It's humbling to admit that you've lived most of your life in a state of denial. That's where I have lived most of my life.
Mostly I've denied my own powerlessness to change one or more things about people - either myself or the people I love. I liked to think that I could manipulate a situation ... or a person ... even resorting to intimidation at times, so they would be funneled into a course of action that would benefit me.
I was wrong. Yet it took me nearly five decades to realize it.
My manipulation took the form of emotional blackmail, usually. It is something that I still struggle with, on occasion. I'd treat the behavior of someone else as an attack on me personally so as to make that person feel guilty and therefore do what I wanted. They'd do what I wanted, all right, and resent me for it. Or, I'd overreact to a decision someone else had a right to make, and refuse to participate in it, ruining their enjoyment of it.
Occasionally, I'd even lose my temper and make people afraid to cross me in certain areas - ruling and controlling by making them feel threatened, unsafe.
It's not something I'm proud of. But it happened. Frequently.
About two months into a healing process that for me took a total of a year, I was introduced to the concept of acceptance - an acceptance that is based on my total inability to change any person, any outcome, any situation - acceptance of what is and that which cannot be changed. It involved learning to let go of my need to control something - ANYTHING - about someone or something.
Within weeks of that mental attitude shift, my loved ones - those closest to me - noticed, in a way bordering on astonishment. "What's with Mom? why isn't she freaking out?" I heard whispered behind me. And I'd smile to myself. Of course it wasn't easy to let go, to NOT "freak out" - but the dividends paid off every time, and the positive response was incentive to keep at it. I got to like the way my relationships strengthened when I let people be who they were without fear of my disapproval or my other equally unpleasant responses to their beliefs, choices, and words.
In fact, the more I practiced the skill of letting go, the more I realized how many things there were over which I had no control, much as I would have liked. Even things I had always thought I could influence - and sometimes I could - I discovered that I had no right to touch.
Having grown up in a dysfunctional home, I never knew that anyone had a right to have boundaries. Nothing was ever private; nothing was beyond the scrutiny and judgment of others who wielded power (real or imagined) over me and my brothers. Everything was everybody else's business. The only boundary there was pertained to the shroud of secrecy that covered anything that happened inside the four walls of the homestead. Everything else, though, was fair game. Every word, action, thought was subject to being evaluated, praised or condemned after it passed through the parental filter.... and by parental I mean that every adult in the whole family (and extended family: aunts, uncles, grandparents) felt he or she had the right to pass judgment on the appearance, words, and beliefs of everyone else, especially every child. The children, on the other hand, had no right to do the same to the parents. Infractions of this code were met with swift and severe punishment.
Nobody ever questioned this fact of life. The attitude was that as soon as we grew up and had families of our own, we would have the same right they exercised on a daily basis, with our own children.
When I began to heal from that toxic atmosphere, which unfortunately carried into adulthood, I realized more and more that this assumption of the right to pass judgment on others was not just dysfunctional, it was downright sick and wrong. I familiarized myself intimately with the notion that everyone has boundaries, and that these boundaries need to be respected - including mine. That knowledge helped me figure out what, who and where I needed to let go, to accept not only who and what I couldn't change but who and what I had no right to change even if I could.
And even then, I had (and have) no power in myself to accept those things and people that I need to accept. That power comes from above - from the peace of my continued relationship with God. Knowing and resting on the fact that God looks after me, that He is calmly and lovingly in control of all things - including me, including those I love, including every circumstance - gives me the strength and the serenity to accept what I cannot change.
This is not a fatalistic acceptance either. It is an active choice to allow people to be who they are, to let them make their own decisions and to let them live with the consequences of their own actions, no matter how much I am tempted to make it easier for them. It is a decision to not rail against circumstances, to not take them personally, to realize that everyone has "stuff" and that it's okay to feel what I feel about it, experience it and then let it go.
The lifestyle I'm learning is like being handed a new key ring that unlock doors previously closed to me, opening pathways I never dreamed possible. Acceptance was the first key I learned how to use - and I have used it every day since. I have discovered, over time, that it is the first key to something that eluded me before, but which I have been able to experience more and more: happiness.
