The Reason for Being

Today there was a discussion about love in the chat room. I also read a blog that a friend wrote and it too talked about love and using love as a spiritual tool. When ever a subject keeps popping up I think it’s my Higher Power telling me to explore it and write about it. I think love is part of all humanity and it is one of the first emotions that we feel as children; love and anger. I think my Higher Power created me for this purpose to love be loved and to experience everything in between. Why not? Since it so prevalent in everyday life; movies, poetry, novels, music, and all over the internet. The search is always on to love and be loved. I have tried to love people unconditionally, accept them for who they are and the trials they are experiencing on the path they have chosen. At the same time I think there’s different kinds of love. Unconditional, sexual, friendship, parental, family. I don’t think we should categorize love as one type only. I don’t feel the same way about my children then I do about a homeless stranger I’m giving food too. But I still can love that homeless stranger as one of gods children. When I give love I get love. And I have a better way of life with those around me, they can see that I care. So that is my goal, to love others unconditionally, and for those special people in my life to love deeply and personally. I’m sure my higher power will help me reach it. If not I’m sure I will write about that too. After all that’s why I am here to learn, explore and love.

Celebrate

Sometimes when you let a situation that is bothering you, just be for awhile, and don’t jump to assumptions and conclusions, it works itself out. Many times my perception of reality is a little tweaked. I tend to analyze and come to the wrong outcome. I always do this and sometimes I make it worse that way. I feel like a drug addict that has “gone back out” when I go back to those sick behaviors. I really would like to stop doing this, but how? Yesterday, I tried to work it out in my head, make amends and let it go. I kept praying for serenity and giving it to hp. So hard! I need to call my sponsor more I just feel that sometimes my issues seem petty to me. Silly and stupid. But again that is my warped sense of reality. I know she wouldn’t feel that way. If it’s bothering me, it’s something that needs to be worked out. I need to focus on baby steps. Not try to change all my behavior at once. My therapist reminds me, every time we meet, how far I have come since January. I tend to blow off the accomplishes I have made and focus on what still needs work. But how can I approach the next issues if I don’t celebrate the healthy work I just did? I can’t, so today I celebrate my independence, and my love for hp. And I look around and focus on what I am so grateful for and not what I still have to work on. Just for today!

Clarity

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change.” “ The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” That’s the hard one for me, the wisdom to know the difference between what I can and can not change. It also hurts a lot, beating my head against a wall till I call my sponsor and go back to step 3. I wish I was wise enough to see it right away. I wish I knew when to give up. Would save me a lot of grief and heart ache. But I can’t see that I’m am powerless until it’s left me hurting and feeling self pity. How do I find clarity? Prayer? It’s the only thing I can think of to do. And to give it back to god when I realize I can’t do anything about it. I will work on finding the serenity to acept the things I can not change.

Live and Let Live

I’m struggling with how to keep my nose out of other people’s drama even when I’m pulled into it. And how to keep a friendship going when I resent the fact I was pulled into their fears and worries. How to balance friendship advice and my own recovery. I tend to want to help, fix the problems of people I love and I have to resist that impulse. But I do get sucked in when someone comes to me with concern or fear. And I give my experience as advice. Advice which is not well received usually. And then I feel betrayed somehow. Why ask me then if they don’t want to hear what I have to say. For my own sake I need to resist the impulse to react and respond. Sometime I feel like I’m 12 again learning how to interact with others. When I looked into this problem from an Al-Anon point of view, “Live and let Live” popped up. This is the slogan I should be repeating. Buddy T says that after years of living somebody's else life and looking after others it was hard to look just after Buddy T. I feel the same way easy for me to worry about everyone else. Hard for me to take care of me. So I will keep exploring and trying not to give advice from my own experiences that are very unhealthy. I have to find the way to balance . Because what I feel today is not healthy or fun.

Self-Righteousness

I know that people read my blog and I try to be honest and positive in my writing as I work toward recovery. But I am also just as sick and messed up as everyone else. I suppose the difference is I’m just willing to write about it and be honest for anyone that cares to read about it. And maybe they might feel better. Maybe realize they are not alone in their recovery. On that note, I want to be honest about my tendency to be self -righteous. That word has been showing up in my life lately. In the readings I do, in step chat and I’ve been pulling that word out of a box in my woman’s Na group They have heard it all from me the good and the bad. And they still look at me with love in their eyes. So I feel better about sharing here. Sometime I catch myself judging others. I see someone new in recovery and I feel above them somehow. If they come over and want something from me, it’s worse. I think it must be all the low life’s my sister brought home that stole from our family and did drugs in front of my little sister. I left the word “low life’s” in because that is my judging coming out. Seeing them beneath me, lower in life, then me. I realize mentally that they are sick and I’m just a hop and a skip from where they are, yet I still get that little voice saying “low life” The reason I am aware of this is someone at a pot luck last night at The AA clubhouse a man came over to me and wanted to take the computer away from my son. To go on a chat site. He kept insisting even though I said no. He finally left, but I judged him all night. Even today I thought about him and what a low life he was. Why? To make myself feel better? Maybe by judging him I’m validating that I the good one in the program? I know how wrong that thinking is. And all the reading I done up to this point validates how wrong that thinking is. But to not jump straight to that attitude is hard for me. Judging is very deeply embedded I think. So the only thing I can do is call myself on it. Like today,. Tell the world how messed up I am and ask hp to help me with my faults. And strive to be a less judgmental person.

