When Strength Becomes Control
The same quality can help in one room and create chaos in another.
Problem solving built much of my career. See the issue, find the route and keep moving.
It is an excellent quality in a business crisis. It is less impressive when applied to every person and feeling in your life.
Recovery did not ask me to become passive or abandon the parts of me that worked. It asked me to notice what was driving them.
Was I pushing because action was genuinely needed? Or because uncertainty frightened me?
Was I helping somebody? Or trying to control the outcome so I could feel safe?
Was I being persistent? Or had persistence quietly become obsession?
The behaviour can look identical from the outside. The engine underneath is completely different.
That has become one of the most useful checks I have. Strengths do not remain strengths automatically. Confidence can become ego. Attention to detail can become control. Adaptability can become people pleasing. Being useful can become needing to be needed.
The answer is not to become less capable. It is to become more honest about who is holding the steering wheel.
Sometimes the next right action is to act. Sometimes it is to stop gripping and allow another person, a process or the universe to do its part.
An original reflection by Theo Luke Dornan. Independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous or AA World Services.