For Today - podcast on relapse

Even with my friend visiting as a house guest, I excused myself to listen to a podcast on relapse today. Well, half of it yesterday, the rest today.  So I had to excuse myself twice.  That is progress for me to take time for what I need. I also took her to the gym with me yesterday so I didn't have to give up my training.  Well, she chose to come with me - she could have stayed home, gone for coffee, or whatever.  Also a first for me. 

The part of the podcast that really resonated was that Roseanne did not intend OA to be a "fat and happy" club.  The speaker, John, said if you are 300 pounds and not losing a pound or so a week, you are not abstinent.  After all, the definition is:

Abstinence in Overeaters Anonymous is the action of refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight.  Spiritual, emotional and physical recovery is the result of living the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve-Step program.

I am not a healthy body weight.  The way I'm going in relapse, I am not working towards a healthy body weight.  I am not abstinent.  So I need to rework my Steps.

For today - love

Listen - are you breathing just a little, and calling it life?

...
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.  - Mary Oliver

This. 

For Today - Waiting

Despair.  Reaching the end of a given road in our lives - or the end of the road of our lives in addiction - we find ourselves at a point of despair, recognizing our powerlessness, not knowing where to go next or if we can even begin again.  Sometimes it's a matter of waiting through this painful moment, allowing the heart to experience what comes, to feel its way through darkness, and to emerge with whatever it finds.  We have come to Step One.  - Marya Hornbacher, Waiting, A Nonbeliever's Higher Power (Hazelden, 2011)

On page 1 of chapter 1 of Waiting, Marya writes about driving toward the Canadian border in January for reasons she can't quite explain.  Driving toward a place where maybe the landscape will match the emptiness she feels spreading through her chest.  I know this emptiness.  I live in this landscape.  She continues:

There are times when the heart burrows deeper, goes tunnelling into itself for reasons only the heart itself seems to know.  Thay are times of isolation, of hibernation, sometimes of desolation.  There is a barrenness that spreads out over the interior landscape of the self, a barrenness like tundra, with no sign of life in any direction, no sign of anything beneath the frozen crust of ground, no sign that spring ever intends to come again.

And I know this internal landscape.  But I also saw snow drops in bloom yesterday.  As sure as this despair is here now, I know, from experience if not from hope, that spring does come.

With the help of two wise friends in OA and a very strong meeting last night, I have recommitted to asking my Higher Power for patience with the changes that take time.  I have faith that I am exactly where I am meant to be in this moment.  It's hard and it hurts and I cry.  But that's ok.  Tears don't kill me.  It's the times when I am not able to cry that I am at the most risk.

Right now, the tears are always close.  They spill out and slide down my face, like water weathers stone.  Maybe tears are my soul's way of smoothing out the rough edges, of softening where I hold on too hard or set myself against Nature. 

 My For Today reader quotes e.e. cummings this morning:  "To be nobody but myself, in a world which is doing its best night and day to make me everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."  This is definitely the hardest battle I have faced and continue to face.  The despair is real.  And the fleeting moments of hope are just enough light in the darkness to make me reach out for change.

The reading today ends with this -- which seems as good as any ending for a piece of writing.  "In accepting myself as I am, I accept God's will for me today.  Only through self-acceptance am I able to change."  I can live in this tundra.  I know there are snow drops pushing against the dark, the cold heavy wet earth of January.

For Today - Trusting Myself

Self trust is the essence of heroism.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

This morning's reading starts with Ralph and ends with this:

Complete trust in myself is not always possible, but when it comes, self doubts disappear, furtive struggles and fears are gone.  I treat myself with kindness and consideration, and my word to myself is as good as the commitments I make to others.

I'm struggling.  My depression is a heavy wet wool shroud and I sleep to escape my life.  My sleep is restless; it's filled with dreams, nightmares, and periods of half wake.

This morning, I started to read the OA Slipping and Sliding reader but the questions just seem too daunting.  My willingness to engage with my compulsions is low.  I bore myself with this.  So let's give me some space to pray for willingness.

This is What You Shall Do

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman, 1855, The Leaves of Grass, preface excerpt

For Today - Being Here

If we find nothing of interest where we are, we are likely to find little of lasting interest where we wish to go.  - Edwin Way Teale

Wherever I go, I take myself with me.  A blessing and not. 

Edwin Way Teale was a writer and naturalist from the United States.  He also wrote "For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm." 

And he wrote this:

Our minds, as well as our bodies, have need of the out-of-doors.  Our spirits, too, need simple things, elemental things, the sun and the wind and the rain, moonlight and starlight, sunrise and mist and mossy forest trails, the perfumes of dawn and the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees.

The reading in For Today concludes this morning:  "Through this program, I am regaining the zest and enthusiasm for life that is my birthright."

One day at a time.

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, 1927

For Today - Real World

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusion.  We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality. - Daniel J. Boorstin

For Today:  Staying in the real world is far less painful than hiding in food and fat.

This morning feels better - calmer, more settled.  The storm brewing inside has been tamed, partly by sleep, partly by meditation, partly by chocolate.  Some of the physical symptoms are from PMS - the chocolate fixes that, I don't know why exactly, but it does.  The mental clamour -- that responds to meditation and rest. 

In OA meetings, I sometimes hear members speak about how they know they cannot eat like "normies" - like normal people.  I know how I eat is not normal.  But I have not accepted - perhaps until now -- that I am not a normal person when it comes to food.  What a subtle distinction to maintain!  Such an illusion -- I'm not crazy, my behaviour is!  When I search the Big Book for illusion, this passage resonates:

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real [food addicts].  No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows.  Therefore, it is not surprising that our [addict] careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could [eat/drink] like other people.  The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his [compulsive eating/drinking] is the great obsession of every abnormal [eater].  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.  Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. [Big Book, p.30]

To the gates of insanity or death.  I know this to be true.  The illusion that I can control my feelings, my life with food compulsions is a sick fantasy, where I escape from my pain for a half hour or so, and then come crashing back to reality, with the blood sugar drop and self-hatred that comes from bingeing.  This temporary escape is killing me, slowly but surely, physically and emotionally.

