Natalie Edwards is a Women’s Personal Development Coach, writer, speaker, and certified Forrest Yoga & iRest Meditation teacher.

Originally from Britain, Natalie works one-on-one with her clients to lift them out of a pit of confusion and self-doubt into to a higher plane of confidence and freedom. Natalie helps them to design, build, and live lives that are completely on their own terms.

I had the chance to connect with Natalie through social media to discuss her approach to issues of emotional dependency.

Is it love that I’m feeling…or an addiction?

Sometimes it can be difficult to discern the distinction between being in love and being emotionally dependent on someone. We are all looking to meet two of our essential needs: for love and for freedom. Yet emotional dependency, which paralyzes us with fears of losing our partners, prevents too many of us from experiencing truly fulfilling relationships by decreasing the freedom in the partnership.

Natalie says she has spent many years searching for ways to be happier, live a better life, and feel healthier. Eventually she arrived at a self-discovery: that all along, what she really had been searching for was greater freedom. Natalie desired freedom in her body to be free of pain, freedom in her mind to be free of negative thoughts, and freedom in her soul to be able to live the life she wanted. Natalie believes that all of us “ultimately want to be free.” She explains that we all have our own concept of freedom, which makes it impossible to develop a single definition. Natalie calls herself “the freedom expert” for her ability to help others find the distinctive life of freedom they personally need.

I asked her how she is able to distinguish between whether a client is in love or is emotionally dependent. Natalie explained that when a woman—although this issue affects both sexes, her clients are primarily women—is emotionally dependent on a man, she tends to place all of her expectations on him, which inevitably are never met. Natalie believes that when we are truly in love, we care enough for the other person to give him the freedom to be himself, rather than placing pressure on him to change or act according to all of our desires or demands. This, in turn, allows for a healthier relationship.

Natalie is familiar with emotional dependency and quite knowledgeable about being emotionally dependent. When we are addicted to someone, Natalie says, it is often because “we are unhappy in ourselves and the person we are; we haven’t learned to accept ourselves, or our true nature, nor have we spent sufficient time getting to know who we are and what we are good at.”

Her advice is to carve out sacred time just for yourself—maybe by learning something new, starting a new sport, or joining a group where you might meet new people. By pursuing anything that will expand your world and allow you to reconnect with yourself, you will gain a fresh impetus towards self-discovery, self-love, and greater freedom.

To succeed in overcoming this emotional addiction, Natalie helps clients to increase their self-belief and self-confidence, without which “they cannot realize the best version of themselves.”

Find out more on her Blog or Instagram page.

Nu