Tag: Parent-in-law

Powerlessness & Unmanageability

Melody Beattie writes:

Willpower is not the key to the way of life we are seeking. Surrender is.

“I have spent much of my life trying to make people be, do, or feel something they aren’t, don’t want to do, and choose not to feel. I have made them, and myself, crazy in that process,” said one recovering woman.

I spent my childhood trying to make an alcoholic father who didn’t love himself be a normal person who loved me. I then married an alcoholic and spent a decade trying to make him stop drinking.

I have spent years trying to make emotionally unavailable people be emotionally present for me. I have spent even more years trying to make family members, who are content feeling miserable, happy.

What I’m saying is this: I’ve spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I couldn’t. It’s been like planting corn and trying to make the seeds grow peas. Won’t work!

By surrendering to powerlessness, I gain the presence of mind to stop wasting my time and energy trying to change and control that which I cannot change and control. It gives me permission to stop trying to do the impossible and focus on what is possible: being who I am, loving myself, feeling what I feel, and doing what I want to do with my life.

In recovery, we learn to stop fighting lions, simply because we cannot win. We also learn that the more we are focused on controlling and changing others, the more unmanageable our life becomes. The more we focus on living our own life, the more we have a life to live, and the more manageable our life will become.

Today, I will accept powerlessness where I have no power to change things, and I’ll allow my life to become manageable.” via Daily Meditation ~ Powerlessness & Unmanageability – Miracles In Progress Codependents Anonymous Group.

Today, I am thinking about how to apply this to my in-laws…

My mother in law will never love me like a son and my sibling in laws will never treat me like a brother. Three years ago during the ‘summer of forgiveness’, I made amends and was forgiven and yet I remain in their ‘penalty box‘. I refuse to let myself in an close the lid on top of me. I refuse to play a role in their drama. If I’m not going to get what I need it’s not worth the work…

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Is This the Last Father’s Day?

Not the best picture of my ‘other dad’, but it will have to do…

The title comes from Randy Taran who writes:

My father is requesting that all family members come by… no, not for a typical family reunion, but for Father’s Day. They say that people sometimes get a sense about things, and I have a feeling that my dad knows the end is near.

I am not complaining. I have had the amazing good fortune of having him around for longer than most. He is 95.5 and pretty darn present.

It has me thinking about the various roles we play in life: child, parent, parent to our inner child, parent becomes child, and child becomes parent’s parent… it’s endless in all the possible permutations.

I recently asked my dad for his five top life lessons, and this seems like a perfect time to share them:

1. Lead your own life. Know who you are and be true to yourself.

2. Be satisfied with what you have. Don’t go looking to other people for validation or compare yourself to others — that goes nowhere.

3. Be very grateful for what you have. Appreciate everything, from nature to relationships to waking up another day. Looking at things with the right perspective allows you to see that what you have is all you need, and more.

4. It’s all about family. That is what is important, that everyone is happy and lives a good life.

5. Love is what matters most. After all the ups and down that life sends our way, after all the careers and hopes and dreams, what stands out and will always remain is love.

This may or may not be his last Father’s Day; he has surprised us before. No matter what, I will always cherish my dad’s life lessons and pass them on to my own children as the cycle continues. Happy Father’s Day to all.

For more by Randy Taran, click here. For more on happiness, click here. via Randy Taran: Is This the Last Father’s Day?.

I curated this article for multiple reasons; not the least of which is that it makes me think about my father-in-law who is getting on in years. Throughout our marriage, my relationship with my in-laws has been strained for reasons too complicated to go into; only recently, however, I have gained a special appreciation for my father-in-law…

My ‘other Dad‘ is a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for almost 50 years. The more I dig into my own ’emotional sobriety’ and recovery from codependence, the more I appreciate him as a person and his contribution to the world — especially his example as he lives out the 12th step daily. Recently, when my wife was in Italy we connected a couple of times by phone and I had a chance to tell him for the first time that I loved him as a ‘dad’ — and I don’t say that lightly; dad is a title of honor in my life — and that I appreciate his example. There are things around ‘recovery’ that he gets that my first dad will never understand and I appreciate his testimony more with each passing day…

My second dad is now 79 and time is catching up with him. I cherish the help he has given me in my recovery and his lack of judgment toward me. Whether this is the last Father’s Day or the first of many we have in this ‘new’ relationship — God knows there are no guarantees in this life — I’m glad we had a chance to connect in his living years…

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