Social Impact Authors: How & Why Mary Joye of ‘Codependent Discovery and Recovery’ Is Helping To Change Our World
An Interview With Edward Sylvan
My aim is to help people holistically and systematically overcome codependency, which is best described as a loss of yourself while caring for others. I want to impart to the exhausted that they can give from loving compassion and not from a compulsion of a need to be needed, guilt or fear of abandonment. We are all works in progress, including me, and the process of healing is a daily endeavor. My book gives the reader the tools, many of which they have co-created, to expedite and retain healing.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary Joye, LMHC.
Mary Joye is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, life coach and Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator. She has authored a new book titled, “Codependent Discovery and Recovery: A Holistic Approach to Healing and Freeing Yourself”, She is a recovered codependent, and her transformative journey was featured in “O” Magazine in 2019. She is a best-selling writer for DailyOM.com and her most popular e-course, for their website is “From Codependent to Independent”. She contributes as a guest author and interviewer to Huffington Post, Prevention, ThriveGlobal, UpJourney, Psychology Today, PsychCentral, and many other publications. Mary is a guest on podcasts, teaches seminars and has clients from around the globe who seek her help navigating codependent recovery. In her youth, Mary worked as a stagehand while earning an undergraduate degree in theatre. Her first job was working for the rock group KISS as a make-up artist. She then became a professional songwriter and singer in Nashville at Warner Brothers and incorporates music in her healing work today.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Raised on the Florida Gulf Coast in Redington Beach, I am the daughter of a psychiatrist and a former nurse and had one older brother. My father repeatedly said, “Act like a lady but think like a man.” My mother’s message was, “Women are put on this earth to serve men.” I dealt with these duplicitous messages by spending a lot of time swimming. As a very young child, I believed if I stayed in the water long enough I would become a mermaid and swim away, free in the open ocean. When I realized this was impossible, I became a certified scuba diver at the age of 14. Though scuba diving was second best to a mermaid, it was a first-rate way to compensate for being on land. No one could tell you what to do underwater and it was a beautiful, peaceful place to be. I worked in my father’s office to afford my scuba lessons and adventures. Working with him on house calls and in his office greatly impacted my current profession as a therapist. My parents were seldom home but we had an old boat and I took it to school and visited friends in it as I was too young to drive a car. If you have ever seen an episode of “Flipper” that is a good portrayal of my childhood. It was a beachy, saltwater life, but peppered with traumatic experiences. I survived accidents and abuse of various kinds, witnessed horrible things and had numerous broken bones and spent a year and a half in a wheelchair with a broken leg. However, while I was bored witless in that chair, I taught myself to play piano and compose songs which would become a wonderful part of my adult life. My childhood and adulthood has been like the first sentence from Charles Dicken’s, A Tale of Two Cities; “It was the best of times and the worst of times.” I think we all experience some wonderful and horrible experiences, and they can occur simultaneously at times. Seldom do I look back, but when I do, I integrate the wonderful with the difficult to keep me present, grateful and moving toward the future.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
“The Once and Future King” by T.H. White was my inspiration. It is a lengthy version of King Arthur’s life and his childhood was paradoxical and adventurous. I could relate to it and to the reluctance he felt when he pulled the sword from the stone and tried to put it back, not wanting the leadership responsibility. The part of this epic that changed my life was at the end when the weary King related his story to a messenger boy. Arthur lamented about how birds could fly over borders and not see divisive lines and how he longed for people of diversity to unite and problem solve in a pre-technological think tank. His round table was designed so that no one could sit at the head, including himself, as king. Lerner and Loewe wrote Camelot, the musical based on this book, and these composers influenced my songwriting. As a child and adolescent, I thought how peaceful a diplomatic global round table would be, but much like being a mermaid, it was exceedingly altruistic. In my twenties, I developed a work hard/play hard ethic and went scuba diving in far away and exotic locations. I loved and still love meeting people from all over the world. When you are literally in the same boat as others from all corners of the globe sharing a love of the ocean, the world gets very small and feels safer. It was like a round table and birds flying over borders, but out in international waters sharing the common experience with people you would not otherwise meet.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
When I was beginning my internship at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, my university supervisor told me I was codependent.
