April 14 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 4 "Inventory" | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "the number one offender… Resentment!" Having got a place of deep deep unhappiness, my number one resentment was to myself and where I ended up, rough sleeping and very alone. I hid away in dangerous places. Self prejudice offered more prejudice looking up at the world and judging it from the dark…
Our emotional and spiritual fellowship, emotional meaning we know our feelings, and spiritual is what you choose it to be. Knowing our feelings and what we know to be spiritual for ourselves on a personal basis, means living the twelve steps and having every freedom that society offers becomes possible one day at a time. Open honest and willing we can endeavour in whatever direction we choose, given the constraints of reality. Resentments at old times seem to become very useful personal history of what will never work again. The richness of old resentments becomes a key to a new form of richness by living reality as it is and always in the moment of now…
In recovery as we develop our personal outlooks, we start to understand how the truth works, how honesty helps us deal with every situation and willingness to know we need to keep on learning and we will make mistakes day in and day out. Emotional and spiritual, knowing our feelings about people, places and things does not mean we overcome likes and dislikes about what is good for us and what is bad for us. We develop our understanding of life each day and make choices based on feelings and reality. This means we do think and take action based on our emotional being and the reality of now…
There is an adage in the fellowship "if there are people, places, things and people in meetings you do not like, then you haven't been to enough meetings, being with enough people in different places doing different things." Some people we will not like because of their behaviour, some places will never be right for us and some things we will never want to do, or do again. Emotional, not liking certain people, places or things is an acknowledgement of truth and the more we stay away from people, places and things which are bad for us the better life will be…
As we don't like some people, some people won't like us and that's perfectly acceptable. At the same time I need to accept that is the case. Sometimes the behaviour of others although completely acceptable in society will not suit me and they have a right to do whatever it is they do. We can love people and hate their behaviour. We can also dislike people intensely and hate their behaviour. Other people may love us and hate our behaviour or not be able to forgive, and some people will dislike as intensely and hate our behaviour completely and they have a right to their outlook. Thank God they do, they are highly unlikely to bother us in the future… And we are unlikely to bother them as we "live and let live today."
DonInLondon 2005-2011
My emotional and spiritual condition today? How am I feeling, why and what can I do? I feel right sized, because my feelings fit my situation. When my feelings fit reality, no hangovers from the past and no false expectations or resentments under construction…
Bondage of resentments: hurt people, hurt people. If we hurt ourselves we resent and find it hard to forgive, when others hurt us we can be stubborn and hurtful back. Stuck we can be, twelve steps to help us let go our own hurt, twelve traditions to let go hurting others. Practice makes letting go and being at one with life as it is, imperfectly perfect, now..
Anger and resentment a part of us and our human condition.Letting go, moving on takes time, then our choices become clearer ~ John Dryden "Anger will never disappear so long as feelings of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as feelings of resentment are forgotten" -/-
-/-
AA Daily Reflection:
THE "NUMBER ONE OFFENDER..." Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 64
As I look at myself practicing the Fourth Step, it is easy to gloss over the wrong that I have done, because I can easily see it as a question of “getting even” for a wrong done to me. If I continue to relive my old hurt, it is a resentment and resentment bars the sunlight from my soul. If I continue to relive hurts and hates, I will hurt and hate myself. After years in the dark of resentments, I have found the sunlight. I must let go of resentments; I cannot afford them.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ The Spiritual Alibi... Our first attempts at inventories are apt to prove very unrealistic. I used to be a champ at unrealistic self-appraisal. On certain occasions, I wanted to look only at the part of my life which seemed good. Then I would greatly exaggerate whatever virtues I supposed I had attained. Next I would congratulate myself on the grand job I was doing in A.A.
