The Trap of Independence

Lately, a theme has been coming to me. It started with a vision of mycelium connecting an abundant garden full of Trees of Life. One of the most poignant themes for me throughout these years has been how to connect with others. Not leeching off others, not asking others to carry me, but finding that healthy balance of support.

I think one of the great initiations of our time is that we are being asked to distinguish independence from sovereignty.

For generations, independence has been praised as maturity. Be self-sufficient. Need no one. Carry your own weight. Solve your own problems. Never become a burden. Taken to the extreme, we have become remarkably efficient at separating ourselves from one another. And this extreme has come with a price: we no longer remember what it means to have a healthy relationship with each other.

Some might call it freedom, but my embodied experience tells me otherwise. For me, at least, it has been adaptation.

Independence often grows from a nervous system that learned it was safer to rely only on itself. It whispers, “If I don’t need anyone, I cannot be disappointed. I cannot be abandoned. I cannot be controlled.”

This hypervigilance is also something that hardens our heart space. There is no room for softness because softness has often meant, “You are not strong.”

I do see the gift of knowing how to stand on your own feet. Just yesterday I was contemplating the gift of solitude I was given some years back. I could not have found myself surrounded by other lost souls. I needed my hermitage to first hear myself, to come back to Life itself. And now I do feel ready to meet others too.

Being strong all the time easily becomes a prison. Lately, I have dreamt of a prison, a small cage that doesn’t actually look very sturdy. It looks like something I could simply step out of. And this is what I’m doing now.

The sad truth is that the very walls that kept pain out also kept nourishment from coming in. They stood between the ebb and flow, between receiving and giving, between myself and universal abundance.

And what I see as a gift right now is interdependence. It asks something much more vulnerable.

Not dependence.

Not losing ourselves.

Not merging into unhealthy enmeshment.

It asks whether we can remain fully ourselves while allowing others to become part of our ecosystem, the endless mycelium of interconnectedness that weaves through all living beings. Our true nature.

A forest is not a collection of independent trees.

Every tree is rooted in its own place, yet beneath the soil runs the mycelial web. Nutrients move toward weakness. Warnings travel ahead of danger. Water is shared. Even the strongest trees survive because the forest exists.

No tree loses its identity because it participates in the whole. A healthy forest is full of life. No tree needs to suffer alone.

I’m feeling into the idea that humans were never meant to become isolated individuals competing for survival. We were designed more like living ecosystems.

The omnipresent paradox is that true interdependence actually requires greater individuality, not less. We need to stand on our own feet, knowing who we are. Only then can we truly engage in authentic relationship with the whole.

If I abandon myself to belong, that is dependence.

If I reject everyone to preserve myself, that is isolation.

Interdependence is the middle path.

“I know who I am.

You know who you are.

And together we become something neither of us could become alone.”

One plus one has always been more than two.

Many of the old centralized structures are showing their fragility. At the same time, the answer may not be radical individualism either. The invitation seems to be toward remembering smaller, living networks of trust. Communities where gifts circulate naturally. Knowledge is shared. Food is grown together. Children belong to many caring adults. Elders are valued. People ask for help without shame and offer it without keeping score. People are not afraid to need, nor are they stingy in what they offer.

Life itself thrives through reciprocity. We are here to serve one another and the greater good of humanity. But perhaps the most important form of service is what is closest to you. Wars begin to end when we remember what it means to love our neighbour.

Even our bodies remind us of this. No organ declares independence. The heart does not compete with the lungs. The liver does not keep its resources for itself. Each fulfills its own purpose while serving the whole, and in doing so receives what it needs in return.

Maybe this is the shadow we are beginning to outgrow.

The illusion that strength means standing alone. Thinking that softness means weakness.

In my opinion, the new maturity is something quieter.

Knowing when to give. Being able to receive. Letting our roots grow deep enough into ourselves that they can finally intertwine with the roots of others, not from fear, but from trust.

Life has always evolved through relationship.

And perhaps that is what this time is asking of us:

To come closer.

And to trust one another.