Expectations and Arguing with God

This morning, I am reflecting on acceptance vs. control this morning.  And I am weighing the balance I have between ‘doing the footwork’ vs. expectations about the results.  How control and expectations lead me to resentments.  And I cannot afford to stay in that emotional space.  It is a threat to my emotional sobriety, to my conscious contact with God, to pretty much anything that helps me be less crazy in addiction, in my relationships with God, with myself, and with others.

My expectation is often that I can control the results if I work hard enough.  And that if I don’t get the results I want, I have failed.  That this is sometimes true makes me expect it to be true every time.  And when it isn’t, I am shocked, unhappy and angry.  The mystery in recovery is that I do not have to understand or accept God’s evaluation of my work.  It just is.

And yet, often I just don’t understand God’s will and I feel strongly about that.  However, I have to accept that I don’t have to understand everything.  If me not understanding today means I make a similar mistake in the future, I will just have to live with the consequences.  That is just a learning opportunity, another chance for growth.  When I go too far in trying to explain or justify my process out of the belief God is wrong, the universe made a mistake… well, that just doesn’t work.

I can try to understand where I went wrong, but getting into an argument with God, back talk really, is never going to be productive.  This is not a relationship of equality.  I’m not the director.  And I cannot manipulate outcomes long-term by sheer will.  It isn’t healthy.  It doesn’t work.  And it is not acceptable to God.

I can be confused and not resentful.  I can be frustrated and not lash out in anger or self-harm.  I can just be ok with “I did my best and I’m happy with that” on the one hand and “God didn’t give me the outcome I feel my work deserves and I am unhappy with that” on the other hand.  It doesn’t feel great but I can accept that this is how I feel right now.

I do this work of recovery because I know deep in my heart this is what God wants for me.  Happy, joyous and free.  I accept that sometimes obedience is just doing exactly what I’m told, without adding to it or changing it.  I accept that I may interpret a task differently than God does and God gets to evaluate the results, not me.  I could be angry that sometimes diligence is rewarded and sometimes it is not but that only feeds my anger.  I don’t need more reasons to be angry.  It gets me into trouble in life and it takes me further from God.  That is not the pattern I am trying to foster for myself.

In the rooms this week, I heard someone say “sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I learn!”  I can be grateful when I make some progress.  Focus on the big picture, not the momentary frustration of not getting what I want.  I can rise above a temper tantrum.  I am a child of God but I am not a child.  I am reminded of the passage in the Big Book (p.88):

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.  We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, “Thy will be done.”  We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions.  We become much more efficient.  We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

I can be grateful I am learning how to process anger, overwhelm, and anxiety.  There is a lot of good in this.  I do not need to make my progress feel sour by being angry at God’s evaluation of where I am in this journey. 

While I am allowed to talk back, to argue with God, it is not a good use of my energy.  It changes nothing.  I am learning that sometimes I will make mistakes.  Sometimes I will do everything right and not get the results I want.  And when that happens, it’s God’s will.  I may not understand and I can live with that unease.  I do not need to be right so badly that I will disrespect God by turning away, becoming self-destructive in my frustration and despair.

I’m sorry, God.  I will hold my frustration better in the future.  I will turn away from self-destruction and turn toward you.  Please help me accept the things I cannot change.

 

Cravings when my food is clean are only thoughts...

Joe and Charlie write about how the phenomenon of addiction starts in the mind.  It is the thought that I need something to "help" me feel less irritable, restless and discontent.  The cravings only start once the substance is in our system physically.  Before that, it is just a thought.

So I was having some 'cravings' (really, they were thoughts) that I wanted ice cream, a hamburger, some pizza.  Some summer street food in the heat, in the plaza, with everybody else.  The normal eaters and the not normal eaters in their pre-recovery days.

But those are thoughts.  Thoughts that mask the feelings of "I'm lonely" and "I wish I was like everybody else".  And EVERYBODY, from Bill W to Joe and Charlie to my sponsor to me when I'm not being restless, irritable and discontent, says this delusion of being like a normal eater has to be set aside completely.  Smashed.

So why the thoughts when my food is clean?  It's just my will trying to drive the show into a ditch.

My sponsor says when these thoughts come, we first inventory our food.  If it's clean, then I inventory my thoughts, words, and actions.  No matter where these thoughts of abusing myself with food come from, I deal with the thoughts, the cravings in MY MIND.  I don't set my body up for the relentless cycle of being triggered into physical cravings.  It stops at only the thoughts.

Blessed be.

Anger and Learning

I am 22 days clean from bingeing and (mostly) compulsive food behaviours.  In the last 22 days, I have not binged.  I have not had chocolate or popcorn or chips or other binge foods.  I have had a teaspoon of sugar in my tea when I wanted to feel something other than I was feeling.  And I had a very late lunch one day and ate a 10" pizza.  Which was not ideal.  But not a binge.  I am being as honest as I know how to be with myself about my food behaviours. 