The For Today reading says:

I know illusions are an escape from reality and the price I pay for that escape is my illness.  Reality is what is.  Today I do not have the illusion that I am the center of the universe, that I should try to make everyone love me, that my opinions are facts.  My illusions are being replaced with enlightenment, my resentment with serenity, my anger with love.

Please, God.  I have made a mess of things and I need help to know what to do to fix them.  I want to live in laughter, free to love, to trust, to give and receive help, free from shame and regret.  I want to leave that "lonely, frightening, painful train through hell" and accept the "gift of a safer, happier journey through life" [Big Book, p.543].

For Today - blech

today is just blech. the depression is heavy, tiring.  my body craves chocolate.  and I feel nothing or too much.  the balance is off.  i am too self-centred in orientation and need to work my steps differently or with a different focus as I don't think I'm doing very well just now.

For Today - Courage

Every man has his own courage, but is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

God does not make junk.  That's part of this morning's reading.  The affirmation is I treat myself as I would treat someone I love and respect. 

I don't lie to people I love and respect.  I have lied to myself about what I eat, why I eat, how I eat, even how I feel or don't feel.  I have hid, been secretive.  I have used food to disassociate from feelings I (falsely) believe I can't (or don't want to) handle.

I embrace other people when they are upset, worried, or grieving.  I have beat myself up when I feel the same way.

I give other people I love the benefit of the doubt.  I tend to ascribe the worst to myself instead.

I go out of my way to be helpful, useful, and kind to people I love and respect.  I have abused myself, my body, my spirit.  I have done little or nothing to stop myself at times. 

I consistently want the best for the people I love and respect.  I have been inconsistent in seeking the best for myself.

For Today:  "Liking myself, as God does, opens new doors, evokes a new spirit that gives me courage and makes room for true humility."

For Today - Self-Destructive Motives

For Today, January 23:  ... Not knowing what I really needed, I had to have what I wanted when I wanted it.  With the twelve steps of recovery, I have stepped out of myself.  The miracle of abstinence is greater than I am.  Spirituality is the nurturing part of me, and as I practice the principles of the program, it becomes stronger, pushing away self-destructive motives.  ...

I want this.  So I work for this.

For Today - Prayer and Meditation

Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.  - Marcus Aurelius

Aurelius was both right and wrong, in my experience.  Sometimes there is no more troubled retreat than my own soul.

I went to a mindfulness meditation class yesterday.  We did two 10 minutes meditations, one more guided than the other.  My mind was bouncing around from what I need to do, to what I have done, to all sorts of things.  I had to guide myself back to my breath countless times.  The meditation teacher, Andrea, was kind in describing this when others in the class commented they had the same experience.  She said this was good -- an opportunity to build the muscle of mindfulness with practice. 

The For Today affirmation this morning is this:  "For today, I need no formal knowledge to pray and meditate, just a conscious effort to open myself to whatever comes."  This is a kind of acceptance I struggle with.  Bingeing takes me away from the emotions that make me uncomfortable.  Today, I am going to practice sitting with whatever comes.

This reminds me of the poem, The Guest House, by Rumi that one of my meditation teachers years ago read.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

For Today - Honesty

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.  - Sigmund Freud

When I am honest with myself, I do better and feel better.  When I am angry, resentful, and willful, I am in denial about my own agency, my own abilities.  I feel lousy, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I can see this when I stop and honestly assess my behaviour, my emotions. 

I remember being disciplined around cleaning up my space.  I had a choice:  I could diligently work at tidying up for 30 minutes and then take a 10 minute break to do something I enjoyed.  Or I could stand in the corner for the 30 minutes instead, doing nothing but stare at the wall.  Wilful fool that I was, I chose the corner. 

Thirty minutes is an endless time to stand still and do nothing.  The first amount of time I was resentful, wilful, angry, and frustrated.  Interestingly, I wasn't willing to be completely disobedient and leave the corner.  But my heart was hard and I was angry at having only two choices, each equally horrible (in my mind).  I stood there and fumed. 

After 30 minutes, I left the corner and read.  When the 10 minutes was up, I wrestled with myself but ended up back in the corner, feeling resentful but also a little bit ashamed.  Something happened part way through - my feelings started to change from bitterly resentful to resigned.  Eventually, how I felt started to shift again and I started to feel ashamed.  Why was I so obstinate?  Obviously it would be a better use of my time to tidy up instead of stand in the corner.  I was just delaying the inevitable.  It wasn't like standing in the corner meant I wasn't going to have to clean up my room later.  There was no trade-off.  I could be punished for my behaviour and still have to do my work.  Or I could just do my work.  Work that was to my benefit.  Duh.

What I don't know is why I take the hard route so often?  Now, as I honestly reflect on my eating behaviours, I am thoughtful and make good decisions a lot of the time.  Then, I get wilful and angry and upset and I make a poor choice to go off the rails, bingeing.  I know the sugar and fat combination is deadly for me.  I also know it gives me a dopamine rush that temporarily makes me feel much better emotionally.  And then it really doesn't.  I am left with still having to do the work but from a heavier, sicker, more unhappy body and feeling ashamed.  

Wilful.  Intentional.  Deliberate.  Having or showing a stubborn and determined intention to do as one wants, regardless of the consequences or effects.

If I am honest, my willingness to surrender is inconsistent.  I am happier and healthier if I am wholeheartedly in recovery.  But I still struggle with this choice.  What beliefs or thoughts underlie this, this modern equivalent of choosing the corner instead of doing the work that benefits me?   I am broken.  The struggle is not worth it.  It is not safe to be abstinent.  I can't live with how bad I feel so I eat.  My body size protects me.  And this is seriously f*cked up thinking.  Broken?   Really?  What struggle?  I simply surrender.  Nothing but good things have happened when I am abstinent:  the danger I feel is not real.  My body size is killing me, not protecting me.

