There is a Home for Me

Just read a new book by Aimee Bender which was wonderful. As in, I would like to move in to the book. Or it feels as if it has moved into my body. Very exciting stuff for me. Also exciting was the Yogananda spiritual meditation group last night.

What's good about today is that there is something that I can respect and love, a channel to all that is that I don't have to feel the edges of not belonging. There is a place for me.

The Pull of 'MORE'

What keeps me coming to AA meetings is that I hear people wanting what I want. We all want MORE. Unless I realize it, unless I catch myself in that unending projecting state of mind, I will manufacture continual desire for something MORE.

I can wish for MORE material things, friendships, deeper experiences with my higher power, there is nothing that I can't be greedy about. I have a better chance becoming aware of that if I am at a meeting. Alone, my sick mind can't fix my sick mind. I need all your sick minds to help.

We are enough, we have enough. That's what's good about today

Thursday Thanks

Giving thanks to the heavenly cosmos for giving me a safe and rich life, knowing that what doesn't please me but is a challenge that I can share with my soulmates. Blessed Be.

Wednesday Random

Am so glad to be off work next week, I can't wait. I'm going to try not to be superwoman, just keep God close to me in my thoughts and be grateful that I can goof off. I am grateful for such nice co-workers who are good hearted and well intended. And I'm grateful when I remember to ignore my own thinking, yesterday with the help of another member we came up with the opposite of magic thinking. It is tragic thinking, that's what's good about today, awareness.

God, Be With Me Today

I used to run on and on when I prayed. Now, it's more like 'please, please, help me', 'thank you, thank you' or just 'God . . .'. It's faith that he/she/them know what I need.

Faith, that's what's good about today.

Such a Good Parent

That's my higher power, actually. Today the words stood out to me, that I was under the protection and care of my higher power.

I have no worries or complaints if I keep that front and center in my life.

What's good about today is comfort with myself in the world.

A Recovering Person

Or, more truthfully, a Discovering Person. I said good-bye to my CoDA group. I'll pop in at some time but I no longer expect regular attendance from myself and wanted to explain my absence. The meeting is an hour away on Saturday mornings and I find that I like that time better for attending to my life. At one time, it was better use of my time to go to this fabulous meeting. Now my life is more interesting to me and I want that time to be spent closer to home.

As in previous post, after 10 years in Alanon, I haven't been to a meeting in some time. I would like to visit my old home meeting and I know I will some day, it takes place early in the evening and I am usually eating or am in transit from work.

So, happily, I will continue to be at the am open AA meeting, a place of healing and reconciliation, meets every day but Sunday. Today I'm headed to church. Tomorrow I want to talk to a meditation leader, a follower of P. Yogananda. Years ago I had a Kriya experience which was quite beautiful . . .

What's good about today is my higher power, all knowing and abundant, to which I turn my face and thoughts.

Fable of the Two Wolves

Joe, in program, told this fable during a meeting the first time that I heard it. There was a young Indian boy listening to his grandfather tell a story about the two wolves that live in all of us. One is needlessly aggressive, prone to jealousy, rage and grandiosity. The other was strong in a peaceful way, looked out for other people, tending to his business in an orderly fashion. The boy asked which wolf rules a person and his grandfather replied that it is the one that is fed.

When I feed my ego by focusing on my attachments and achievements I not only lose sight of my higher power, I strengthen my ego, making it harder than ever to rein it in and attend to my spiritual life.

What's good about today is that I can hear things through the filter of the twelve steps and add the wisdom of other members to my understanding.

Doing Just F.I.N.E.

Desperation tinged with hope. Nothing else gets me to meetings. There's fellowship in that!

Wise Words From Tolle

"Unease, restlessness, boredom, anxiety, dissatisfaction, are the result of unfulfilled wanting . . . intense wanting that has no specific object can often be found in the still-developing ego of teenagers, some of whom are in a permanent state of negativity and dissatisfaction."

He goes on to say, "No content will satisfy you, as long as the egoic structure remains in place. No matter what you have or get, you won't be happy. You will always be looking for something else that promises greater fulfillment, that promises to make your incomplete sense of self complete and fill that sense of lack you feel within."

I'm doomed. What's good about today is that I know I can't trust my thinking. Hah!

Blah

Is it the low pressure zone? The recent high school graduation of my son? I'm not sure that I've been to one since my own 35 years ago. The detachment I felt from the hoopla was the same.

I remembered the speeches about making your own indelible mark upon the world, words from the same voices that for 4 years had never said anything more significant than 'remember this for the test, you're only cheating yourself, everyone leave by single file'. I don't say this to be obnoxious, I was a good student, I just couldn't relate to school as anything more than a requirement met in a big old brick building as lonely as it was empty.

My son's outlook is a little milder, he is more social than I was, the only disciplinary issues that I've ever heard about him is that he had been a bit CHATTY with his friends. He's a strong silent male around me so I'm glad that he's social in some context of his life. But I doubt if even he that is chatty was struck by the chord of the graduation speakers as they spoke of the legacy that the class of 2010 leaves behind. It's freakin' high school, for God's sakes.

I feel displaced. That era ended and I'm making it all about me, was I a good enough mother? Yes, since he did actually graduate, has not been arrested or accused of murder--those are my standards for 'good mother'. If you comment to state that you are the mother of a murderer and also a good mother, I will grant that you probably were, I'm easy like that. It was just him and me in that crowded gymnasium, the only ones related to each other, his dad begged off a couple days ago. I think I'm feeling lonely. His father would not have sat with me but at least there would have been two of us in that crowd that know the baby pictures and the nicknames.

