Language of Letting Go - July 2014
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If we are not open to receiving, we are closed to the gifts of recovery. If you shut down, you prevent the negative and the postive from coming in. How can you acknowledge it if you are not open to receiving it. When we are using people, places and things, we do not appreciate or value the gifts that come our way. A simple thank you works wonders. |
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My ex-husband decided to quit drinking, and he was coming up on 9 months. I told him that I would quit with him and be supportive. I went out with the girls and had a few drinks, after all he was the one with the problem. New Years came along and he decided to join me drinking white wine, what can a few glass do. It started him back into his full time addiction. The reality was he quit for 9 months, I couldn't and I excused my behaviour on him, because he was the drunk and I was in control, I didn't get drunk! Yeah right! So wrong! |
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When I went into treatment, there were 11 women in the house, only 3 of us graduated, others left or were asked to leave. Three of us got a year sober and had been a big part of each other`s recovery in the beginning. The other two relapsed at 15 and 18 months and I was devastated. I wondered what I did and could I have done more. I am powerless over other people`s choices. I can`t take it personally. I need to pray and ask for help for my own guilt, mostly self-inflicted, or a false sense of responsibility and pride. |
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As it says, "Trusting the process." The healing is there. I no longer have to get off of buses. I can go into a grocery store and shop and not leave my cart in the aisle because I can not cope. I can walk over bridge and grates. I can stand at my window and go out on my balcony when there is a thunder storm instead of hiding under the bed covers. For so many years I used my bed to hide from reality. |
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I have to pray and ask for all the blockages, blocks, old ideas and wrong choices, that have clogged up my veins. Eating the wrong kind of foods can do it, especially when you are like me and diabetic. Tonight I made so many errors, it is time to call it a night. Things are not computing. |
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It took me a long time in recovery to get to a stage in my life where my cheque lasted for the whole month, without borrowing. That sure didn't work, and was a big wake up for me, on the second half of Step One. My life is unmanageable when managed by me. I could justify and rationalize anything and I learned when I got into that kind of thinking, I was acting on Self-Will, God had no part in it. I wasn't open to what He said, and as they say, I became constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself, even though I tended to blame my lack and life on everyone else. Someone was always at blame with no willingness to be responsible for my own decisions and life style. Like the line about underspending allows me to be the martyr and victim. Again with the blame game, and I can't feed into it when it is projected onto me. |
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I also had to remember that I met people when I was using and in sobriety, I no longer have a strong connection and we have nothing in common with them. If I was in a relationship with someone who has my disease, I felt comfortable. When I got sober, living with someone who is still in their disease, is difficult and there must be a lot of love to stay with them, and Al-Anon helps to make a choice and come to a decision to go or stay. I try to ask myself, "What do I need for my Higher Good in today." |
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As they say: It is often how it is said! |
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I felt abandoned by my father. Yet so much of abandonment is about abadoning ourselves. This was also a result of poor self-esteem and self-worth and every time I felt abandoned, it was all my fault, it was me who had done wrong. |
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God was always there, it was about me building a spiritual relatonship with a Higher Power of my own understanding. For me God is, as He reveals Himself to me in today. |
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You have to acknowledge it, feel it, and then let it go. Apply the 12 Steps to your anger alone. So often in our attempt to deal or let it go, we just feed it and make it grow, or we can remain in our denial, and not willing to look at the issues. This is what I heard, this is what I understood you to say, is that what you meant. Communication, and taking our anger and other feelings out, inventory them, learn how to let them go, and find the freedom of recovery. |
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This was especially true for me, I had so many depths of feeling so deeply buried it took time to surface. I was also told it was okay to work the steps and take off the top layer as long as you go back and do them again. As I healed, I became more aware and I became more honest. This is a disease of perception. |