It really is simple.  Do the work.  Embrace the process.  Stop punishing myself.  Surrender.

For Today - Being Willing

When a man's willing and eager, God joins in. - Aeschylus

Yesterday, I was not willing.  I was mired in confusion, stress, overwhelm, and grief.  As the reading in For Today says "sometimes willingness comes easily.  Sometimes it is locked head-on with defiance.  Then I feel heavy with the load."  Yep.  This morning, I feel fragile but willing.  So I will work with that and through that.

The quote this morning is from the ancient Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, who lived c. 455 to 525 BCE and is considered the father of Greek tragedy.  He also wrote:

He who learns must suffer.  Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

There are a lot of great quotes from Aeschylus.  Some of my favourites this morning:

• Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
• It is always in season for old men to learn.
• God loves to help him who strives to help himself.
• Time brings all things to pass.
• Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
• The reward of suffering is experience.
• There are times when fear is good.  It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.
• Excessive fear is always powerless.
• What good is it to live a life that brings pains?

and

"Courage!  Suffering, when it climbs highest, lasts not long."

For Today - Pray to be Relieved of Guilt and Self-Hate

I have never seen a person grow or change in a constructive direction when motivated by guilt, shame and/or hate.  - William Goldberg

This morning I am overwhelmed with the disarray in my house.  Stuff from the renovations hasn't been put back yet.  Stuff from the flood has been shoved out of the way.  There is a massive blue machine with a clear tube coming out of it humming aggressively, sucking the water out of the air.  Its plastic tube is taped to the floor and runs all the way down the hall, into the bathroom, and drains into my new tub.  Which I have not been able to use yet. 

Everything has a skim of drywall dust and God know what else on it.  So it is loud, humid, messy and gritty in here.  The cat hates it and she wanders around, looking at the chaos and meows plaintively.  I just want to scream.  Or cry.  The stress of the mess and having strangers come in to view damage, take photographs, to talk about what they want to do in here -- it makes me feel so tense I want to throw up.  Oh, and I may be underinsured.  I'm already out a $1000 for my deductible. 

My sponsor said floors and phones (my cell phone also turned into a brick on Saturday) can be replaced and that I can't.  Work my program.  Look after myself.  I kind of just want to stay in bed.  Except I have nightmares and wake up sweating and curiously unable to move to make myself more comfortable.

My weight is up.  I am not eating to plan since the flood.  When I read the entry in For Today I agree but feel hopeless.  The prayer for today:

For today:  I let no one - including myself - try to shame me into changing something about myself I wish were different.  I pray to be relieved of guilt and self-hate, and to accept and like myself exactly as I am.  That is where I can begin to change.

So just for today.  I am going to ignore the chaos this morning.  Make a proper breakfast.  Go to the gym.  Then reassess.  The insurance adjuster and contractor come at 3 pm.  So what.  I'm sure they have dealt with worse.

For Today - a cranky, unhappy mess

So it's late. I haven't done what I wanted to do. I've spent too much time trying to fix my dead cell phone.  My apartment flooded yesterday and the floors are water damaged.  There is a layer of drywall dust over everything from the renos.  And I'm cranky.

So I will do what I can for 30 minutes and then go to bed. Try again tomorrow.

The quote for today was:  "We should take care not to make the intellect our God."  Albert Einstein.

Yep.  Acceptance is fundamental to spiritual growth.  I have spent the day futilely trying to fix things I don't know how to fix as if researching and trial/error will get me somewhere.  Nope.  Dumb.

For Today - Wanting Home

Humour is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.  - Reinhold Neibuhr

Humour is a prelude to faith?  Is this because to find the humour in something, we have to believe things are either amusing or soon to be amusing?  Is it a question of faith that things are good or will get better?  And laughter is the beginning of prayer... ok.  I'm not sure I know what this means.  It feels good to laugh.  It can make me feel better to pray.  Maybe that is enough.

I have been out of my house for six days now with the renovations.  I really want to go home.  I can go home, now, renovation-wise, but I am at my parents' home, four hours and a ferry ride away from my place.  And they have some things they would like to do with me while I am here.  Sigh.  I know when I go home the place will feel empty and I will miss having company.  But when I have company -- as I do now -- for too long, I feel the call for quiet, for alone time, for solitude.  It is so tiring to have people around.  It is so lonely not to.

We are all meant to shine, as children do...

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Poem from my Mom - For A New Beginning by John O'Donahue

For A New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

- John O'Donoghue, To Bless the Space Between Us

For Today - My Own Right of Recovery

Competitions are for horses, not artists.  - Bela Bartok

The reading For Today is wonderful this morning:

The art of living is probably the highest form of personal expression:  one is not concerned with who is behind or ahead, but rather with the enjoyment of now.  There is no waiting for a payoff, for that day when certain things are settled or when that ship comes in.  The art of living requires that I like myself, accept what I am and stop wishing I were otherwise.  There is no room for pretense.  People who have develop the art of living are sweetly loving and deeply sensitive while maintaining their independence.  They are as respectful of their own values and opinions as those of others.

For today:  In looking to others in the program for help, I am careful not to deny my own right of recovery.

My feelings were hurt yesterday.  B. forgot my birthday.  I knew he wouldn't forget on purpose; it had to just be a mistake.  But it hurt.  I sent him a little note checking in, seeing how he was, and expressing my surprise and that my feelings were a bit hurt that he didn't wish me a happy birthday.  He sent me a note this morning apologizing profusely - I was right, it just slipped his mind.  That's ok.  Not great, but ok.  I can live with that. 

What I am pleased with is that I told him how I felt.  Rather than just let the hurt sit there, I communicated.  That is progress.  It is progress too that I didn't let myself go down the rabbit hole of thinking I'm not important to him, that's why he forgot my birthday, he doesn't really like me, our friendship is not strong, I'm wrong about him, etc, etc.  Instead, I assumed the best -- he simply forgot -- and then said how I felt.  And he responded to me with affection and apologies.  That takes some of the sting out the hurt.

