♪ Intro Music ♪
Hello there ...
All of our relationships are a reflection
of our relationship with ourself.
The way we feel in our relationships
are a reflection of the way we feel
in the relationship with ourselves.
Many Self-Help Gurus and Spiritual Teachers
have taught their disciples this
and then proceeded to lead them on the path
of taking personal responsibility
for their life and their relationships.
But then, they usually take it one step further
and they guide their disciples, or people they're teaching,
into a space of self-sufficiency and independence.
What they tell them is
that everything you need, you must provide for yourself.
This expert advice tells you that happiness and love
should come from within
and should never be dependent upon
what anyone else does or does not do.
It tells you that your well-being
is not anyone's responsibility. It's YOUR responsibility.
It tells you that every person
needs to look after himself or herself
and that we need to learn to distance ourselves emotionally
from others
so that we can remain undisturbed by other people.
This modality teaches us
that if we can't keep an even keel,
remaining emotionally detached from them
and be completely, independently, happy
something is wrong with us
and we are enmeshed with others or co-dependent.
All forms of Dependency are seen as Deficiency.
'Need for other people' is seen as an addiction to other people.
Following this traditional model,
one begins to build a model of the world,
that is, for lack of a better word, lonely.
We begin to feel as if we are in this life alone,
and like it's inappropriate to ask others
for what we want and need.
We begin to believe
that it is wrong to rely on other people
or depend on them in any way.
We are told that if we need other people
it's co-dependency.
>From a biological perspective,
dependency is not a preference, it's a fact.
Putting the fact that we depend
on the Earth and its resources
for our survival aside,
let's take a look at the biology of relationships.
When we become attached to someone,
the two of us now form one physiological unit.
In truth, we have this relationship with all that Is,
but it is now proven that our partner
is able to regulate our heart rates, breathing,
and the level of hormones in our blood.
Our partner's availability and proximity to us
influences our stress response.
Our sense of differentiation is reduced,
even on a biological level,
when we develop a relationship with them.
This reduction of differentiation
is the reflection of the fact
that when we are in a relationship,
we come closer to understanding and experiencing Oneness.
We also have the psychological phenomena
called: The Dependency Paradox
which is, that when we have someone to depend on,
we, paradoxically, become more independent.
You can see this highlighted through children.
If we have a small toddler
who's formed an attachment with a primary caregiver,
and you set them down in the room,
what you'll notice is the child
begins crawling around and exploring the new environment.
They're picking up toys,
they're basically taking independent steps
in that new environment.
When their primary caregiver leaves that environment
and closes the door,
the child ceases its independent exploration
and now becomes distressed.
They'll start crying, they start yelling for Mommy,
and they're seeking to re-attach to that attachment figure.
When the mother or the primary caregiver
steps back into the room
what you'll notice is the child,
after a brief phase of reconnecting with the parent,
goes back to its initial phase of exploration
and of ...
wandering through the environment
with a relative degree of independence.
So what we find is that in adult relationships,
we're no different.
Our ability to move out into the world
in a self-sufficient manner
often stems from knowing that we have
someone backing us up or standing beside us
that we can count on.
If we feel secure that we can rely on the person
or people that we're attached to,
we're able to take risks,
be more creative,
and pursue our goals.
The Self-Help Community and the Spiritual Community
is littered with people
whose needs were not met by their primary caregivers
or successive relationships in their life.
Take a look at the word 'Self-Help'
One does not turn to themselves for help
unless they have no one else to turn to.
And one turns to Spirituality for solace
when that solace is not being provided for them
by the physical dimension,
or by the people in their physical reality.
These people already operate under the unhealthy belief
that their needs cannot be met by others
because they have never known a day
when their needs
They have to grow up in an atmosphere of survival,
and they have figured out that the only way to survive
was to disconnect from others, turn inward,
and become completely self-reliant for everything.
This is a problem when they still desperately crave
intimate connection and symbiosis with others.
They convince themselves not to want what they want
and to ultimately avoid what they want.
We make a major mistake when we look at independent people.
We think that they completely trust themselves
but this is not the truth.
There's a big difference between distrusting others
and trusting the Self.
It's very easy for people who have been forced
into a position of self-sufficiency to use Spiritual Truths
to bypass their original pain and original grief
to justify their, now, 'compulsion'
to avoid attaching to other people
and to avoid depending on other people.