I asked, “What’s that?”
She admonished, “You’re a pushover, a people pleaser and you have no boundaries. Clients will eat you up alive if you don’t get a grip on this and I would know as I’m the daughter of an alcoholic. I’m not concerned about your counseling but about you.”
I got respectfully defensive, “I’m just being nice!”
Long story short, she was right and I was wrong. They did eat me alive and many played on my sympathy. I had to quickly learn the difference between that and empathy. Sympathy sucks you in and empathy helps others out of their problem. In the adolescent unit in group therapy, where I was only supposed to observe, there was a young person who was asked a question by a seasoned counselor and it took him down a dark path. I tried to rescue him saying it was too difficult a question. Dark places are where people need to go to grow but I didn’t know that yet. I didn’t lose my internship but I did get transferred to the adult unit. One day during a ropes maze exercise I was tested again. I had to do the same exercise the patients did and so did two nursing interns. We were blindfolded and told to raise our hands and ask for help in a whispered voice if needed. Asking for help is not something codependents do well, but after I heard all the patients got off the rope course, there were only me and two nursing interns left. How could this be?
I raised my hand, and the counselor came to me and I whispered as instructed, “If I ask for help will that get me off this course?”
The counselor replied, “Are you asking for help?”
My answer was, “No, I didn’t ask for help. I am asking if asking for help will get me off the ropes?”
He laughed, I finally got it and resigned myself to say, “Okay, I give in. I am asking for help.”
Off came the blindfold and on came the enlightenment. He told the patients that people like me and these nurses were the codependents they often get into relationships with because we are overly responsible and care for others more than ourselves. I have since learned to ask for help, but there is still resistance. Carl Jung said, “What you resist persists.” I now ask for help before I get to the end of my frayed rope, but it isn’t easy.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
My aim is to help people holistically and systematically overcome codependency, which is best described as a loss of yourself while caring for others. Codependency is not a formal disorder and there is no medication to fix it so there is not much funding for empirical research about it. What I did find was simultaneously disheartening and enlightening. In society, codependents are often the ones doing all the work and giving until they give out, burn out, or develop compassion fatigue. I learned this the hard way through adrenal fatigue and was forced to self-care when I was told my heart would stop if I went into adrenal failure. I desire to serve others with the wisdom I compiled so no one has to suffer like I did. I want to impart to the exhausted that they can give from loving compassion and not from a compulsion of a need to be needed, guilt or fear of abandonment. We are all works in progress, including me, and the process of healing is a daily endeavor. My book gives the reader the tools, many of which they have co-created, to expedite and retain healing.
There is much neuroscience involved in understanding and breaking the physiological trauma bonds of codependency. What makes my work different is the holistic approach. The end of each chapter builds on the last and the reader makes bullet point “Life List” with two columns. On the left list, they write what they don’t want in their life and on the right what they do want. Then they are only left with what is right! Because the reader is writing these lists and incorporating meditations, guided imagery and affirmations, their healing is truly a self-help experience. This will change the way the reader looks at their ability to contribute to society in synergistic, philanthropic ways instead of subconscious, fear-driven reactivity.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
This book came about as a result of the untimely and lonely passing of my never married brother under very unusual circumstances. If he wasn’t left alone by his employees he may still be alive. He was found deceased on his huge west Texas ranch in his truck with the engine still running by hunters who noticed his headlights were on all night. His ranch foreman falsely reported to law enforcement he had no biological family. An autopsy and an investigation were done without my knowledge or consent, which I was entitled to request as next of kin. I will probably never know what really happened. It’s too long and gory of a story and I will spare the details so you don’t have to carry the images I do. I was under acute stress for a long time from it and still think of it daily because of the mystery of it all. In my recent book, it was best to speak of it in general terms as I wrote, “Under penalty of perjury I had to tell our family secrets to the state of Texas and it’s a good thing Texas is such a big state because my family had a lot of secrets.” It was the catalyst and catapult out of my codependency as it evoked painful but powerful real and lasting change. His death forced me to live my life more authentically.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
