From Enable to Able

One of the hardest titles for me to shed is enabler. It is ingrained into my personality like a strand of DNA. Being raised with an alcoholic, enabling in one way or another became a survival technique.

Where was Al Anon when I was 13!

“At the heart of every enabler is someone with a low sense of self-worth,” according to Angelyn Miller, MA (The Enabler, 1988).

The impostor in me rises in indignation! Me have a low sense of self-worth? Confident, outgoing, loves the spotlight…me?

Yes. Me.

What a surprise revelation that my need to enable someone else’s dysfunctional pattern or addiction points right back at me. It seems rewarding to help people with their problems, so fulfilling to pick up someone else’s burden or dysfunction and help (i.e. enable) them to continue in their self-imposed pattern of implosion.

No wonder I get so tired! This is one title I long to shed like itchy, scaly skin. I wish it were so easy.

What would happen if my friends exercised for me? Lifted weights for me? Or better yet, what if they did my push ups and crunches? The sugar I so love to eat would find a final resting place on my thighs, my friends would grow stronger, and I would grow weak and ill.

This flaking, crusty title must be shed one wise decision at a time. It is so much easier to remain an enabler than reflect the Able one. It is a long, sometimes painful process to shape our character to the one we strive to reflect. But oh how I long to resemble my First Love. The Able One.