This belief blinds them to the truth of inter-dependence
and it prevents them from seeing the bigger picture -
a bigger picture where the Universe is trying to provide us
with the opportunity to heal our relationship with ourselves
by mirroring the pain contained
within our relationship with ourselves
through our relationship with others,
instead of trying to push us
into a state of independent self-sufficiency.
It's also very easy for people who are convinced early
that they could not trust or rely on themselves,
to use Spiritual Truth like Inter-dependence
and like Oneness,
to justify turning their life over to other people
and becoming completely, powerlessly, dependent on others.
They, having abandoned themselves over the course of their lives,
are constantly looking for someone to heal
the internal loneliness and grief that they feel
and 'adopt' them.
They too, have grown up in an atmosphere of survival.
They have figured out that the only way to survive
is to completely hook into others
and to become completely reliant on others for everything.
This is a problem
when they still crave an intimate connection with themselves
and still crave an empowered state
where they can trust themselves.
This is a problem
when they continue to abandon and avoid themselves
when they look for someone else to be there - for them.
The Universe will continuously mirror
your relationship with yourself.
It will mirror your resistance to yourself
by continually turning you back towards yourself.
If we distrust ourselves or if we can't rely on ourselves,
the Universe will continually put us in situations
where
through us not being able to rely on other people
or trust other people.
We'll be forced to re-integrate ourselves.
We'll be forced to re-establish a connection with ourselves.
We'll be forced to find out we can trust ourselves
and can rely on ourselves
because
where that's really our only option
is to figure out that we can.
We misinterpret this mirroring
to mean that the Universe is telling us
that we cannot rely on others
and that it is inappropriate to get our needs met through others.
It makes us believe in independence instead of in self-trust.
Independence is a hardened-state that is closed to others.
Self-trust is a soft state that is open to the Self.
Independence is a state of resistance to others
and resisting the relationship with others.
Self-trust is a state of allowing of the Self,
and allowing the relationship with the Self.
It is not wrong to get your needs met by other people.
But, when you are in resistance to yourself
that will mirror throughout your physical experience.
The Universe will seem to push you towards self-sufficiency
and towards being alone with yourself.
It is
by mirroring that you can't trust others.
Only because It wants you to understand
that you can re-establish the relationship with yourself
and meet your needs.
It's trying to put you in the position
where you are completely with yourself and with the way you feel.
Where you release resistance to yourself ...
Where you're there for yourself
in your grief, anger or fear.
Where you feel empowered, in and of yourself,
and where you begin to trust yourself.
If you don't trust yourself,
you will continually try to get
other people to take responsibility for you.
You will continually try to get them
to take the place of the void that is present within you -
the void where
But because of this resistance
which is really focused upon your inability ...
to really rely on yourself and trust yourself,
you cannot be a match to people who can take that space
and take responsibility for you.
All you will manifest is people you can't trust and rely on.
This forces you to heal the relationship with yourself.
But think about it this way:
if you were resistant to yourself
and running from yourself
- trying to avoid yourself -
and trying to find other people
to take responsibility for yourself,
that would be an unhealed state.
And if you are capable of finding somebody
who could take responsibility for you,
that would mean that you would remain
potentially unhealed forever.
The other person would exist as nothing more
than symptom-suppression.
They would take the place of Self Integration.
You would remain a fractured individual.
You would remain in a space where you had abandoned yourself.
You would be divided from yourself.
You could not trust yourself.
It does not suit the Universe for you to stay
in this type of attitude
which is the exact opposite of the integrated, healed, Self.
If you continually try to get other people
to take responsibility for you,
especially by asking them to make you feel better,
you are perpetuating a state of powerless dependence,
self avoidance, and self-distrust.
The Universe doesn't hate you,
you are not alone
and the Universe is not telling you that you can't
depend on other people or other things.
the Universe is really trying to put you in a position
where you can learn that you
Be completely present with yourself,
and depend on yourself.
It is trying to help you heal your relationship with yourself
by leading you towards a relationship with yourself that is good.
To do this,
It must lead you away from your current pattern
of avoiding yourself by powerlessly depending on others.
It is trying to lead you into self-trust and empowered symbiosis.