About ten months after that tragic event, I realized I had to take a break from being a therapist and open up a path to healing my grief and life. I adore hiking in Sedona, Arizona and I went there for six weeks. The trails are red dirt surrounded by red mountains and marked with red rock piles. One day I was hiking alone on a 7-mile trail that I thought said 2 miles. Somehow a line was scratched under the 7 and it looked like a 2. I got lost. Very lost. An old rusty and red signpost read, “Wilderness Boundary”. That said it all. With no water, no cell signal and the sun coming down, I stopped on the trail and sat on a rock. I cried out to the sky above me, “Can I please be over this grief now? Please help me!” A few minutes later, I heard an uneven clop clop of a horse’s hooves and since I was a former horse owner, I knew they could smell water. I followed the sound echoing off the canyon walls. Surprisingly, there was a horse and rider and she looked like an angel but didn’t talk like one. I told her I was lost and she said, “Follow the horse***t” and that’s all she said as she rode away”. I did what she said and got back safely but with an instant transformation and revelation. Manure is what we use for fertilizer and it is needed for growth. I could continue to suffer with post-traumatic stress or use the manure of my past for post traumatic growth. I began a journal on a cool tile floor where I laid to recover from dehydration. That journal became the bones of every e-course I wrote and this book.
I did go to a psychologist in Sedona and she told me to write about what happened but as a fictional novel about my brother’s death and not a self-help book. I tried that but had no peace from it. Reliving it, through the vehicle of fiction, wasn’t relieving it. I listened to myself instead of her, which was new for me, and I wrote self-help materials that assist others to recover in ways a novel could not do. This wasn’t about turning my story into entertainment but rather enlightenment, first for myself and then for others.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
A codependent, “Cynthia”, came to me in crisis about leaving her narcissistically cruel husband and she wanted to know what to do. Her friends and family were telling her to leave him immediately and get an attorney. She had no peace about taking their advice and it was terrifying her to leave him so quickly. When I asked her what she wanted, it was a foreign question as seldom had she been asked what she wanted. When she worked at her pace to develop an exit strategy all I can tell you is that she and many others like her have learned to live authentically and happily. Codependents ask for too much advice from too many and I have done this, too. The best decisions ever made by her and others like her, including me, are ones of doing what they want to do and not what someone told them they had to do. She explored viable options and pushed back the codependent withdrawal symptoms of anxiety, false guilt and feelings of loneliness and selfishness to emerge self-actualized. Cynthia went on to coach others to do it, too!
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
It is imperative to remove the stigma of mental health care for codependents and everyone. No longer should people ask, “Why doesn’t she or he just leave?” This is blaming the victim and their brains get rewired from the intermittent reinforcement (gaslighting) that makes a trauma bond difficult to break. We now have brain imaging that proves “mental” health is a physical issue and not merely a learned or behavioral one. Insurance companies have separate care for medical and behavioral health. They often limit the number of visits to ten or less for behavioral care and this is a travesty particularly with the suicide rate rising dramatically. You wouldn’t tell someone with diabetes or cancer they only have ten visits to the doctor. I look for the day when medical yearly check-ups also come with a mental health checkup and brain scans if needed. Psychiatry is one of the few branches of medicine where imaging isn’t used for diagnostics. It isn’t always necessary, but it would be an exemplary way of knowing with more certainty what is operating in a person’s brain. This will take the money and public support but there will be advancements in mental health when the stigma is neutralized once and for all and for everyone. It will also reduce homelessness and joblessness. It’s time.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership is being of service to others but not being forced into servitude by others. In days past we called politicians “public servants”. What happened to that? I can’t do much to fix that system, but as a solution-focused therapist, I serve to lead others through their life. I help them listen to themselves and we work together toward their best solutions. Being a leader isn’t just about being forceful or confident and telling others what to do; it’s about collaboration, delegation, listening and being humble enough to be open to new information that could be useful for you and those you serve. I am an ambivert. I tested 51% introvert and 49% extrovert on the Myers Briggs test and this means I can lead or work in a team and follow authority, too. This doesn’t entail being a blind follower, as that is how you end up in codependent servitude and not living to full leadership potential. When I have clients who look at me as their authority figure, I tell them I may have read more books on psychology than they have, but I have not read the book on the story of their life. Listening to their story and making connections between the past and present helps me to lead and guide them to change the narrative of their story for the better in the future. I am serving them as a guide and not telling them what to do. Many clients have said to me they wish they had me when they were younger, and I tell them, I wish I had me when I was younger, too! The best leader you can be, is to yourself first.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- I wish someone had told me how and why to self-care more. Taking time for massages, vacations, meditation and having some fun helps me to help others. When I give time and space to myself it helps me hold space for others more effectively. After a long day of one-sided conversations, it is nice to sit in silence for a while to cleanse the palette of my brain. I use a singing bowl to ring out the words spoken in my office and to bring in the sacred silence. It’s refreshing to my ears and mind.