The reading this morning starts with a quote from Bela Bartok, the composer.  He was a bit of a nemesis when I studied piano -- his modern (20th century) interpretations of Hungarian folk songs were challenging, often discordant, and hard to love.  He was definitely true to his art:  original, bold, raw.  May I be the same.

For Today - Being My Whole Self

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.  Before him, I may think aloud  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy Birthday to me!  It is a cool, damp gray dawn on the island.  I am making tea, talking with my Mom, and amused by the cat being so demanding of attention after hiding for days.  The chaos of renovations continue at my place but I am no longer there to see it.  Such luxury.

What if I can be free to think aloud with my family?  There's a thought.

For Today - Baby Steps

Many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks. - John Lyly

and

If I slip, I will try again.  Practice makes perfect, and I expect to practice abstinence until I "get it."  What is the alternative? 

It is an encouraging sign to be able to give myself a chance to go back and do things differently, without judgment or self-condemnation.  - For Today

This morning is grey and dry as I watch the ripples of the inlet against the wharves from my hotel room windows.  I am leaving here today -- to go back to my place for hopefully the counter installation.  And then to pack the cat up and travel to my parents' by ferry.  I would rather stay here, really, but they want to see me and it is good for me to get out of my comfort zone a little.  I will enjoy myself enough when I am there.  I am hopeful I can walk my favourite beach, the one I didn't get to walk at Christmas.

I am quietly tired this morning.  Not the proper food yesterday since I ate out all day.  Some stress from seeing the counsellor.  Post traumatic stress disorder -- apparently I have the symptoms.  And, by the way, she is going away for a month, so I need to gather my own resources once again, apparently.  Oh well, there must be a purpose to that.  I am curious about the limited effect anti-depressant drugs seem to have on me.  Is it because depression is only a side effect of PTSD?  Apparently that's common.  What if we have been treating the wrong thing all this time?  For my own sake, I am not going there.

It is better if I can do this one day at a time.  I take what I learn and I use it to the best of my ability today.  I breathe.  I consider what I need and then try to do that.  I work my program.  I try to love myself as I would love a child.  And I try not to concern myself with things I cannot control.

Many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks can be read at least two ways.  I can recover from this hellish demon of an oak if I take many small steps, over and over.  Many strokes.  On the other hand, it has taken many cuts -- over many years -- to fall me to the point I surrender.  That doesn't mean I haven't been strong.  It means I am human.  Or perhaps an oak.  LOL.  Blessed be.

For Today - Breathe. Then Change.

The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.  - John F. Kennedy

I am so tired.  I am out of my house in a hotel -- which is nice.  But no kitchen, no dining table.  It all feels very displaced.  But I know it will be short term.  A week or so.  And then the renovations will be done.  I think the myth that I continue to struggle against is that if I eat properly and exercise for a week, I will be done.  But recovery is a long haul, every day, for the rest of my life kind of fix.

The reading this morning starts after the quote with this:

My food addiction was acquired so I could survive and cope in earlier, painful circumstances.  Thus began two myths:  first, that pain was to be avoided at all costs, and second, that eating would relieve the pain, free of charge.  These myths were useful then, but they are insanity now.

Yep.  This.  I no longer need to be so anesthetized.  It doesn't work anyway.  The pain and grief and tears leak through anyway.  This is the reality.

For Today - Priorities

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says, or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.  - Marcus Aurelius

My day is my last full day in my house for a week.  I am moving out so some needed renovations can be done.  It feels upside down and a bit stressful but also exciting.  The contractor will be here in 10 or 20 minutes and yet I'm sitting down to my breakfast (modified since my kitchen is starting to be pulled apart) and my For Today. 

I still have some things to do before the contractor really gets started but I figure I can work around him.  Or he me.  It is do-able.  And it is more important I keep my program strong that be perfectly prepared for his arrival this morning.  Me first.  That's the only way I can be of use to myself and others on a long term basis.  Others first is ok in the short term but without boundaries, I burn out and become a threat to myself.

The quote I really love from this morning's reading speaks to how I have to be serene in things I cannot change, change the things I can (which are mine and mine alone) and be wise enough to let others do their own work.

"There is never enough time to work my own program and someone else's."

Emotion

I find it useful to look up the people whose quotes are used in the For Today book.  This morning's quote about it being wise to know what to overlook is from William James, an American philosopher and psychologist. 

The James-Lange theory of emotion (which he apparently formulated independently of Carl Lange and also Giuseppe Sergi in the 1880s) talks about emotion as the mind's perception of physiological responses to the outside world.   

That is, emotion is the mind's perception of physiological conditions that result from some stimulus. In James's example, it is not that we see a bear, fear it, and run; we see a bear and run; consequently, we fear the bear. Our mind's perception of the higher adrenaline level, heartbeat, etc. is the emotion.

James asked "do we run from a bear because we are afraid or are we afraid because we run?"  He proposed that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong, and instead argued that we are afraid because we run.  That is, our response to the bear -- the heightened alert, pounding heart, exertion from running to safety, etc -- is what we call fear. 

James (and others), thought other emotional situations result in different bodily upheavals. In each case, the physiological responses return to the brain in the form of bodily sensations:  the unique pattern of sensory feedback gives each emotion its unique quality. So fear feels different from anger or love because it has a different physiological signature (in our parasympathetic nervous system). 

The mental aspect of emotion, the feeling, is the response to our change in physiology, not vice versa.  So we do not tremble because we are afraid or cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad because we cry.

How does this relate to binge eating?  I feel the physiological symptoms of emotional pain and I equate the cure with hunger?  I know in my journey so far I have had to learn what my emotions actually are.  I have had a very poorly tuned emotional compass -- basically, I feel bad so I eat.  I have struggled to define what I actually feel.  Am I sad, mad, bored, hungry, or ...?? 

As I get more precise in recognizing my body's cues, my responses are similarly more precise in terms of efficacy.  If I am sad, eating doesn't help.  I still feel sad.  I may feel nothing for a time as binge eating numbs all feelings.  But I don't feel less sad afterwards.  If anything, I feel worse.  It is like a child who suffers more when the caretaker provides the wrong solution.  My distress increases - I have the source problem and also the hopeless feeling of being misunderstood too.

