Powerlessness and Helplessness

Well, I'm reading and starting to work the ACA Steps workbook.  So much of it seems redundant from my recovery efforts in the other fellowships that I notice a smugness, "I already know this", yeah, yeah attitude slowly creeping in.  Very quietly the doors to my heart, mind, body and soul close and I don't even notice because it's so slowly subtle.  That's my illness.

I'm amazed, absolutely fascinated by how it manifests itself and says, "I don't really need this.  I already know it.  Why bother?"  La, la, la, la, la, la.  Just like that.  The doors are shut and nothing gets in...and nothing gets out.

My shutting down, trying to go to sleep reaction to studying this material tells me to PAY ATTENTION more than ever.  At this time, I need want to diligently learn, read, meditate, ponder, wonder, and act like I've never heard it before.  It's all new.  Even if I've heard it a million times.  Keep an open mind.

So, I am at page 28.

Powerlessness:

1.  How is powerlessness different than helplessness?  I went to the online dictionary.

World English Dictionary

powerless  (ˈpaʊəlɪs)
— adj
	without power or authority helpless  (ˈhɛlplɪs)    — adj 1. unable to manage independently 2. made powerless or weak 3. without help I learned as a child a bunch of crap (I call it the "razzle dazzle") taught by those in power who thought they knew everything, or so it seemed to me.  I was a child, dependent and it was in my best interest to survive.  I learned helplessness   I learned to be busy in other people's stuff and I learned to abuse and be abused.  I learned to tolerate levels of painful rejection, neglect, abandonment, shame and guilt regarding the necessary acceptance of a-b normal conditions---as if it was normal.  I was taught so many erroneous things and many of them socially accepted.  I learned to co-sign other people's bullshit.  I learned to co-sign my own BS.  I learned to try to control the uncontrollable, which seemed to work some of the time so promoted the delusion it surely had to work all the time...but it didn't.  I learned to take responsibility for things that were NONE OF MY BUSINESS, like how other people think, feel, believe, live, act, etc.  I learned to depend on others who were undependable.  I learned to love others who withdrew love, were unavailable to love or be loved, who hit, demeaned, and acted as if it was my fault, that there was something wrong with me for how they treated me.  Trying to people-please, help them, fix them, save them, give it all to them so maybe, just maybe, I might get what I want and  need.  As a child, I was like a small leaf hanging on to a tree branch, fearing to let go, fearing to die, fearing the rejection of the tree, fearing the inevitable cold wind of life that would rip me from my only source in life but in reality, I wasn't even a leaf.  I am a magnificent human being, a great event in the cosmos but I lost touch with my divinity.  Instead of flying up like a spiritual eagle enjoying the freedom of the GOD-given blessings of the wind, I lived like a gobble, gobble turkey waiting for its turn on the family's holiday platter.  The great sacrifice.  With the battle cry of the martyr, "After all I did for you, this is what I get?".  Jeesh. As a human being I lost connection with the source of true spiritual power...the Higher Power.  Instead of plugging in, I became confused and thought the Source was what other people thought of me, or what they did or didn't do for me, or what I thought or did for them, etc..  As if THEY were my god or l was theirs.  Like I had the solution to everybody's problems.  Like I would fix it.  Otherwise it was all my fault.  Like I had "the power", the balls, the know-it-all.  True powerlessness exists for me in this domain.  The kingdom of the Spirit which manifests itself on the physical plane.  "On Earth, as it is in Heaven."  I am not the Cause, the Cure, the Control of this spiritual, mind-numbing, heartbreaking, sleep-walking spiritually bankrupt-dead phenomena illness.  Only GOD is the power and the solution to all my problems.  True powerlessness is accepting the truth...I need help.  I cannot do this alone.  I need GOD's help...there's not another human being, constitution, or institution that can do for me what only GOD has the authority and power to do..set me free from the bondage of Self...to love GOD, myself and others.  One day at a time. "Let it begin with me..."  Love, Carol