Gurdjieff on Dependency & Identificaton

[Sandra Bishop]

Dear Lewis,
I read in the book In Search of the Miraculous about dependency and identification can you help me understand this more?
Thanks,
Sandy,

[Lewis]

Hello Sandra,
I’ll use and example of how dependency looks like: Frank feels socially inadequate so he ask Howard, his best friend, to accompany him to his sister’s wedding otherwise Frank won’t attend. Now Frank is afraid of not going to the wedding because his sister will never speak to him again and he loves his sister. Dependency works when we do not have the power or courage to face social situations; we feel awkward, embarrassed, uncomfortable, doubtful, shame and fear. So, for Frank to attend the wedding he needs his best friend. Dependency comes about when we can only feel good about ourselves when we get love and approval and when we are unable to do the normal things ourselves. To go beyond dependency we want to achieve self-reliance which is being courageous, coming to self-approval, learning to love oneself and most of all to know-oneself.

Identification comes about when we don’t have our own identity. We identify with the car we drive, the house we purchased, the cool apartment we live in, we identify with our looks, the clothes we wear and our beauty. We identify with our successes or our failures. We imagine that the thing that we identify with is what gives us our power and expresses who we are. If we lose the thing we prize we go into depression. To free our self from being so identified is to learn what is required to find our true identity, that is, becoming the individual who wants to become a master of oneself.

[Author]

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