For Today - Accepting What Works

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.  - William James

I am serene this morning.  I slept.  I am warm and pleasantly sore from the gym.  Yesterday, I had a lovely afternoon with my friend, B.  Last night, I read about half of the Melody Beattie book on co-dependence.  And I am feeling some peace now around my friend M's relapse. 

I know M was acting out last night (he told me) and it was really bothering me -- to the point I felt sick.  I didn't realize at first that was what was bothering me.  I felt cold.  My stomach hurt.  I took my temperature twice - thinking I was running a fever (I wasn't).  I wasn't sure about eating my dinner because I felt like vomiting.  I contemplated going off plan with comfort food -- making some jello with pineapple as a compromise instead of the carbs I craved. 

Now, I think all of those physical symptoms were emotional.  I whispered the Serenity Prayer several times during the night.  I talked to my sister on the phone.  I had a cheeky e-mail exchange with B.  I ate proper dinner as planned and felt better.  I made a cup of tea instead of going out for ice cream.  I read about codependence, apparently a common response to growing up with a dysfunctional family where one parent is passive in their addiction / depression / health issue and the other is a controlling caretaker.  I don't want either role for myself.  I am learning to look after myself, before I fret about others.

So this morning I am practicing the art of overlooking M's behaviour in favour of doing my own work.  I know I cannot change him.  I know it is not healthy for me to try.  For my own sanity, I need to accept what works for me.  I think it's the Buddhists who say, "before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

Last night, I felt some pieces fall into place. 

...a great feeling of peace descended upon me, intermingled with a feeling of being suffused with a quiet strength.  I lay down on the bed and slept like a child.  An hour later I awoke to a new world.  Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed.  The scales had dropped from my eyes, and I could see life in its proper perspective.  I had tried to be the center of my own little world, whereas God was the center of a vast universe of which I was perhaps an essential, but a very tiny, part. [Big Book, p.251] 

For Today - Keep it Simple

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.  - Hans Hoffman

Or as Dr. Bob said to Bill W.:  "Let's not louse this thing up.  Let's keep it simple."  I wonder if it is as simple as eat, pray, love.  This morning, I awoke a little before 4.30 a.m., hungry, restless with bad dreams, thirsty, anxious.  I fed the cat (she was hungry too).  I stretched.  I had a drink of water.  And I thought about eating something.  Then I thought about not wanting to wake J. up with a text departing from my plan for today.  So I took a big breath and went back to bed to sleep for another two hours.  Simple.

I find I have to still myself long enough to focus on the present thing.  Otherwise, my mind goes all over the place, thoughts interrupting thoughts, as I think of things I need to do, should have done, will do next...  My mental clutter exceeds the clutter of belongings in my house.  One thing at a time.  One day at a time. 

The prayer is simple:  "God, for decades I have been unable to handle my problems in a healthy, whole productive way.  Please let me turn them over to you." [paraphrasing, Big Book, p.251]

For Today - Measuring Progress by Peace of Mind

The process of changing a life-style is more important than reaching a goal or measuring a performance.  - Theodore Isaac Rubin

My mind is starting to clear now that I have a week's abstinence from compulsive food behaviours.  I really believe that excess food - especially sugar, fat, refined flour - clouds my thinking and disconnects me from my feelings.  Bingeing takes me further from where I would like to be emotionally and spiritually.  It is also hell on my body.

In Bill's Story in the Big Book, Bill talks about his friend who suggested Bill uncover his own conception of God; a Higher Power that works for Bill.  In taking this in, Bill observes his friend "was on a different footing.  His roots grasped a new soil." [Big Book, p.12].  As do mine.  When I am making positive changes, I feel grounded, connected, even whole with the Universe. 

Yesterday, I realized that I had surrendered my compulsive food behaviours to my Higher Power.  Not consistently - I am still learning as my days of abstinence over the last six months attest - but right now.  For today.  But what about the rest of my pain?  I cry and I don't know why a lot of the time. What if I give that to God too? 

The Step Three Prayer asks God to take away my difficulties.  It doesn't say take away my food compulsions.  My difficulties.  All of them.  And so I pray, with a better understanding of what I am asking for

Then the Big Book continues saying asking for God's help is only the beginning:

Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning. ... Though our decision [to turn our difficulties over to God] was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us.  Our [compulsive food behaviour] was but a symptom."  [Big Book, pp.63-64] 

Now I have done a strenuous Step 4 inventory with my sponsor last year.  What this didn't touch, however, was my deep sense of being broken somehow.  I don't understand the source of this immense pain and yet I feel the effect acutely. 

The therapist on Monday asked me to think about what I hoped to achieve in the program.  I hope to consistently give over this pain until I can live with it, happy, joyful and free.  Until it no longer haunts me, dragging me in to the abyss of depression and compulsive binge eating.  I hope to regain my physical self -- although that will be a happy by-product of emotional and spiritual strength.  It is as the author of "A Vision of Recovery" writes in the Big Book:

I now understand that the spiritual malady should be my main concern and that the more faith I have, the fewer problems I will have.  Today I have more faith than I ever had, and as my faith grows, my fears lessen. [Big Book, p.499]

Blessed.

For Today - Infinite

The Infinite Goodness has such wide arms that it takes whatever turns to it. - Dante Alighieri

This morning's reading starts with this lovely quote from Dante Alighieri (Italian, 1265-1321).  What a wonderful comfort.  My Higher Power is infinite, good and welcomes me in all things with open arms.  This is my conception of God.  The reading continues with this question:  Is there some deep, secret trouble I am withholding, even from my Higher Power?

Yes.  I think so.  I have not asked my Higher Power for help with the trauma I have carefully walled off.  When I think of it or speak of it, all I do is cry.  And I don't know exactly why.  I have long thought it is not important to know why.  Now, I realize that may be so but I still need to have help for it.  The counsellor talked this week about compartmentalizing my emotions and relying solely on intellect.  Or something like that. 

