How Relationship Helps Recovery

I was brought up an individualist in a conservative family that had liberal values, and believed in competition. If you had a problem you worked it out on your own. If you were bullied you fought back until the bully relented.

Only that didn't work with the grey devil of depression. It took me decades to understand that the road to recovery is in relationship.

Individualism depends on competition, not cooperation. When you do cooperate, you do it to advance your own interests! Extreme individualism is brutal, and it is easier to be individualist when you have a lot of resources and power behind you.

But individualism, at least extreme individualism, is a myth.

We didn't drop from a tree. We were nurtured by family.

We didn't teach ourselves and when we got into trouble others helped us out.

I didn't build my university. I didn't write my courses.

I didn't create my jobs.

I didn't pave the roads I drove to my work.

And when I fell in love it wasn't with myself.

There are many times when I have retreated into nature to heal. There I found company in great friendly rocks, beautiful smells, warmth and the buzz of insects. I was not in a cocoon. I was in relationship.

And when I am really alone in the dead of night and the devil of my mind is giving me a hard time I find help, support and love, from my relationship with the divine.

So that's my thesis; there is no recovery possible without relationship, but with relationship there is power love and recovery.