Continued from Seven kinds of power (part 1).

Want to become more powerful?

Here are seven ways to do it:

(1) Detach.

Let go of what you can’t control anyway. That may be a situation, or a person, or that person’s behavior. If it’s a person you love, you can detach with love, as they say in Al-Anon. Detaching doesn’t mean you stop caring. It just means you acknowledge your limitations. And when you do that, an enormous relief often follows.

(2) Refocus.

Start by shifting your focus from outside — people, places and things — to inside — your own needs, thoughts and feelings. Happiness is an inside job, and most of the answers you need are there.

(3) Take care of yourself.

Stop overcontrolling yourself, and learn to listen to your body instead. Hungry? Eat. Tired? Sit. Rest. Maybe take a nap. (Naps are great.) Lonely? Seek out safe people. (More on this below.) Angry? Scream (into a pillow, maybe, so you don’t scare the neighbors). Sad? Let yourself cry. It’s how the body naturally relieves tension, and it helps.

(4) Educate yourself.

You’re not crazy; your pain means something. Your job is to find out what it’s trying to tell you. Education can take many forms, from Googling alcoholic family or codependency toreading self-help books (start with Janet Woititz’s Adult Children of Alcoholics or Melody Beattie’s Codependent No More), or listening to tapes (try the library), or talking to a friend, or attending a self-help meeting, or finding yourself a good therapist. After his first Al-Anon meeting one of my clients told me, “It was like a light coming on in a dark room, and suddenly I could see all the furniture I’ve been tripping over.”  Why live in the dark if you don’t have to?

(5) Get support.

No one gets through life alone. (Even if you could, why would you want to?) Seriously consider checking out a self-help program, like Al-Anon or Nar-Anon or CODA. You’re probably scared of that first meeting. That’s okay; everyone is. Go anyway. It won’t kill you, and you can’t know beforehand what you’ll hear. A good meeting can save your life and your sanity.

(6) Listen to feelings.

This is a big one. Living with an addict usually requires hiding your feelings, sometimes even from yourself. But feelings are essential. You need to get them back again. Hang out with people who are trying to reclaim their feelings, and who can keep you company while you’re trying to reclaim yours.

(7) Have faith.

Develop your spiritual life. No, you don’t need to join a church. You don’t even need to believe in God. You do need to believe in something bigger than you, something you trust even when you don’t understand it. Call it Nature. Call it The Force. Al-Anon calls it Higher Power, but you can call it what you like. I used to reject the idea of God, but I always believed in psychology. Then I heard Scott Peck suggest that it’s not unreasonable to replace the word God with the word unconscious. That permanently reframed the idea of God for me. I realized there was some intelligence inside I could listen for, and which would guide me if I let it. (I might doubt the existence of God, but who can doubt the existence of that voice? That part that Knows Better?) So that gave me something to trust. Hey, we all need some invisible support.

*

(In session today a client reminded me of this post, originally published two years ago.  “I could stand to read that one again,” she said.  So here it is.  I’m so codependent.)

*

If you love an addict, or live with one, or depend on one in some way, you are probably in, as the old saying goes, nine kinds of pain.

And I’m guessing that, whether or not you realize it, the very worst of these pains comes from being confused about the difference between power and control.

No, they’re not the same.

In some ways, they are opposites.

One difference is: power is possible, but control is usually an illusion.

Another is: seeking power can set you free, while seeking control can make you crazy.

Let me explain.

Control (as I define it) means the ability to dictate reality. To get life itself — people, places and things — to meet our expectations.

Power, on the other hand, means being able to get your needs met. To take care of yourself. To not just survive, but to heal, and grow, and be happy.

Here’s an example of the difference:

Imagine your rich uncle dies and leaves you control of his multinational corporation. So you wake up one morning the CEO of Big Bux, Inc. You go to your new job. You sit behind a huge desk. Four secretaries line up to do your bidding. You have tons of control. You can hire and fire people, buy things and sell things, build plants or close them, approve product lines and advertising campaigns, manage investments, bribe congressmen, you name it.

How do you feel?

If you’re anything like me, you feel crippled by anxiety. Bewildered and overwhelmed by your new responsibilities. Disoriented. Panicked.

Anything but in control.

Interesting, no?

There are two other interesting differences between control and power.

~ Control looks outward, mainly at other people, places and things. Power looks inward, to your own feelings and needs. So control-seeking pulls you away from yourself, away from self-awareness and self-care.

~ Control operates paradoxically. The paradox goes like this: The more control you need, the less in control you feel. Which means if you depend on getting control to feel safe and happy, you don’t feel safe or happy most of the time. Chasing control is a lot like chasing a train you can never catch. Power, though — rooted in healthy, intelligent self-care — is a real possibility.

Want to become more powerful?

Here are seven ways to do it:

(To be continued.)

To perseverate means to worry, obsess, ruminate, chew on the same thoughts over and over endlessly.

At best, a nervous habit.

At worst, a painful mental compulsion that consumes time, energy and peace of mind.

It’s also a controlling behavior, in that it assumes that going over and over the same mental ground will somehow lead one to feeling better – discover new answers, or yield relief from anxiety.