It's ok that I don't understand this grief, this unhappy, this core hurt.  But as the reading says, "God alone knows how badly I need help in all aspects of my life."  I realize this morning that I have asked for help with my compulsive eating and some of my character defects, mainly around control.  I haven't asked for help with my sadness, my grief, my fears.  I need to start talking to my Higher Power about all aspects of my life, not just some.

For Today - Acceptance

The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the articles of the universe. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I need only to look and see that all things happen in their own time. The resolution of each problem has its own timetable. No amount of wishing, wringing of hands are raging will effect a change.

Acceptance is the simple act of going through what is presently facing me, be it pain, anger, despair, hopelessness, or their opposites. When life as it really is becomes a fact that I accept as naturally as I breathe, events lose their power to throw me off balance or disturb the basic rhythm of my life.

For today: Acceptance also comes in its own time and I do not berate myself for not having it on demand.  [For Today, p.6]

Yesterday, I was at group and the topic was coping with change.  Much of the discussion focused on acceptance:  accepting change, accepting our limits in influencing the course of change, and increasing our resources when stressed by change. 

 

I spoke by phone with a former client yesterday.  He was persistent in wanting to talk to me despite being told by my office I was on long term leave for medical reasons.  I have known this man for more than 10 years and worked on several large projects with him.  I respect him as a leader of his community. 

 

I decided to be candid -- acknowledging that I was on leave, it was for medical reasons, I had burned out and was working through a major depression.  He responded by sharing his own story of burning out, taking a few years off work, going to a recovery centre.  He said when he finally understood why he was doing what he did to himself, he felt such peace and hope.  But the underlying sadness never totally goes away.  I felt accepted when he shared his own struggles.  He gets it and he could see his own journey in mine.  He was encouraging.

 

Acceptance comes in its own time.  So I wait.  I work on change as I can in the meantime.  But I let go of expectations around outcomes.  Change happens in its own time too.

 

For Today - Application, not just theory

He does not believe that does not live by his belief.  -- Thomas Fuller

This morning's reading has the powerful sentence:  "Anyone can 'learn' the program, but to achieve the recovery it promises takes more than intellectual understanding; it takes a sustained effort to apply its spiritual principles in every area of my life. ...  If I believe that ours is a program of recovery, I will live by that belief."

And so I pray.  I breathe.  I use food to sustain me, not prop up my emotions or avoid feeling.  I write.  I read.  I reach out to my fellows.  I take inventory.  I practice serenity, courage and wisdom.  And I fail and try again. 

Someone used the word compartmentalism with me yesterday.  As in, can I access my emotions and memories when they upset me?  Or have I walled them off in favour of living in the realm of intellect and reason instead?  I believe in living whole, embracing all of me, but I struggle to actually do it. 

For the longest time, I searched for an intellectual answer to the pain I feel.  As a woman writes in the Big Book, "I was an intellectual and I needed an intellectual answer, not an emotional one." [Big Book, p.205].  But the disease is a physical, spiritual and emotional one.  Not an intellectual problem to be solved.  Recovery requires faith.  And I can choose my own conception of God.  Like Bill W.:

That statement hit me hard.  It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years.  I stood in the sunlight at last. [Big Book, p.12]

I step in and out of the sunlight, I think.  My belief is imperfect as is my understanding of God.  I return  now to Step 1 with a deeper sense of what it means, in practice, again.  I find comfort in the OA 12 and 12 which says:

In step one, we acknowledge this truth about ourselves:  our current methods of managing have not been successful, and we need to find a new approach to life.  Having acknowledged this truth, we are free to change and to learn.

Once we have become teachable, we can give up old thought and behaviour patterns which have failed us in the past, beginning with our attempts to control our eating and our weight.  Honest appraisal of our experience has convinced us that we can't handle life through self-will [or intellect] alone.  First we grasp this knowledge intellectually, and then finally we come to believe it in our hearts.  When this happens, we have taken the first step and are ready to move ahead in our program of recovery. [OA 12 and 12, end of chapter 1]

 My way is difficult, troubled, and has failed me physically, emotionally and spiritually.  Those compartments get in the way of my whole self standing in the sunlight of the spirit.  So I start the process of letting them go.  Living my beliefs.

For Today - Learning to Use all my Energy and Spirit to Live

To be alive is Power
Existence in itself
Without a further function
Omnipotence enough.
- Emily Dickinson

I used to live as if I only deserved to be here if I was of use to someone else.  I would say I had intrinsic worth, as a human being, as a birthright.  But I don't think I lived that way. 
Today's reading includes the statement, "I need no terms or conditions to exercise the power of life.  All I have to do is live now.  It is enough."  My hold on my own power and life has not been omnipotent until recently - and I am still learning to live with my own sense of self, of power... 

To be alive is to be omnipotent.  Omnipotence = the quality of having unlimited power. 

When I looked up Epicurus, whose quote was in For Today on December 31st, there was discussion about his philosophy which focuses -- generally -- on the purpose of existence as the attainment of a happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain).  This is achieved by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends.  Epicurus taught that the gods neither reward nor punish humans; rather the universe is infinite and eternal, with events in life ultimately based on the interactions of atoms moving in space.

The idea that there is no God to punish or reward human behaviour challenges the idea that God is omnipotent and involved in all events.  For if God is omnipotent, s/he must allow human suffering, be unable to prevent human suffering, or be unwilling to prevent suffering.  This is the Epicurean Paradox, which is described like this:

God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.  If He is willing and unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils?  Or why does He not remove them? -- Lactantius

I turned from God the summer of 1984 when S. died and my minister explained this as unexplainable; as God's will.  It was deeply troubling answer.  If God sees the little sparrow fall, as the childhood hymn goes, why does He let it fall at all?  I was 13 years old and I could not accept either the randomness or the targeted by God (?) nature of my friend's death that hot summer night.  It is now, more than 30 years later, that I can see S.'s agency in being where he ought not have been, of adventuring, of taking risks, and paying the price.  He fell.  And God held all of us. 

