Accepting Powerlessness
Some of us have an easy time accepting the premise in this Step: that we are powerless over others. By the time we get to this Step, we're ready to give up and give in, Others have a struggle accepting powerlessness.
I love this Step. But I hate that I can't control. I hate being vulnerable and helpless. I don't like feeling uncomfortable or being in emotional pain. I get sick of having to detach and surrender. But the love affair with this Step comes in when I admit the truth. I am powerless over much in life, and when I try to have power where I have none, I get crazy. I can't control others, no matter how much I want to, no matter how much better I think I know what's right for them.
I can't control what others do, think, or feel, whether or how they choose to interact with me, whether or when they choose to grow and change, and whether or when they choose to recover from their addictions.
Sometimes I can't control myself.
I'm powerless over the backlog of feelings and negative beliefs I've accumulated. I'm powerless over my own and other people's addictions, including addictions to alcohol and misery. I can't control my children or other people's children. I'm powerless over results, life, circumstances, events. I can't control the course of relationships. I can't control timing.
God, I wish I could control timing.
But I can't.
When I try to control myself by rigidly repressing my thoughts and feelings, I lose myself. I fall deeper into the pit of myself and the morass of codependency.
When I try to control other people, I make them and myself crazy. When I try to control addictions, the addictions control me. When I try to control what others think of me, I turn into a puppet on strings. Controlling makes me and others crazy. It puts me under the control of whatever I'm trying to influence, I lose myself. I lose touch with myself.
And other people get angry with me and tend to back off.
When I try to control situations and circumstances, I set up blocks to events moving forward. When I spend my time and energy trying to have power when I have none, I lose my ability to live my own life.
Controlling sets up a peculiar energy. People can feel it — even if we're just thinking about it and not acting on it. People react to it — sometimes by deliberately doing what we are trying to make them stop doing, or not doing what we are trying to make them do. It's an energy controlled by fear.
It's natural to want to control others, especially when they're hurting themselves or us, or when things aren't working out to our liking. But it isn't our job to take care of others — to take care of their feelings, thoughts, decisions, growth, and responsibilities. It is our job to do that for ourselves.
Step One does not imply irresponsibility or helplessness. We are not saying, "I can't help myself because of what others are doing or have done to me." We are saying the opposite: that we are responsible for ourselves and our affairs. Others are responsible for themselves and their affairs — whether or not we like how they are handling them.
We are responsible for ourselves, for directing our life energy toward our path, for creating a wholesome, fulfilling life for ourselves. When we become open to allowing that to happen, then it will.
We are responsible for stopping our own pain, facing and dealing with our own fears, saying no, giving ourselves what we need, setting boundaries we need to set, and making choices and decisions we need to make to take care of ourselves — in any circumstance or situation.
We are not victims.
When we accept powerlessness, we will become empowered to take care of ourselves. When we begin taking care of ourselves, we will begin living our lives, and all that is meant to come to us will be ours. When we stop controlling others, we can allow and trust them to live their lives.
This Step grounds us in reality and in ourselves. It centers us. It balances us. It brings us back home to ourselves.
When we stop controlling, things fall into place. And we find that our place in this world is a good place. Eventually, we become grateful for the way things work out because it's better than what we could have accomplished with our controlling behavior.
We are powerless over so much more than anyone taught us. Accepting that means we're free to own our true power in life, which is also so much more than anyone told us. We have power to think, feel, solve problems, set boundaries, set and reach goals, create, heal, take care of and love ourselves unconditionally, and love those around us unconditionally.
What am I powerless over? Almost everything I want to control.
The Detachment Step
The First Step is the Step that helps us begin detaching — a recovery concept that means we release and detach from others — lovingly, whenever possible.
This Step helps us begin to identify the proper use and abuse of willpower. We begin feeling instead of running from our emotions. We identify how we have neglected ourselves, so we may better love ourselves in any circumstance.
It is the first step toward removing ourselves as victims of others, of ourselves, of life.
This is the Detachment Step.
This Step is about boundaries. We learn the limits and extent of ourselves and our responsibilities. We learn to identify what we can and cannot do. We learn to identify when we're trying to do the impossible or trying to do that which is not our job.
Then, we stop doing the impossible and focus our attention on the possible — living our own lives, taking care of ourselves, feeling and responding appropriately to our feelings. We can love ourselves and others without feeling the overwhelming need to control and manipulate them and their situations to our liking.
Often, this Step puts us in touch with our feelings: feelings of fear, hurt, or shame. It puts us in touch with grief. At first, this Step can feel dark and frightening. It doesn't have to, not for long. It renders us powerless over what we cannot control, so we can become empowered. Once we accept whatever loss or area of powerlessness we're facing, we're free to feel and deal with our feelings, then move forward with life.
We'll take this Step when we're ready. When we're worn out, when we've exerted all our attempts to manage and control, when we're tired of feeling crazy and fighting battles we cannot win, we'll surrender. When it's time, this Step will find us and do its work.
Let it. Let it bring us home. Let it take the burden of controlling and feeling so responsible for others off our backs. Let the peace, relief, and comfort of this Step sink in.
Detach. Detach from the fear. Detach from the need to control. Focus on ourselves, and let ourselves be. Stop trying so hard and doing so much, when doing so much doesn't work.
Love and accept ourselves, as is, no matter what our present circumstances. The answer will come. The solution will come. But not from trying so hard.
