According to Jason Estes, we have emerged from the world of codependency and are now transitioning into a new stage of forming relationships — interconnectedness with one another.
In different aspects of life, with different people, we are untangling the remaining knots of codependency in order to gain sovereignty and freedom, which will allow us to act based on our true intentions.
And it is from this state that we build new relationships, founded on trust and respect, while feeling unity and interconnectedness with one another.
American psychotherapists say that there are no people who are not codependent; there is only a difference in the degree of codependency.
I have read many books on the topic of alcohol-related codependency. After all, my father was in that state for a long time. And although I didn’t grow up with it, I thought it hadn’t affected me at all, until I saw in one book that workaholism can also manifest as codependency.
My workaholism is codependency in its purest form. Moreover, there was one phrase in that book that rang like a bell inside me: “When you choose books, do you choose them for yourself or to share with someone else?”
And at that moment, I made a promise to myself not to buy any more books just to read them with an audience. If I buy a book, I buy it because I find it interesting. From that moment on, many things began to unravel.
The most interesting part came later, when Maris left, we broke up, and now, looking back, I realized how completely satisfied I was with everything, how evident those threads of codependency were. Because you’re in a couple — compromises, searching for solutions, and often you do many things just to avoid conflict.
But on the other hand, there’s the newly found feeling of self-sufficiency, when you make a choice because it resonates so deeply with you, and you genuinely don’t care how the other person reacted.
This gives an immense feeling of freedom.
And this type of interaction, where we are all codependent with each other — whether it’s fathers, children, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, or colleagues at work — those threads are always there, where approval is needed, even if you’ve worked through your own sense of being “good enough.”
See also [Interactive Article] Books on Codependency
An Important Component of the Feeling of Interconnectedness
This type of relationship is being replaced by another, one that still has so much to be explored and understood. It is interaction while respecting others’ opinions, while respecting others’ boundaries, but while honoring what is important and paramount to you. And within all of this, we need to somehow learn how to interact.
I am a pragmatist, a realist. I am used to — especially with strangers — my opinion being more important to me, and I don’t even discuss certain issues. But over the past few years, I’ve realized that even this part of me has expanded. I can now talk completely freely with people with whom I don’t agree at all on certain matters.
But most people think: “What do you mean? We’re looking for like-minded people, so we have to agree.” And then we start bonding over being against something, and we unite on that basis.
But when you’ve “expanded” — he has the right to believe in whatever he wants. The other question becomes: do I want to interact with him when he believes in that? But learning to talk without accusations is possible.
To do this, you need to cleanse all these codependent elements from yourself and allow for a diversity of opinions in the world, recognizing that they are neither worse nor better than you, nor more important than your opinion. At the same time, there must be a clear inner sense of your own worth and your values, and one is impossible without the other.
And many people get stuck here — they have no understanding of their own values.
How to Feel Interconnected with Each Other
After we have completely freed ourselves from codependency, we will move on to interconnectedness.
It’s harder to feel this with people, but if you feel unity and interconnectedness with nature, with butterflies, with flowers, the rustle of waves, the running sand over dunes, then it’s easier to make the shift.
This feeling is born in the heart. Each of us does our part of the work. If something exists in the world, it exists for a specific reason, and even if you don’t know that reason, it doesn’t mean it’s bad or that you are wrong.
I have this feeling of interconnectedness, not where we are cogs that nothing depends on, but where each person performs their own unique, one-of-a-kind task, the one that only they can do, transmitting a sense of self-worth through the prism of their values. Everyone has their own values.
And when you catch this, when you feel it from someone else, at that moment you realize — I am the same, I am also transmitting, I also have something unique and valuable that I am doing at this very moment.
See also: How to Attain a State of Unity
The Time of Groups or Lone Individuals. The Need for a Group of Like-Minded People
I watched a video by E. Sokalskaya where she talked about what it means to be a child, to be infantile.
When a small child is unhappy about something, they throw a tantrum. They want to eat — they have a tantrum, they don’t like something — they have a tantrum. They don’t know how to separate what is wrong from everything else that is fine; in their head, everything instantly gets lumped together.
I realized that many adults follow this same principle, playing the role of children. If one thing is bad, then everything is lost, everything is terrible, even though in other areas of life things are good here, and good there.
There was a great point made about adolescence. I remember my own teenage years very well, that rebellion.
Teenagers often go through a crisis because the principles they lived by are no longer relevant, and they haven’t built their own yet. This naturally causes a deficit of values, a deficit of selfhood.
This is exactly what we are going through right now. Many of us are in this crisis of a deficit of worth, a deficit of selfhood.
Remember how teenagers deal with this. Some find an idol. Who had posters of various rock bands on their walls in their youth? Some find a significant adult. Maybe a coach at a sports club or someone they often go hiking with.
This is a period when parental authority no longer works, but there is a significant, grounded adult nearby for the teenager, someone who, figuratively speaking, lends them their value system for a while.
And the third option is to unite into groups, to form your own flock. Here it already depends on what direction this group takes, whether it will go down a good path or a bad one.
What option is taking shape for you and me?
It’s hard to create an idol, at least on the Mastery Keys project. My website appeared from an article stating that the time of idols, teachers, and gurus has faded into oblivion. And since then, all these years we’ve been talking about the value of yourself, follow yourself; to understand yourself and your values, look to yourself, not to what others say, no matter how significant those people may be.
Right now, what’s lacking is precisely the feeling of support and unity, which is why many adults have moved into this third point, because they want to feel it.
See also: The need for certain states, energies, and matching vibrations with other people
Interconnectedness vs. Sovereignty
I want to bring you back to those values and to what we’ve been broadcasting on the project year after year — the world begins with me and ends with me.
The world begins with me, I have values that I am aware of, I live according to these values, I have a feeling of self-sufficiency, but not in the sense of not caring what someone says, but rather I attune to a certain frequency of vibration that resonates with me, and everything else is cast aside.
I feel free inside, regardless of whether I’m sitting in my apartment and can’t leave the house. There are many examples of those who sat in cells for many years but were free inside.
So the question is inward: am I in prison, what is pulling me somewhere like a moth to a burning candle? It’s important, even while being in a group, to maintain your sovereignty.
I call us the club of white crows. A white crow stands out from the crowd, differs from others, and realizes that it is a white crow. It feels pride not because it’s cooler, but because it has realized that it is different.
See also: The Sovereign Self and the principle of personal autonomy. How to determine what is acceptable for you
Please write, do you feel a need for like-minded people? Do you feel interconnected with each other?
The article is written based on the broadcast #2 Ask KM