For Today - Acceptance

Don't fight your problem.  Know that there is a solution.  -- Joseph Murphy

Today's reading reminds me that when I resist a problem, I give it strength, weakening my chances of finding a solution. 

This reminds me, perversely, of the Star Trek Borg threat/prophecy of "Resistance is Futile."  That part is true.  The next part, "You Will Be Assimilated" is perhaps less apt.  Or is it?  My addictive traits lead me down the rabbit hole into hell.  Other addicts, regardless of their substance or compulsion, recognize this, just as I recognize it in other people struggling with addiction.  I can hear it in their language, see it in their behaviours, and witness their pain.

The incident over the weekend with the clogged kitchen drain is a good example.  I resisted seeking help for three days, thinking I could battle it out on my own with remedies from the internet.  Um no.  The clog didn't budge and trying to fix the problem took up a lot of my energy and worry.  The plumber took five hours to fix it, the source of the problem being in the main stack, below my apartment in the parking garage.  Nothing I did could have worked.  I was tackling the wrong problem with the wrong tools!  The solution was to call the plumber.

One of the gifts of my childhood was I was taught self-reliance.  The shadow side of this gift is I am reluctant to seek help, as if needing help is a personal weakness, a failure of effort.  So I need to fine-tune this auto-script in my head.  It's good to be self-reliant (God helps those who help themselves!).  It is also good to seek help when appropriate (I can't, God can, I think I'll let God).  My calibration between the two is a bit off.

That can be a question to sit with, when I'm struggling.  "What am I resisting?"  Usually it's something that makes me anxious, uncertain, ashamed or flooded with feelings that I don't know how to process, so I binge.

... I found that I could face or untangle the other steps if, and when, I could remember to relax, trust the program, and implement the step rather than fight it.  Accepting my Higher Power did not fully change my attitude of resistance.  It just made yielding to instruction a more rational and acceptable mode of behaviour.  For each step, I still had to go through the process of recognizing that I had no control over my drinking.  I had to understand that the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous had helped others and could help me.  I had to realize that if I did want sobriety, I had better do the steps whether I liked them or not.  Every time I ran into trouble, I ultimately found I was resisting change.  [Big Book, p.541; added emphasis]

For today, when I feel unsettled or upset, let's try asking "what am I resisting?"  I suspect the answer is found in something spiritual.