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This I struggle with alot. Feeling powerless is actually easy to acknowledge...i've felt it my whole life (well most of the time anyway). But I also feel helpless and hopeless at the same time. So much in my life is currently out of my control, what's in my control doesn't feel powerful enough to change anything. I know I can do alot more than I'm doing and when I do more I do feel better, but the situation doesn't improve any...for me it's ok but my daughter is affected and there seems to be little or nothing I can do for that.
I've recently hit on the thought that possibilities exist even when I don't see them. Now they are just possibilites mind you, like "it's possible the world could end tomorrow, or that I'll win the lottery"....but they don't seem likely. Certainly nothing I'd bet my life savings on. Yet that little glimmer of hope is enough to keep me trying. I may be saying to myself, "this will never work, or never matter or it's a waste of time"...but I'm doing it nonetheless. Just once I'd like to be proven wrong on those thoughts.
This is where your higher power comes in. I really like the saying: I can't, my higher power can, I will let it.
I too struggle with feeling powerless hopeless and helpless at times, I too know the feeling that I'm just not doing enough. Well, "we do what we can, when we can, and when we can't no one can fault us for it, least of all ourselves." Please have some compassion and patience with yourself. Be gentle, do your best everyday and have faith that in time, your best will get better.
Thank you for sharing, I'll be sending you lots of strength and support.
((((((xoxo))))))
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"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself only, what am I? If not now, when?"
"Be happy for this moment, this moment is your life."
Aloha mjhyankees I remember the early lessons where I learned that as long as I had the Al-Anon program of recovery and all the other assets available to me to heal and grow I was not helpless and that because of my HP I was not hopeless. The process is a work in progress and not perfection. Living the program daily and the entire picture changes. Applying all of the tools that are handed to me in the program, coming back to get more and giving what I learn away to others to watch it work for them have taught me that there isn't anything that can happen to me that HP and I can't get thru or over. That use to be a trite thought pattern when I first got here and I use to think others were just fantasizing over it and then I came to believe as the miracles started to happen. When I fear and when I get angry that life isn't coming out my way I realize that I have lost faith in my Higher Power and am trying again to be "self" reliant where it rarely worked in the past...I'm relapsing when that happens. A steady focus on the first three steps for me is a life style that way I don't become complacent and lazy and fall back into depression and chaos and crises mode.
I have had "real" miracles happen in my life because of my relationship with my HP and living the program. I know this program works when I work it and doesn't when I stop. My commitment now is to live it without stop and live on this side of the wall of recovery.
Meetings, Sponsorship, Literature, working with others and certainly prayer and meditation. I don't focus much on what I need and want because I know that is provided for me without the focus. I focus on carrying the message in all my affairs.
Keep coming back...your life is changing even if it doesn't feel that way at times. That's a miracle in itself. (((((hugs)))))
I am still in the process of not only thinking but doing the opposite to what I have always done before, and only in this way have I been able to feel and sence the difference, the pull for me to remain in the why me's is a choice I can make, but today I prefer to chose why not me, as good a parent as I thought I was I am, I am in no doubt that my attitudes and feelings are felt by my children, and it's being able to let go of those things that never worked and reach out for much better, just keep wanting to change and trying no money needed to do this just blind faith and perseverence, falling down getting back up, it will happen for you my friend. x
The only time I feel completely frustrated with powerlessness is when I'm holding on tight to an specific outcome. When I'm holding on tight, life is crappy. It feels unmanageable. They say "Acceptance is the answer to ALL my problems today" but I could not understand that, it made no sense at all until I started working the steps.... which cleared the chaos in my head, which cleared the chaos in my life.
My attachment to what I THINK needs to happen, is the very thing that causes me to suffer, that is what living in the problem looks like. I did this for a very long, long time. I was not TRUSTING in a Higher power whatsoever, in fact, I was playing Higher power. For years, in my prayers, I would dictate to HP what I needed HP to do. And when that didn't happen .............. I lost faith.
