powerlessness

recently i found myself seeing familiar patterns in my life. seeing things recur that i wished would stop. i am tired of them. so i found my way to a group meeting which espouses steps. the first week i went merely to pass the time. i had hurt myself in yoga and was taking a two week break. the language of the program stated,

come to six consecutive meetings.

and so i decided to make that commitment.

four weeks into my obligation, i decide to do more intensive reading. the handouts and things i have received are lovely, but i like to delve into things. to explore,

since i'm here for six weeks, why not.

and so i did. i sat down at a coffee shop one morning, intent on working the program. then i read the language of the first step.

we admitted we were powerless...

whoa, wait, what?

powerless.

i can't admit that. so i kept reading. the questions posed in the work book went on and on about how life has become unmanageable, how the person doing the work needs control. and there are not many things i profess to know, but that i don't need control (or even want control in most situations) is one of them. that my life is not unmanageable is another.

so i sat there and stared at the book. i couldn't even pretend to admit any of that.

i have struggled so long, for so many years to come to terms with my power. to own my power. back in the day, i remember watching a movie about writers (the name will come to me) and there was a quote that i jotted around the borders of the book i was reading. that book was women who run with the wolves. the power book. i remember when i first read that book, how i told the man who recommended it to me that

i felt like he had given me my femininity back.

i'm sure he had no idea why i would say such a thing, but he had been reading my poetry and knew the broader strokes of my story to that point.

i won't dig out the film version of the quote because i believe it is misattributed but was actually written by marianne williamson:

it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. we ask ourselves, who am i to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of god. your playing small does not serve the world. there's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. we were born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us. it's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

the dread consequence of posting my thoughts and struggles here is that someone will see them and think less of me. i have no time for that now. i had no time for that then, that's why i do this. that's why i write. i know nothing if not confession cures the soul. and i may not know how to navigate the meetings i'm going to now that the language has become the greatest barrier, but i am trying.

so as i have said to many people i've spoken to about this.

i do not believe we are powerless. i do not believe even the most cracked out person who finds themselves in a program is powerless, it was their choice that brought them to the program. that is not powerlessness. i will admit to misapplying my power, even to giving it away at times. but never to being powerless. i cannot.

this is a struggle for me because words are power. words are intent calcified into character. that sentence bears more truth than even i realize at this moment. as i move forward in my life, i am learning to wield my power, not to laying it aside. this is a process that has just come full circle. before i might not even have stalled momentarily on step one. now, it is insurmountable. and i stand at the foot and say,

okay step one, we are going to have to reconcile this somehow.

but how.

as i am fond of saying, i do not know. i am willing to be enlightened. i am always willing to grow. to be shown the way. so, i look with eager eyes to the horizon, not knowing how this will play out, only that, indeed it shall.