Quiet half hour

"Just for today I will have a quiet half hour all by myself and relax.  During this half hour, sometime, I will try to get a better perspective of my life."

-AlAnon Literature

Source: nom-nom-nom.tumblr.com via Nicole on Pinterest

Just for today

Just for today....

I am realizing how relevant and helpful this slogan is for me right now in my life.  While my life circumstances have changed and everything in my future is up in the air, I need to constantly remind myself that I only need focus on today.  Worrying about tomorrow helps nothing, neither does obsessing on the past. I have now.  And I can choose to enjoy my now or ruin my small moments by not being present.

Someone told me yesterday something like, 'the past is merely a figment of our imagination and the future, speculation and projection".  That's sort-of true.

So today, I'm present.  In the moment.

The Truth About Myself

I like to see myself as someone who knows her self.  I like to think that I'm good about taking personal inventory  and asking God to reveal my short-comings.  That I'm self-aware and self-analytic.

But the truth is that there will always be things about myself that I don't see.  So true courage means being able to ask others how they see you.  I haven't done this yet.  But I am becoming aware that my walls go up when someone states something they've observed in me which I disagree with.  My first reaction is to tell myself that they're just wrong.  They're seeing incorrectly.

But maybe, just maybe, they're able to see what I am not.  So, it doesn't hurt to get a second opinion.  Certainly it doesn't hurt to ask others if they are observing the same thing.  And always, I can ask God to reveal to me the truth about myself.

If I really want to be self-aware, I must be willing to see myself as others do.

New Ideas

It's been a couple few years since I've had a drink.

However, I'm just now realizing that though I've stayed sober, I'm only now becoming sober.  Meaning that sobriety entails more than just abstaining from drink.  It's interesting that I began this blog only a few months back with the desire to apply the steps in multiple areas of my life and with the intent of sharing that I find the steps applicable for most everything in life.

I think I secretly believed that I had grasped the steps fully and was ready to impart wisdom.  That was foolishness.

I am working two programs now.  Really working them.  I have a sponsor, I'm doing homework and readings,I'm going to meetings.  It's amazing.  I'm taking no one's inventory but my own.  And what has already been revealed through this process is huge.  But I'm on a quest for mental health.  I'm humbly asking God to restore me to sanity.  And so this new year, I want to be willing, honest and open enough to discover what God has in store for me - His will.

“We reevaluate our old ideas so we can become acquainted with the new ideas that lead to a new way of life.”

Basic Text, p. 94

Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood puts it this way,"The questioning, the self-examination, is not a fretful conscience nor a stricken,anxious tidying of the mind. It should be rather a simple question, 'Have I this day realized who I am,where I am going, how much I walk alone, how much I walk not alone? How much have I listened? How much have I realized?...Can I hold my soul within my soul? Can I be awake to the divine whisper or am I sound asleep? Am I strong, built on a foundation of silence?...What is my journey?...Simple exercises are good for this time,...Trusting is part of your role; trust in peace, merriment and confidence.  Wear garments of joy without fearful anticipations...."


I want to know where I'm going, what my journey is.  And so, I'm returning to the simple.  As though new.  Because I am made new continually.  

Restore us to sanity

So, I worked 'the steps' many years ago.  Got my life together. Grew in my relationship with God.  Thought I was daily working the steps.  Yup, me and God were cool.

And then....

Then about a month ago, things in my life went haywire.  And I came to a place where I realized my life had become unmanageable. Because though I no longer (by the grace of God) desire to drink in order to solve or hush my problems, I do use other coping mechanisms.  I deny. I repress. I water seeds of bitterness.  And so my inner life, I find unmanageable.

And I've needed to come back to the steps.  I've said before that the steps apply to everything.  It is said in the program that steps one through three can be summed up in the saying, "I can't. God can.  I think I'll let Him."

Nicole Vaughn is doing a series on her blog on the names of God. Today she covered Adonia.  She says,


"When Abram answered God and said "O Lord GOD" he was saying "O Adonia GOD". The word Adonia means Lord or Master. It was at this time that Abram was submitting himself to God's Lordship. It was at this moment that he said, "I am not the boss of my life, God, You are."  

I loved this.  And it reminded me of giving our lives over to the care of God.  I have always had faith.  And yet, I have not always handed my life over to His care.  Lately, I have been meditating on the words in step two: "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."


It's a bit hard to admit I need at this point in my life to be restored to sanity.  But I do.  When I am just restless, irritable and discontent..this means I need restoration to sanity.

"Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed.  They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking.  In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements.  Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life.  Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory.  They show how the change came over them.  When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith." - from "We Agnostics" in AA Big Book.

Expect Miracles

Step one again, this time around replacing the word,'alcohol' with 'others'.

Hi, I'm Nicole and I'm an alcoholic.
I'm Nicole and I'm a codependant.
I'm Nicole and I need to be reminded every day that unless I allow God to be my higher power, I will find a higher power that lacks.

And so....

I'm admitting that I'm powerless over others.

Phew.

That should be a relief, right?  Sometimes it doesn't feel like such and so I come back here, and I talk to others who share my struggles and I remember that it is a relief.

And I'm in need of these steps, broken now.  And I'm in need of the spiritual awakening to come.

"Come and bring your thoughts where they can be held true, so that you can realize how you are held, supported, sustained and protected. This is your safety-your thought,and that thought is the realization of the presence of God here and now,within you, in the life you are living......Hold your gains, hold your spiritual self together, bring all that you know to this one point,and then the 'wonders will appear'.... "

-Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood

Admitting

Words maybe more than ever mark their significance in my life. Their healing power, their destructive power, the need for, the lack which can scar.

And I need to be here, working these steps. Admitting I'm powerless. Admitting I'm addicted to any number of things, but that it's only God who can restore me to sanity.


And in the tumult which is my current life state I remember that 'This,too,shall pass.'

One way or another it will.  I don't know the outcome.  I can only control my own actions, my own words.
I am powerless over other people.

I listen now for God's will to be revealed in my life, for the promises to be fulfilled.  And it's hard right now.  But I know where to go.  And I know that secrets kill, so I admit.  I admit that I am powerless.  That I'm reworking my steps.  I keep coming back.