I have several friends who are going through profoundly difficult challenges in their lives right now: protracted unemployment, homelessness, disease, intense physical pain, money woes…truly big stuff. If I were in charge, I’d wave my magic wand and erase it all from their lives, but I don’t have the power to do that. So I do what I can – offer a shoulder, a hug, a tissue, a meal, a distraction for a little while – some small gesture that is in my power to make.
In her Cycle of Change model (described in Finding Your Own North Star), Martha Beck calls this Square One – Death and Rebirth. It’s the death of an old way of being (healthy, employed, pain-free, etc.), and a time to acknowledge just how powerless you feel – and are. Beck says the motto of this time in one’s life is “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and that’s okay.”
12 Step program participants learn that Step One, the one that comes before all the “doing” found in the remaining 11, is “we admitted we were powerless…” (over drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, cheating, etc.). They can skip that step, glossing over the notion, but if they do, participants always end up back where they started.
Square One. Step One. Call it what you want, but it’s a time to just let go, give in to the fact that life sucks at the moment, and admit we don’t have all the answers. I’ve noticed that when each friend gives herself over to the loss of control she’s experiencing and acknowledges that she’s not always in charge, a moment of grace, a smidgen of peace and help always arrive in one form or another.
Why is powerlessness so valuable? Because there’s truth there, and telling the truth always sets you free. Recognizing that life as you’ve known it is unmanageable (as they say in “the rooms” of 12 Step programs), that pretending all is well when it’s not is a struggle that’s worth giving up, feels so much better than faking it.
Whether you’re a believer in a higher power or not is your business. Personally, I’ve seen far too much grace and everyday miracles in the lives of the people I mentioned above (and in my own) to doubt the power of some unseen force(s) partnering with us on this journey called Life.
Suffering ends, one way or another, and then it comes back again somewhere down the road. That’s just the way of things. But if we see the time of suffering as a dissolution of what was, choose not to fight the painful reality and instead acknowledge that it’s a rotten time, we might just notice that there will soon be an opportunity to create something new. And then, somehow, it all gets just a little easier. And that, my friends, is the sweet spot in which new lives and careers are born.
