A Deeper Invitation

 I wonder if the deeper invitation is not about the little girl at all. It may be about the woman I am now.

Looking at everything, I see several possibilities:

1. To learn that pain doesn’t have to determine the size of my life

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand, manage, prevent, and accommodate pain. Some of that has been necessary. But perhaps the next lesson is:

Can I have pain without organizing my entire life around it?

Not ignoring it. Not pretending it isn’t there. But refusing to let it become the authority over what I do, where I go…

2. To release the belief that I have to figure everything 

I’ve searched. I’ve researched. I’ve asked doctors. I’ve looked for explanations. 

I’m someone who naturally wants to understand.

Maybe the invitation isn’t “Find the answer.”

Maybe it’s:

“Can I live peacefully without knowing the answer?”

That’s a very different kind of surrender.

3. To learn the difference between listening to my body and obeying my body

This may be one of the biggest lessons.

I’ve become extraordinarily attentive to my body. But sometimes listening can quietly turn into monitoring.

The nervous system can become even more focused on the threat.

4. To discover that I don’t have to earn rest

This one feels connected to childhood.

The good little girl learned to obey, perform, anticipate, help, and be productive.

5. And perhaps the deepest one: to stop making healing another thing I have to accomplish

I’ve worked incredibly hard on myself.

Recovery. Inner-child work. Spiritual work. Understanding trauma. Understanding neuroplasticity. Letting go. Surrender.

And perhaps even healing can become another form of striving.

Maybe the invitation is:

What if nothing needs to be accomplished right now?

Step Three - I Can Let Go

 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

I used to think I understood surrender.

I had surrendered alcohol.

I had surrendered things I couldn’t change.

I had experienced loss.

I had learned, again and again, that life does not always ask our permission before it changes.

But pain has shown me another level of surrender.

Because this time, what I am surrendering is not simply something outside of me.

I am surrendering my need to control what happens inside me.

And that is much harder.

I want certainty.

But perhaps certainty is the very thing I am being asked to release.

My little girl doesn’t understand that.

She wants promises.

And I can’t honestly make that promise.

So I make her a different one.

I tell her:

I won’t abandon you.

I will be here.

Whatever comes, we will meet it together.

That feels much more truthful.

And perhaps that is surrender.

Not saying, Nothing will hurt me.

But saying:

Whatever comes, I don’t have to meet it alone.

Step Three is not passivity.

It isn’t giving up.

It isn’t saying that I don’t care what happens to my body.

It is releasing my demand that life unfold according to my conditions before I allow myself to live.

I can care for myself without obsessively monitoring myself.

I will not make my world smaller just because I am afraid of pain.

There will be days when I forget.

There will be days when fear takes over.

There will be days when I want to know why and when and how long.

On those days, I can come back.

Back to Step One:

I cannot control this.

Back to Step Two:

I don’t have to do this alone.

And then Step Three:

God, I give this to You.

Not because I have stopped caring.

Because I care enough about my life to stop letting fear run it.

For thirty-one years, AA has taught me that surrender is not defeat.

It is freedom.

I think I am learning that lesson again.

Perhaps alcohol was not the only thing I needed to become sober from.

Perhaps I am now becoming sober from the belief that I have to control everything in order to be safe.

And perhaps this is the deeper invitation of the first three steps:

Admit what I cannot control.

Believe I am not alone.

And then let go.

Not forever.

Just for this moment.

This breath.

This day.

And when tomorrow comes, I can surrender tomorrow then.

Step Two - I Don’t Have to Do This Alone

 Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step Two comes after the admission of Step One.

If I can’t control this, then what?

For me, that question has become enormous.

Because when you have spent your life believing that safety comes from figuring things out, letting go of control can initially feel like falling.

If I don’t monitor everything, who will?

The frightened part of me wants certainty.

She wants someone to tell her exactly what will happen.

She learned very early that the world could be unpredictable.

Now I am asking her to do something completely different.

To trust.

I have discovered that believing in God and trusting God are not necessarily the same thing.

I can believe God is there and still try desperately to manage every outcome.

I can pray and then immediately go back to worrying.

Pain has exposed that difference.

Because my nervous system doesn’t always care what I intellectually believe.

It has its own history.

It has learned patterns.

It has learned to associate certain sensations with danger.

And when it becomes frightened, it can send out an alarm.

The alarm itself can then become frightening.

And suddenly I am caught in a loop.

Pain.

Fear.

Attention.

More alarm.

More pain.

I have spent so much time trying to break that loop by making the pain stop.

But perhaps the way out is different.

Perhaps I don’t have to fight the alarm.

Perhaps I can teach my system something new.

I hear you.

I know you’re trying to protect me.

And perhaps that is where Step Two meets the nervous system.

Restoration doesn’t necessarily mean that everything changes immediately.

Maybe restoration begins with the restoration of trust.

Trust in my body.

Trust in my capacity to feel something without being destroyed by it.

Trust that a sensation does not automatically mean danger.

Trust that I can experience discomfort without immediately rearranging my entire life around it.

And most of all, trust that I don’t have to do this alone.

There is something greater than the frightened part of my

That has been one of the hardest lessons of my life.

And one of the most beautiful.

Because maybe healing isn’t something I have to accomplish.

Maybe healing is something I can participate in.

I can show up.

I can breathe.

I can reassure my little girl.

I can take care of my body.

I can seek appropriate help.

And then I can let go of the demand that I control the outcome.

That is Step Two for me now.

I don’t have to do this alone.

There is a Power greater than my fear.

And perhaps I am finally learning to lean into it.