Control (Power)

Many years ago, I came across the Serenity Prayer:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." Then, I started working in the addictions field in the last 4years and learnt this was a mantra of the anonymous groups. 
The wisdom to know the difference is what can take time to cultivate and develop. Not because we are dumb, but because, wisdom is an outcome of experience.

And, the power game is the most popular one on this planet, which is what control is all about..

The problems arise, more often than not, as a result of conditioning, what happened to us, and the sense of powerlessness we felt within those experiences. The powerlessness was often real and legitimate. As a child we do not have the ability to take care of ourselves, the way we do as adults. We cannot walk away from painful experiences - so we fight, flee, freeze or fawn (appease/please). What we can take responsibility for as adults, is our healing, as and when we feel ready, or when life brings us to that choice point, because we have run out of track on the old road.. 

Until then, we can identify more strongly with being a Victim, feeling the only way to express and experience our power, is through subtle, indirect, manipulative ways or we might utilize the bully energy, and express our powerlessness in direct aggressive ways. The bully feels as powerless as the victim, they're just expressing it differently. Or the final figure in this power triangle (identified by Karpman) is the rescuer.....the person who tries to get some power through pleasing others. The important thing to recognise is that we are never expressing just one of these energies in our life. 

The truth is we are powerless over the other.

We do however have choices to make for ourselves. Well actually for me, when it came time, I realised it was only one choice, love or power, made again and again.

And in doing that, I discovered the power of love.