Power grab

I realize that by placing responsibility for my life in others’ hands, I am totally relinquishing my power. Which is not a good thing. I need to take that back, and the sooner the better.

When we are young, we have no power. We are the unwitting accomplices in whatever game is at play in the moment. In theory, we realize our power as we age by testing boundaries.

Unless we don’t. Because dissent is squashed. Any attempt at individuation punished. The goal may not be to break one’s will, but that is the reality of an uneven playing field.

If power is continually wrested out from under our control, we get used to succumbing ourselves to the greater will and never truly learn what it means to be responsible for ourselves.

Not for our lives, not for our feelings, not for anything. We will always look to another for direction. Needless to say, this is an unhealthy dynamic and one that sets us up for future failure.

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All it took was a single word. But that one word freed me from a toxic emotional bind that has held me in its grasp for some time now. And with that freedom came perspective.

I could now see the situation for what it was. How I had been a prisoner of my own making. Caught up in a dynamic that was not serving me in spite of the allure it falsely promised.

I saw with startling clarity how I subjected myself to the whims of abuse. How my need for an attachment overrode any good sense regarding the quality of said attachment.

That one word exposed all. I only had myself to blame. I had excused it all. I had allowed the misbehavior to continue unabated because I wasn’t strong enough to walk away.

But now I am. It probably wasn’t that word that made the difference, but it did the trick. It summarized everything that was wrong and has become my clarion call for action.

Wanting something from someone makes you beholden. And being bound to someone renders you powerless. No longer. I am owning my power. And with that, my life.