Practicing Interdependence
Feeling Our Current Moment
In the wake of the 2024 elections and ongoing global polycrisis, I’ve heard people voice heartbreak, frustration, and anger toward politicians and others in leadership roles, along with fear and dread for what the future might hold. I’ve felt these things, too.
Here’s a not-so-hot-take: social disconnection and isolation make all of these feelings worse. I could devote a whole blog post to articulating the numerous, compounding factors that atomize us, but I won’t do that here—I have a hunch you already know them. Sometimes these forces seem inevitable and insurmountable, especially after losses and disappointments. Choosing to distract or numb ourselves with cynicism is a common, understandable reaction. I’ve been there, too.
Understanding Interdependence
Those of you who know me won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve been (re)turning to adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about interdependence, the condition of mutual reliance of 2+ beings on each other. To paraphrase ES, our quality of life and our survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between us and our communities (including people and other life forms). This truth is rich with useful takeaways for our present moment.
What do authentic and generous connections look like?
Interdependence: relying on and mutually supporting one another.
Here’s a slightly hotter take: I believe people are innately generous. There’s something in our hearts that wants us to contribute to other beings, to make generous connections. And these contributions-to-be-made are unique for each one of us—that’s where the authenticity comes from.
Crucially, these authentic, generous connections impact both our quality of life and our survival. These are two distinct, related topics that I’m sure already mean something to you. As a species, our survival requires a massive amount of coordinated, organized action to address the complex crises we face. For us to be able to take these actions, we need an enormous amount of energy which is much easier to muster when we cultivate our emotional, social, and physical well-being (quality of life).
There’s good (interdependent) news here: it feels deeply fulfilling when we make the contributions our heart longs for us to make, especially when we do it with other people. This energizes us (improving our quality of life) while growing the capacity of our communities (improving our chances of survival).
How to Practice Interdependence
So how do we put this principle into practice? It starts with showing up, getting in the game, and being seen. Again ES guides us:
“On so many levels, interdependence requires being seen,
as much as possible, as your true self.” (93)
Take a breath.
It’s a deeply vulnerable choice to be seen as your true self. Showing up to offer yourself to others is uncomfortable and scary, especially when we’re doing it for the first time. This fear is unavoidable, and still, there’s something on the other side that makes it worth doing—both for ourselves and our community.
So the question becomes, how do we want to be with that fear so we can move through it rather than give into it and simply soothe ourselves? Lucky for us, we already have what we need to move through the inevitable fear that arises here: courage. Another hot-ish take of mine—people are innately courageous.
One (interdependent) way to meet this moment is to surround ourselves with people who are on a similar path. When we experience our fears together, we see how normal they are which makes them less overwhelming. We also have people invested in our journey who are there to celebrate our successes, and we get to play the role of celebrator for others. This is one way to grow authentic, generous connections.
Building community through authentic, generous connections is not a quick fix for polycrisis—there is no such thing.
Big questions remain: What should we build? Who do we fight? How will we win? Grace Lee Boggs reminds us, “The illusion of a quick answer leads to burnout.” In the absence of quick answers, we must learn to live the questions. More good news here: deep personal transformation happens in this space of not-knowing. If we let it, uncertainty can lead us to the ripest edges of our growth as people, and thus, as communities.
Coordinating Our Contributions: Community Organizing
Community organizing happens when people come together to make contributions in service of a cause that’s larger than themselves and their immediate family. These contributions can take many forms (e.g. time, money, physical labor, creativity). No matter which form it takes, contribution takes courage. Because of the bubble in which I grew up, I didn’t know that community organizing was even a thing until my second year of college. Since then, some of the most meaningful relationships and experiences in my life have come from showing up and offering my true self in service of a community.
For centuries (at least), organizers have been building people’s power to create new possibilities and transform the world. Today, there is chronic burnout among people working to realize a more just and equitable future. There are also masses of people who want to contribute to that future who are currently feeling isolated, disconnected, and fearful.
I’m here to support people who’ve had limited exposure to community organizing to find their role so that they can:
experience the connection, healing, and transformation that occurs in these spaces, and
contribute to the visionary movements charting our course toward the world we deserve.
Being Interdependent: A Community of Practice
“You don’t choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be.”
- Grace Lee Boggs
Especially now, choosing who we want to be takes courage. For me, being coached made this choice clear and irresistible.
So, this Spring, I’m launching a coaching program for people who are feeling called to go beyond where they’ve been before, to find their interdependent role in community, and to transform themselves in the process.
We are not personally guilty for the pain of the world and we are not personally responsible for its solution. No single person is that powerful. We need each other for the long haul, so we want the connections we build to sustain us for years, not weeks. With the long game in mind, this group will tap into our communal courage, ingenuity, generosity, and endurance.
In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chödrön invokes the famous dharma saying,
“If you want to see what has brought you to this point, look at your past thoughts and actions. If you want to see your future, look at your present thoughts and actions.” (149)
Our culture of isolation has demonstrated its deadliness. Are you ready to focus your present thoughts and actions on interdependence? It’s a hell of a lot easier (and more joyful) when we do it together.