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Self-Sufficiency is not the same as Healthy Connection




Pushing myself through some summer reads!  The first is to finish is, "The Circle of Security Intervention, Enhancing Attachment in Early Parent-Child Relationships."  This book and the Circle of Security Parenting program were written and developed by Bert Powell, Glen Cooper, Kent Hoffman, and Bob Marvin.

Being pragmatic, the practical model based on reflection and "being real," with each other is so important.  

This concept of self-sufficiency not being a sign of emotional strength is profound to me.  

Intuitively, I get it.  How to put words to it is another matter entirely.

The authors state, "Genuine autonomy is achieved from within a secure attachment.  Self-sufficiency is not a sign of emotional strength or psychological health, or even a genuine option.  

The core of human consciousness is the potential for rapport of the self with another mind. 'The infant experiences being experienced" (Beebe).  

This is true at the beginning of a person's life and is true to the end; being human requires the experience of being experienced and understood as well as feeling safe enough to be oneself and explore" (Powell, Cooper, Hoffman, and Marvin. 2014, p. xix).


As I walk through some of my own family history, a common theme appears.  We are "survivors!"  Tough homesteaders who stayed on the land and survived.  Stubborn is another common word used to describe my family.  Finally, self-sufficiency has been viewed as the highest character trait to pass to our children.

 We have and will survive.  Will we and have we really connected?  Is our autonomy based on healthy connection or stubborn self-sufficiency?

This point was driven home while facilitating a COS-P class with 12 courageous young parents.  All at varying levels of trust and defensiveness.  I watched their eyes and the hanging of their heads.  Parents who are self-proclaimed "survivors."  Hard workers.  Many had been foster children and have had to "find their own way" through life and parenting.  

I experienced their pain. I hope and pray they experienced being experienced.  I'm blessed to know them.

My world view is shaped by the Bible, and am once again amazed (for some odd reason) how much God wanted us to know how to connect with Him.  To be in Him. 

 How this connection gives us confidence.  

Not within ourselves and our self-sufficiency, rather in the relationship we have with Him and His people.


"…Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."   2 Cor. 3:5



"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5




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