Trusting

People say bad things happen in threes. I came back from Dallas in a dark state. My work tells me they are cutting back my money and students because of my “personal” problems. I just kept saying what the hell?? Why does everything bad have to happen all at once? I think it would be easier to deal with if it was spread out over time. Sometimes I get jealous of happy people. I feel selfish and petty But sometimes I get annoyed when someone comes up to me and says life is good. How are you doing? Usually I say Fine. Why should I bring them down with my shit. I just feel like I need some happy positive things happening when I have this going on. But then I wonder if I would recognize it as such. Maybe everything seems dark even the good things. I have been in this place before, I recognize it well. The difference now is I go to meetings and I get support I know that god will send the advice I need if I just stay patient. And he does. At the meeting I went to right after work an old timer in NA said I have to accept the way things are, good, bad or indifferent. He said when one door closes another opens and that it’s HP plan. He also said that it’s hard to see Hp plan when bad stuff happens until it’s all over. That trusting is the key to getting through it and everything will make since He said this in a share. He did not even know I needed those words. But HP did. So I am trusting and writing down the things I am grateful for. I am trying to listen to HP clues. And I am trying hard to take it as it comes, one day at a time. It is the only choice I have because the alternative is being miserable..

Pain and Love

I was hesitant about writing today, because I feel numb and shell shocked from the experience in Dallas. My sister and I went down there to see my dad. The first day we arrived we missed our flight. We had to catch the later flight and we arrived very late. My aunt’s roommate decided to wake my dad up to see us. He looked terrible. Pale as a ghost. I don’t think my sister had accepted the fact that he was dying until that moment. She had to leave the room and cry. This happened for 3 days. I stayed strong for her. Giving her support and strength. On Wednesday my dads surgery was unsuccessful. On Thursday, he went into a diabetic comma because the nurses didn’t test his sugar. I got him to drink some juice by screaming at him to wake up and drink it. My voice somehow got through to him. He cried and said he didn’t mean to scare me. I told him it wasn’t his fault. That he didn’t do anything. I had to leave the room. I had reached my breaking point.
When someone close to you is in that condition. Every hurt feeling seems small and petty. It is easy to forgive. My sister and dad have not been that close since he lived in California. She was angry at him for a very long time. That all went away last week. Evaporated like a bad dream. I think that is HP plan in some cases. My sister asked me, “why he is having to die this way, so slowly?”. I think, so that there is closure for everyone and forgiveness. Last week was hell on earth, but seeing my sister and dad get close again was a gift from god. I feel closer to both of them now for having that experience. But I wish now we could have more time with him.

Acceptance

I’ve been thinking about acceptance lately. I’m having to give a lot of things to god that I can’t control. My dad’s cancer, my father-in laws cancer. My job that is up in the air. My husband disease and lack of motivation. Yesterday, I felt like a slave and that life was becoming a pit again. I was jealous of all the happy people around me. So I decided to once again accept the reality of my situation. This is my life. If I don’t like it, change it. Stop complaining and accept it for what it is good and bad. I went to a meeting and they asked if anyone had a topic I said yes, acceptance. After the meeting one of the ladies came over to me and said. Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice. That really hit home. I was choosing to be miserable and feeling sorry for myself. One of the other woman found a reading about acceptance. Individual’s accept rather then resent. I can either accept it or get filled with resentment. Resentment makes me feel sick and ugly and does no one any good. I am very grateful that I have a place to go to when I get like this. Thank god for my 12 step program and the people in it with experience behind them. Thank god for meetings to remind me how grateful I really should be.

Forgiving

I have been working the codependency steps with my sponsor. We are working through a book that has me list and explore how my childhood as affected me and the way I view the world. My Dad and sister had a big role in my negative experiences. I’ve been thinking about both of them a lot lately. Especially my dad, because he has been fighting colon cancer and is having surgery next week. I’m going to see him and I’m going with a light heart because I have forgiven him for the childhood abuse. I suppose I could hate both my sister and dad for what they did to me, but I don’t. For me to truly recover I need to forgive them and understand them. I know that they were doing the best they could in the hell that we were all in. My sister grew up in the same household I did so I know why she is a drug addict and why she was abusive to me. My dad is mentally ill and had a horrible childhood as well. I understand the illness they had and have. I understand because I had it too. Insecurity, low self -esteem, fear and self pity. I’m so glad that I sought help and have a sponsor helping me work the steps. Giving me the tools to connect to my kind, forgiving, god. Because now I can forgive as well. And I pray for my dad and sister that they find the same peace I did and that they can forgive each other too.