Embracing Powerlessness

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

There are things in life that we can't control and that we're not happy about.  We have neither the permission to influence these circumstances nor the capacity to do so.  We do not need to judge our initial reaction to these circumstances.  Our reaction is whatever our reaction is and that is acceptable.  But, at the same time, it's important to know when things are far enough outside of our control that there is nothing we can do about it.  

Granted, we will struggle (that is, in the moment) to recognize an encounter with powerlessness unless we're already accustomed to living in reality.  We resist seeing powerlessness for what it is because it confirms one of our deepest fears:  We can't prevent unpleasant things from happening.  Our bodies will go to great lengths in order to protect us from this uncomfortable truth.  Denial is one example of this.  

New Scott v. Old Scott:

You all are probably tired of hearing my new-to-me take on denial. I now believe that denial is the perfectly natural byproduct of being confronted or challenged over something that is somewhat sensitive. 

That said- I largely agree with this post. It is definitely uncomfortable to have unwanted things happen to us in life. There is no “good” way to avoid unpleasant events and unpleasant reactions to events. However, it is helpful for us to be aware that unpleasant events cause chain reactions of feelings and behavior- and we can learn how to better tolerate these reactions and, then, choose responses that are more in-line with who we want to be. 

Are You Trying to Change the Wrong Things?

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

There are times in life, of course, when things are mostly outside of our control, which is to say, our influence over these events is small but we have some level of permission to attempt to influence them.  There are things that are mostly within our control (we have permission to influence and our potential to influence is high).  As far as this particular discussion goes, I'm not concerned with these grey areas.  I'm choosing to ignore them.  I'm not doing so because I doubt they exist (I believe they do), I'm ignoring them because they don't draw the worst out of us in ways that encounters with absolute powerlessness do.  

We are keeping our focus on the distorted illusion of control that comes from our encounters with powerlessness.  I know that this is the area where I need the most work.  I suspect I'm not alone.  

Present Scott’s attack on Past Scott:

Past Scott was very hard on people who struggle to make changes. Control, and our frustration around control, is what happens when we’re struggling to live a life we’re excited to live. I suppose, if I were to rephrase the above in a less shaming way, I’d say that we don’t always choose well when it comes to where we focus our energy in life when we’re frustrated with how life is going. In other words, we often try to change the wrong things. 

So I have some more questions for you:

What is something you’d like to be doing more of in your current life?

What are some relationships you’d like to spend more of your energy on?

What are some things that bring you joy that you don’t do as much of anymore? 

A New View of Letting Go

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

When we speak of "letting go" we are, on the one hand, saying something about the release of control but, on the other hand, we're suggesting that we don't release control just for the sake of releasing control.  We "let go" so that we can see the world clearly.  It is only through proper orientation to that which is "ours to do" that we can live in the reality of what is and resist the temptation to ground ourselves in fantasy.  

Fantasy is what happens when we're utterly disoriented over what is "ours to do."  

Scott’s updated take as of 2021:

I wish I would speak more positively about you (us). I like the idea that we “let go” for a purpose, and not just to say that we let go. The phrase “letting go” is a nice little shorthand that describes the process of realizing how one thing in our lives is maybe getting in the way of our ability to maximize thriving. 

But, as of today, I see no reason to frame this in terms of “Fantasy v. Reality.”  It’s hard to let go of things. Often enough we have a long history with the things that we’re clinging so tightly to and this means it’s easy to be afraid of letting go. So I’ll close today by asking you a few questions instead of making more comments:

Are you holding on to some things that you wish you could let go of?

If you could let go of them, how would you do it?

When you let go of them, what else would you like to be doing with your time?

Defining Control

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

How do we define control?

Control can, of course, mean many different things.  When I refer to things we can  legitimately control I'm using "control" to mean something akin to the exercise of responsibility.  The things that we (appropriately) control in life are things we have both the permission and the capacity to influence (there are surely other factors, but for our purposes I think these two frame the conversation in such a way as to allow us to go fairly deep fairly quickly).  

We become (overly) controlling through distorting one of those two factors:  we either falsely believe we are justified in controlling something that isn't ours to influence or we falsely believe we have the capacity to influence when, in fact, we do not.  A substance use disorder represents a distortion of both factors at once.  When we say, for instance, that we COULD stop but simply do not want to then we are believing two lies:  1. That the s.u.d. itself does not exercise control over us (and, thus, has given us permission to be in charge) and 2. That we have the capacity to influence our s.u.d.  

The same factors apply elsewhere in life.  The limits of control are permission and influence and they vary greatly depending on circumstances.  These two factors combined let us know whether or not something rightly falls within the realm of what is "ours to do."  

My response to me:

I think I agree with this definition- but not so much the example. Substance use does not have unending control over a person- people can change. It requires a focused, dedicated effort and likely to the help and support of a community (be it 12 Step, a counselor, family, friends, whoever). 

And so the issue of what we have the “capacity” to influence is an interesting one (at least to me). We may not always have the capacity to make changes to certain things over night- but we can often start moving in the direction of change. For instance, a person might attend an AA meeting for several months before they have some sobriety time. There was real change on display long before the sobriety happened. This person wanted to make a change, sought help, altered their schedule and routine, etc. etc. in order to change how they relate to alcohol. 

Or- to refer back to yesterday. If something really tragic happens to us, we may not be able to change our difficult feelings immediately- but perhaps we have some acceptance exercises that we rely on that shift us from something like complete resentment to something resembling peace. We did not have the capacity to “change” the thing that happened, but we did have the capacity to change how we related to the thing that happened.

So we may have the capacity to do a lot more than we think (or a lot more than I once thought).

Thoughts on Control…

Hey NSC Blog followers!

I’m going to spend some time revisiting some old blog posts and updating based on how I see things today. I’m not sure if it’ll be interesting or not- but I tend to think it’s a good thing to be willing to change our minds about things and be open to new ideas. So I’m going to start each day of this series with my old post and follow them up with some thoughts based on how I think about things now:

Control, as a concept, arises time and again in recovery and it's no secret why:  the 12 Steps suggest that the path towards healing and wellness begins with a release of control.  This is an unintuitive act in our culture where we're told that the secret to success in life is to exercise as much control as we can over as much stuff as possible.  In recovery we're told that the only path forward begins with letting go.  

Largely this is because, prior to entering recovery, we've been living under the illusion that we maintain control over something that, in point of fact, exercises quite a lot of control over us.  The ultimate problem, though, is not how much we do or do not control but how deeply self-deceived we've become.  Denial completely obscures our relationship to "control." 

Scott’s response to Scott:

I actually don’t believe much of this last paragraph anymore. We are self-deceived a lot of the time, I’m sure. And yes, we do spin our wheels often trying to control things we can’t control. But I no longer see that as a control “issue”- as if this is the sole problem that needs fixing- I see it as our attempt to adapt to hardship in the absence of a better plan (which is perfectly natural).

Control issues might come up for a variety of reasons- there might be an absence of collaboration in a given area (home, work, etc.). Or we may be really frustrated with something we are struggling to accept. Either way, the work, in my opinion, is not to become less self-deceived- it might be to become more accepting. Or it might be that we have difficult emotions we need to name and process. Or it might be to add joy to our lives somehow some way. 

Let’s see where I go from here- I honestly don’t remember writing these posts in the slightest.