Orson Welles once said 'We're born alone, we live alone and we die alone'. Although many will look at that statement as a pessimistic philosophy of life, I believe Orson was pretty much on the ball with what he said. This month I want to talk about this and the notion of co-dependence which has always been a big problem in the work we do with people. You see, I actually believe that when someone feels dependent on someone else, they have an opportunity to develop themselves wonderfully as they learn to depend on only them selves.

Co-Dependence occurs when a person becomes dependent on someone else in their life. The other person becomes their opportunity to be happy. When the other person is feeling good then so do they. When they are near the other person they get to feel ok. At other times, they can feel lost drifting hopelessly at the mercy of their circumstances. They are afraid of the unknown, to be alone and in their own company.

Co-Dependency often can lead to bullying and negative manipulation by the person being depended on. The key is that when you are co-dependent, you feel that you NEED the other person. In reality, you do not NEED anyone else. Instead, there are people you love having in your life and hate not having in your life. The idea that we need them means that we forget that if they weren't there we would be able to breath, eat, drink and survive in the world without them.

When we are babies we do NEED others around us to make sure we get food and drink. As adults we don't need others to survive. The feeling of neediness comes about because of a variety of different reasons. Sometimes it is from the mistaken idea that ending up alone would be a disaster when in reality it would give you an opportunity to get to know yourself as an individual... not as a part of another person.

Sometimes it is out of our own feelings of inadequacy that we require another person to substitute in and make us feel loved. As long as that person is with us it means we are lovable. Unfortunately, when we make this incorrect assumption, we fail to understand that the fact that a person is with us and is in love with us has nothing to do with how lovable we are.

You see, people can fall in love with ANYBODY. Someone fell in love with Hitler and Stalin etc... What this means is that someone falling in love with you does not make you a better person or mean that you are a better person. Instead all it means is that someone fell in love with you. What's vital to understand is that you must evaluate yourself according to how your best friends would describe you. Think about it. The people that you have close to you in your life think you are great and love you and yet don't think so because they have fallen in love. They think so because they know you and love you for who you are.

When I meet a person initially I either take to them or I don't. Sometimes I get it wrong but often they are either my 'kind of person' or not. That says nothing of their goodness or worth, it's just a preference. When I think about most of my friends I realise that despite how different they are, I love them all because of the person they are deep down. Behind any of the faults that I see and piss me off from time to time I feel like I see the soul of the person and the goodness that's inside them.

I have had people in my life treat me terribly but despite the anger, pain or resentment I felt, I can still manage to see the goodness inside of them. I have also met people who had done many bad things but changed things around and became a really good person and I could see that in them too. I know there are still people out there who are doing bad things and saying bad things and will have wronged me or others but I still believe that deep down they have a good spot. I have also met people who just shined beauty since I have known them. They are the people that from their surface to their soul they just personify love and goodness and kindness and beuaty.

My point is that what lies deep within every single person I believe is the capacity for goodness. That is what makes people lovable. When you do good things and help people and make as many people feel good in the day as possible that makes you better. When you treat yourself like the legend you really are (November 2004 IINLP Newsletter) that makes you better. When you spend time looking for how you can make more of a difference to the world that makes you better. By better I mean that you begin to really unleash the potential you have for good.

This is what I call 'CORE DEVELOPMENT'. Developing your core is the process of behaving internally (the way you talk to yourself and create feelings for yourself) and externally (in your every day actions) in good ways which make you feel proud of yourself. When you are being a mate to yourself and you are doing the right things in the world and helping the world be a better place it is easy to feel good about yourself. When you do this you develop yourself.

Doing this means that there is no real need to 'find yourself' because you accept you were never really lost. Instead, you are simply getting in touch with the potential for goodness in your soul and by inviting that potential to be used, you are developing yourself at the core. This core can then become the safe haven that you return to whenever you evaluate yourself. By treating yourself well and knowing you are doing good things, you'll learn that you don't need anyone at all because the only thing that remains the same throughout everything is your core potential for goodness.

The notion that we are alone does not have to be pessimistic. Instead it can remind you of your uniqueness and individuality. Nobody in the world is quite like you. Nobody in the world has your life. You are the only 'you' ever made. It's important to accept how special this makes you and let this inspire you to develop to your full potential.

You can never rely fully on other people even those who would die for you. You can only know for sure that when you dig deep and let yourself appreciate you true core, then nothing and nobody can take that away from you. Anything external you can learn. If you want to be more stylish you can learn. If you want to be better in relationships you can learn. If you want to be more charismatic you can learn. Regardless of the things which happen in your life, you can always know that you can survive and that you are a good person and that you can deep down always deal with anything.

So many years ago you were born. You met many people through this life. With all of them you survived before you met them and after they left your life. The same is true for anyone in your life right now. The wonderful thing is once you develop your core and release from the co-dependency you once felt, your relationships improve magnificently as does your opportunities to get into more relationships with people because you no longer need them... you just want them. Remember 'If you wanna get what you want, you need to let go of neediness'.

We are born alone, we do live alone and we do die alone... but Orson also said "Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone". This illusion is like the illusion of reality. We do not live in reality, we live through our own reality tunnels. So this illusion we live out every day. In between our birth and death, we meet some amazing and wonderful people, angels and soul mates. They are there to teach us and to share their love with us. Sometimes they stay and sometimes they go. When they go it can be awfully hard to deal with but the bottom line is that you can. The tragic beauty is that the more you care about someone, the more painful it can be when they are no longer with you. But the time that you knew them and they were with you, when you saw their goodness can always be remembered in your heart and mind. It's so important that while they were in your life that you enjoyed their presence and when they go you can move on in the knowledge that change is inevitable and although we are born, live and die alone we do so in a world full of wonderful people (and the odd bollox)!!