend, even though they were events that a “good” female lawyer would attend. I began turning down dates with perfectly fine guys because I knew they weren’t right for me. I then began to invite events and people into my life that better matched who I was, what I enjoyed, what I valued, instead of what others thought I should value or what would make others like me. Gone was the popularity contest, and in came the era of no-contests. Relatability cannot be a contest nor should it be. The ability to relate to another is an exercise of empathy reflecting a steadfast ability to sit in other’s shoes, to feel their feelings, and share in their pain.
I began reflecting on my positive client relationships and why those were successful. I was myself with those clients. I laughed, joked, made sarcastic comments, and didn’t sugarcoat my legal opinions. I was honest with them, bluntly so. Over time, I couldn’t stop being this way and the filter disappeared. The stress of the filter also disappeared. Never before had I realized that my self-censorship, in my lifelong effort to be a “good woman,” was actually hurting me professionally and causing me a lot of stress. For years – my whole life, really – I had been so concerned with being likeable, with fitting in, with appeasing other’s expectations of my person, that I forgot myself in the picture. By shifting to relating to others while still heeding my own needs and wants, I found a viable balance that helps me create new business connections every day, just by being myself – no filter, no censors, no masks.
As Drake says,
Aside from Drake’s captivating music videos featuring Yara Shahidi, Misty Copeland, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, and Michelle Rodriguez, among other powerhouse women, he highlights the essential question that too few women ask themselves: “Nice for what?” Where is being the traditionally “good” woman taking you? Does that woman match who you see in the mirror at night? If not, then perhaps it is time to break down the barrier and stop bifurcating who you are at home and who you are when you network.
Next time that you go to a networking event, be cognizant of your codependent tendencies. Stop trying to take care of everyone at the event and stop worrying about what others think of you. Just be yourself and have fun. You have a right to be there. You deserve to be there. Stop putting yourself aside and serving others to get them to like you. Instead, try putting yourself first, and others just might relate to you, and you, my friend, just might get what you want.
Until later –
