Girls just want to have fun

 The Parts work of IFS (Internal Family Systems) can be very useful for those with codependent behavior patterns. 

Codependents - people who tend to be enmeshed with other people - can be thought of quite simply as people who are trying to control their world. This can be due to circumstances in their childhood where parts of them were subdued as a protective mechanism to stop them from experiencing hurt.

Consider the young child with all the parts of the plural mind intact. The child displays curiosity and creativity. The child feels connected to at least one adult in his or her life. There's also the display of a degree of courage and compassion. There's clarity about what he or she wants.

As time goes by, the world interfaces with children and sometimes they get the idea that some core elements of the Self need to come up to the fore and some elements of the Self needs to be subdued. It's a protective mechanism we employ when things are not right. 

In my case, I probably felt the need to employ some behaviors and thoughts to protect myself from being hurt or feeling rejected, or lonely. A sense of being independent thus came to the fore; being able to manage on one's own; to please those adults in one's life who found it convenient and agreeable that I was able to manage independently of them.

If you have needed to people-please, competency is good in the eyes of your care givers, but they may not have wanted you to be too good, lest they felt not good about themselves. So, competency in the child there may be, but maybe not great self-esteem; maybe very weak boundaries.

Over much time, and when the adults in one's adult life also appreciate this independent, people-pleasing, weak boundary competency, those elements of oneself become over-used; tired.

It shouldn't come as a surprise when such a person reaches a point when he or she wonders what it is all about.

The solutions require those other parts that make up the Self to rise up and give those Parts that have been overworking for many a year a break. 

Which Parts you say? Well, with all this hard work and giving the other folks lots of space to go off and achieve while you do the work of caring for them, connection could well be in need of some attention along with creativity, not to mention confidence.

Here's where Deity shined. He wasn't one for psychological mumbo jumbo, but he saw when a girl thought too much and worked too much.

He devised tools to help her lose her mind and focus on pleasure for a time.

Connected. Cared for. Curious. Confident. Courageous and Clear.

Yes, for sure, someone with codependent tendencies needs to work towards interdependency (meeting each other's emotional and physical needs in relationship) but I think it bears reminding that balance of core elements of Self is vital. 

To put it simply: Girls just want to have (some) fun.