Tuesday 19 August 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog Video August 19 2014

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog Video August 19 2014

 

August 19 Video

 

Step six defects: trying to control the world. Step seven shortcoming: courage to let go. And in between we can still be trying to rule the world. Even when we think we are letting go, what are we letting go of? And are we sharing what we are doing with other people who may be involved. Saying to another person "I need to let go and I'm going to let go" is meaningless to them unless you explain exactly what you are up to!

 

An expectation that the rest of the world will magically know what we are trying to do, well that will not happen. The magic of letting go is asking for help, negotiating situations, expressing our feelings to other people and asking for feedback. This creates fear, because they may not understand letting go at all, and so our pride and ego will rise up in frustration, and then we try rule the world again. It does not work and only gives us the headache. We have to be explicit and express what is going on inside us first. Or the consequences are stepping back into old behaviour, and then worse, we blame ourselves first, and this opens the door to blaming the rest of the world all over again. A suicidal downward spiral into isolation can follow.

 

I was chatting to somebody outside Fellowship over the weekend, about forgiveness. And around romantic relationships. Romance, lust and attraction are maddening, especially if the other person feels the same way. A quick romp may be good for the ego, but it can lead to all sorts of consequences. I for one have fallen into romantic interludes in the past, some long-lasting and based on love, and far too many based on lust and attraction. It depends what is in our heart, and being very truthful in recovery, and understanding one another rather than making assumptions. Letting go and letting in love, it does happen!

 

Forgiveness: "forgive everybody everything, including ourselves on a daily basis, and if we cannot forgive everybody everything today, drop it until tomorrow and try again." Forgiveness is not forgetting, and forgiveness is simply acknowledging in the heat of the moment things can go wrong and choices may be very very bad. Of course choices could be good, bad and ugly and we need to remind ourselves why. Step two is helpful, stopping the insanity of doing the same old same old and expecting something different to happen. Forgiveness can be as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time and what happened. Or it can be as complicated and difficult to work out without asking for help. And even if we ask for help, forgiveness can take quite a while to understand. And every situation is different. And the consequences can be slight or life-threatening depending on the actions under consideration.

 

Trust God clean house. True depending on your beliefs and opinions. Surrendering to the truth, not just my version, I need to check out that the truth I am surrendering to is the truth as others may see it as well. So it's not just my outlook, surrendering to the truth everyone sees, everybody can have an opinion and an outlook which brings out the best option hopefully, if we are not trying to push our agenda against the rest of the world. Surrendering to the truth love and wisdom in the moment of now, the truth as other people see it, from people who may love us, we develop the wisdom of can do and cannot do in the moment, the reality of now. And that is very difficult, just as difficult as life itself. And worth the effort.

 

Emotional and spiritual development always happens in the moment of now. And when we look back of course, we can see better the options we had at the time. And if we put aside old expectations, if we put aside old resentments and anger, if we put aside those expectations gone and not achievable, we let go. We let go of the impossible, the impossible ideas we had which we never shared with anyone, and start sharing the possible ideas with other people one day at a time. We will all get shot down in flames some of the time by other people's reaction to our ideas, beliefs and opinions, and out of this we keep on creating space to make new and better ideas about now and the future. Once we stopped thinking that the world was flat, science and beliefs changed radically. And when somebody invented the light bulb, a lot of candle makers were very cross indeed, until they started selling light bulbs.

 

The heart wants what the heart wants. And this is true. But if the object [ideal person] of our passion desire and lust is firmly against this notion, the sooner we break out of the insanity, the sooner we can focus our hearts on the whole world, letting go and letting in the possibility of new relationships, which may go our way if we are open honest and willing to share the truth within. It will only become unacceptable truth by sharing. And then the merry-go-round can happen again in a different way. Starting with basic honesty about ourselves, and being able to share our absolute truth as much as possible. The hurt we experience is less the sooner we share our truth. From desire, to lingering unfulfilled thoughts and feelings, they become malingering and malignant in the dark of one's own mind. Blaming other people for not being cooperative, is not helpful especially when we do not share our truth. There are not many mind readers on Earth.

 

Step Eight Reading 12 And 12

Step Eight Reading 12 And 12

 

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