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I didn`t think my God had much faith and trust in me. I didn`t realize that I too had the disease, and look within myself instead of focusing on the A in my life. I didn`t trust them, and I tried to play god with their lives. How can I control them, when I couldn`t control myself. Control is an illusion, and I had to learn to trust in God and had to get honest and learn to trust the program and the process. I didn`t get sick over night, so I won`t heal overnight, no quick fixes, just trusting that one day at a time, it will get better. |
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Wait on the Lord, His time table is different and He sees the whole picture. |
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Honesty with mysef, look at things as they are, no as I would have them be. Open my mind to new ideas and concepts and accept my disease and my character defects for today, knowing they are subject to change if I am willing. If I don't have the willingness, they I pray to my God for the willingness TO BE willing, open minded, and honest. |
Friday, July 25, 2014
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Keep at It Keep practicing your recovery behaviors, even when they feel awkward, even when they haven't quite taken yet, even if you don't get it yet. Sometimes it takes years for a recovery concept to move from our mind into our heart and soul. We need to work at recovery behaviors with the diligence, effort, and repeated practice we applied to codependent behaviors. We need to force ourselves to do things even when they don't feel natural. We need to tell ourselves we care about ourselves and can take care of ourselves even when we don't believe what we're saying. We need to do it, and do it, and do it - day after day, year after year. It is unreasonable to expect this new way of life to sink in overnight. We may have to "act as if" for months, years, before recovery behaviors become ingrained and natural. Even after years, we may find ourselves, in times of stress or duress, reverting to old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We may have layers of feelings we aren't ready to acknowledge until years into our recovery. That's okay! When it's time, we will. Do not give up! It takes time to get self-love into the core of us. It takes repeated practice. Time and experience. Lessons, lessons, and more lessons. Then, just when we think we've arrived, we find we have more to learn. That's the joy of recovery. We get to keep learning and growing all of our life! Keep on taking care of yourself, no matter what. Keep on plugging away at recovery behaviors, one day at a time. Keep on loving yourself, even when it doesn't feel natural. Act as if for as long as necessary, even if that time period feels longer than necessary. One day, it will happen. You will wake up, and find that what you've been struggling with and working so hard at and forcing yourself to do, finally feels comfortable. It has hit our soul. Then, you go on to learn something new and better. Today, I will plug away at my recovery behaviors, even if they don't feel natural. I will force myself to go through the motions even if that feels awkward. I will work at loving myself until I really do. |
Saturday, July 26, 2014
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Owning Our Power Don't you see? We do not have to be so victimized by life, by people, by situations, by work, by our friends, by our love relationships, by our family, by our feelings, our thoughts, our circumstances, and ourselves. We are not victims. We do not have to be victims. That is the whole point! Yes, admitting and accepting powerlessness is important. But that is the first step, an introduction to this business of recovery. Later, comes owning our power. Changing what we can. This is as important as admitting and accepting powerlessness. And there is so much we can change. We can own our power, wherever we are, wherever we go, whomever we are with. We do not have to stand there with our hands tied, groveling helplessly, submitting to whatever comes along. There are things we can do. We can speak up. Solve the problem. Use the problem to motivate ourselves to do something good for ourselves. We can make ourselves feel good. We can walk away. We can come back on our terms. We can stand up for ourselves. We can refuse to let others control and manipulate us. We can do what we need to do to take care of our selves. That is the beauty, the reward, the crown of victory we are given in this process called recovery. It is what it is all about! If we can't do anything about the circumstance, we can change our attitude. We can do the work within: courageously face our issues so we are not victimized. We have been given a miraculous key to life. We are victims no more unless we want to be. Freedom and joy are ours for the taking, for the feeling, for the hard work we have done. Today, I will remind myself as often as necessary that I am not a victim, and I do not need to be victimized by whatever comes my way. I will work hard to remove myself as a victim, whether that means setting and enforcing a boundary, walking away, dealing with my feelings, or giving myself what I need. God, help me let go of my need to feel victimized. |
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Control is an illusion, we do not have the power. Let go and let God. |
