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.