What's good about today is that I know that this too shall pass, I can continue to do the foot work to live a happy life and happiness will catch up with me.

Visitors Come to Roost

It's been a rocky few days, lost my emotional sobriety over some stuff at work. I hadn't thought about blogging on it until I read Syd's post ( I'm Just F.I.N.E. ) today, scroll down to the bottom and read the poetry that gives the analogy of being a guest house. People, places, things, thoughts come into us, stay awhile and then move along. I've been visited by martyrdom this week.

Martyrdom doesn't visit me that often, I'm a youngest child--I evade responsibility when possible. Anyway, I know I can be a tad serious at work. Meaning that others have mentioned that to me. Through the decades. Okay, something to pray about.

As I said in a meeting, I am the star victim in my story. So, I've been a big poop at work, a joy to be around and I've not been able to shake it. The answer to me is that I need to take better care of myself. I put in for a week of vacation. And then I'll put in for another week in September. I've been amazingly miserly with myself, trying to fashion a long weekend here and there, going bullshit when it doesn't work out, accepting this bad behavior from myself that I would never accept from anyone else, all because I've not asked for help.

A gift was foisted on me yesterday. I now have to clock in like others, initially I took it as just one more _____ thing to remember. Today, I see it as a gift, I will have to clock in and out for lunch, one more reinforcement to take care of myself. I can work overtime if I need to and I will be paid for it. What a concept!!!!

So, let those guests come to my house, what's good about today is putting my agape to the test!

Third Time is the Charm

This is my 3rd start. Don't really recall what I want to say so **warning, warning** I will be random . . .

There but for the grace of God go I . . . I'm blessed not to have the disease of addiction, I was a dedicated amateur for ten years, from my late teens to my late twenties. By then my first marraige had ended, I was feeling glum enough not to want to add a hangover to it and so my drinking got less and less over each year. As the Big Book says, I was able to drink like a gentleman. Now I'm pretty random about it.

I have not attended an Alanon mtg in 4-5 months, maybe longer. It doesn't interest me except as my entry point into recovery. No one's drinking bothers me, if it comes up I know where I need to go. I invited active disease into my life for 28 months, its been gone for over five years, I've given back to the program with service etc for long enough, the meetings don't interest me. About a year ago, I was attending all three programs, Alanon, CoDA and a daily open AA mtg. Now it only the morning AA mtg that I attend. I find plenty to think about there, ego, isolation, depression, hope and discovery.

What's good about today is that I have a relationship with my higher power and it's manifestation through other people, I am at curious peace when I follow his (her, their) call.

"Why indeed must 'God' be a noun? Why not a verb . . .the most active and dynamic of all?--Mary Daly, Theologian

I posted yesterday but a satellite burped at the wrong time and wouldn't let me publish it or save it, hasn't happened to me in awhile. I'm fortunate to not have that happen with the regularity that it seems to hit some others. It reminds me that like many an alcoholic I am not grateful for the simple ease of my life in many respects.

A few months ago I was pontificating that I should sell my house, get a nice easy apartment, yahda, yahda. A little part of me would tell myself, 'you're just fried because your mom is here, you're desperate, my son will be out of school, it's your nature to be easily unhinged, don't talk about it because you'll come back to Earth'. And I was right about that, now I consider myself lucky to be where I am.

And I'm chastened. The neighbors who lost their son put a for sale sign up on their house. They lament moving but feel that they will lose it soon and are feeling the pull to be closer to family. So, I'm brought up short. What for me are musings and daydreams that I mock-torture myself with are the solid realities that others come up against.

A message that I need reminding came up in today's meeting, Let Go & Let God. Don't worry about making plans and what I think I need to perfect my life. And just as quickly I forget it. Now, only 3 hours later, I am beating myself up over what I need to get done. Caught myself thinking that I can't be both a mellow person and a task master at the same time.

Which brings me closer to God? What's good about today is that I know the answer, I might not like it but I know that I need to be as kind to myself as I am to others and that I can remember that each moment is to be lived as a gift, not as a problem to be solved.

In Memoriam to Lost Addicts

I think that the afflicted and the affected should have a special Memorial Day to honor the losses of those cut down before their prime. That is something so sad, similar to the deaths of children and those who serve their country, that people die before experiencing the gifts of life through it's cycles.

Once you can separate the person from the disease it is easier to love the person for who they were, their intrinsic self, as distinctive as a fingerprint. The neighbor put up a For Sale sign on their house today, they have lived there seven years plus one death. My bet is that they want to go back to PA to take care of their fatherless grandchildren and daughter-in-law.

I don't know, I never did understand them, I have to remember that I'm not qualified to judge, that's what's good about today.

Attitudes & Expectations

Today's page in Courage to Change, an Alanon daily reader, talks about resentments. It defines an expectation as a pre-meditated resentment. I don't have many expectations right now. Some of the ones that I have are those that I have of myself such as expecting that I would have painted the upstairs by now (four months since I bought the paint). It doesn't matter that I have a good work ethic etc,etc, I get on my case about what I haven't done. Now, I think that it's quite possible that it's just not important to me.

Someone was asking me if I was worried about my son joining the army.I hadn't thought about it much lately and I said I had given it to God and knew that whatever decision made would be the right one. He's a long time AA-er, gave me a quizzical look because he drives himself crazy over his son out there using.

What's good about today is that we're all different and we're all the same. Or, we're all insane?!