Powerlessness

I just came from a good day of rehearsing for a flash mob which is going to take place at the end of June at a secret location in NYC and then seeing "Sex and the City 2."  I thought it was not as great as I'd hoped, and it was too long, and I still loved it.  I just love those relationships between the women and being in a audience made up of mostly women.  

After the movie let out, I heard a guy really complaining about it afterward to his date and the woman said almost nothing.  He said, "I hate those women.  I don't think they're at all likable.  They're not smart.... They're so annoying."  He just kept talking and his date remained silent and I really wanted to say, "Shut up, we don't care what you think.  We just like them, they're imperfect, they make mistakes, they're shallow in some ways, and they are fun."  I thought there were some great moments and subjects discussed like motherhood, menopause and marriage, the three M's.  Not to mention men. I guess in the next movie, someone will have to get divorced and I could write a movie about that.  



This morning, I did my daily readings and I came across another really great reading in "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie, which I wanted to share.

"Powerlessness and Unmanageability

Willpower is not the key to the way of life we are seeking.  Surrender is.  

'I have spent much of my life trying to make people be, do, or feel something they aren't, don't want to do, and choose not to feel.  I have made them, and myself, crazy in that process,' said one recovering woman.  

'I spent my childhood trying to make an alcoholic father who didn't love himself be a normal person who loved me.  I then married an alcoholic and spent a decade trying to make him stop drinking.'

'I have spent years trying to make emotionally unavailable people be emotionally present for me.

'I have spent even more years trying to make family members, who are content feeling miserable, happy.  What I'm saying is this: I've spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I couldn't.  It's been like planting corn and trying to make the seeds grow peas.  Won't work!

'By surrendering to powerlessness, I gain the presence of mind to stop wasting my time and energy trying to change and control that which I cannot change and control.  It gives me permission to stop trying to do the impossible and focus on what is possible: being who I am, loving myself, feeling what I feel, and doing what I want to do with my life.'

In recovery, we learn to stop fighting lions, simply because we cannot win.  We also learn that the more we are focused on controlling and changing others, the more unmanageable our life becomes.  The more we focus on living our own life, the more we have a life to live, and the more manageable our live will become.

Today, I will accept powerlessness where I have no power to change things, and I'll allow my life to become manageable."