Imagine this: You’re on your way home from work late one chilly fall afternoon, and suddenly you feel unexplainably woosy. If fact, you’re starting to lose your peripheral vision. Instinctively, you pull to the side of the road and find yourself on the verge of losing consciousness as you feel a chill wash over you from the blood rushing away from your extremities. Somehow, you manage to dial 911 and are able to give the dispatcher your location before passing out. Before you know it, you’re in the back of an ambulance.
Soon, the ER doc informs you that you’ll need to stay at least overnight for additional testing and monitoring. But you’ve got a young child in daycare waiting for you…Your Other Half is out of state on business, 6 hours away… And your special needs cat is counting on you for her medication and food – not to mention the dog that needs to be let out, and the slow cooker with a bubbling hot dinner inside that needs to be turned off.
You’re at the center of all this responsibility, but you can’t possibly take care of it yourself right now…and these things need to be taken care of, lest the consequences of this unanticipated event begin to snowball and create more challenges in your life.
Who are you going to call? Who can support you in your time of need?
Okay, so how about this one: For years, you’ve been working on something that’s really important to you. You’ve encountered a number of challenges along the way; you’ve faced and overcome personal demons, and you’ve sacrificed a number of short-term pleasures in service of your long-term goal…and you’ve finally achieved it!
Who are you going to call? Who can truly bask in the joy of your accomplishment with you? Who props you up when waves of discouragement rear their ugly head? Who helps you remember why you're pursuing that goal in the first place? Who has nothing to gain or lose by your success or failure, but who wildly supports you and cheers you on anyway, just because you’re You?
And finally, you receive that dreaded 3am phone call with some heart-shattering news that temporarily obscures your ability to think clearly or rationally; you’re disoriented in every sense of the word. Simultaneously, your perception of time has both accelerated and seems to stand still. Your mind is flooded with a million non-stop thoughts and what feels like a literal ton of conflicting emotions weighing you down.
Who are you going to call? Who do you trust to sit with you in that vulnerable, unabashedly human space and help you stay grounded you until you regain your equilibrium?
Please allow me to be blunt: In those immediate moments, it’s not your therapist. We step in after the fact (if you invite us).
If you're human, you've had moments like these. Did you have "peeps" to call on, or did you go it alone? What would you have preferred to do in those situations? Do you wish it were different?
Although being able to function independently is great (and some might even argue that it’s “safe”…but that’s an entirely different topic/post altogether), it’s living an interdependent life with others that promotes optimal health, balance, and personal growth. It's even been said that having a strong community of support in our lives (regardless of its size -- this is about quality not quantity) effects our longevity.
Interdependence vs. Dependence vs. Co-Dependence
What do I mean by “interdependent?” Interdependence is when two distinctly separate individuals with their own pursuits, interests, goals (and generally-speaking, life) have a healthy sense that they are not alone in the world (despite their ability to function independently) and can depend on others to be there when they need them...and that they themselves are also able to be depended on by others in another person's time of need.
Interdependence is a reciprocal relationship that is supportive of individual autonomy (i.e., the freedom to be You, with no strings attached and without encroaching on the other person's abiltiy to be Them) while also providing a sense of safety, security and comfort in knowing you’re not alone. It’s a sense that you are connected to others in this great, big world; others matter to you, and you matter to others. You may not feel a sense of belongingness everywhere, but you feel in your bones that you belong there in that space with those who care about you, and you create that same feeling for them, too. Simply put, you've got each other's backs.
Through this responsibility to self and important others, a kind of “anchoring” in the world is created that provides a refuge from the inevitable storms of life, a place to celebrate the victories and work through the hardships while still maintaining responsibility for and control over one's own life.
You may be wondering how this differs from dependence, or co-dependence, which are two unhealthy, constricting, and restrictive modes of being in the world. Dependence says, “I can’t make it in this world. I need you to tell me what to do.” Co-dependence says, “My happiness depends on you, and I will sacrifice aspects of myself to serve your needs.”
By contrast, interdependence says, “I’m responsible for my own life and happiness, and you are responsible for yours. Together, we can be supportive of our own individual existences. I won’t lose a sense of ‘me’ to support you in being the best ‘you’ you can be, and I don't expect you to lose 'you' to be there for me. Together, we can become more of our independent selves.”
Your Support Network-as-Springboard to Change
Life is hard sometimes. We’re hard-wired from infancy to derive a baseline sense of safety from having healthy attachments to other significant people in our lives. It’s through those healthy, supportive attachments that we feel secure during times when insecurity creeps in, when life’s unexpected tragedies befall us, or through which our sense of awe and gratitude can be heightened when something spectacular happens in our life and we have an important someone to share it with. These healthy, interdependent attachments provide a sense of grounding that helps us feel stable enough to stretch beyond what we’ve known ourselves to be, and into more of what we can become.
Building upon the first blog post in this series, it’s through these kinds of supportive connections that we can learn to push past self-judgment and take those first shaky steps into an imagined future in which we aim to be more of ourselves, and are loved and supported all the more for it.
Are there people in your life that call on you for emotional support and connection? Are you able to give that to them in a healthy way that maintains your sense of self, values and personal boundaries? Or does it feel like you lose yourself when others reach out to you for help?
Do you have a network of friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, social group members, etc. that you feel you can rely on when life throws unexpected challenges your way? Do you have a few people with whom you can celebrate your victories?
But not everyone has these supports functioning in their life they way they'd like them to be. If you need some guidance around how to create and maintain a healthy support network in your life, we can get you there! Please feel free to drop me a message below, or click on the "Request Appointment" button to schedule your free 20-minute consultation now.
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