Martha Ruske, MFT
Recovery Life Coaching
INTENTIONAL PATH
“Helping people in long-term recovery step out
into the fuller life they deserve.”
November 16, 2005
In This Issue:
- Accepting the gift
- Thursday Step-Out
- Accepting help makes me cringe. How about you?
- Distorted Thinking E-course
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1. Accepting the gift
We're having a family celebration in just over a week. It will include a casual party, and it requires some work to pull everything together for 135 attendees.
I’ve been observing myself as I make my plans (that’s the psychotherapist part of me) and for once I’m noticing that I’m putting enjoyment at the top of the list for goals for this event. Enjoyment for myself, and enjoyment for others. That in itself is a departure for me, but I can see that recovery, therapy, and coaching have paid off.
And that has meant accepting help from others. What a concept! Take a look at the lead article (in #3 below) for more thoughts on asking for help, and accepting help.
2. FREE Thursday Step-Out
The holiday season is upon us. This can be a fun time of year, but it can also be fraught with anxiety as we try to fit too many things in. If you have some things on your “to do” list that you have had trouble with – finishing a report, cleaning out a closet, putting away your garden furniture for winter – then this could be for you.
This isn’t a time for processing feelings or analyzing why something has been hard. It’s just a 3-hour block of time where you get to check in with others several times and use that support to get your project – small or large - DONE.
It’s FREE.
Go here to read about, and sign up for, the last FREE THURSDAY STEP OUT of the year, which will be on December 15.
3. Lead Article – Accepting Help Makes Me Cringe – How About You?
Asking for help – and accepting help that is offered – makes me cringe. As my family prepares for our celebration, I’ve noticed that my husband and I have radically different ways of dealing with people offering to help. My husband, who has no addiction problems, says “That would be great! Thank you!” each time people offer to help with our party. My response is “Thanks, but I’d really rather that you enjoy yourself and not feel you have to work.” I do want them to enjoy themselves, but I’m also painfully aware of my discomfort in saying “Yes! I would appreciate your help!”
I’ve been thinking about alcoholic families and why this would be my tendency to respond this way. Here are some of the things I learned as a child:
- It’s good to be self-reliant.
- You can’t rely on others; you can only rely on yourself.
- Asking for help means that you aren’t capable of doing it on your own.
Well, it probably is good to be self-reliant, some of the time. When carried to extremes it can lead to isolation, aloneness, tension, and anxiety, and we all know how effective alcohol is in relieving those feelings, at least temporarily!
Many of us end up in recovery when we finally “give up” and ask for help. We learn to ask and get help from our recovery group, sponsor, treatment center, Higher Power. But it still isn’t easy to pick up the phone and call someone when we need help. Service – chairing a meeting, being the literature person in a 12-step group – is always much easier.
Now, what about the opposite? How do we feel when we help someone? We feel good about ourselves, generous, a sense of warmth toward that other person, happy that we were asked, happy that someone else felt we could help them, right?
So by not accepting the help that someone is offering we are depriving them of something. We are rebuffing their impulse to be generous, to be giving, and we are making sure that we are not allowing too much of a relationship to grow between us.
We are protecting ourselves from the uncomfortable feelings of trust, neediness, being beholden, those feelings that intrinsic to being human but which may have created problems for us when we were younger. If we do accept help and are critical of how that help is given, it further shields us from developing a mutual relationship with the other person.
We are also depriving ourselves of the opportunity to soar when we insist on acting alone. There is a synergy that happens when people work together and come up with a solution that would have been impossible if each had acted alone. My son’s school encourages “project-based learning” as a way to teach this principle. (On a larger scale, notice how difficult it is for the U.S. acting unilaterally in the world and how we have deprived ourselves of valuable input from other nations.) Mentors, guides, mastermind groups, coaches, sponsors all forward the idea of working together.
I’m sure there are people in your life that you allow in, that you let help and nurture you. But I bet this only goes so far. I challenge you to just say “Yes, thank you!” the next time someone offers help. Live with the bit of discomfort and see if you can allow a different outcome. And think of me as I practice doing the same next Saturday.
4. Distorted Thinking E-course
You’re probably tired of hearing about this. Just 2 more “distorted thoughts” to edit and the “Correct Your Distorted Thinking” e-course will be ready to go.
I’ll send out a special email just as soon as it’s available. Learn more about it here. As a subscriber, this course is free to you, as long as you’re willing to give me some feedback as to what you found helpful, and not so helpful.
About this e-zine
Copyright by Martha Ruske, MFT
Intentional Path is published semi-monthly for people in long-term recovery who want to step out into the fuller life they deserve.
This newsletter can be freely distributed or forwarded to others without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given.
Also, you may use my articles in your own e-zine or website. Please credit any excerpts to Martha Ruske, MFT and the “Intentional Path” website at www.intentionalpath.com.