Let Go & Let God
An interesting reaction, for a moment, and a good one. A title on the help site caught my eye and I had an immediate reaction. It referred to the slogan "Let Go & Let God"; and it kind of pissed me off. Here on a dependency site is yet another ill-conceived suggestion to depend on something "outside" of the self, and to not take responsibility for one's self, and to depend on some "outer force" to run your life!
Now...that was my first reaction. Fortunately, I have grown to learn to question some of my reactions and seek the truth behind some of those reactions. What I then decided was that the interpretation of "letting go and letting God" was really about accepting REALITY. To me it suggests to let go of all the impossible control needs over things we have NO control over. It gets back to the Serenity Prayer of "Change the things I can change and accept the things I cannot change", and "the wisdom to know the difference".
To me, the letting go in co-dependency is learning what I can control and what I can't control. And from what I am learning to accept as a belief is that "I cannot control anyone else's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors; nor am I in anyway responsible for how they choose to feel, think, or act." The ONLY feelings, thoughts, and behaviors I CAN control are MINE, and I am only now getting used to accepting responsibility for those. Until lately, I did not understand or accept that I had that power, or how to use it. This seems to be the most important concept to learn for co-dependents.
My best guess is that it comes from early childhood when we are attempting to create an acceptable identity and our parents unintentionally (due to their own ignorance of human development) teach us how what we do affects their feelings, and how their feelings affect how we see ourselves: who we are, or maybe "should be". The most simple expression can be misinterpreted by the child's mind; ours, at that time. Hearing "You are such a good boy or girl, or such a bad boy or girl" is a judgment imposed by someone else, and authority figure (someone who we believe knows more about US, and who we were created to be), and it becomes a HABIT or ADDICTION for feelings of how good or bad we are based on someone else's opinion and judgment, not ours. We learn at a very early age that our feelings about how "good or bad" we are to feel about ourselves and who we are being, DEPENDS on someone else's judgment, and not how WE feel. We then accept that they have a "magical" power to decide and control how WE are to feel, and WE have a magical power to decide and control how THEY are to feel. I'm thinking we should break that misconception, and take back control of our own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors; and let THEM learn to choose and be responsible for their own mind's activity and experiences.
The TRUTH is, we DO NOT have the power, nor obligation, to control anyone else's feelings but our own!
Plus, "SHIT HAPPENS"! There are some other things "messy things", that happen in this Universe that we have absolutely no control over, but we choose to feel "bad" about, and we do not "have to" feel guilty for their occurrence; it is a feeling we are choosing.
And GUILT is a feeling just like all the other feelings. Guilt is a punishment of the self, for a mistake, and for maybe not being "perfect", where "perfection" means: "IN ABSOLUTE POWER AND CONTROL".
Letting go means accepting the reality of lack of control we have over anything but our own feelings, about the things we think, and the behaviors we choose, in order to be happy with our lives, AS IT IS AT THE MOMENT. I'm guessing that what we all really want is happiness, and more of it; and we keep blaming everything and everyone outside of us for US not controlling and choosing our own feelings of happiness, by accepting what is; and "what is" may be construed as what God is doing that apparently is "okay" with God, and completely out of our control, or need of our opinion. control, correction, or feelings.
Imagine the real pleasure of just being able to exist, and experience life itself. And then spending most of all our lives bitching about how it's not good enough, or how many things must be done and controlled OUTSIDE, in order to feel and appreciate life INSIDE; where, in fact, our inner world is completely under our control, and we continue to believe it is not; because that is what we were taught and accepted to be true, by others, that we assume we are dependent on, including God.
God will help, but that "help" does not mean 99.9% of helping and our .01% of responsible action on our part. It may be more like 10% God's help, and 90% of our taking responsibility for our actions, changing our feelings, and changing our beliefs because of our thoughts about what is true or not true about our control over anything; either outside or inside our minds.
"Let go & let God", to me, means to accept the reality of our powerlessness, and making that "okay". Accepting our powerlessness as okay is a choice, just like rejecting the belief that we are powerlessness, and MUST continue to achieve some mystical and impossible power over everything as a condition for happiness.
I feel we all have believed that reality is bad, and that a "better" world is the one we "imagine to be" the true world (because that one is the one we PREFER) and it is "the good one". In fact, it is just the opposite. The fantasy would is more painful and bad, since it already suggests that the real world needs to be changed in order to be acceptable for feeling happy. It doesn't. Reality is what is happening that we do not control, and we pretend to believe we either "can" or "should" be able to control. And it helps to remember that the word "should", to me at least, signifies a denial of reality.
