When Your Success Hides Your Pain: A Lawyer's Path from Codependency to Freedom

My client (let's call her Sarah) - is an excellent lawyer, doing fantastically well in her career – in fact, she’s always excelled in academics and her career.

She lives in a beautiful house overlooking the ocean, drives a top-of-the range car, and dresses immaculately.

Yet, despite her outward success, Sarah was hiding a BIG secret from everyone, even her closest friends.

She was being coercively controlled and abused by her narcissist husband – a partner in another legal company.

On the surface, he was charm personified. Whenever they were out socially, the charm was turned on full-force, and everyone thought he was wonderful.

He was well-known in the community, always showing up (and donating big!) to charity events, and giving heartfelt speeches about how important it was to ‘heal the world and be the change’ and multiple other cliches that just made Sarah cringe inside, because behind those closed doors, she saw a very different person.

A person who belittled her, constantly put her down, made her doubt herself, pushed her to her limits, and got her anxiety levels soaring on a daily basis.

But every time she asked for a divorce, (and let me point out the mistake there – you don’t ASK a narcissist for a divorce – but that’s a story for another time) - he’d come at her with a big dose of love-bombing. And everything would be blissful for a few days, and then it would start again.

Which made it impossible for Sarah to tell anyone what was really going on, because,

a) who would believe her?

and b) why did she stay with him if he was really that bad? (Few people really understand the power of a trauma bond.)

So she kept it all to herself, and kept trying.

Trying to push herself, to do and be more – to do everything in her power to please him, to keep him happy. But nothing she did was ever enough.

She began suffering severe anxiety attacks, in random places, and for no apparent reason. Her work started suffering. She struggled to concentrate, she couldn’t seem to juggle as many balls as she had always done, and she was feeling utterly exhausted all the time.

She Googled ‘relationship anxiety’, and very soon learned that she was dealing with a covert narcissist. Her husband fit the bill exactly.

Much as she was relieved to know that there was a name for what he was, and what she was dealing with, she knew she needed help to unravel this toxic relationship, so that she could get out.

Because it suddenly became very clear to her that she not only wanted a divorce, she needed it for her sanity.

So she reached out to me.

The first thing I did with Sarah, after our initial consultation, was help her to immediately release some of the toxic energy from her body, and I taught her some simple but effective nervous system regulation techniques which would help her to get control of the anxiety attacks.

We also worked on connecting to her higher power – the warrior within, who really does want you to heal. More on this shortly!

We did this in the first breakthrough session. This gave her immense relief, and as she said, ‘a huge burst of hope that I can get out of this situation’.

In subsequent sessions, we tackled the overwhelming anxiety attacks, at a deeper level, to pinpoint the root cause, which we could then heal and release.

We figured out some key issues that were like ‘lightbulbs popping everywhere!’ for Sarah. Here are just some of the revelations we uncovered:

Co-dependency is programmed into you

Most of Sarah’s issues were rooted in co-dependency – high-functioning style!

These roots were sown during her childhood, which is where it usually starts, and the constant pressure to perform, to be the best, that was drummed into her daily – she was top of her class in every subject, and had to be part of every extra-curricular event that was going on, and usually achieved the top 10% in everything.

For as long as she could remember, she was relentlessly trying to be the best. We had to drill down on that and go back in time, to figure out where the programming started. Because it always starts somewhere, and everything that has ever happened to you, is stored in your subconscious.

So we discovered the next revelation for her:

Narcissistic or Toxic Parents WILL facilitate people-pleasing tendencies

One of her parents was an overt narcissist, who loved nothing more to than to brag in public every chance he got, about his ‘brilliant’ child, but his praise was always attributed to himself:

‘Of course she would be, she’s MY child!’ was something that Sarah heard a million times during her childhood, teens and into young adulthood.

His praise, despite his constant tagline, became the most important thing for her. She had to have that validation from him, no matter the cost.

If she failed to receive the top accolade, he would punish her horribly. There was no room for error or mistakes, and Sarah’s need for perfection was honed during these years as a means of self-preservation and protection.

And this programming doesn’t just go away once you grow up and leave home. The fact is, if you’ve grown up with a narcissist parent, you are much more likely to attract a narcissist partner, and marry them. Because you are subconsciously attracting them.

And when you start to see the same kind of controlling behaviour, you accept it, because it’s familiar to you. It’s actually your comfort zone! But there’s nothing comfy about it, and here’s why:

Your brain and your inner warrior are at war!

Your brain is working overtime to keep doing what it’s always done, because it THINKS it’s keeping you safe, because you didn’t die yesterday, so it must be doing something right, right?

It’s right in terms of how your brain works to keep you safe, and addicted to feeling, being and doing things the same way, but the conflict comes from you INNER WARRIOR.

That’s the part of you – your soul, your higher self – that knows this is not how you should be living. It’s the part that longs for peace, love, and harmony in your life. It’s the part that wants you to remember who YOU ARE!

Your inner warrior starts its own private rebellion.

So whilst your brain is busy sending you all the stress signals – anxiety, confusion, hurt, anger, rage, and more – in large doses – your inner warrior is the one that’s hurting the most because it’s trying to get YOUR ATTENTION. Because your inner warrior wants YOU to STOP suffering. It wants you to heal.

Unleashing the warrior to heal the pain

When you tune into your body and listen, you can start talking to the pain, you can befriend it. It’s vital to stop trying to run and hide from it. You can let it know that you understand why it’s there, because then you can heal it.

The inner warrior is willing to listen, and you can upgrade its knowledge to who you are now, to bring it into alignment with what you really want and need in your life now.

Limiting beliefs are just someone else’s old stories

Those beliefs that you’ve been sold are nothing but someone else’s story. They’re not YOUR story. You can start rewriting the story now, the way you want it to be.

During the process we worked through, we stripped away all the pre-programmed lies she’d been believing in, her whole life, and instilled a new set of beliefs that would be hers, and hers alone.

The Inner Child Comes to the party too!

Inside everyone I’ve worked with who’s dealt with trauma, lives a wounded inner child, and that child needs to be healed. So, we take the warrior within and allow her to heal that inner child.

And let me share one more valuable insight, although there were many more for Sarah:

The only validation you need is YOUR OWN!

Sarah came to understand that underneath all her high-functioning co-dependency patterns, lay the simple truth that she was constantly seeking validation from other people – in her work, with friends, family, and in her marriage.

When she realised this, she also had the clarity to see that what other people think of her has nothing to do with who she really is. This was a jaw-dropping revelation for her.

She learned to stop people-pleasing, she didn’t ‘ask’ for a divorce – she went ahead and filed! She did a ‘life audit’ and cut out everything (and everyone) toxic and energy-draining from her life.

She identified a very clear definition of her core values, goals, and set up and stuck to fierce boundaries. These steps enabled her to attain the kind of life-balance she’d only dreamed of.

Reaching clarity and attaining life-balance is easy when you have the guidance you need to start seeing the wood through the trees!

Sarah worked with me for 12 Weeks, and followed my 12-Week Speedy Trauma Healing Mastermind, to achieve her goals. She is now a much happier woman!

If you'd like to get clarity for yourself,book a call and let's have a chat.