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Thought I had it, then realized I had none! Certainly not in myself and others had proved me wrong or done me wrong so many times. The walls were up and I was darned if I was going to break them down. They had to come down in order to recover. I had to let others in and me out. I had to build a relationship with my Higher Power. I couldn't project it all onto Him, I had to do the action. I had to learn to trust Him and know that when the time was right, there would be change. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I learned to trust the process and know that I didn't have a race to run and that life was a practice field to a better way of life. We talked about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, when it was safe to do so. The key word is safe. You want to be able to put yourself out there for others to see with the hope that your words and deeds don't come back at you. I was sharing with my sponsor tonight about all the counselling and group therapy session that I went to on my journey. The one counsellor said, "You process things well, you don't need counselling, what you need is a safe place to share." After having a lot of things go in someone ear and out their mouth, I didn't always feel comfortable about sharing certain things at meetings. I shared with my sponsor. I also found a need to share with a therapist as well. I introduced them to the Twelve Steps. I was told to stay away from psychiatrists as they tended to label you. I probably would have walked away with a couple if I had gone. Yet for me labels, are just that. Any problem or issue in my life, I apply the Steps. I have learned to trust the process. Don't always trust the people, but do trust the process of recovery. It works when you work it. It is something you can put your trust in time and again. Written in 2010 on another site. For me fear is lack of trust. I can`t trust God and fear too. That fear has to be replaced by faith, faith in my God, faith in the program, and faith in myself. |
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Life is for living enjoy it. Recovery is important and you need to pay serious attention to the program lined out in the literature and the words spoken at meetings, but remember to be grateful for a second chance at life. |
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i.e. Today a guy with a walker bumped my heels twice coming up the ramp behind me. I normally would have done a number on his head, I walked away. I didn't do very well though, I cursed at him when he couldn't hear. I know my God and I heard, not sure about the lady who walked in front of me, but they were bad enough words that I had to ask my Higher Power for forgiveness. |
Thursday, July 31, 2014
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go Letting Go of What We Want For those of us who have survived by controlling and surrendering, letting go may not come easily. —Beyond Codependency In recovery, we learn that it is important to identify what we want and need. Where does this concept leave us? With a large but clearly identified package of currently unmet wants and needs. We've taken the risk to stop denying and to start accepting what we want and need. The problem is, the want or need hangs there, unmet. This can be a frustrating, painful, annoying, and sometimes obsession-producing place to be. After identifying our needs, there is a next step in getting our wants and needs met. This step is one of the spiritual ironies of recovery. The next step is letting go of our wants and needs after we have taken painstaking steps to identify them. We let them go, we give them up - on a mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical level. Sometimes, this means we need to give up. It is not always easy to get to this place, but this is usually where we need to go. How often I have denied a want or need, then gone through the steps to identify my needs, only to become annoyed, frustrated, and challenged because I don't have what I want and don't know how to get it. If I then embark on a plan to control or influence getting that want or need met, I usually make things worse. Searching, trying to control the process, does not work. I must, I have learned to my dismay, let go. Sometimes, I even have to go to the point of saying, "I don't want it. I realize it's important to me, but I cannot control obtaining that in my life. Now, I don't care anymore if I have it or not. In fact, I'm going to be absolutely happy without it and without any hope of getting it, because hoping to get it is making me nuts - the more I hope and try to get it, the more frustrated I feel because I'm not getting it." I don't know why the process works this way. I know only that this is how the process works for me. I have found no way around the concept of letting go. We often can have what we really want and need, or something better. Letting go is part of what we do to get it. Today, I will strive to let go of those wants and needs that are causing me frustration. I will enter them on my goal list, then struggle to let go. I will trust God to bring me the desires of my heart, in God's time and in God's way. |
This reminds me of what I use to say several years ago in recovery, "You all belong in Romper Room, you are a bunch of "Wanna Bees."
I know that my God meets my needs. It was about me being accepting of that. It is hard when I had a mind conditioned to more for so many years. In today, He has given me some wants and desires. I have also learned that it is best if I am careful for what I ask for, I just may get it. Found this on a site I use to post on: http://www.animated-gifs.eu/mammals-mice/0242.gif PULLING THINGS THE WAY WE WANT THEM TO GO DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK! |
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