Naturally this generated a terrible hankering for still more "accomplishments," and still more approval. I was falling straight back into the pattern of my drinking days. Here were the same old
goals -- power, fame, and applause. Besides, I had the best alibi known -- the spiritual alibi. The fact that I really did have a spiritual objective made this utter nonsense seem perfectly right. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961
-/-
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
Our emotional and spiritual fellowship, emotional meaning we know our feelings, and spiritual is what you choose it to be. Knowing our feelings and what we know to be spiritual for ourselves on a personal basis, means living the twelve steps and having every freedom that society offers becomes possible one day at a time. Open honest and willing we can endeavour in whatever direction we choose, given the constraints of reality. Resentments at old times seem to become very useful personal history of what will never work again. The richness of old resentments becomes a key to a new form of richness by living reality as it is and always in the moment of now…
In recovery as we develop our personal outlooks, we start to understand how the truth works, how honesty helps us deal with every situation and willingness to know we need to keep on learning and we will make mistakes day in and day out. Emotional and spiritual, knowing our feelings about people, places and things does not mean we overcome likes and dislikes about what is good for us and what is bad for us. We develop our understanding of life each day and make choices based on feelings and reality. This means we do think and take action based on our emotional being and the reality of now…
There is an adage in the fellowship "if there are people, places, things and people in meetings you do not like, then you haven't been to enough meetings, being with enough people in different places doing different things." Some people we will not like because of their behaviour, some places will never be right for us and some things we will never want to do, or do again. Emotional, not liking certain people, places or things is an acknowledgement of truth and the more we stay away from people, places and things which are bad for us the better life will be…
As we don't like some people, some people won't like us and that's perfectly acceptable. At the same time I need to accept that is the case. Sometimes the behaviour of others although completely acceptable in society will not suit me and they have a right to do whatever it is they do. We can love people and hate their behaviour. We can also dislike people intensely and hate their behaviour. Other people may love us and hate our behaviour or not be able to forgive, and some people will dislike as intensely and hate our behaviour completely and they have a right to their outlook. Thank God they do, they are highly unlikely to bother us in the future… And we are unlikely to bother them as we "live and let live today."
DonInLondon 2005-2011
My emotional and spiritual condition today? How am I feeling, why and what can I do? I feel right sized, because my feelings fit my situation. When my feelings fit reality, no hangovers from the past and no false expectations or resentments under construction…
Bondage of resentments: hurt people, hurt people. If we hurt ourselves we resent and find it hard to forgive, when others hurt us we can be stubborn and hurtful back. Stuck we can be, twelve steps to help us let go our own hurt, twelve traditions to let go hurting others. Practice makes letting go and being at one with life as it is, imperfectly perfect, now..
Anger and resentment a part of us and our human condition.Letting go, moving on takes time, then our choices become clearer ~ John Dryden "Anger will never disappear so long as feelings of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as feelings of resentment are forgotten" -/-
-/-
AA Daily Reflection:
THE "NUMBER ONE OFFENDER..." Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 64
As I look at myself practicing the Fourth Step, it is easy to gloss over the wrong that I have done, because I can easily see it as a question of “getting even” for a wrong done to me. If I continue to relive my old hurt, it is a resentment and resentment bars the sunlight from my soul. If I continue to relive hurts and hates, I will hurt and hate myself. After years in the dark of resentments, I have found the sunlight. I must let go of resentments; I cannot afford them.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ The Spiritual Alibi... Our first attempts at inventories are apt to prove very unrealistic. I used to be a champ at unrealistic self-appraisal. On certain occasions, I wanted to look only at the part of my life which seemed good. Then I would greatly exaggerate whatever virtues I supposed I had attained. Next I would congratulate myself on the grand job I was doing in A.A.
Naturally this generated a terrible hankering for still more "accomplishments," and still more approval. I was falling straight back into the pattern of my drinking days. Here were the same old
goals -- power, fame, and applause. Besides, I had the best alibi known -- the spiritual alibi. The fact that I really did have a spiritual objective made this utter nonsense seem perfectly right. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961
-/-
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
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