I have also significantly changed my other avoidant behaviours.  The bingeing on mindless internet surfing.  Netflix.  Podcasts I'm only half listening to.  Avoiding housekeeping.  My feelings.  I am trying very hard to actually feel how I feel.  The result is I am easily angered.  I am easily in tears.  I am easily frustrated.  I have decades of experience in using various techniques, including food, to numb out.  And when I take those things out of my life, a cascade of emotion, some of it decades old, comes flooding out.

And I am meditating on anger.  The Big Book says "If we were to live, we had to be free from anger.  The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us.  They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison" (How It Works).  In me, I see that anger suppressed is a recipe for bingeing.  Anger itself is just a warning sign that I am not dealing with some underlying upset.  I feel wronged in some way.  And usually it is me who is wronging me.  I am not being firm with a personal boundary.  I am not being honest and so I feel shame.  I am putting someone else's needs ahead of my own and expecting to be loved for it.  When my expectations are not met, I feel resentment.  And if the resentments pile up, I feel rage.

I like this entry in Voices of  Recovery (June 11):

I have to be careful about my attitude toward anger.

Righteous anger is the hardest thing for me to release.  I get such a good, self-affirming feeling from holding on to it.  However, anger, like fear, takes up so many mental megabytes that there isn't room for new information and new feelings, new insights and new paths to conversation with my Higher Power.  If I allow my hard-drive (my heart) to fill to capacity with anger or fear, then there is no room for the positive, for what my Higher Power wants for me in life.

When the anger or the fear is gone, what's left?  At one time I speculated that nothing would be left of me once I shouted or cried it all out and released it.  Now I realize that what happened was a massive blackboard erasure with a whole new background - life - to fill as I want.

I am learning to sit with my anger and not binge.  This is not to say I am processing my anger well (or sometimes at all).  But I am letting uncomfortable feelings come to the surface - I am not suppressing them with food or other distractions that don't help.  It is hard, hard work.  And I am in tears more than ever.  When it gets intense, my thoughts turn to food.  I have to remember to pray, to ask for help, to move my body, move this anger energy.

Blessed be.

Defiance

"I wanted help, and I tried to cooperate.  As the treatment progressed, I began to get a picture of myself, of the temperament that had caused me so much trouble.  I had been hypersensitive, shy, idealistic.  My inability to accept the harsh realities of life had resulted in a disillusioned cynic, clothed in a protective armour against the world's misunderstanding.  That armour had turned into prison walls, locking me in loneliness -- and fear.  All I had left was an iron determination to live my own life in spite of the alien world -- and here I was, an inwardly frightened, outwardly defiant woman, who desperately needed a prop to keep going." -- Big Book, p.204

I have been meditating on defiance lately.  And resistance.  Why do I resist what is good for me?  Why do I feel like abusing myself with food will bring comfort?  And I don't know the answers other than I know food is not the answer to my emotional distress. 

I searched both the Big Book and the AA 12&12 for instances of defiant or defiance.  There are a few.  The passages that struck me are the one above -- from the chapter in the Big Book, Women Suffer Too, and then this from the AA 12&12 in the context of how AA (and OA) lack a hierarchal governance system to a large degree, preferring to be governed by the group's conscience, insider the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions.

The passage is:

...We recognize that alcoholics can't be dictated to -- individually or collectively.

At this juncture, we can hear a churchman exclaim, "They are making disobedience a virtue!"  He is joined by a psychiatrist who says, "Defiant brats!  They won't grow up and conform to social usage!"  The man in the street says, " I don't understand it.  They must be nuts!"  But all these observers have overlooked something unique in Alcoholics Anonymous.  Unless each AA member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant.  His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles. (AA 12&12, Tradition 9)

As I struggle with what I want "in the moment" versus what is good for my long-term health, I have to remember that God does not want me to abuse myself.  Suffering is optional.  I can do what I need to do for my health happily or unhappily.  Either way, I have to get enough sleep, drink enough water, eat sufficient healthy food, avoid unhealthy food, and not abuse food for emotional purposes.  If I do that, I am honouring my humanity. 

The laws of physiology, nutrition, movement, and energy -- whatever they may be and I realize we know but a little here -- apply to me whether I want them to or not.  I am not exempt from the rule that if calories in exceed calories expended, weight increases.  Equally, I am not exempt from the rule that too much stress or too little sleep means the hormones in my body will prevent me from releasing excess weight.  That is just how we think it works.  And absent some other understanding, that is what I have to work with (or against).  And if I choose defiance, there are consequences, physical and emotional. 

So for today, my 18th day of not abusing food, I choose to celebrate embracing those things I cannot change.  That food doesn't fix sad.  The love isn't felt with food.  And that I had another day to learn what I need to learn.

Blessed be.

Two Myths

The two myths disclosed this morning are these:
1.  that pain must be avoided at all costs; and
2.  that food relieves pain free of charge.

Neither are helpful.  Neither are true.  The For Today reading this morning starts with a quote from former US president John F. Kennedy:

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

The reading goes on to say that the writer's food addiction was acquired so [s/he] could survive and cope with 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.

As I become willing to accept the truth that is revealed to me in this program, the myths I clung to so desperately lose credibility.  I no longer need to be anesthetized; I can stand still and feel my feelings.  I don't think something is wrong if I'm not happy every minute.

