July 20, 2013 step seven in mind: emotional, spiritual and physical in the moment of now? The gift of going to meetings is to hear the experience strength and hope of other people. Listening to the experience strength and hope of somebody who has been in recovery for over 40 years helps me gain perspective and understanding of my own emotional, spiritual and physical state and what impacts upon it. How am I feeling? Why? And what can I do in the moment of now…
The gift of Fellowship: people from so many different backgrounds with so many beliefs and opinions to make sense of reality. We can find on a broad spectrum those who believe in God, those who do not know and those who do not believe and every shade or increment either way depending on the day and the current conditions. And of course the words like: "miracle" and many more associated with metaphysical matters and religious matters can offer an interpretation. And at the end of the spectrum, a person might call recovery a miracle and not believe in some divine intervention. Mind you in my case, the divine intervention happened as a result of listening to the many voices of recovery in meetings day in and day out for some considerable time. If God works through people, there are miracles, and if the devil works through people, there can be catastrophes. Without a drink inside me, I was able to hear the voices of experience strength and hope, which talked of love, forgiveness, tolerance and of course reasonable and practical ways to find a life one day at a time…
The impact of: fear, pride and ego which haunt when life gets tough and ugly, and also when life is good because we might feel it is all our own doing. The impact of: courage to change, faith in the next right thing and confidence growing as we take two steps forward and maybe one step back… Courage to change and faith and confidence have been supported and helped through the words and experience and sharing of many voices in recovery. Every single day and contingent on the current conditions our responses and reactions to our situations is contingent not only on what we did before, it is contingent upon the way we choose to live today. We often make and have our part in whether a day will be to the good, or bad or ugly. We can choose what we do even when we are powerless over people places and things…
Like anybody else in Fellowship, and as I saw recently anger and resentment can definitely happen when one person shares their experience strength and hope and the person listening can disagree profoundly with another person's outlook. I have yet to go to a meeting where everybody agrees with everybody else, indeed, there can be heated debate and cross sharing, very cross sharing! And then there is the passive aggressive cross share, the angry share, the loving share, the profoundly deluded share, the practical share, the share about miracles, sharing about God, showing that there is no God, and usually sharing about what we can do today to the good of living. And this is how we learn our feelings in sobriety.
Emotional and spiritual, the very essence of Fellowship? I said this yesterday and an agnostic not very far from me… I could feel the infuriated individuals bristling presence. When I share about emotional and spiritual, it is in the arena of practicalities, knowing my feelings in the moment of now as they are impacted by the reality of my situation and not by history or by some desire to influence and control my environment. It turned out the infuriated feelings when shared were about exactly the same thing, and my explanation of how practical emotional and spiritual is was taken as me believing and understanding God, and I do not understand and I could not in any shape or form describe God satisfactorily to anyone. The spiritual experience! Always in the now, always understood slightly differently by everyone can be very difficult if we try imposing our own view on another person. Imposing our own view or trying to, is called proselytising and certainly not something we do in recovery if we have any common sense and gumption.
Is funny and tragic at the same time. Last weekend I had been able to get to speakers Corner in Hyde Park London and listen to a great deal of proselytising by people who think they have the answers and they are the organ of God. Of course traditionally speakers Corner is a place where people can speak their minds, proselytise to their hearts content and be heckled by anyone with an opinion different to theirs. Some call this democracy, well… Speakers Corner has become a worldwide phenomenon when it comes to anyone anywhere sharing and proselytising as best they can. The more we can debate the better, better not tread on anybody's toes though, not too heavily, we need be respectful of beliefs and opinions even when ours are completely the opposite of those we hear. Tolerance and love, some days it's very good, other days when a person gets in your face, it really is a challenging time.
If we give love and have an expectation of receiving the love of others, it is a very haphazard human experience. We can fall in love with another person who is totally unaware and sometimes completely incapable of loving us as we might expect. Expectations are resentments under construction in the love department. Unconditional love, how we behave consistently with everyone in our attitudes and behaviour is a way of life. How relationships develop which have mutuality and inclusiveness does require very good intimate communications of feelings. If you expect a person to love you because you love them, there is a burden on both you and them which cannot be fulfilled by expectations. Whatever form of love develops is an inclusive and intimate sharing of experience. Just because you love someone, don't expect them to love you back just because, just because, just because that's what you want…
All we need is love, all together now, love, love, love… Very true, and why not?
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