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Welcome To Post-Codependent LifeThat probably sounds a bit like fiction at this moment.

That is OK. I felt that way myself when I was facing the daunting unknown before me when I made the choice to work out my codependency and discover if happiness was possible for me.

I had no idea if it was. I secretly hoped it was, but I had massive doubts and trepidation. Over 8 years later, I am living a life that I really, really enjoy. I have friendships that are safe, fulfilling, and warm. I do work that I find engaging, inspiring, and prosperous. And Ihave come to know warm, safe romantic and platonic love in my life.

I also know how to care for myself emotionally. You see, I was riddled with trauma and complex PTSD from my decades of narcissistic abuse and neglect. I had be trained to hate my emotions, my needs, my wants and to avoid myself at all costs because I was “harmful” and “bitter” and “broken”. I loathed myself

But through persistence, experimentation, and a lot of compassion and challenging the angry inner critic, I discovered a real love and respect for myself, my value, my voice, and my vision. My feelings are valuable and precious and are heard by me these days. My wants and needs are valued and nourished through healthy, safe connections within myself and with others (it is always about both/and when it comes to healing and happiness after codependency).

Problems and conflicts became opportunities for understanding, connection, and nurture. Needs and wants are means of connection and affection.

Life is much easier these days.

Yet, it wasn't like this for most of my life. Like you, I've suffered through the neglect, the abuse, the crazy-making, the verbal attacks, the emotional shaming, the guilt trips, the gas-lighting, and the physical abuse.

My childhood was mostly riddled with emptiness and feeling like I didn't exist. My mother was highly pre-occupied with her shame and guilt and her emptiness. My father

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was lost in his delusions due to his schizophrenia. Anger, fights, and physical violence were common.

This normalcy all changed she was struck with brain cancer in October of 1988. I was eleven.

My mother fought, but being a nurse herself, she understood the odds and that her life was drawing to a tragic end. She plead with my father to protect us and care for us. He made his hollow promises. She passed away April 9th, 1989 in the early morning dawn.

Shortly (like 6 weeks later) after, my father began his search for a replacement mother. He couldn't handle us as he was ill-equipped. The strain on him emotionally and mentally led to irrational choices, verbal abuse, and physical violence. Home was growing more and more hostile.

Then he met my step-mother.

My stomach still curls with dread at the thought of her (she passed away a few years ago).

Her entrance into my life was the beginning of my codependency. It started one night when I was feeling particularly scared and off-center and wanted to feel safe. I had noticed that she really liked it when we cleaned, so I cleaned. And sure enough, she was very pleased with that.

Yet, it wasn't enough. The next day there was no love. Just complaints, excuses, and her fleeing to the bedroom. It was all so confusing.

This cycle escalated over the coming years. I grew obsessed with predicting her and my father's behaviors so I could feel safer. I was convinced I could solve this puzzle and find refuge to be cared for and loved and nurtured, especially in my unmet grief over my mother's death.

Those things never came. Instead, accusations of plotting to destroy the marriage would meet my grief for my mother's death. Claims of being a bitter, broken boy would be usedto justify their disconnection from me and their abandonment of my needs.

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I did what I knew how to do at the time: hate myself more and try to be come perfect andideal so they'd finally see me, love me, and care for me.

This fantasy (I call it the Codependent Fantasy) collapsed in November of 2010 when my father and step-mother abandoned me during my divorce, declaring once again I was a bitter, broken boy that was out to destroy marriages. This time, though, I was on to them.

You see, my little sister had tipped me off to narcissistic abuse. I had been researching it and discovering that my life was actually the result of this chaos cycle they create. It wasn't me. It was them.

Their actions against me became the defining moment of my life. I could see the possibility that their behaviors were actually something dysfunctional in them, not me.

Fast-forward 10 years and here you and I are, meeting in this document.

It is possible to heal and to be happy again after codependency and narcissistic abuse and neglect.

I discovered, though, that it requires some very specific elements that most therapy, self-help, and alternative healing approaches are not aware of.

I found these elements through my own blood, sweat, tears, and anguish as I fumbled about trying to find a way out of the maze.

Put these elements to work for you now and you will start to see big, big changes in your liberation.

