Episode 163 -- November 4, 2021

Willing or Willful? How Keeping an Open Mind Can Help in Recovery

Being open to change and growth is key in order to progress in our recovery. If our choices are making our lives harder, they are no longer working for us. So why not try something else? Our sobriety allows us to consider our options from a better place than when we were drinking or using drugs.

In Finding Your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, Craig Nakken outlines forty-one basic principles, paired as positive and negative counterparts, that guide our behavior. He describes these pairs as tools for discovering options and making better choices—especially when our choices are not very clear. In this excerpt, we learn the difference between willfulness and willingness. Willfulness centers around the self. Willingness allows us to respond to the needs of those around us because we see that we are connected to them in a number of ways.

Nakken reminds us that willingness means staying open to learning. This is not to say that we can't stand firm in our decisions, of course, but stubbornness can lead to a closed mind.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

Willfulness
Each of us has been given a will, a source of personal energy that is ours and ours alone. This energy gives us a sense of power and uniqueness, as well as the ability and responsibility to make choices. Willfulness is a refusal to offer up this personal energy for the betterment of others through the expression of positive Spiritual Principles. It often goes hand in hand with selfishness, which only increases its resolve.

A friend calls and asks to borrow your car, which you're not using for the day. His is in the shop, he explains, and money is tight. If you help out, he could save the cost of renting a car for the day. But you say no, because you don't like the idea of someone else driving your car. That's willfulness in action.

Or maybe you've been feeling run down for a couple of weeks. Your partner asks you to see a doctor because he's worried about your health. You respond angrily, "I'm okay! I'll see a doctor when I want to see a doctor, not just because you're worried." Willfulness puts distance between us and whatever thing, person, or activity we're being willful about. When we become willful, we turn away from positive Spiritual Principles and the Divine, and turn toward instinct and ego. If we stay willful, over time we become rigid and closed-minded. We will push away anyone different from us and any idea different from our own. We then hide in negative spiritual principles like cynicism, skepticism, arrogance, and self-righteousness, seeking refuge from that which challenges and scares us. Willfulness feeds the "reptile" within.

Willingness
Willingness is a form of surrender, a recognition of our shared humanity, and the redirection of our will to benefit others. We see this most clearly in people who choose to put themselves in harm's way in order to serve and protect others, such as police officers, firefighters, and soldiers. But willingness is also behind any form of selfless service, from shoveling an elderly neighbor's sidewalk to helping your daughter's Girl Scout troop sell cookies at the mall.

Willingness always involves vulnerability, which is not something to be feared, but is a gateway to spiritual growth. Willingness and vulnerability both offer us many benefits—closer relationships, deeper commitments, and the opening up of new worlds.

An old friend's wife wanted him to learn to dance, but he became willful and refused, mainly because he hated the thought of being a beginner in a dance class. Over time, however, he was able to transform his willfulness into willingness. He and his wife took the class, and they now go dancing every Saturday.

Twelve Step meetings begin with everyone expressing a willingness to admit their imperfections. Then they are all welcomed for it. "Hi, my name is Pete and I'm an alcoholic." Everyone greets him: "Hi, Pete!" "Hi, I'm Stella and I'm a coke addict." Everyone responds: "Hi, Stella!" Each willing admission of imperfection is immediately followed by others' willingness to accept the person for who he or she is.

Willingness gets created in those moments when we suspend judgments. It allows us to see the many worlds layered and woven around our own. Becoming willing is a blessing, an act of courage, and a personal achievement.

Daniel's Story
Daniel had always been stubborn, even as a child. His parents worked hard to instill in this strong-willed child a variety of healthy values. For example, they had a rule: what is served is what you eat. One night when Daniel was eight, he sat at the table until ten o'clock because he didn't want to eat the liver and lemon pie that his mother had served him.

Daniel's will also had a positive aspect. In high school, he attached his will to perseverance and striving for excellence, and he became a straight-A student and the city's all-star quarterback, earning him a scholarship to a good college.

But when he went away to college, Daniel started to change, and his fame started to inflate his ego. He had to be in control and became self-righteous, arrogant, and cocky. He always got what he wanted and believed it would always be that way.

Sophomore year was a tough year for Daniel. He received a knee injury that ended his football career, and shortly after that, his girlfriend left him for the new quarterback. Daniel turned his pain into a bitterness that continued until he met Christy, who was to become his wife.

Daniel was madly in love with her. He was determined that they would have a good life. After college, he worked hard and became successful, and some of his old willfulness returned. He became controlling again. He started correcting Christy about everything. The more successful Daniel became, the less room there was for Christy and her thoughts, wants, and desires. Daniel thought he knew what was best for them.

One day, Daniel came home from work to find Christy with a suitcase packed. She sat Daniel down and very lovingly and compassionately told him that she was moving out because she couldn't stand his having to be right about everything. She was crying as she told him that she wanted to love him, but she couldn't breathe in the relationship anymore.

It was then that Daniel's willfulness changed to willingness. He didn't want to lose her and begged her for a second chance. She agreed, but only if he would get counseling.

Daniel was a great client. He took his counseling seriously and reattached his will to perseverance, but also to other principles, like compassion, empathy, and humility. Humility allowed him to feel the sadness of his football injury and the loss of his old girlfriend, and to see that fame and glory were shallow friends. It helped him accept that all of us are vulnerable and being right and self-righteous were just his ways of trying to hold on to fame and glory.

He stopped trying to make everything go his way and worked just to be a good man, a good husband, and a good citizen. He learned to make room for Christy, and her love for him blossomed again. As Daniel explained, "The more I'm willing to see my flaws, the more humble I become, for I really see how much I need others—their ideas, care, friendship, and love."

Questions for contemplation:

1. When do you tend to become most willful—in what situations and with what people? What negative emotion—fear, sadness, a sense of powerlessness, and so on—most makes you want to be willful?
2. Think back to a time in your life when your willingness enabled you to take a risk and change a behavior, an attitude, or your situation. What were the results of that change? Now think about a time when your willingness enabled you to give significant help to someone else. How did your willingness change their life?
3. As of right now, where do you place yourself on the continuum from willfulness to willingness?

About the Author:
Craig M. Nakken, MSW, CCDP, LCSW, LMFT, is an author, lecturer, trainer, and family therapist specializing in the treatment of addiction. With over twenty years of working experience in the areas of addiction and recovery, Nakken presently has a private therapy practice in St. Paul, Minnesota.

© 2011 by Craig Nakken
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