Facing the Wish for Dependency and Dominance
The heart of the internal work is to sort through our way of relating to those people who have some power over us and those people whom we have power over. Stated more simply, we must discover how to resolve our wishes for dependency and for dominance.
Dependency is the belief that my safety, my self-esteem, and my freedom are in the hands of other people. If we are children, safety, self-esteem, and freedom are realistically under our parents’ control. When we reach the age of consent, responsibility for our well-being shifts into our own hands. This assumption of responsibility is ritualized by society in giving us the right to vote, the right to defend our country, the right to enter into legal ...
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