I learned that I had to stop playing God.
On my own, in my own head, I could not get LET GO either, but that is what living in the Solution looks like. The fellowship had to show me how to do this, I had to sit with them to make this stuff real. I really hope you are making regular meetings, it was the only way for me to turn my thinking around. Take what you like, my friend.
-- Edited by glad lee on Monday 23rd of April 2012 01:12:57 PM
-- Edited by glad lee on Monday 23rd of April 2012 01:18:02 PM
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The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
I don't know if this will help, however when I look at powerlessness I have to go to I am powerless over other people, places, things and the past. This helps me realize that my trying to control the outcome of a situation, fix a broken past, or exerting my will (for me which is actually different than controlling the outcome .. lol .. I know it's a me thing though).
Anyway, in working the program, in going to meetings, having a sponsor, there is a weird paradox that happens, again this is for me, yes, I may be powerless over other people, places, things and the past .. truly surrendering that I have no control puts me in a place of power. The only thing I have power over is how I choose to react or act in situations. I'm all about be the actor not the reactor in the situation. I love that power of choice. I do not have to stay stuck where I am at, I can choose to make different choices. Choose to stop being the victim in my situation.
It takes time, awareness (which sorry awareness in my book really sucks at times, it's not bad it's just UGH!! really?), and it's a lot of work. The emotional pay off, the growth I've had the experience to be blessed with truly has outweighed the whole awareness sucks attitude I've had recently. LOL .. well hey .. just being honest here .. it's not always a fun place to be, I'm so glad to be here though.
Hang in there, take what you like, sometimes it helps to go back to old posts I've written and then I get to have additional A HA moments as well as see how far my growth has really gone.
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
I can relate to that horrible despairing feeling that can come when I feel not only pwerless but hopeless as well. And while powerless is real, I think hopeless is a perception of things. In the alanon promises it says something like
"A few special words to those of you who havent been with us long: Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If you try to keep an open mind, you will find help. You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened.
That is one heck of a promise!
And a message filled with hope. I have found that a lot of the reactions to my current situation in the despair and doom department are exaggerated by the hopeless despair and powerlessness I had as a child with similarly disfunctional and upsetting people. It gets triggered off and makes things seem far more out of my control than they are in the present. I find that finding ways (practical things) to keep the focus on myself and myself...doing things Ithat give me pleasure, playing games with other friends, and finding ways to give to others that need it, all help to raise up my energy levels and start to change those victim patterns in consciousness I've carried for so long (and fully believed too!)
Well done for taking the step to get feedback from us tho rather than relying on your own mind to give you the answers...it means that part of you is willing to come into the light despite others problems!!!
You know I had a very hard time in the beginning of this program (the beginning being when I was willing to give it a shot rather than deride it) I think it takes a while to get clear about where to go how to do it and what resources are available.
While I did not have a child, my whole life was riding on it. Every cent I had was tied up with the now ex A. I had a home, car, possessions and I was not about to give them up day one.
I know "more will be revealed" is a tough one because I was in so much pain I literally felt I would burst open.
I hope you know we are there with you holding your hand, supporting you and holding you up every step of the way. We have all trod that path and it is a familiar one and one that certainly can be frustrating.
The powerlessness concept, once I got it, was truly liberating to me. It was such a relief to understand that I could not control ANYTHING except myself! What freedom! My responsibility was to do the best I could each day. Some days, my "best" was to read and nap, lol. Powerlessness does not mean we are not powerful. We are so powerful. With our HPs, there is nothing that can stop us. The more I connect with my HP, the more I trust and actually rely on my innate state of powerlessness and have hope that my future is in God's hands. This is the gift of Al Anon. I certainly did a bang-up job of making bad decisions before I came to this program and was more than happy to let HP take the reigns. And so far, I have not been let down. Learning how to talk nice to myself helps, too.
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Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us. -from Pema Chödron's When Things Fall Apart