The answer will come from detachment.
We are powerless over others, and our lives have become unmanageable. And for now, that's all we need to be. That's who we are, and it's good enough.
Become sensitive to feelings of powerlessness and unmanageability. Become sensitive to what it feels like — on the overt and the more subtle levels.
Take this Step in the beginning of recovery. Then take it again as needed. Take it whenever the codependent crazies set in. Take it whenever we believe that things are out of control and our lives are a mistake. Take it when we find ourselves taking care of others and wondering if we have a right to take care of ourselves. Take it when we start ignoring our feelings. Take it when we start obsessing about others or worrying about our future or the future of another. Take it when we start believing others control our happiness.
Take it when we neglect ourselves.
Take it when we get stuck.
When we don't know what to do next, we can take this Step.
Think about it. Let it sink in. Let it define us, and our present and past circumstances. Let it heal, help, and comfort. It always brings us home — to ourselves, to reality, and to mastering the spiritual lesson in our current circumstances.
The first word in this First Step is we. Self-acceptance, based on this simple definition of ourselves, feels good. We are not alone, not anymore. There are many of us practicing this Step daily. There are many of us who share the problem. We may have felt alone, but we are not unique in our pain or our dilemma. Neither are we isolated in our solution. There is power in the community of recovery, power in taking this Step in the privacy of our own homes, and in group settings with others. We come together in this Step, as a "we," to share our common problem and solution. The sharing in community makes the problem grow smaller and the solution more imminent.
There is a place I get to in my relationships with people, and life, that is dark and ineffective. It is a place ruled by fear and an instinctive desire to control.
I have done it overtly — trying to control an alcoholic's drinking by focusing my life around that person.
I have done it quietly — trying to control and repress my feelings, trying to control a particular situation, ferreting into myself until I barely existed, repeating unsuccessful similar efforts to solve a problem, or pretending a particular problem doesn't exist. I get to that dark place when I allow others to control me or when I allow negative beliefs or unresolved feelings from my past to control me.
I get to that place when I don't do what I need to do to take care of myself with people, because I am afraid to do so.
This Step takes me out of that dark place. It helps me remember who I am. I can't control others, and I get crazy when I try to. I don't have to control others. I don't have to take care of them. I don't have to control life, or situations, for life to work.
It is safe now to trust. It is safe now to detach. I can accept myself, my problems, my current situation, and all my unmanageability. I can detach, because holding on so tightly doesn't work. I can relax and just be me. And I can love, accept, and take care of myself.
The first time I took this Step on my codependency issues, when it really sank down from my head to my soul, it brought freedom and the gift of detachment. For the first time, I understood, in my heart, that I could not control another. This Step brought relief and the ability to begin tending to the affairs of my own life.
This Step still brings relief, each time I take it.
This Step gives us permission to be who we are. This is the Step where we accept ourselves, our powerlessness, and our present circumstances, in peace, grace, and trust that all is, and will be, well.
We surrender. Then we watch as manageability sets in.
This Step takes us to a safe place, a comfortable place. Let ourselves go there, as often as we need to. We can trade in lives based on fear, control, and shame for lives that are manageable.
Each Step has its own work to do in our lives. Each Step is important,
The work, the healing, begins with the First.
Activities
1. Have you been trying to exert power or influence where you may, in reality, have none? Have you been trying to control someone or something, trying harder and harder with less and less beneficial results?
2. Who or what in your life is making you feel crazy and causing you stress? Whom do you feel victimized by? Who do you feel is now controlling you, your emotions, or some other area of your life? What situations, feelings, or realities have you been running from, denying, or avoiding?
3. What would you have to face in your own life if you stopped trying to control someone or something? What might happen if you stopped allowing someone or something to control you?
4. What are some areas in your life that may reflect unmanageability? What is your current condition in these areas: emotions, finances, spirituality, physical health, career? What are you doing for fun, pleasure, and enjoyment?
5. What is the current state of your relationships with these people: family, friends, co-workers. Do you have any relationships, or are you feeling alone and isolated?
6. Does your mind feel clear and consistent? Who are you holding responsible for your emotions, finances, and health? Who are you holding responsible for the state of your relationships?
7. What are you doing in your life that you feel resentful about? What do you feel you have to do but don't want to? In what areas of your life do you feel you have no choices, no options? Who or what is trapping you? Whom do you most want to say something to? Why do you feel you can't say it?
8. What is the particular incident that propelled you to begin attending a Twelve Step group? If attending for a time, what is the issue that has been plaguing you most recently? Who or what are you most Worried about? When was the last time you did something loving and nurturing for yourself? Is there someone in your life that you feel is causing you misery? Do you feel that if he or she behaved differently, you would be happy?
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Copyright © 1990 by Melody Beattie
About the Author
Melody Beattie is the author of numerous books about personal growth and relationships, drawing on the wisdom of Twelve Step healing, Christianity, and Eastern religions. With the publication of Codependent No More in 1986, Melody became a major voice in self-help literature and endeared herself to millions of readers striving for healthier relationships. She lives in Malibu, California.
More by Melody Beattie In this book
» Step One
» Other Stories of Unmanageability
» The Roots of Control
» Accepting Powerlessness, The Detachment Step
Related Topics
Addictions
Self-Esteem
Reflection and Self Discovery