Mostly I've denied my own powerlessness to change one or more things about people - either myself or the people I love. I liked to think that I could manipulate a situation ... or a person ... even resorting to intimidation at times, so they would be funneled into a course of action that would benefit me.
I was wrong. Yet it took me nearly five decades to realize it.
My manipulation took the form of emotional blackmail, usually. It is something that I still struggle with, on occasion. I'd treat the behavior of someone else as an attack on me personally so as to make that person feel guilty and therefore do what I wanted. They'd do what I wanted, all right, and resent me for it. Or, I'd overreact to a decision someone else had a right to make, and refuse to participate in it, ruining their enjoyment of it.
It's not something I'm proud of. But it happened. Frequently.
About two months into a healing process that for me took a total of a year, I was introduced to the concept of acceptance - an acceptance that is based on my total inability to change any person, any outcome, any situation - acceptance of what is and that which cannot be changed. It involved learning to let go of my need to control something - ANYTHING - about someone or something.
Within weeks of that mental attitude shift, my loved ones - those closest to me - noticed, in a way bordering on astonishment. "What's with Mom? why isn't she freaking out?" I heard whispered behind me. And I'd smile to myself. Of course it wasn't easy to let go, to NOT "freak out" - but the dividends paid off every time, and the positive response was incentive to keep at it. I got to like the way my relationships strengthened when I let people be who they were without fear of my disapproval or my other equally unpleasant responses to their beliefs, choices, and words.
In fact, the more I practiced the skill of letting go, the more I realized how many things there were over which I had no control, much as I would have liked. Even things I had always thought I could influence - and sometimes I could - I discovered that I had no right to touch.
Having grown up in a dysfunctional home, I never knew that anyone had a right to have boundaries. Nothing was ever private; nothing was beyond the scrutiny and judgment of others who wielded power (real or imagined) over me and my brothers. Everything was everybody else's business. The only boundary there was pertained to the shroud of secrecy that covered anything that happened inside the four walls of the homestead. Everything else, though, was fair game. Every word, action, thought was subject to being evaluated, praised or condemned after it passed through the parental filter.... and by parental I mean that every adult in the whole family (and extended family: aunts, uncles, grandparents) felt he or she had the right to pass judgment on the appearance, words, and beliefs of everyone else, especially every child. The children, on the other hand, had no right to do the same to the parents. Infractions of this code were met with swift and severe punishment.
Nobody ever questioned this fact of life. The attitude was that as soon as we grew up and had families of our own, we would have the same right they exercised on a daily basis, with our own children.
When I began to heal from that toxic atmosphere, which unfortunately carried into adulthood, I realized more and more that this assumption of the right to pass judgment on others was not just dysfunctional, it was downright sick and wrong. I familiarized myself intimately with the notion that everyone has boundaries, and that these boundaries need to be respected - including mine. That knowledge helped me figure out what, who and where I needed to let go, to accept not only who and what I couldn't change but who and what I had no right to change even if I could.
And even then, I had (and have) no power in myself to accept those things and people that I need to accept. That power comes from above - from the peace of my continued relationship with God. Knowing and resting on the fact that God looks after me, that He is calmly and lovingly in control of all things - including me, including those I love, including every circumstance - gives me the strength and the serenity to accept what I cannot change.
This is not a fatalistic acceptance either. It is an active choice to allow people to be who they are, to let them make their own decisions and to let them live with the consequences of their own actions, no matter how much I am tempted to make it easier for them. It is a decision to not rail against circumstances, to not take them personally, to realize that everyone has "stuff" and that it's okay to feel what I feel about it, experience it and then let it go.
The lifestyle I'm learning is like being handed a new key ring that unlock doors previously closed to me, opening pathways I never dreamed possible. Acceptance was the first key I learned how to use - and I have used it every day since. I have discovered, over time, that it is the first key to something that eluded me before, but which I have been able to experience more and more: happiness.
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