My friend M is really struggling.  He is in a financial mess.  He is an emotional mess.  His physical health is compromised by a serious but treatable disorder.  I am practicing loving detachment for nothing I do helps him.  I think he needs to find his own sense of peace with life. 

I am learning that my omnipotence is for my life only -- not others.  I can only exercise power within my sphere, not for others.  I can help but am I really helping if I prop someone up who is fully capable themselves?  I had a very useful exchange with my OA friend J. on this:

Me:  Oh, I'm so sad.  My good friend in another program is really struggling with life.  And I want to fix it all for him but I can't and he needs to do it for himself.  And it is heartbreaking to watch.  But I'm not going to eat over it.  Hope your morning has gone well. Hugs.  

J.:  That is a tough one. I guess the best thing we can hope for is that they hit their bottom with a painful enough "thump" that it helps them walk into and through the fear of recovery/work/change/admitting failure ...all the things we need to surrender to in order to find humility and to have our egos smashed. I've watched a lot of people sink and swim in aa and it's those who came so close to death that are the ones who have transformed the most dramatically. Knowing this helps me to not want to mess with an addict's decent even tho the risk of death is there.  

Me:  Thanks. I've been here once before with another friend and once previously with this one - and you're right. It's just hard.  I want to intervene and I know it's not the right thing to do. 

J.:  It's really important in early recovery (where we are) to live in the solution and not the problem. Sometimes it is best to remove ourselves from those who are living in the problem. We can be there for them when they are ready to get help- and sometimes our stepping back can inspire a desire to stop losing things in life due to addiction- but it's more common than not if we support someone who is still choosing to act out we go out ourselves.  Protecting your abstinence today brings you one day closer to helping a woman who needs your help down the road.  ❤ 

Me:  Thanks.  Yes.  Part of me is rationalizing that he's not acting out per se but his depression is immobilizing him.  But really it's all the same thing. And he's probably acting out and I just don't know.  I'm choosing to protect myself.  If and when he asks for specific help from me, then I can re look at it.  Otherwise I feel I'm just enabling him and getting in the way of his bottom.  He needs to stop digging himself a deeper hole.  Sigh.  Thanks for this.

❤

And some hours later, M. texted me to apologize for lashing out on the phone.  His stock phrase when he is this upset is that he is "not ready for solutions."  I have tried to encourage, cajole, and reason him into halting his fall, arresting his descent.  But it doesn't work.  And it's not my fall.  I thought long and hard about how to respond.  And this is what I sent in response to his apology:

It's understandable.  You're under a lot of stress.  And I'm not offended.  I am upset with worry for you.  I am your friend, a good one, I hope.  And you know I am very fond of you.  At the same time, I will be a lousy friend if I get in the way of you hitting bottom.  This life of yours is not working.  I know you know that. 

And I fear you won't find what you need inside yourself if you don't confront the fear, the crap, the past, whatever it is that is keeping you stuck.  And I can say this because it's been my journey too. 

So take the time you need to triage.  And then to rage.  To pray.  Whatever you need to do.  Just please try to be safe.  

And when you're done raging, make a plan, a concrete plan with desired outcomes, time frames, step by step, with contingencies built in - a real honest plan to recover your life, your health, physical and mental, your financial security, your legal problems, your 12 step recovery, the whole thing.

And when you have this real plan, if I can help with something concrete and specific, I will.  I will also help you troubleshoot your plan. But the plan has to be yours.  I'm done coming up with solutions.  They won't work unless they come from your heart. 

You can make this your bottom, hit the ground with a decisive thump and then start to put together a plan for recovering your life.  If you don't believe you can do this, you can borrow my faith in you until you believe it too. 

Be mad at me for saying this if you have to be.  It's ok, I can take it.  I think I speak the truth, however.  You have to do this for you.

Oh, God I hope I am doing the right thing.  I am thankful that my past has brought me to this point where I can choose life, for me, and respect M.'s autonomy, his own omnipotence, in his life.

For Today - The Power of Hope

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.  -- Friedrich Nietzsche

The tea is brewing (I'm out of coffee), the sun is slowly coming up, and the frost on the church roof has painted them white, each shingle, rows on rows of perfect teeth, gleaming.  Hope is a powerful thing.  So is connection.

Yesterday, I agreed to do a daily food plan with my OA friend J.  I am always leery of the initial novelty which makes any plan seem brilliant and successful.  However, I have agreed to try this for the month of January.  And so far, it gives me peace around my food.  I have a plan, I will work the plan, and if I need or want to significantly deviate from my plan, I will contact J. first.  And she will do the same.  Hope.

And yesterday I went to an esoteric, crazy jammed pack full second hand store with my friend B.  The store also rents things to the movie industry so they have all kinds of weird and wonderful things.  The store has some beautiful things among the absurd, the crazy, the junk, the garbage.  There is hope there, that someone will want these things and be willing to pay for them! 

The amount of human ingenuity and work that goes into the diversity of all this jumble of life is inspiring.  We saw every kind of dish, ceramic, glassware.  Every shape, size, and improbable design for lamps.  There were two huge boat anchors that would keep you tethered to earth in any gale.  B. started to notice that there were a lot of scales -- at least two upright medical office style scales, six or so balances for ?commerce, a scientific scale in a glass case that looked very official, an ancient looking scale with ceramic plates that was missing the weights so it would never balance.  A couple of ancient bathroom scales, one in pepto pink, with large glass dials.  Once we started noticing the scales they were everywhere!  B. quipped that this was because the store was such an upscale place! 

There were also some great hats.  Some incredibly ugly paintings that someone had enough hope in their merit or value to keep.  Some vintage vibraters!  A huge crazy floor lamp style electric hair curler with a cascade of woven sheathed wires like an octopus crossed with a tarantula descending from the top, each wire splitting into several with large ominous clips attached, perfect for setting your curlers or torturing your victim in a horror movie set. 

