Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

, yes? Yes.But getting sober didn’t immediately stop me from handing my power over to a string of less than stellar partners not to mention nasty bosses, inept bureaucracies, rude customer service reps, demeaning “friends”, unpaid bills, or tests I hadn’t really bothered to study for. For years I walked around with a constant <a href="https://readmedium.com/you-cant-talk-to-me-that-way-91f29d6c38b0">committee meeting</a> going on between my ears. I may have been powerless over the initial instigators of that endless yammering, but eventually, I discovered that I do have complete agency when it comes to my reaction to those nimrods.<h2 id="9537">Ground to gain</h2>This isn’t to say that I’m any paragon of mental stability or that I can let their garbage roll off my back as if I’m a gigantic Teflon duck or anything. I can still fall into old traps.Speaking only for myself here, but even after having established my basic state of powerlessness, I can still keep giving my power to lowlifes such as that failed real estate developer-in-chief power (I will say I’ve made some inroads there or I’d be running around breaking windows and howling at the moon).Here’s one of my classic moves that I still find myself doing. See if it sounds familiar. I will work hard to anticipate my partner’s every whim and provide him with everything he doesn’t yet know he wants, but obviously does, so that he will then provide me with endless reassurance of my worth as well as limitless, unconditional love. I’m talking decades of hard-core recovery work here, friends, and I’ll occasionally find myself desperate to fill the empty spot with his words or actions.But it’s not an AleXander-shaped hole.Only I have

Options

the power to give myself genuine self-love and self-respect. Only I have the agency to shrug at things that are just vibrating to start chewing on my brain. Only I can fully understand and accept that I have worth in this world. And without those I am always out to sea, thrashing around desperate to have someone, something else fill that aching emptiness in me. And so I toss away that one power, the power to care for myself, in one vain bid after another to get someone else to do it for me.Ask me how well that has ever worked out.<figure id="40df"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*kGdDsl5SEMePS1A1_lLBpw.png"><figcaption>The woman who taught me all the good stuff, <a href="https://readmedium.com/i-dont-delete-my-dead-23d14e7f57e3">Lee Powell</a>, may she rest in peace</figcaption></figure>What has worked out is my old friend, <a href="https://readmedium.com/radical-acceptance-a612a0c10cb">radical acceptance</a>. It’s not easy. It never came to me naturally and still can be a tough sell. But it’s probably the most valuable work I’ve done in reclaiming valuable mental and emotional real estate. I’m a much better partner because of that work and have even been able to be a worker among workers. Who saw that coming?If any of this resonates and you find yourself talking back to the committee at 3 am, waking your partner, and spinning your wheels, I recommend that you learn to shrug, laugh lovingly at your silly ass self, and ask someone else how they’re doing. Oh, and then actually listen. A word of caution, however, this ain’t one and done. It’s the work of a lifetime and well worth the effort.Ready?© Remington Write 2020. All Rights Reserved.</article></body>

If I’m Powerless

How am I still giving my power away?

At first glance, this sounds like a koan along the lines of what’s the sound of one hand clapping or what did you look like before your parents were born, that kind of thing.

The core tenet of the traditional 12-step program of recovery is admitting that one is powerless over whatever and that life has become unmanageable. Pithy, isn’t it? However, it doesn’t take vomiting in public or being caught shoplifting diluted grocery store vodka to realize that the list of things that any of us is powerless over is dauntingly long. You can start with the weather and your boss’s crappy attitude and go from there.

So here I sit, without power and yet somehow I still have this sorry habit of giving others, people and institutions and even concepts, the power to set up rent-free real estate in my head.

If I’m powerless what is that I keep giving away?

Power and agency

Being powerless over the substance that was rotting my life out at the core came with a nifty added feature. It never occurred to me that I had agency in the relationships I kind of rolled into back in my years of active addiction. I willingly did as I was told and apologized abjectly for the infractions I’d commit.

We can agree that this kind of behavior is part of that whole package, yes? Yes.

But getting sober didn’t immediately stop me from handing my power over to a string of less than stellar partners not to mention nasty bosses, inept bureaucracies, rude customer service reps, demeaning “friends”, unpaid bills, or tests I hadn’t really bothered to study for. For years I walked around with a constant committee meeting going on between my ears. I may have been powerless over the initial instigators of that endless yammering, but eventually, I discovered that I do have complete agency when it comes to my reaction to those nimrods.

Ground to gain

This isn’t to say that I’m any paragon of mental stability or that I can let their garbage roll off my back as if I’m a gigantic Teflon duck or anything. I can still fall into old traps.

Speaking only for myself here, but even after having established my basic state of powerlessness, I can still keep giving my power to lowlifes such as that failed real estate developer-in-chief power (I will say I’ve made some inroads there or I’d be running around breaking windows and howling at the moon).

Here’s one of my classic moves that I still find myself doing. See if it sounds familiar. I will work hard to anticipate my partner’s every whim and provide him with everything he doesn’t yet know he wants, but obviously does, so that he will then provide me with endless reassurance of my worth as well as limitless, unconditional love. I’m talking decades of hard-core recovery work here, friends, and I’ll occasionally find myself desperate to fill the empty spot with his words or actions.

But it’s not an AleXander-shaped hole.

Only I have the power to give myself genuine self-love and self-respect. Only I have the agency to shrug at things that are just vibrating to start chewing on my brain. Only I can fully understand and accept that I have worth in this world. And without those I am always out to sea, thrashing around desperate to have someone, something else fill that aching emptiness in me. And so I toss away that one power, the power to care for myself, in one vain bid after another to get someone else to do it for me.

Ask me how well that has ever worked out.

The woman who taught me all the good stuff, Lee Powell, may she rest in peace

What has worked out is my old friend, radical acceptance. It’s not easy. It never came to me naturally and still can be a tough sell. But it’s probably the most valuable work I’ve done in reclaiming valuable mental and emotional real estate. I’m a much better partner because of that work and have even been able to be a worker among workers. Who saw that coming?

If any of this resonates and you find yourself talking back to the committee at 3 am, waking your partner, and spinning your wheels, I recommend that you learn to shrug, laugh lovingly at your silly ass self, and ask someone else how they’re doing. Oh, and then actually listen. A word of caution, however, this ain’t one and done. It’s the work of a lifetime and well worth the effort.

Ready?