will

After my January writing challenge, I found I really enjoyed the process and the dual writing, so I asked another friend for another couple of themes… here is the first – “Willingness”

All the Recovery fellowships and groups talk a lot about surrender, acceptance, doing The Work, connection, healing…. All very worthy sentiments and ideals, but without 1 starting block – useless

Willingness

I must be willing to do all of these things before I can even start.

We talk about rock bottoms – when life has just become too overwhelming to continue as we are. And yes, they are a starting point. But that very first step forward must be willingness.

Willingness to accept we are powerless

Willingness to ask for help

Willingness to change how we live

Willingness to admit our faults

Willingness to forgive others

Willingness to forgive ourselves

I have found in my time with others in recovery that, with the best will in the world – pun intended – there can be no healing before we decide, for ourselves, that we are willing to heal. I know that sounds really obvious, but even at my lowest, I wasn’t willing to make any changes, to accept help, to be vulnerable – I just wanted to feel better.

We talk about willpower not being enough. Willpower and willingness are opposite ends of the spectrum.

Willpower implies that somehow we are in control. How many addicts and people with MH issues are told “just try harder”. Like we have some superpower over our brains and emotions. In my darkest days, I simply could not “Will” myself better. Willpower implies that somehow we are deficient in some moral fibre to be well, to be in control. It comes from a very puritanical view that hard work and moral fibre cured all ills. If you were mentally unwell, either with depression or addiction, then you were simply failing as a human. You lacked the backbone to overcome.

Using just Willpower to overcome these diseases often results in what we call “white knuckling”. Using will power alone, is like holding on, with knuckles white, trying to not fall and drown. I’ve seen it first hand in myself and others, and its ugly, and its heartbreaking. We would not expect cardiac patients to go it alone and cure themselves. We don’t ask paraplegics to get up and walk. And yet Willpower, or a lack thereof, is constantly trotted out as a cure all for MH and addiction…

But Willingness? Willingness is really the first step.

Take away that expectations of self-power – and release and relief are right there.

Stop fighting yourself and the world and you can find peace.

In early recovery, I thought I was willing. But the only real change I made was to change one addiction with another. I saw the tools tantalisingly close but was too reluctant to ask for and accept help, to give away my “power”, that for a year I played at recovery.

I think my first Willingness came when I started actually going to meetings, and not just attending as support for others. Actually listening, without just formulating my response in my head. Being willing to accept my role in the things that had happened.

Being willing to change

Being willing to accept my role

Being willing to give others grace

Being willing to do The Work

And Willingness is a daily tool. They say it takes 6 weeks to bed in a new habit and less than 2 to let bad habits back in. So I have to make a daily pledge to be Willing to accept all the Recovery stuff I need. And it isn’t easy. I find myself falling back on to the quick fixes, the quick dopamine hits when I’m tired or not well. But if I leave myself open to being willing tomorrow to start again then I will continue to grow.

I never lacked the willpower to change. I simply lacked the willingness to be vulnerable and honest with myself.

I never lacked the willpower to work hard at life; I lacked the willingness to ask for help

I never lacked the willpower to always be there for others; I lacked the willingness to accept that that wasn’t a healthy way to live.

I never lacked Willpower at all

I did lack a lot of willingness to be different.

“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”

• Konstantin Josef Jireček

I’ve always loved this quote. Often said in jest in workplace situations; but I think it applies to Recovery groups now. We work with what little we have; sometimes helping people who are kicking and screaming; to a place where we all learn to give in, together.

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Willing

The dark clouds circled

Sometimes I was willing it to be different

If I just did better

Was better

Tried harder

It would all be better

The dark clouds came in closer

All I needed to do was keep up the pretence

Fake it til you make it

Smile and the world smiles with you

The dark clouds covered my eyes

I was just being pathetic

I was just being lazy

I wasn’t strong enough

The dark clouds made it hard to walk and talk

I was a strong person

This would be a breeze

I could pretend

I could Do This

I just needed more willpower

I lost that willpower

The clouds briefly parted

A hand reached out

I was no longer alone

They said I could rest

The clouds began to lift

I lost willpower, but found willingness

I found hope

I found peace

I found Joy