April 16 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 4 "Inventory" | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "anger: a dubious luxury…" If I have nothing to fear and I don't feel attacked in any way, anger or even rage is unlikely on a daily basis. As with all human activity some situations made me fearful and I can feel anger and rage, it does not mean I will "act on it" because if I know the feeling of anger, I can think the situation through today…
The very essence of our fellowship, emotional and spiritual… Learning that all feelings are part of the equation in the moment of now. Happy, sad, joy and love. Some of the emotions I could understand, but for years I suppressed anger, rage and resentments because? It does not matter why I suppressed them, now I feel them in the moment and they happen "the negative feelings" and I learn from them. The adage, "pain a spiritual touchtone" is true for me and part of what it is to be human every day…
Working through the years and history of my life in my step four, there were repetitive themes which I often found made me make choices based on fear of not being good enough and fear of being found out as less than equal to other people. A good reason to resent myself... And there were times when I would compare and despair, which left me striving and always competing. In the end with plenty of success, I was only competing with myself because of my self prejudice over the years...
After step four, sharing my life story helped me see the personal characteristics I had inherited and developed to undermine me, fear pretending to be okay when I was not okay and prideful ego to cover up. Step six and step seven, understanding the emotional change, from fear in step six, to faith in doing the next right thing in step seven is always a daily reminder about courage to change. Step six liabilities to step seven developing my assets and personal characteristics where faith, courage and confidence grow by accepting its okay to keep on learning life, making mistakes and learning from them and understanding there is joy rather than pain in learning…
Today a spotcheck inventory when I feel I don't have enough resolve to cope, it always seems to reveal a return to isolated thinking rather than just saying, "I feel out of my depth, I need ask for help…" And when I ask the help it is an action and not driven by fear of being found out… If I don't know something, even if others expect I should know, I have the confidence to express my feelings in the moment and if I don't, I do sooner than later and hopefully in the same day…
In all my endeavours today, simple progress and not perfection. Sometimes, even when I seem to take several steps backwards to a point where I understand what is going on, it is not a failure because I successfully backtrack in order to pick up the threads and then move forward again. I don't always move forward in the same direction, because I see more clearly where my choices will be with the right people, in a better place and doing things which will work better just for today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Anger, a dubious luxury? For me, anger and resentment are a dubious luxury. Anger can turn into rage, resentment into old feelings and being in the problem. As I can make other people angry, just by being me, I realise I need forgiveness of me, and and then I can forgive most anything day to day. When I hit the exceptional extremes, I need draw on every resource for help, or I become the problem and not the solution...
Anger is a feeling, feelings and emotions are a part of us, alerts us to what is happening and going on. It is ok to acknowledge "I feel angry." Then work out why and what to do. We need understanding our truth, same as if we are feeling happy. Never deny emotion or feeling, it is what we do next which helps us make sense of our next choices. Feeling, cause, choices.. Prolonged extremes of a particular emotion or feeling? Share and express helpfully to ourselves and others, find counsel and make informed choices as we may...
Letting go anger and rage at ourselves and others becomes a way to make better choices. Stuck in extremes we live in the problem and not the solution ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "For every minute we remain angry, we give up sixty seconds of peace of mind" -/- As we see the truth, make our choices, we learn from our bruises, heal and move on...
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: Daily Reflections ~ ANGER: A "DUBIOUS LUXURY... If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of the normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 66
“Dubious luxury.” How often have I remembered those words. It’s not just anger that’s best left to nonalcoholics; I built a list including justifiable resentment, self-pity, judgmentalism, self-righteousness, false pride and false humility. I’m always surprised to read the actual quote. So well have the principles of the program been drummed into me that I keep thinking all of these defects are listed too. Thank God I can’t afford them–or I surely would indulge in them.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Complete the Housecleaning... Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves shoddy facts about their lives. Trying to avoid the humbling experience of the Fifth Step, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning.
They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 72-73
-/-
Step 4 "Fearless Inventory" Reading Video Link:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
The very essence of our fellowship, emotional and spiritual… Learning that all feelings are part of the equation in the moment of now. Happy, sad, joy and love. Some of the emotions I could understand, but for years I suppressed anger, rage and resentments because? It does not matter why I suppressed them, now I feel them in the moment and they happen "the negative feelings" and I learn from them. The adage, "pain a spiritual touchtone" is true for me and part of what it is to be human every day…
Working through the years and history of my life in my step four, there were repetitive themes which I often found made me make choices based on fear of not being good enough and fear of being found out as less than equal to other people. A good reason to resent myself... And there were times when I would compare and despair, which left me striving and always competing. In the end with plenty of success, I was only competing with myself because of my self prejudice over the years...
After step four, sharing my life story helped me see the personal characteristics I had inherited and developed to undermine me, fear pretending to be okay when I was not okay and prideful ego to cover up. Step six and step seven, understanding the emotional change, from fear in step six, to faith in doing the next right thing in step seven is always a daily reminder about courage to change. Step six liabilities to step seven developing my assets and personal characteristics where faith, courage and confidence grow by accepting its okay to keep on learning life, making mistakes and learning from them and understanding there is joy rather than pain in learning…
Today a spotcheck inventory when I feel I don't have enough resolve to cope, it always seems to reveal a return to isolated thinking rather than just saying, "I feel out of my depth, I need ask for help…" And when I ask the help it is an action and not driven by fear of being found out… If I don't know something, even if others expect I should know, I have the confidence to express my feelings in the moment and if I don't, I do sooner than later and hopefully in the same day…
In all my endeavours today, simple progress and not perfection. Sometimes, even when I seem to take several steps backwards to a point where I understand what is going on, it is not a failure because I successfully backtrack in order to pick up the threads and then move forward again. I don't always move forward in the same direction, because I see more clearly where my choices will be with the right people, in a better place and doing things which will work better just for today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Anger, a dubious luxury? For me, anger and resentment are a dubious luxury. Anger can turn into rage, resentment into old feelings and being in the problem. As I can make other people angry, just by being me, I realise I need forgiveness of me, and and then I can forgive most anything day to day. When I hit the exceptional extremes, I need draw on every resource for help, or I become the problem and not the solution...
Anger is a feeling, feelings and emotions are a part of us, alerts us to what is happening and going on. It is ok to acknowledge "I feel angry." Then work out why and what to do. We need understanding our truth, same as if we are feeling happy. Never deny emotion or feeling, it is what we do next which helps us make sense of our next choices. Feeling, cause, choices.. Prolonged extremes of a particular emotion or feeling? Share and express helpfully to ourselves and others, find counsel and make informed choices as we may...
Letting go anger and rage at ourselves and others becomes a way to make better choices. Stuck in extremes we live in the problem and not the solution ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "For every minute we remain angry, we give up sixty seconds of peace of mind" -/- As we see the truth, make our choices, we learn from our bruises, heal and move on...
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: Daily Reflections ~ ANGER: A "DUBIOUS LUXURY... If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of the normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 66
“Dubious luxury.” How often have I remembered those words. It’s not just anger that’s best left to nonalcoholics; I built a list including justifiable resentment, self-pity, judgmentalism, self-righteousness, false pride and false humility. I’m always surprised to read the actual quote. So well have the principles of the program been drummed into me that I keep thinking all of these defects are listed too. Thank God I can’t afford them–or I surely would indulge in them.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Complete the Housecleaning... Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves shoddy facts about their lives. Trying to avoid the humbling experience of the Fifth Step, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning.
They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 72-73
-/-
Step 4 "Fearless Inventory" Reading Video Link:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
No comments:
Post a Comment