Letting Go

As I'm working Step Nine and making amends, I've come to realize that my relationships have been closest with those whose emotional makeup is similar to my earliest experience of emotional intimacy and love--my parents. I have learned how strongly my programming from childhood has affected my life. Essentially, I have been drawn to people who have put me in touch with all the wounds from my childhood. What I see now is that I don't have to recreate these wounds in a bad way but can experience growth in the relationship.

I can do this by making choices and accepting responsibility emotionally so that I don't slip into self pity and the role of being a victim. I can see that the emotional unavailability of my father and the denial that my mother practiced have shaped my relationships to a large extent. I've been involved with emotionally unavailable people. I'm learning that I have to focus inside to be free of the old patterns from childhood. I can't do anymore than heal myself and know my own self worth. By doing that, I can move towards a more healthy way of dealing with others. I can let go of the past behavioral patterns and still be okay.

`Letting Go''

• To ``let go'' does not mean to stop caring.

• It means I can't do it for someone else.

• To ``let go'' is not to cut myself off.

• It's the realization I can't control another.

• To ``let go'' is not to enable,

• but to allow learning from natural consequences.

• To ``let go'' is to admit powerlessness

• which means the outcome is not in my hands.

• To ``let go'' is not to try to change or blame another.

• It's to make the most of myself.

• To ``let go'' is not to care for, but to care about.

• To ``let go'' is not to fix, but to be supportive.

• To ``let go'' is not to judge,

• but to allow another to be a human being.

• To ``let go'' is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,

• but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

• To ``let go'' is not to be protective.

• It's to permit another to face reality.

• To ``let go'' is not to deny, but to accept.

• To ``let go'' is not to nag, scold, or argue,

• but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

• To ``let go'' is not to criticize and regulate anybody,

• but to try to become what I dream I can be.

• To ``let go'' is not to adjust everything to my desires

• but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

• To ``let go'' is to not regret the past,

• but to grow and live for the future.

• To ``let go'' is to fear less and LOVE MYSELF MORE.