Those elements are:

• Curiosity: Begin to question your programming and your internal claims that you are bad, unworthy, and unlovable

• Legitimization: Begin to believe the legitimacy of your wants, needs, feelings, experiences, and person

• Occupy Space: you have the right to occupy space and exist. DO IT.• Compassion First: It doesn't matter if you think you could have done better. You

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didn't need to. You were facing unreasonable expectations of yourself and from others. What you did was adequate because it kept you alive so you could get to this day and begin to reclaim yourself

• Own yourself: This means you own all your choices, actions, feelings and desires 100% of the time, all the time. This keeps you in your power. It keeps you clear of blame and of absorbing others and their feelings, choices, and actions. It empowers you to become autonomous and defined from others and helps you create healthy boundaries that promote your happiness and well-being

• Persistence: This is key. You have to practice, practice, practice because happiness after codependency is a lifestyle, not an event. It requires you to come to know, love, and live who you are. Persistence is essential to those discoveries.

There are other elements, but these 6 are the ones I turn to religiously as I nurture my happiness after codependency. They've reliably brought me back to myself over and over and over.

Achieving happiness after codependency also requires that you come to know, love, and live who you are. This toolkit is going to help you start that process by giving you four steps:

• Step One: Creating Understanding: You need to understand what happened to you and what was going on so you can see that you're the sane one. Further, you'll learn to see it and avoid it in the future

• Step Two: Creating Safety: You need to feel safe to feel and to heal and to explore

• Step Three: Creating Healing: You need the right tools to make this happen, not just the right understanding (if understanding something created healing, you'd not be here and I'd still be in my IT career)

• Step Four: Putting It Into Action: You'll have a daily plan at the end of the Toolkitto help you track your progress with the tools and making headway.

Go through each of these sections as they're outlined on their respective pages in this toolkit and put it to use following the “Putting It Into Action” section.

I believe in your worth. I know that you are worth knowing, loving and keeping. Why? Because you exist and that is enough. But don't take my word for it. You need to discover that for yourself.

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Before you go into the section work, make note of the powerful resources you have available to you through this toolkit. Those include:

• Access to The Thriving Beyond Codependency Community (aka The Community): This is a secure, monitored Facebook community where you can find shelter, understanding, and support in your journey. Join here (it is free): http://community.freetheself.com

• Access to the CALM Toolset: This is a series of tools that help you regulate your nervous system and bring peace to your mind and body FAST. You can get it here (it is also free): http://calm.freetheself.com

• My You-tube Channel: I do free trainings several times a week. Subscribe and get updates when they're posted. You can do that here: http://tv.freetheself.com

• My Instagram Channel: I post useful, powerful guides and information to Instagram. Join me and my 3000+ followers there: https://www.instagram.com/happinessaftercodependency/

• Take My Masterclass on healing codependency here and discover how to I heal it and what you can do to start that process (waving at you if you have already watched it and that brought you to this toolkit!): The Masterclass

• Check out my paid solutions for:◦ Healing the trauma of narcissistic abuse: RapidHEAL™◦ Mastering your happiness after codependency: The Happinesss Strategy™◦ Dating For Ex-codependents: Dating 101

Lastly, know that I have your back in your journey. Feel free to ask questions in The Community or hit reply on any email from me and I'll get back to you within 48 hours usually.

Now check out Step One: Creating Understanding!

To your well-being and happiness,

Marshall Burtcher

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Step One: Creating UnderstandingMaking sense of what you've been through is essential to restoring your sense of sanity, self-trust and seeing the truth. Below I've linked several of my You-tube video trainings on the various aspects of codependency and narcissistic abuse for your view. Pick and choose based on what resonates and grabs you.

Take time after each video to write down what you heard, comment on the video and reflect on your experience. The more you legitimize and believe the legitimacy of your feelings and experience, the faster your mind will heal. You will have tools in Step Three:Creating Healing to help you with this.

Videos Content

• The Codependent Fantasy: When they love me, I will finally be whole and worthy

• What Fawning Is & How It Causes Codependency

• Is Your Worth Transactional? • How Innate Value Heals Codependency • Are You Gaslighting Yourself? • How "Seeing The Good In Others" Is

Hurting You • Consumer-Supply Relationship • Codependency & The Trauma Bond • Trusting their feedback is disconnecting

you for your truth... • Why You Absorb Their Feelings • Smoking out unhealthy people... • Start Listening To How You Feel! • Fixing Feelings - The Great Lie You've

Bought Into • Trust - What Is It & How Is It Built? • Is Your Empathy Crossing Boundaries &

Hurting You? • But Do I Matter? At All?? • How Narcissism Erases You and Others... • My interview with Emily Rosen

• Marshall's Definition of Abuse• Real Love vs Fantasy• The 7 Permissions• Being Loved vs Being Used• Ownership vs Gaslighting

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Step Two: Creating SafetySafety has been removed from you through the abuse and chaos that abuse created. Restoring safety to your body's and mind's awareness is essential to your healing and growth. A safe brain grows. A scared brain doesn't.

