Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Controlling

I've been reading a book that highlights a lot of the issues that I have in relationships. The book is called Compelled to Control by Keith Miller. He describes that the major cause of relationship failure is the need to control. I can see from what he describes in a chapter called The Child's Journey--How We Develop the Urge to "Get Control" that I fit the description of someone who battles with the fear of not being enough. What's good about the book is that he describes use of the Twelve Steps in order to be healed and transformed.

This book came in handy last night when I fought the demons in my own head about not being enough. I seem to go down this slippery slope and beat up on myself every now and then. It generally happens when I feel lonely and tired (part of the H.A.L.T. scenario). Last night after a full day of meetings, I felt tired and also very much alone. I didn't want to go drink in the bar and I didn't want to talk shop so I went back to my room and got my head in a bad place. It was as if an overwhelming sadness came over me. I felt miserable about my marriage and some of the amends that I still need to make. I beat myself up over my character defects. And I blamed others for not "being there" when I needed them.

Anyway, this stuff in my head was making me pretty crazy until I started reading this book. I got half way through it and realized that the only way to quiet my mind was to trust in my HP and do some praying. For a person who has never been religious, it is amazing how praying the Third Step Prayer, the Seventh Step Prayer, and the Serenity Prayer got me through the dark place in my head. I finally got to sleep around 1 AM and awoke this morning feeling tired but quiet in my head.

I don't know why I forgot about my HP when I started to go down but the program has taught me that when things get really rough and I'm making up things that aren't real, I need to let go and let God. I am grateful that I asked for my HP to help me last night and He listened.

8 comments:

  1. Feelings are not facts. How often we are told that. One of the things we in Al-Anon all have in common is that feeling that we were/are never good enough. It makes us second guess ourselves. When I get stressed and over tired, is when the distorted thinking rears its ugly head. I am sorry about the unhappiness in your marriage. When I was married to my first husband, I felt so alone and so lost for several years. Two months before our 24th anniversary, I left him because I felt as though my soul was dying. It was a hard decision and I spent a great deal of time questioning my decision. I thought maybe if I did this or if I did that, all would be well. We divorced and since then I did meet a wonderful caring guy who actually wanted to share a life with me. We will be married one year next month. I believe in fate. I believe things happen for a reason. I believe where we are at is where we are suppose to be at this time. When I think back on the last eight years, I cannot believe I survived such pain. I was so hopeless and helpless. I lost all faith and hope in everything until the day I shared at a meeting and the woman next to me told me to wait for her after the meeting so she could speak to me. Her words after that meeting changed my life. She told me to have faith and if I did not have faith then to pray for faith. I took her advice and it was as if she threw me a life-line. Today, she is my sponsor.

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  2. Glad you're doing ok now. Maybe in time it will become so much a part of us to turn it over to our HP. Right now it's sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. I did it slowly this last time. It took a few days, and I had a hang over, over beating myself up for those few days. Ugh!

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  3. But then again...we all need to feel sorry for ourselves every now and then...

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  4. Yes, I am learning to pray and to have faith. It is a learning process though and old habits die hard.

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  5. I'm glad you found a way out of your funk. It's great having the tools of the program to keep us from getting too lost in our own bad thinking.

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  6. Man -- that fucked up thinking is precisely what I do. When I don't catchit in time, it accelerates lightning fast.
    I also forget to let go and let god.
    We are brothers (in thought).
    LOL

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  7. I know I'm called controlling; but I guess after not having control at all over my environment this was the result. I'm working hard on not being controlling (even when I'm right.. ) joking.

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