Music: "Sir Duke", by Stevie Wonder. Fun and funky. Gets you up and dancing. I just wish I had played it earlier, when I needed that kind of pick-me-up.
Garden: Lazy and warm. Almost 80 degrees. The cats are napping in the shade of the porch.
Step 1:
"We admitted we were powerless over___(alcohol)-that our lives had become unmanageable"
Where does this internal spew come from? Why do I just persist in telling myself, quietly in my own head, what a fuck-up I am? I start to thinking about everything that I feel is less than wonderful about myself; my weight, my parenting, my accomplishments or lack of them, my family life, my lack of close friends, etc. On and on and on. There is no end to the list sometimes.
I don't see how I can stand myself, but I do. In fact, I believe what this voice is saying. Then I watch my mood slip down to a pace that I am oh, so familiar with. A place of comfortable misery. Somehow, I have become very familiar with this place. It is so comfortable in-fact, that I often don't even notice that I am there, yet again. Like an old, dirty sock. I just seem to steep and stew in that place a lot. It's gross, actually. How do we become to used to our pain? So willing to accept it?
I flipped open the CTC reader and read this for today. "Sometimes I spend so much time staring at my problems that I miss the guidance I am being given. When I let go of the need to do it by myself, I can listen to others and receive direction from my Higher Power. I become better able to move beyond my problems and start solving them....When I accept that help often comes in unexpected forms, I can release my hold on the problem and become willing to receive help."
So, if my problem is the ugly, mean-spirited self-talk I do to myself, how can I eliminate that? How can I stop verbally abusing myself, for a change? How can I stop treating myself worse than anyone else does, so I can start knowing what it feels like to respect, and maybe even love myself? What a concept! NO one can do it for me till I can do it for myself.
I think what made it hard for me to write much about yesterdays topic, and finish yesterdays blog, was the same issue. I was feeling overwhelmed by my own self-loathing. Yesterdays topic was about what you feel you need, before you can be happy. All the conditions you put on your happiness. It could be things, it could be relationships or it could be states of mind,etc. My happiness seems to come down to the state of happiness itself. Can I eve live in that place, and not this perpetual cesspool of pain?
I feel a lot of failure that I have negative feelings too. I see that as a weakness. I desire to be free of all feelings of fear, anger or anything that doesn't feel good. I also see this a personal failure that I cannot seem to "control" those thoughts. That I am at the mercy of them all the time. They cause emotional upset, and I go around in a funk. A state of disgust with myself. Adding insult to injury. So, is this really in my control? If this is a form of addiction, an addiction to negative thought? Am I powerless over this?
Today's reading is about accepting help, once we stop trying to solve our own problems all the time. If this is a big problem for me, negative thoughts towards myself, then how do I "let go and let God"? Do I just ask Higher Power to take these negative thoughts away? Do I ask that my self-loathing and self-hatred be removed? How can I know there is a Higher Power to ask this of as well? It's one thing to ask. It's another thing to have faith, to believe, that it will happen.
I just came back from another Al-Anon meeting, this time a few towns over from mine. I wanted to see what this new group might be like. It was small, nine people, but I spoke for the first time. I was encouraged that there was some guidance being given when I heard other people at the meeting talking about the negative self-talk and worry that runs through their minds and that over time, working the program, they saw it diminish. That was very good to hear!
It really is an illness when you incessantly worry about someone else. It is harder, I think, to not have that worry when it is your child. While they grow up, you are supposed to think about them, but at some point you are supposed to transfer that over to Higher Power. Maybe I don't trust and believe in Higher Power enough to "let go and let God", in this case as well. So how can I be reassured? How can I be convinced, so I don't feel the job is all mine anymore?
This will be the question for tomorrow. I will ask Higher Power to help me to feel greater trust and faith, that it is there not only helping me, but also my son. I have been a spiritual person, in the past. Not a religious person, but I have entertained that there is some kind of master plan, or planner, responsible for all this. What is harder, is when you have to accept that what appears to be "bad" may also be part of that plan. Especially so, if it happens to someone you love.....
Thanks for listening!
Keep coming back:)
What to look forward to: Another quiet day at home.
Challenges: Finding greater faith and trust in Higher Power.
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