Use the resources outlined below to start restoring safety today:

• The CALM Toolset◦ Get Calm Here: CALM◦ Log Into the University here: LOGIN

• Use the Distress to Rest Guide for calming yourself: DtR Guide• Legitimizing Your Experience: The Legitimizer• Join The Community: The Community• Buy A Book for Understanding:

◦ Fuel by H.G. Tudor◦ Verbal Abuse by Patrice Evans◦ Complex PTSD by Pete Walker◦ Disarming The Narcissist by Wendy Behary◦ Why Does He Do That? By Lundy Bancroft

• Guides:◦ Determine if they're safe or toxic:

https://www.thrivebeyondcodependency.com/sot-guide◦ Create more safety in your daily life:

https://www.thrivebeyondcodependency.com/the-srg◦ Develop your confidence habits:

https://www.thrivebeyondcodependency.com/THE8HABITS◦ Strategies for handling the Narcissist or Toxic person:

https://www.thrivebeyondcodependency.com/observetool

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Step Three: Creating HealingHealing is a journey, NOT a destination. Healing requires persistence, discovery, and adaptation to those discoveries. Give yourself permission to discover who you are, as that is the real healing that liberates you and your happiness.

Below I've linked several of my tools to help you start healing. Give them a shot:

• Begin healing your Dominant Value (take the Masterclass for this to make more sense)◦ Shame Release◦ Guilt Release◦ Legitimizing Your Experience: The Legitimizer

• Check out the Emotion-Sensation Wheel to help you reference your feelings and sensations: The ESW

• The CALM Toolset◦ Get Calm Here: CALM◦ Log Into the University here: LOGIN

These tools will help you begin your liberation and make stronger contact with your True Self.

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Step Four: Putting It Into ActionHealing is an active experience. That requires you to act and to practice and to discover and adapt. Below is a tracking chart to help you do this. Put it to use and you will begin to succeed. Healing And Self-Advocate Practices are outlined on the next page. Use the Emotion-Sensation Wheel on page 12 to help you identify feelings.

What HealingPractice Did You Do

Today (includes atool or practice you

did)

What Results DidYou Notice From

That Practice?What Did You Feel?

What Self-AdvocateAction Did You Do

Today?

What Results CameOf That For You?

(I did the shame release) (I felt more relief andlove)

(I said no when I meantit)

(I felt scared, but theyaccepted it and I was ok)

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Healing practices:

• Releasing Shame: Shame Release• Releasing Guilt: Guilt Release• Regulating: The Daily Regulation Practice from CALM• Releasing Fear: DtR Guide• Legitimizing You: The Legitimizer

Self-Advocate Practices:

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Emotion-Sensation Wheel

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ConclusionNow you have tools, a plan, and understanding to help launch your understanding, restoring safety, and creating healing in your life.

Next Steps:

• Take the Masterclass• Sign up for RapidHEAL or The Happiness Strategy™• Join the Community

I look forward to witnessing your growth and happiness over the coming months and years! Don't hesitate to reach out with questions or additional help!

Marshall Burtcher

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The Authors and Publishers of this information have made their besteffort to provide a high-quality, informative book. No representationsor warranties of any kind are made with regard to the accuracy,applicability, fitness or completeness of the contents of this book.

The Authors and Publishers accept no liability of any kind for anylosses or damages caused, or alleged to be caused, directly orindirectly, from using the information contained in this book.

The Authors and Publishers disclaim any warranties (expressed orimplied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose.

As always, the advice of a competent, legal, accounting or otherprofessional should be sought. The Authors and Publishers do notwarrant the performance, effectiveness, or applicability of any siteslisted in this book. All links are for information purposes only and arenot warranted for content, accuracy, or any other implied or explicitpurpose.

No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system,transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior agreement andwritten permission from the Publisher.

Copyright 2008 - Current MBI Holdings LLC

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