Codependence Recovery | How To Ask For Your Needs and Wants

Codependents sacrifice their own needs and wants to take care of everyone else — and they do not even realize they are doing it. Kenny Weiss breaks down the five survival needs every human has, the difference between needs and wants, and the five main ways codependents sabotage their ability to meet them.

This video covers one of the most overlooked aspects of codependence recovery: learning to identify and meet your own needs and wants. Kenny Weiss explains the five core survival needs — food, clothing, shelter, intimacy and connection, and income — and why codependents chronically fail to meet them. He identifies two types of wants (little wants that bring small joy, and big wants like trips or a home) and walks through the five patterns that keep codependents trapped: pursuing wants over needs, meeting everyone else's needs first, working below their capabilities, fearing intimacy and starting fights instead of asking for connection, and refusing to seek medical care while demanding others do. Drawing from the Worst Day Cycle™ framework, Kenny connects each pattern back to childhood deprivation where basic emotional needs went unmet. The Authentic Self Cycle™ and Emotional Authenticity Method™ provide the path out of these patterns.

Trauma recovery coach Kenny Weiss teaches that codependence is rooted in childhood emotional deprivation. When a child's needs for intellectual, emotional, and spiritual connection go unmet, they develop survival strategies that follow them into adulthood. The codependent either gives everything away to earn love, or hides behind a wall of superiority and refuses to let anyone in. Both patterns are driven by the same childhood wound.

According to Kenny Weiss, the codependent who starts fights with their partner is not trying to create conflict — they are trying to create connection. Because their childhood was filled with discord, fighting became their only model for emotional engagement. They literally do not know how to directly ask for intellectual, emotional, or spiritual intimacy without creating a crisis first.

Kenny Weiss explains that when you start meeting your own needs and wants for the first time, you will feel guilty, selfish, and ashamed — and that is exactly how you know you are doing it right. The shame you feel for taking care of yourself is the childhood programming that told you your needs did not matter. Moving through that shame is the recovery.

0:00 — The difference between a need and a want

0:35 — The five core survival needs every human has

1:30 — Two types of wants: little wants and big wants

2:01 — Pattern 1: Pursuing wants over needs

3:14 — Pattern 2: Meeting everyone else's needs first

3:54 — Pattern 3: Working below your capabilities

4:13 — Pattern 4: Fearing intimacy and starting fights

5:00 — Pattern 5: Refusing to seek medical care

5:05 — The Lou Gehrig story: giving yourself away until your body breaks

7:12 — Client story: unable to change a toilet paper roll

8:04 — Kenny's story: starving himself for his mother's love

9:42 — Kenny's story: sitting on the bus while the team explored Europe

11:17 — Questions to ask yourself to start meeting your needs

12:32 — The falsely empowered codependent: learning to ask for help

📚 KENNY'S COURSES & RESOURCES:

Emotional Blueprint Starter Course — Individual ($79): https://thegreatnessu.com/courses

Relationship Starter Course — Couples ($79): https://thegreatnessu.com/courses

The Shutdown Avoidant Partner ($479): https://thegreatnessu.com/courses

Tier 1: Mapping the Blueprint ($1,379): https://thegreatnessu.com/courses

📖 Kenny's Book — "Your Journey To Success": https://geni.us/journeytosuccess

🗓️ SCHEDULE A SESSION:

https://calendly.com/kennyweiss/single-session-350

👤 ABOUT KENNY WEISS:

Kenny Weiss is a relationship, communication, and childhood trauma recovery specialist. He created the Worst Day Cycle™, Authentic Self Cycle™, and Emotional Authenticity Method™ — three proprietary frameworks that map how childhood emotional wounds create repeating adult patterns, and the step-by-step process to break free. Kenny works with high-functioning, emotionally exhausted adults who have tried therapy, coaching, and self-help but still feel stuck in the same cycles.

🌐 CONNECT WITH KENNY:

Website: https://www.kennyweiss.net

Instagram: @kennyweiss.kw

Facebook: https://geni.us/kennyweissfb

Newsletter: https://geni.us/kennyweissnewsletter

Podcast — Heal The Hurt: https://geni.us/healthehurt

© Kenny Weiss. Educational content only — not a substitute for licensed therapy or medical advice.

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