Cofee Hour @ Chicklit Power: Loving the Unlovable

Loving the Unlovable-Step 10

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

This series is really driving the saying, “Practice makes perfect” home to my heart. I sincerely hope that these ten steps stay with you well beyond our coffee hours. Grab your coffee and come on in. Let’s begin the final step.

Step 10 is powerfully revealing. The funny thing about this step is it really requires us to go back to Step 4 – listing the three adjectives that describe why that person is unlovable and/or difficult, in your opinion – and Step 6 – to detach in love. Don’t misunderstand me; all the steps need to be worked through, and more than once. It’s just that these two steps work like the power tools of all the steps which we can use to accomplish Step 10. I don’t think it was a coincidence, more of a God-incidence that the two super power tools together make up 10. I know I don’t have to tell you what 4+6 equals!

I actually found the frame for this step one morning while reading in my “Courage to Change” book from Al-Anon. I read from this book every morning for a year as I struggled to understand my mom’s disease of alcoholism and her behaviors and attitudes. But more importantly, I was learning how to accept her right where she was, still in her disease. I’d have to admit that it was the first real unpacking of the emotional piece of junk: the delusion of being in control and trying to control others!

Anyway, as I was reading this particular day’s reading, another revelation lit up in my heart and I started putting this step into practice. it came to life within me immediately! I remember quite vividly the confidence that accompanied me in and through this step, the assurance that at least one of the difficult people in my life would be moving off my list soon. It doesn’t matter that there are more people jumping on to my list; that’s a given depending on how much we are out there interacting with others!

So here it is, Step 10: Go back to the first person on your list – go ahead, get your list. You might as well start today! Now, let your thoughts settle on that one person. As you think of talking with that person, ask yourself” What three things do I feel are missing from _________ anytime I talk with them. Go ahead and fill in the name; doing it makes it real!

I’ll go ahead and use my mom as an example for this step. Whenever I would dwell on what I wished could be in our relationship, inevitably I would always go to the ways in which if she would change, what I’d like to have from my mom. I imagined what it would be like to laugh more with her, to receive kindness more often and a big cupful of understanding too. These were the three things that I felt she failed to give me whenever we did talk and I felt down in the very core of my heart that if I experienced these things from her and with her, we would have a healthier relationship.

Let’s take the time to write those three things now. The realization will be so much more powerful if you do; I promise! Remember, these are things you would like to have from this person.

Learning with you,





Evinda