"For her, dependency had always equaled rejection, ridicule and sometimes, outright malice.
The womb she depended on pushed her out months before it was time. The mother she depended on pushed her out a thousand times throughout the years and then literally, with locks as a teenager.
When she was younger her mother would leave her alone and sometimes she didn't know when food might come or where to find her mother. Her dad had said he didn't know it was that bad. She has some memories of calling him when it got scary.
Sometimes, in moments of time, the mother she had the potential to be came forward. The one inside her that was mostly buried and killed off by her own traumatic life. The mother who helped came forward, the mother who made sure beyond a measure of a doubt that whatever she wanted to happen, the earth would be moved and it would happen through her sheer will and determination. The one who's bean soup her daughter remembers, if only because it was made so few times and it tasted full of dreams and hopes and love, the mother who when you were in the embrace of her love, her light was strong and comforting and safe. For a moment.
Inevitably, when her daughter's hopes were up, which they always were when this benevolent mother showed up because her heart remained open, as children's hearts do, without warning the meanness would come, the manipulation, the lies, the hitting, the body shaming the name calling ... the list went on, the light dimmed, the fear came back along with the now imbedded script of "why had she ever trusted her mother to begin with, why had she let her guard down, she should have known better" ...
When the parent and caregiver is the bully, the source of torment, nothing afterward can truly be trusted. So how does one navigate dependency when it presents itself in adulthood, she wonders...
Dependence.
Dependence.
Dependence ...
How can she find peace in this place?
This place of grace where trust can live. This place where the flesh does not tremble in fear of what might be, of who will help, must one depend ...
The remarkable Ram Dass, wheelchair bound and about to be lowered into a swimming pool, says in his new film, 'Going Home', "In this culture, dependency is a no no. The stroke showed me dependency, and I have people that are dependable. My stroke makes it hard to play the cello, it's difficult to play golf ... those are out there, and I am in here. The stroke pushed me inside, even more, and it's so wonderful."
So wonderful ... She wonders ... What if inside wasn't wonderful. What if inside only recognized dependency as fear, as death. What if, 'in here', inside the cavern of memory, people were the opposite of dependable and the notion brings the heart to a tremble ... The cells remember what dependence felt like when they were young and vulnerable, when no one came and when sometimes they did come it was to ridicule and shame that dependence of that child ...
That is a profound one ... the ridiculing and shaming of a child for dependence, when dependence is the natural state of a child ... The cells remember the fear, the body trembles. She wonders ..."
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| Artwork by the wonderful Leah Dorion |
It is easy when you can do it all yourself, isn't it. You are strong, smart, capable, resourceful ... you are mobile, full of energy ... you want? You get. No problem. It's all in your hands ...
Until it's not one day.
Maybe for an hour, a week, a month, maybe longer ...
Maybe you look at your hands and they look the same but you can't find yourself in them somehow ...
One day, you get sick, or injured or something else happens that causes you to face, what seems like to you, drastically reduced capabilities. No matter how much you will it for that moment, you cannot do, you can just be ...
Reduced in capabilities.
Reduced to dependence.
When you are here, in this place of perceived reduction, this place when you are not the one that does but the one that needs, this is when you find out about yourself, about the deep recesses inside you, through the muck, to the fear. This is the place where you find out how scared you really are. If you go into it that is. In this place of need, you find out about your friends, about your family, about your community, your society. See ... open your eyes and see what needs to be seen, so you can know who you can depend on ... this is a big one ...
It's interesting how dependence is perceived as a reduced state isn't it. The primal fear ...
it's not in your imagination darlings ... in nature, weak things perish.
And here ...
this, is what makes human beings so extraordinary. Have you ever thought about it? We, somehow, have found a place outside of physical evolution, where there is space for the weak. For the dependent. A place where they do not have to perish. Where you, do not have to perish.
We humans can love. We are capable of a love so deep that we can care for and help the dependent, and can do so with joy and honor. How extraordinary, don't you think?
All you have to do is ask.
Ask ...
A word that carries so much in it, isn't it? All the rejections, the unmet needs, desires ... a feeling of unworthiness buried so deep sometimes that it is unrecognizable as unworthiness and instead shows up as 'I don't need' ... because needing hurts too much ...
All you have to do is ask ...
What if the pattern of asking, for you, is one of remembered ridicule and shame, one of not receiving over and over again?
One day, did you stop asking? Do you even know?
Tell me, how hard is it to ask? Tell me. What do you ask for? Is it easy to ask when you are strong? More difficult when you are weak? What happened when you asked for things as a child? From your parents, teachers, friends ... did you receive? Were you rejected? Or worse? Shamed for needing?
Dependency forces us to ask. Forces us to show up as our most vulnerable, to ourselves first, and really see where our beliefs around need, worthiness and security are. Then to find the courage to show up this way to the people in our lives (who most likely are used to seeing us as strong and capable) and see how they respond. Do they lean in, or lean away. When they lean in do
we lean in in response, or lean away? Are our hearts in good hands with them? Are they dependable?
How much courage does it take for a wounded child to ask, to try to depend on someone or something when what that child has known is rejection and abandonment ...
I say to this child inside, be brave little one, as you already are and remember that bravery contains fear so don't fret. There are extraordinary people out there filled with love and kindness. See who they are for you. The only way to find out is by not always being strong, it is by asking and depending on them. So try again and again and again and I promise you, you will find dependable. No one can do it alone and you deserve dependable.
Ask ...
Tremble if you must, but ask ...
