I have spent years trying to make emotionally unavailable people be emotionally present for me. I have spent even more years trying to make family members, who are content feeling miserable, happy.
What I'm saying is this: I've spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I couldn't. It's been like planting corn and trying to make the seeds grow peas. Won't work!
Again, this reading is speaking to me today. It is one thing to support healthy people in their choices and decisions. It is quite another to expect something from someone who has nothing to give.
I have learned, in recovery, that we are each on our own journey in life, and that there are choices and experiences and consequences that are part of our learning, our growth, our recovery. To try to change another person, is to rob them of their journey.
I needed to experience all I experienced, including the pain, for me to be in the good place I am in today. I must respect that same process in others.
Indeed, I am powerless over others and it's not such a bad thing.
Hugs