When people fully feel through their helplessness, they don’t gain control — they gain agency. There isn’t even a good word for what you get. You see options, you see choice, but you don’t control the outcome. The 12-step model demonstrates this: admitting you’re helpless before the substance doesn’t give you control over alcohol — it gives you agency to not drink.
Joe shares his own experience: closing a company he loved, going fully into the helplessness for two bumpy days, and emerging with profound freedom, spaciousness, and lessons that would have been impossible through self-recrimination. If he’d gone the “what did I do wrong, should have, would have, could have” route, the lessons wouldn’t have been half as potent.
Nelson Mandela in prison is the archetypal example. Everything was taken — he was in a completely helpless situation, pounding rocks, being abused. By feeling into that helplessness, he maintained an open heart and deep internal agency that couldn’t be controlled by external circumstances. Nothing could be taken from him because it had all been taken already.
“It is saying ‘I am helpless to this’ which allows you to not be controlled by it.”
The inverse is also true: if you don’t feel helplessness, you’re constantly chasing power and control, and it can all be taken away from you.
Related Concepts
- Helplessness is the gateway to surrender
- Helplessness dissolves false self-reliance
- Facing fear builds empowerment
- Going through helplessness is what creates empowerment
- The freedom is in wanting to feel helpless again
- Fully allowing the victim experience naturally creates empowerment
- The feeling being avoided underneath ‘I’ve got this’ is helplessness