My reading with Susanne Wilson a week ago has me wondering about my life lessons. What am I here to learn? One of the themes that keeps recurring my life is my need for validation. I suspect there is something around that, but I’m still not quite able to put my finger on it.
When I was younger, I was called “the sensitive one” by my family. I need lots of validation, attention, affection. These are things I did not get in my family as that’s just not the kind of family I was born into. I learned how to cope without the human touch I needed, the “atta boys”, the pats on the back, but the craving never went away.
One of the great things about being a Dad was having two little ones who depended on me and who I knew if I said “I love you.” to them, I always got an immediate and sincere “I love you, too.” right back. I’m seeing now in a very real sense I was very dependent on those girls. I was guaranteed at least a huge and a kiss good night every night when they were here. Ahhhh.. those were good days. I got my needs met big time. With Kayla off at college and Shayna passed from the physical realm, there is a majorly big hole in my life right now.
As I write this I realize that I write for multiple reasons. Some of it is catharsis, some of it is to carry on Shayna’s legacy, some of it is to help others. But, every time I post one of these entries, I wonder “Am I reaching anyone? Is this doing any good? Does this even make sense?” I hit the “Post” button, then I keep checking for feedback, Likes on Facebook or even better, a comment. When I don’t get any feedback the self doubt comes flooding in.
So, there is something about this I think I’m supposed to learn, but I’m not sure what it is. There is independence, codependence and interdependence. None of us is an island. As much as Americans value our “independence”, we are not and cannot be independent beings. It’s not who we were made to be. Codependence isn’t good either. It’s the other extreme. We do have to learn to get value from within ourselves, to trust ourselves, to believe in ourselves. Not all of our validation can come from outside. Interdependence is the understanding that we are all connected, we are all One, we rely on each other. I get the feeling I’m wobbling between independence and codependence, trying to find that balance that is interdependence. I’d like to get that lesson right this time around.
