Weekly AA Thread 9/7-9/13
KTAB, where are you posting the inane wafflings? I haven't seen those posts. The posts of yours I see regularly are all fabulous and sound.
Tough Chicks were awesome today. We started reading Step 3 in the book. (not big book - the text book that goes with the work book). Making a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of a higher power means first recognizing that what I like to try to do - control everything and everyone around me - doesn't work. So the focus of our discussion today was mainly examples of that. A common thread was how we try to control people - i.e. children, spouses, employees, bosses and the harder we work at control, the worse results we get. Many children and spouses were driven away.
The serenity prayer was discussed as a favored tool for when we are frustrated or resentful. Are we trying to change something out of our control? If so, acceptance is the answer.
The funniest story today was by a former school teacher. She is retired now but taught for over 20 years and then moved into an administrative position. She said we she took the administrative position, she was for the first time in an office with many other adults rather than in a classroom with all children and her "in charge." She talked about how she wanted to tell everyone what to do, to shut up, and she had a desire to arrange the office furniture into rows. This was hillarious as she was describing it. She could only achieve peace in her new job when she accepted that it was not her place to try to change and control the other adults she was working with. I can relate to that.
There is a discussion about fear in the Daily AF thread that is very good and certainly relevant for me. I am writing a few of my thoughts here since it was fear of relapse that drove me through the doors of AA.
I absolutely know that AL is doing push ups in my parking lot, because that's just the nature of this addiction. But I don't fear relapse any more, nor am I as fearful about life in general any more. I think contributing factors include:
* Living as honestly as I can trying to do the next right thing. I have less to fear this way.
* Clearing the wreckage of my past through steps 4&5 and 8&9 was sucha relief. In step 5 I forgave myself for a lot of things. That takes a lot of fear away.
* I treat fear as a defect that I ask HP for help removing on a daily basis. Sometimes that works like magic. Can't really explain it, but I've learned to "just do it."
* Living in a fearless way comes also with responsibility. I'm not a helpless, fearful victim in this life. I ask for the courage to live without fear.
* Staying in touch with my sobriety plan on a daily basis helps give me purpose and direction. Purpose and direction help ease my fears.
* When I catch myself starting to worry about something (I have come to believe that worry is a waste of time and useless activity that changes NOTHING) I stop it. I change the channel in my mind. I ask HP for help if I feel unable to get it done myself.
That's what came to mind today as I was thinking about fear and how I used to deal with it (I didn't) and how I try to deal with it today. I have a long way to go but it's so comforting to have tools to work with now, and also have mentors in AA who show me that they have conquered there fears, and therefore I can do it too.
Hope everyone is having a fabulous day.
DG
KTAB, where are you posting the inane wafflings? I haven't seen those posts. The posts of yours I see regularly are all fabulous and sound.
Tough Chicks were awesome today. We started reading Step 3 in the book. (not big book - the text book that goes with the work book). Making a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of a higher power means first recognizing that what I like to try to do - control everything and everyone around me - doesn't work. So the focus of our discussion today was mainly examples of that. A common thread was how we try to control people - i.e. children, spouses, employees, bosses and the harder we work at control, the worse results we get. Many children and spouses were driven away.
The serenity prayer was discussed as a favored tool for when we are frustrated or resentful. Are we trying to change something out of our control? If so, acceptance is the answer.
The funniest story today was by a former school teacher. She is retired now but taught for over 20 years and then moved into an administrative position. She said we she took the administrative position, she was for the first time in an office with many other adults rather than in a classroom with all children and her "in charge." She talked about how she wanted to tell everyone what to do, to shut up, and she had a desire to arrange the office furniture into rows. This was hillarious as she was describing it. She could only achieve peace in her new job when she accepted that it was not her place to try to change and control the other adults she was working with. I can relate to that.
There is a discussion about fear in the Daily AF thread that is very good and certainly relevant for me. I am writing a few of my thoughts here since it was fear of relapse that drove me through the doors of AA.
I absolutely know that AL is doing push ups in my parking lot, because that's just the nature of this addiction. But I don't fear relapse any more, nor am I as fearful about life in general any more. I think contributing factors include:
* Living as honestly as I can trying to do the next right thing. I have less to fear this way.
* Clearing the wreckage of my past through steps 4&5 and 8&9 was sucha relief. In step 5 I forgave myself for a lot of things. That takes a lot of fear away.
* I treat fear as a defect that I ask HP for help removing on a daily basis. Sometimes that works like magic. Can't really explain it, but I've learned to "just do it."
* Living in a fearless way comes also with responsibility. I'm not a helpless, fearful victim in this life. I ask for the courage to live without fear.
* Staying in touch with my sobriety plan on a daily basis helps give me purpose and direction. Purpose and direction help ease my fears.
* When I catch myself starting to worry about something (I have come to believe that worry is a waste of time and useless activity that changes NOTHING) I stop it. I change the channel in my mind. I ask HP for help if I feel unable to get it done myself.
That's what came to mind today as I was thinking about fear and how I used to deal with it (I didn't) and how I try to deal with it today. I have a long way to go but it's so comforting to have tools to work with now, and also have mentors in AA who show me that they have conquered there fears, and therefore I can do it too.
Hope everyone is having a fabulous day.
DG
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