- I wish I learned more about neuroscience in school. I did from my supervisors and father, but science has been making enormous breakthroughs. It is important to stay on top of what it relevant to counseling. I teach clients about the vagus nerve and how it affects their fight/flight/frozen reactivity. We do guided imagery exercises that helps them be conscious of their subconscious. There is much biology and physiology to self-awareness and mental wellbeing. Take care of your brain and your brain will take care of you!
- I wish I had learned earlier how important financial well-being is to overall psychological and emotional health. I learned the hard way that when I allowed people to use me for financial gain to my loss, I wasn’t enabling them but rather I was disabling them and myself. I strategized how to divest myself of those who used me financially and invest in myself without feeling selfish or guilty.
- I wish I knew how hard it would be not to give advice as a therapist. In counseling education, they taught us not to give advice for many reasons. We could be wrong, or it can feel judgmental. Sometimes you want to rescue a person from what you think is a bad choice but that is also judgmental. We all learn from our mistakes, not the things we do right. I do my best not to give advice, but wow, it’s not easy.
- I wish someone told me to exercise more and eat less as a therapist. I didn’t know being a therapist might make you fat! Therapists sit in a chair all day and are like human shock absorbers and may experience vicarious trauma. This can release stress hormones like cortisol, which makes you hungry. I have learned to eat less calories and more fresh food. After work, I take a 3 to 4-mile walk near the water. I listen to music while exercising to release dopamine and other feel-good chemicals. I meditate every morning and have done this since my twenties. It’s really helpful to keep me balanced so I can assist others from a place of wellness.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You can’t solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it”. Albert Einstein
This quote has gotten me through more arduous moments in life than you could imagine. The quote inspires me to look at problems through many lenses and angles to seek solutions. It takes time but reaps great results. You can’t solve anger with anger or hate with hate. Retaliation does nothing but creates an endless and dangerous vendetta mentality. Living well truly is the best revenge, which is another great quote. When you focus on a solution instead of the problem it elevates the brain to take action to achieve it. It is relevant to why I am a solution-focused therapist. I don’t often ask people how they feel as I can deduce that from their words and body language. The better questions are, how do you want to feel and how can I help you to get there? When they stop venting about the past, we can begin reinventing their future with the energy shift from a negative to a positive perspective. This is how I handle every decision in my life. As Albert Einstein discovered, the entire universe is a relationship between energy and matter and it takes positive personal energy to tackle effective problem-solving matters!
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
That would be Joan Templeman Branson. I want to meet the person who inspired Sir Richard Branson to buy an island and build a home on it to impress her. The island has evolved into a round table think tank and I would love to talk to Joan about being a part of those meetings! Just to have tea or a drink of her choice, listen to her insights and take a walk along the beach at Necker Island, the New Mexico desert or any place would be amazing. It has long been a dream to go to Necker Island to be part of any discussion in any capacity. Thank you for asking such a great question!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://www.hcibooks.com/s-3328-mary-joye.aspx
https://www.winterhavencounseling.com
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010249095867
https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=868&aff=&co=
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Mary Joye of ‘Codependent Discovery and Recovery’ Is Helping To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.