Why Independence In Relationships Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
- Aug 6, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 15, 2024
Colleen & Dana are well-established healers and coaches. They are the creators of The Black Belt Mind, NAP, & YIM, incorporating Colleen’s Traditional Chinese Medicine training and Dana’s extensive coaching & martial arts experience into systems you can use to improve your health, career, and every relationship in your life in unprecedented ways.
We’ve all been taught the value of independence; the joy of it; the power of it. There is no question that it allows you to live life on your own terms and lets you recognize your own value. Compared to codependence, the state that so many of us have been trained into, the shift up to independence is indeed a useful one. But ultimately, independence isn’t the destination: it’s just a stopping point along the way.
What is codependence?
Codependence is the bottom rung of the ladder, and for our purposes today, there is a very simple way to define it: Lose/lose.
Codependence is living in a state of knee-jerk reactions. It’s replying, when someone winces at seeing a black eye, with “yeah, well you should see the other guy.” The idea is simple: you may have lost, but you made sure the other person lost as well. Compared to this, independence is a glorious place to be.
What is independence?
Independence is a definite step up, and the basic way to define it in this context is: Win/lose.
This is part of why independence feels so good. After being taught that the best you can hope for is making someone else lose while you lose too, the idea of winning is a glorious, heady thing.
In a state of independence you can make your own decisions, put your own needs and goals first, decide how and where you want to win, and then make sure that you get there. Independence is the place where we practice getting our desires met; make sure our wellbeing is put first; and feel the ego-boosting, self-affirming pleasure of winning.
Why independence stops feeling good
The challenge, though, is that independence is not a state we’re designed to stay in. It’s a transitional state.
The problem is that in this way of being, we are governed by the idea that for one individual to win, another individual has to lose.
It’s an ego-driven concept, and compared to the frustration of co-dependence, the pleasure of individualism is only surpassed by the pleasure of winning. Whether it’s politics, a quiz show, or a little league game, it’s obvious: we all love to win.
Once we get comfortable in an independent state, we have the space to look around at the people we care about and want them to experience the same thing we’re feeling, so in an act of selflessness, we let the win/lose shift in their favour.
This in itself can feel good for a period of time, but then eventually the ego isn’t bolstered enough by knowing that the person we care about is happy, and we reach for the ego hit of winning again. Then we feel badly that we’ve been winning and we allow ourselves to lose so they can win. It’s a never-ending cycle, it’s not satisfying long-term, and it’s exhausting.
So what’s a better alternative?
Luckily, there is a better option. We know that our egos love winning, and we know that there are tangible benefits to it as well. We also know that we don’t want to slide back into codependence, so every time we lose, we can feel the energy of lose/lose tugging at us. We know we need to reach for something more, to create something bigger and better.
That means that we need to allow ourselves to realize that there is something outside of the idea that if someone is going to win, someone else has to lose. That alternative is interdependence.
What is interdependence?
Put simply, it is: Win/win.
In an interdependent way of being, we can use all of the things we have learned, to make sure that we get our needs met, our goals reached, our choices listened to. We get to make sure that we are safe, and well, and thriving. We get to win. And we get to offer the other person the same thing.
Interdependence is simply doing everything that feels good and useful to make sure that we win, and doing the same for the other person, whether that person is your partner, your co-worker, your child, a friend, or a stranger.
Interdependence allows us the energy and excitement of winning, but it offers it twice. We get the joy of moving ourselves forward, and we also get the joy of watching the other person move forward.
What if the other person doesn’t want to move forward?
They may not. They may still be in a codependent, lose/lose mindset, or they may be stuck in independence and think that your winning means they automatically need to shift to a losing position. They may not realize that their winning won’t adversely impact you or someone else. They may not understand what you’re offering them or know how to accept it, and that’s their choice. But you can certainly offer it, and you can certainly keep offering it.
Win/win creates progress by creating safety
The more you’re dedicated to making sure you win, the safer you’ll feel. The more you’re dedicated to making sure that the people around you win, the safer they’ll feel. Building your family, your friends, your workplace into places of interdependence creates a sense of momentum and fosters co-operative individuality.
This isn’t the idea that some people make fun of by saying that everyone gets a special participation badge, so nobody is special. This is the idea that if everyone gets to win in the ways that are important to them, it allows us all to focus our energy on moving forward quickly, joyously, and, most importantly, together.
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Read more from Colleen Robinson & Dana Pemberton
Colleen Robinson & Dana Pemberton, Wellness and Leadership Strategists
Dana and Colleen bring partnership to a whole new level in their work together. Vastly different in many ways, they deliver their own brand of magic to the groups, companies, and individuals they work with across North America. Colleen’s experience as a Chinese Medicine Practitioner, fascination with the intersection between science and spirituality, and focus on healing combines with Dana’s “boots on the ground” approach based on a lifetime of martial arts training (he started at age 3) and several decades of coaching. Together, their focus is to help you find and clear the old patterns that are holding you back, and replace them with simple concepts you can apply to move forward with ease.