Let God do God's thing, and what God controls; and I will let myself do my thing by controlling my feelings, thoughts, and behaviors about my expereince of life, and happiness.
Now...that was my first reaction. Fortunately, I have grown to learn to question some of my reactions and seek the truth behind some of those reactions. What I then decided was that the interpretation of "letting go and letting God" was really about accepting REALITY. To me it suggests to let go of all the impossible control needs over things we have NO control over. It gets back to the Serenity Prayer of "Change the things I can change and accept the things I cannot change", and "the wisdom to know the difference".
To me, the letting go in co-dependency is learning what I can control and what I can't control. And from what I am learning to accept as a belief is that "I cannot control anyone else's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors; nor am I in anyway responsible for how they choose to feel, think, or act." The ONLY feelings, thoughts, and behaviors I CAN control are MINE, and I am only now getting used to accepting responsibility for those. Until lately, I did not understand or accept that I had that power, or how to use it. This seems to be the most important concept to learn for co-dependents.
My best guess is that it comes from early childhood when we are attempting to create an acceptable identity and our parents unintentionally (due to their own ignorance of human development) teach us how what we do affects their feelings, and how their feelings affect how we see ourselves: who we are, or maybe "should be". The most simple expression can be misinterpreted by the child's mind; ours, at that time. Hearing "You are such a good boy or girl, or such a bad boy or girl" is a judgment imposed by someone else, and authority figure (someone who we believe knows more about US, and who we were created to be), and it becomes a HABIT or ADDICTION for feelings of how good or bad we are based on someone else's opinion and judgment, not ours. We learn at a very early age that our feelings about how "good or bad" we are to feel about ourselves and who we are being, DEPENDS on someone else's judgment, and not how WE feel. We then accept that they have a "magical" power to decide and control how WE are to feel, and WE have a magical power to decide and control how THEY are to feel. I'm thinking we should break that misconception, and take back control of our own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors; and let THEM learn to choose and be responsible for their own mind's activity and experiences.
The TRUTH is, we DO NOT have the power, nor obligation, to control anyone else's feelings but our own!
Plus, "SHIT HAPPENS"! There are some other things "messy things", that happen in this Universe that we have absolutely no control over, but we choose to feel "bad" about, and we do not "have to" feel guilty for their occurrence; it is a feeling we are choosing.
And GUILT is a feeling just like all the other feelings. Guilt is a punishment of the self, for a mistake, and for maybe not being "perfect", where "perfection" means: "IN ABSOLUTE POWER AND CONTROL".
Letting go means accepting the reality of lack of control we have over anything but our own feelings, about the things we think, and the behaviors we choose, in order to be happy with our lives, AS IT IS AT THE MOMENT. I'm guessing that what we all really want is happiness, and more of it; and we keep blaming everything and everyone outside of us for US not controlling and choosing our own feelings of happiness, by accepting what is; and "what is" may be construed as what God is doing that apparently is "okay" with God, and completely out of our control, or need of our opinion. control, correction, or feelings.
Imagine the real pleasure of just being able to exist, and experience life itself. And then spending most of all our lives bitching about how it's not good enough, or how many things must be done and controlled OUTSIDE, in order to feel and appreciate life INSIDE; where, in fact, our inner world is completely under our control, and we continue to believe it is not; because that is what we were taught and accepted to be true, by others, that we assume we are dependent on, including God.
God will help, but that "help" does not mean 99.9% of helping and our .01% of responsible action on our part. It may be more like 10% God's help, and 90% of our taking responsibility for our actions, changing our feelings, and changing our beliefs because of our thoughts about what is true or not true about our control over anything; either outside or inside our minds.
"Let go & let God", to me, means to accept the reality of our powerlessness, and making that "okay". Accepting our powerlessness as okay is a choice, just like rejecting the belief that we are powerlessness, and MUST continue to achieve some mystical and impossible power over everything as a condition for happiness.
I feel we all have believed that reality is bad, and that a "better" world is the one we "imagine to be" the true world (because that one is the one we PREFER) and it is "the good one". In fact, it is just the opposite. The fantasy would is more painful and bad, since it already suggests that the real world needs to be changed in order to be acceptable for feeling happy. It doesn't. Reality is what is happening that we do not control, and we pretend to believe we either "can" or "should" be able to control. And it helps to remember that the word "should", to me at least, signifies a denial of reality.
Let God do God's thing, and what God controls; and I will let myself do my thing by controlling my feelings, thoughts, and behaviors about my expereince of life, and happiness.
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