What it’s not is problem solving.

Problem solving requires behaviors like analyzing, reinterpreting, getting more information, or asking for help. Even giving up can be a kind of problem solving.

But perseveration avoids all these approaches.

Why?

Usually the perseverator is scared.  He fears that serious problem solving will somehow make him feel worse.  Scared, for example, that he may find new information disheartening, or that asking for help will make him feel embarrassed or inadequate.

So he persists with perseveration.

Which, after a certain point, is equivalent to chewing the same stick of gum for four hours straight.

You get nothing from it but tired.

Veteran Monkeytraps readers may remember my co-author and inner monkey, Bert.  (Those seeking an introduction should read “Bert’s mission”  or “Bert’s addiction.”)  Bert hasn’t appeared here for a while, but today asked for some space.   He wrote this post last Monday.

x

It snowed here today, unexpectedly and heavily.  On the last day of March, when all the snowplows have been put away.

So Steve drove to work on roads ankle deep in sloppy wet snow.  Wheels spinning, he barely got up one long hill.  Then fifty yards later he slid off the road into a shrub.  That’s when he decided to turn around.

On the way home he slid off again, banged up over a curb, and heard something snap beneath the nose of his Malibu.  He found his two front tires pointed in opposite directions, like the claws of a lobster.

He called his wife, his son, then his son’s girlfriend.  Nobody answered.

So he walked home.  It took an hour.

He fell once, into a slush puddle.  Fuck, he said, the only time this morning.

I’m telling you all this not to seek sympathy, but because I found my own reaction to Steve’s adventure, well, interesting.

I’m a control addict, see.  We control addicts don’t like it when shit like this happens.  It feels unfair.  Pushes our buttons.  We take it personally.

But that wasn’t happening here.  I didn’t feel angry.  Or guilty.  Or anxious.  Or discouraged.

I wasn’t taking it personally.

After the fall I actually felt cheerful.  I was off the main road now, walking down side streets.  It was quiet.  I noticed that snow, when you don’t have to drive in it, is pretty.

By the time we got home Steve’s shoes and hair were soaked and his side ached from the fall.  Me, though, I’m kicking at drifts like a schoolboy on a snow day.

All very strange.

Later, while Steve toweled his hair dry, I figured it out.  I realized that the stuff he’s been trying to teach clients and writing about here must have finally penetrated my monkeyskull:

That control’s a nice thing to have, but a bad thing to need.

That though we assume more control will make us feel better, that assumption doesn’t work out so well.

That there are better ways of handling feelings than control.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m still a control junkie.  I’ll probably always want more control than is good for me.

But it feels nice to make progress.

Saturday morning, and I’m lying in bed, listening to the old argument.

Should:  You really should get up.

Want:  But I’m tired.

Should:  But you have tons of paperwork.  You could get caught up.

Want:  But I need rest too.

Should:  I know.  But if you got caught up, you could relax.

Want:  That’s stupid.  I’m relaxed now.

Right.  That old argument.

Most of my clients struggle with these two voices in their heads.

For some it’s a chronic, painful problem.

They hear the Should voice as ”responsible” and the Want voice as “selfish.”

So I spend much of my time with them reframing the argument, trying get them to hear Should as controlling and Want as the voice of self-care.

Don’t misunderstand.  I know there are times when adults have to ignore Want and obey Should.  Bills to pay, promises to keep.

But most of us are oversocialized – taught to ignore the former and hear only the latter.  We think we’re choosing when in fact we’re just programmed.

And that’s bad for us.  Bad mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  It can even be dangerous.

Not great for the people around us, either.

Plus this sort of programming can prevent you from ever being happy.

People who neglect self-care always remind me of the guy who says “I’m driving to California, but I’ll wait to buy gas when I get there.”

Gas up now, friend.

Or you won’t get there.

Dad and Son sit on my sofa.  Dad’s telling me why Son received a three-week suspension.  Son, fourteen, stares at the top of his shoes, wishing to be anywhere but here.

Dad explains that Son assaulted another student after learning said student had arranged for two of his friends to beat up Son’s cousin.  Cousin ended up in the ER.  Son sought out the instigator and smacked him upside the head.  For this he received a suspension, multiple lectures by multiple adults, and was forced to attend a disciplinary meeting and express remorse.  Then he was referred to me for therapy.

 I look at Son.  “That why you did it?” I ask.  “Your cousin?”

 He nods, barely.

 “Good job,” I say.

He looks up.  We make eye contact for the first time.  He bursts out laughing.

I look at Dad.  He’s grinning, not at what I said, but at Son’s reaction.

And so the therapy begins.

Grownups forget that kids are surrounded by big people all too willing to catch them doing something wrong.  It’s as if we think that’s what constitutes good parenting, or discipline, or teaching, or something.

But catching and punishing is only one sort of teaching.  And not even the most effective part.

Think about the adults who had a positive impact on you as a kid.  Chances are they were those who caught you doing something right, not wrong.  Who showed you acceptance and approval.  Who made you feel respected and cared about.

 Not guilty.

 Most of us carry around too much guilt as it is.

 Go catch your kid doing something right.