When it seem like the messages the Universe keeps giving you
is that you can only rely on yourself
and you can only be the one to meet your own needs
and that you can't rely on other people -
which feels like you're alone
and like the weight of the world is on your shoulder alone -
remind yourself that this is not the Universe's message.
The Universe is not trying to get you to believe
that you can't depend on other people.
It's trying to get you to understand
that you
>From there, begin to take more of a pro-active role in your life
This is what most people in society
call taking responsibility for yourself.
Don't do this because
do this because you would live a more joyous life
if you were able to know that you could provide
for your needs,
if you were able to know that you could trust yourself.
Instead of using other people to feel better,
take the time to sit with your emotions -
to truly be with how you feel.
Sit in, and of, those emotions without having to change them.
Don't require them to be different.
This is the process of really being
If you examine human behavior,
most of us are all trying to escape emotions.
That's why we go to that movie,
that's why we watch that porn channel,
that's why we smoke a cigarette -
we want to avoid an emotion.
But when you're trying to avoid an emotion
you are, in essence, avoiding yourself.
What you need to do is the exact opposite.
Show yourself that you're not going to abandon yourself
by completely being in, and of, and with that emotion.
Your emotions are valuable -
they always have something important to convey.
If you avoid your emotions you avoid the truth of yourself.
Taking a pro-active role in yourself
(what we may call 'taking responsibility for yourself')
in this way,
is only meant to reunite and reintegrate you, with yourself.
It is only meant to provide proof that you can trust yourself.
It is not meant to reinforce the belief
that you are in it alone and can only rely on yourself.
It is difficult for people to remove their own pain ...
... negative beliefs and fears ...
from the perspective which they share with the world.
Sometimes a group of people
who have had similar experiences,
who share the same kind of painful perspectives,
gather together and propagate an idea or a perspective
that does not serve the world as much as it hurts it.
This is the case so far
with the Spiritual and Self-Help Community
in this particular belief
that you must be completely self-sufficient
and powerfully independent.
It comes from a place of pain not from a place of freedom.
It is not the kind of thing we want to do
in this Reality in an Inter-dependent Universe,
to guide people into
self-sufficiency and independence
(which is a complete illusion) -
we seek instead, to empower them
by bringing them into the beauty of symbiosis
by empowered symbiosis and by self-trust.
When we feel as if we need other people to meet our needs
because we can't meet our own needs
that means we want to escape ourselves
and we do not trust ourselves.
So it is healthy to learn to reunite with ourselves
and to take responsibility for ourselves
and thus learn that we
When we hate ourselves and resist ourselves,
it is healthy to learn to give love to ourselves.
When we are powerless in our dependence on others,
it is healthy and empowering
to learn that we can be self-sufficient
and depend on ourselves.
But this has nothing to do with other people.
It has nothing to do with whether we can or can't
rely on them to meet our needs.
And if we have the tendency
to avoid intimate relationships with others
and resist inter-dependence with others,
it is healthy to learn that you can depend on others.
It is healthy to learn to ask others for what we need,
and learn that other people can meet our needs
if we let them ...
When we distrust ourselves and resist others
it is healthy to learn to trust others
and allow others into our hearts and our lives.
It is healthy and empowering
to learn that you
and develop symbiotic relationships with them
without disempowering yourself.
The sweet-spot of health in this Universe
rests squarely between two seemingly opposing truths.
We live in an inter-dependent Universe
where all of our needs come to us through other people,
but because this is an inter-dependent Universe
that is all One,
the other people that our needs come to us through -
are ultimately 'us'.
We are merely fragments of the same Whole.
So the question remains:
Are you really depending on other people to meet your needs?
or by depending on other people to meet your needs,
are you ultimately depending on Yourself to meet your needs?
We are not powerless to people and things.
As Creators, we attract these people and things
into our lives in the first place.
Our relationship with them
is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.
And so, we can ultimately trust and rely on ourselves.
We are at our healthiest
when we have a loving and trusting relationship
with ourselves.
We are at our best when we are fully integrated
with ourselves.
We are at our best when our self-love and self-trust
enables us to feel empowered
because we trust ourselves to create a Reality
where our loving relationship with ourselves
reflects out into this Universe
as loving relationships
with people who are dependable, trustworthy,
and whom can develop symbiotic, empowered relationships
with us.
Have a good week ...
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