B. is not willing to invite me to his home despite our strong friendship.  He hasn't had guests for over four years, he says.  He is embarrassed at the state of his home, his lack of furnishings, and whatever else.  He is wanting this to change and has asked -- very tentatively -- if I would help him look for some new to him furniture.  Of course, I would love to get in there and help.  I am also aware that while I would love that, it would deeply upset him if I forced the issue or moved faster than he is able to manage.  So I suggested we look at used furniture stores -- and intentionally chose this crazy place so there would be lots to look at that was completely out of the range of what he would want.

There were some good pieces there too among the clutter.  I saw a lovely mid-century modern Danish table and a chair I would have bought for my place if I had had room or need.  And B. fell in love with an art deco dining room table and chairs.  After much looking, touching, admiring, and going for coffee to think things together over, he bought them!  I was so thrilled for him.  He negotiated the price, arranged for delivery, and was delighted with himself!  Yay!!  I am hopeful this is the start of his making a home he is happy to live in.  And I am hopeful this is part of my journey in giving up my "mad exertions to control situations that are not mine to control" (as today's reading says) in favour of being a facilitator of life instead. 

Not only do I need to believe I have within me the power to change and to grow, but that I have the ability to support change and growth in others.  That is step 12:  practicing the principles of recovery in all my affairs.  Sharing my experience, strength and hope, strengthens my own experience, strength and hope!

This hope is a precarious thread.  In the last few days, I have felt such despair.  I felt at peace, my hand nestled in M.'s hand, talking.  I felt unloveable, when B. had to change plans.  I laughed, with true delight, as he admired the bottle of reptile cleaner (good for all colours!) at the thrift store.  My moods have been stormy, turbulent and hard to weather.  When I am down, my eating is chaotic -- restricting one moment, bingeing the next.  At the worst, I'm not sure I can go on.  It is as the Big Book says:

As the feelings of hopelessness and depression progressed, so did my [eating].  Thoughts of suicide came more and more frequently.  It felt as if things were never going to change.  Progress with my therapist came to almost a complete halt.  The hopelessness was compounded by the fact that the one thing that was bringing me relief, the one thing I counted on to take the pain away, was ultimately destroying me.  The end, I feared, was close. [Big Book, p.283]

Yesterday, I went to the gym and worked hard - it felt good.  I ate to plan.  I laughed, held hands, and connected with B in a way that supports forward momentum for both of us in our individual ways.  It was a good day.  Experience, strength and hope.  I have the experience of hopelessness.  I have the strength of bearing through the darkness.  And now I am starting to find hope.

For Today - Willingness

I don't like this morning's quote by Alexander Smith.  It doesn't resonate with me at all so I'm not opening this post with it.

Instead, I like the closing words of the January 2nd entry For Today:

I pray to be willing to give up more of my old, mistaken notions that I cling to as absolute truths.

It is not yet 7 o'clock this morning, dark and cold.  As I consider how I have been living, I find myself ashamed.  My abstinence has been non-existent.  I have resorted to food in an effort to stop feeling so awful.  To stop the nightmares.  To get some carbohydrate-coma induced sleep.  But it is a shadow existence.

My Big Book search for willingness uncovered the usual helpful passage that sums up where I am and where I want to be:

When I am willing to do the right thing, I am rewarded with an inner peace no amount of [food] could ever provide.  When I am unwilling to do the right thing, I become restless, irritable, and discontent.  It is always my choice.  Through the Twelve Steps, I have been granted the gift of choice.  I am no longer at the mercy of the disease that tells me the only answer is to [compulsively eat].  If willingness is the key to unlock the gates of hell, it is action that options those doors so that we may walk freely among the living.  [Big Book, p.317]

So for today, I pray to be willing to give up more of my old, mistaken notions that I cling to as absolute truths.  Food is not the answer to all the questions I have.
  

For Today - Going On

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. - Hal Borland

It is a beautiful morning -- cold, sunny, frosty.  I awoke with the cat nestled beside me, contented.

I made a beautiful dinner last night that we enjoyed very much.  I watched a movie while M. slept beside me.  He watched maybe 20 minutes on and off of a 149 minute film!  It could have felt lonely but it didn't.  He was warm against me and the film was engrossing, a psychological thriller based on the novel Gone Girl.  After the film, we had tea and dessert and simply talked for a couple hours.  At New Year, we heard fireworks in the neighbourhood and wished each other good wishes, holding hands.  He gives of himself what he can to me.  And I do the same.  At times, and in time, I want more.  In fact, I want more now.  But I trust I am given what I can handle.  And it feels pretty good. 

Yesterday's storms are hard to understand.  This morning's calm is equally hard to understand.  So I give that up.  My understanding is imperfect.  Today's reading talks about how all the New Year (and other time) pledges, resolutions, promises to reform are misguided attempts to be in control.  I think I can see that.  I know they don't work.  As For Today says this morning, "the best time to give up my will, my old ideas, my defects is any time I am ready to grow."

The quote this morning is from American writer / nature writer, Hal Borland (1900-1978), who was, among other things, a staff writer and editorialist at the New York Times.  Some of his other thoughts that resonate with me this New Year's morning are these:

• Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.  Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
• Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom,, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed.  There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.
• For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches towards that force beyond.  Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand.  In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is.
• There are no limits to either time or distance, except as man himself may make them.  I have but to touch the wind to know these things.
• No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.

The Big Book talks about this kind of growth too:

...all problems will not be solved at once.  Seed has started to sprout in new soil, but growth has only begun.  In spite of your new-found happiness, there will be ups and downs.  Many of the old problems will still be with you.  This is as it should be.

The faith and sincerity ... will be put to the test.  These workouts should be regarded as part of your education, for thus you are learning to live.  You will make mistakes, but if you are in earnest they will not drag you down.  Instead you will capitalize them.  A better way of life will emerge when they are overcome. [Big Book, p.117] 

Seed sprouts.  I am learning to live.  It is mid-winter; all around me the rhythm of life goes on.  And so do I.  Blessed be.