Relearning Dependence
A few years ago, I read a book called The Four Levels of Attachment. It explained that not all attachment is the same, and that as we grow emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, our attachments are meant to mature. They move from survival-based dependence into conscious, value-based connection.
The writer described how attachment evolves over time and how suffering often comes from remaining attached at a lower level, while life and growth is calling us higher; how much of our suffering comes from remaining emotionally, mentally, or spiritually attached to a level we were never meant to stay in. Growth calls us upward, but attachment often pulls us backward toward what feels familiar, comfortable, and safe. The tension between those two realities can become painful. Not because change itself is cruel, but because we often resist releasing what once defined us, even when life is clearly demanding expansion.
As I sat with that thought, I began noticing how deeply this pattern shows up in everyday life around us—and within myself too, if I am being honest. In one way or another, most of us know what it feels like to cling to something long after it has stopped serving our growth.
We attach ourselves to entertainers.
To sports teams.
To routines.
To institutions.
To systems.
To people.
And while attachment itself isn’t wrong, misplaced attachment often leads to disappointment, suffering, and shallow experiences. Sometimes our dependence looks like clinging to things that yield no fruit; no lasting value, only comfort and pleasure. Those things aren’t inherently bad but eventually, there comes a realization: comfort is not enough. Life continues beyond what soothes us, distracts us, or makes us feel momentarily okay.
That realization forced me to look inward, because before being called to sever and surrender, I was attached to many things without fully realizing how deeply rooted those attachments had become. Music kept my mood elevated; books kept my mind stimulated; the gym regulated both my mental and physical health and people filled the spaces where loneliness threatened to creep in. So much of what I considered “stability” was actually being reinforced externally.
Then, without warning, I was stripped away from nearly all of it.
There was suddenly nothing left to soothe me, distract me, or soften the reality of what I was experiencing; physically, mentally, but even more deeply, spiritually. Strangely, the very things I would normally reach for began making me feel worse, not better. What once comforted me no longer reached me in the same way.
It would take weeks, maybe months even, to fully explain what happened during that period, and perhaps I will eventually. But one of the hardest parts was realizing that the people closest to me could only meet the version of me they had previously known: the version rooted in laughter, ease, familiarity, and comfort and what hurt most was not necessarily their absence; though that did cut deep, it was realizing how much of my stability had been outsourced.
Everything I had grown accustomed to, everything I believed shaped my personality and identity, was stripped away and in that stripping, YAH revealed something gently but clearly:
My identity was never rooted in people, places, or things.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you prove what is that good and well-pleasing and perfect desire of Elohim.”
Through immersing myself in scripture and praying almost obsessively, I began learning a difficult truth: I could no longer depend on those things the way I once had, because I was never meant to build my foundation on them in the first place.
So YAH began reteaching me dependence.
Not dependence on distractions.
Not dependence on routine.
Not dependence on people to constantly fill the silence.
Dependence on Him.
“But what might have been a gain to me, I have counted as loss, because of Messiah. What is more, I even count all to be loss because of the excellence of the knowledge of Messiah יהושע my Master, for whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them as refuse, in order to gain Messiah,”
And in that process, He was not cruel. He did not leave me abandoned in the wilderness of detachment. He placed people around me who prayed with me and for me when I did not have language for what I was carrying. He positioned me in spaces He deemed safe; spaces quiet enough for healing, stretching, confrontation, and growth without constant distraction. Slowly, what felt like isolation became refinement.
What He was removing was not simply comfort. He was uprooting misplaced reliance.
And in its place, He gave me something far greater: A growing passion for purpose—His purpose. A life no longer sustained by temporary escapes, but by the One I should have depended on all along.
“My being, find rest in Elohim alone, Because my expectation is from Him. He alone is my rock and my deliverance, my strong tower; I am not shaken. My deliverance and my esteem depend on Elohim; The rock of my strength, my refuge is in Elohim. Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; Elohim is a refuge for us. Selah.”
What comforts are you clinging to that no longer sustain you?
What has YAH removed to grow you?
Where has comfort delayed your elevation?
