The Interdependent Challenge Day 7

Yesterday I started the challenge off by asking myself what I really meant by interdependence. I found myself confused after experiencing the many emotions surrounding my father; my need for solitude and a sporadic but determined desire to be a part of the world. Through this I recognized a part of me that doesn’t want to be interdependent — the messy feelings that come from it just too damn uncomfortable. Then again, are these not my codependent parts speaking, the ones that want to hide away in a cave and find safety and reassurance within the walls of aloneness and the others that feel I can serve the world best by fixing things I have no right to fix?

I received an email a few days ago from someone responding to Day 4 of the Challenge. It was a much needed light in the dim hallway I was living. The person wrote: “I spent a lot of energy being anxious about what I should or shouldn't do. I had no compass until I found myself and started listening.” And how simple is that?

If I look at it from this perspective, interdependence may require respect, mutuality and leadership but to be truly effective the energy behind it must come from within. We must listen to and respect individual needs while interacting with others from our internal compass— the one that tells us what is right and what is wrong, what depletes and what replenishes; what strengthens and what diminishes.

Perhaps then, that is the fourth component of the interdependent tenets: Respect, Mutuality, Leadership and Simplicity. Life is complicated when our codependent parts are in charge. In the action of simplifying, however; in allowing life to flow without complicated motives, by trusting ourselves and listening to our internal compass we live interdependently.