Codependency: First Steps Out of Someone Else's "Movie"

The doctor invites us to view codependency not as a "psychological" problem in the usual sense, but as a state of consciousness grown from the conditions of our life. What you see, feel, and think is determined not by abstract psychology, but by a concrete "pattern" of connections in the brain. And since this pattern is grown, it can begin to be changed. That is where the first steps start.

Step one: realize you are watching a "movie"

The doctor explains that the brain re-creates the picture of reality each time — like a holographic film. The very same microphone is met with laughter by a person in mania and with tears in depression: the object is identical, the film differs. When you recall the past or think about tomorrow, you also make today's film. When this mechanism "catches" you, you believe in the film — and it becomes your reality.

The first practical shift: notice that the suffering you feel inside codependent relationships is also a film your brain is running right now, not an unchangeable fact.

Step two: see how you were conditioned

The brain's pattern grows from the information you receive, the environment you live in, what you "feed on." The doctor uses the conditioned reflex: if a link repeats often, the neuro-association grows into a permanent structure — a "road" along which the impulse runs automatically. This is how we are conditioned from childhood: parents, school, and media train us to listen and obey, without giving the sense that a person can be aware and make their own decisions.

To see your own "roads" means asking honestly: where was I taught this? what signal triggers my habitual reaction in these relationships?

Step three: recognize induction and influence

The doctor calls the mechanism of codependency a mechanism of induction — essentially, influence and hypnosis. When one brain's influence over another lasts a long time, it is described as an induced delusion. The key idea: the ability not to yield to influence is a skill, not innate "knowledge." The first step here is to admit that you are being influenced, and that this influence shapes your "film."

Step four: choose which wolf to feed

The doctor offers the parable of two wolves: in every person two live, and the one you feed prevails. Whichever "wolf" you feed is what grows — either energy, strength, love, or poverty and illness. Whichever film you watch more often is the one you live in. This is your point of choice: you are not obliged to keep watching the "horror movie" you were seated in.

Practice: first steps

1. Name the movie. Write one sentence: "Right now my brain is showing me a film about…" — and describe your habitual reaction in codependent relationships.
2. Find the trigger. Identify the specific signal (the "red apple") that automatically launches this reaction.
3. Trace the source. Ask yourself: where and who built this "road" — childhood, school, surroundings, the stream of information?
4. Check the influence. Note whose prolonged influence currently sustains your film.
5. Choose your wolf. Decide which "film" you want to feed, and take one small action toward it today.

This is not treatment or diagnosis — it is a way to start seeing the mechanism and reclaim authorship of your own picture.