For today, the more I accept the reality of what is, the more comfortable and serene my life becomes. 

This morning I am extremely sore from a fall on the ice yesterday.  My body is swollen with the excess salt I had last night bingeing on corn chips.  The binge did not prevent the soreness, it made it worse this morning.  Insane. 

I know I had painful early experiences.  I know I have been working around the edges on them in therapy for years.  For today, I will just hold my pain and trust that in time it will release its hold on me and just become part of my history, like happy memories do too.

Blessed be.

Recovery

This I adapted for OA from an NA Just for Today reading that landed in my in-box tonight:

Few of us have any interest in “recovering” what we had before we started using.  Many of us suffered severely from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.  Getting high and staying high seemed like the only possible way to cope with such abuse.  Others suffered in less noticeable but equally painful ways before addiction took hold.  We lacked direction and purpose.  We were spiritually empty.  We felt isolated, unable to empathize with others.  We had none of the things that give life its sense and value.  We [binged] in a vain attempt to fill the emptiness inside ourselves.  Most of us wouldn't want to “recover” what we used to have. 

Ultimately, the recovery we find in OA is something different: a chance at a new life.  We'’ve been given tools to clear the wreckage from our lives.  We’'ve been given support in courageously setting forth on a new path.  And we’'ve been given the gift of conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, providing us with the inner strength and direction we so sorely lacked in the past.

Recovering?  Yes, in every way.  We’'re recovering a whole new life, better than anything we ever dreamed possible.  We are grateful.

I think the part that really resonates with me today is I don't want to recover what I used to have.  I want to recover my health and spiritual wellbeing -- which I did not have before.

Blessed be.

Open Wide to What You Want

open wide.
give your desires words, out loud words.
tenderly gaze of the eye to eye.
expose your craving any way you must,
under a blanket or backed by a rented band.
reveal your intentions, clean.
stand there, vulnerable, waiting.
describe your dream, in detail.
clarify what you're afraid of and give faith to the opposite.
engage every cell in fiercely wishing:
to be seen, to be graduated, adored, valued, validated, met.
the moment holds it all.  give it then and there.
even if it didn't work out before, or you're not sure what will come out of you to make for something new.
(you can't be sure.)
blow off the past.
ask for what you want.
unzip the casing of your personality and let that inner layer feel the air.  smart warm life.
do it front of another being.
this is terrifying relief:
to merge
out in front
melting edges
contributing
punctuations of ecstasy
everyday happiness deepening
we know.
pulse open.  open.  open.
you will get hurt.  shattered -- guaranteed.
a glance will cut.  denial will bruise, rejection will fracture.
you'll cry.  clenched.  you'll be infuriated.  you may choose to walk away - agonized.
leave, quit.  swing back.  shoot a dart of defence.
you'll regret it -- more or less.
if you stay there, closed down 'round your core, then you'll never leave the house feeling like yourself.
you'll pad your soul with stuff destined for landfills.
piles of dislike and complaints will heave between you and bliss.
(bliss is possible.  we know.)
itchy. tight.  foggy.  this happens when the heart is veiled.
nothing will ever be quite right, day after day.
pulse back open.
do it to be it.
lean toward.
worship your precious impulses.
focus to expansion
this once.
open
up
any
way
you
can.

(by Danielle Laporte)

Love Lift Us Up

It's New Year's Eve Day and I am alone.  And I will be alone tonight.  And tomorrow.  This is nothing new.  And it hurts like it always has.  I saw a sad movie with a friend last night and cried during and after.  Back at home, sitting on my couch, his arms around me, I cried.  It's like you are lost, he said.  Yes.  I am trying to find my footing, my place, my groundedness but I haven't yet.

It's snowing outside, the house is chilly, and I'm listening to music.  Tears fall, like the sadness just has to leach out.  I cannot contain my feelings and so I am surrendering to how I feel.  It's just the way it is right now and it will pass.  Or not. 

Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong.

Who knows what tomorrow brings
In a world, few hearts survive
All I know is the way I feel
When it's real, I keep it alive

The road is long, there are mountains in our way
But we climb a step every day

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know, up where the clear winds blow

Some hang on to "used to be"
Live their lives, looking behind
All we have is here and now
All our life, out there to find

The road is long, there are mountains in our way,
But we climb them a step every day

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know, up where the clear winds blow

Time goes by
No time to cry
Life's you and I
Alive, today

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know, up where the clear winds blow

-lyrics by Joe Cocker

Blessed be.

Quietly and with a Calm Spirit

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.  Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.  Commend all to God and then be still and be at rest in His bosom. - St. Francis de Sales*

The reading for today it about inward peace.  It says:

Inward peace is not easily come by for a compulsive eater.  Stuffing down anxiety and fear with food gives an illusion of calm, but food as an anaesthetic has the shortest lifespan of all the addictive substances.

How, then, do I maintain inward peace?  The same way I remain abstinent -- by giving everything to God:  my fears, my worries, my life.  I abandon all efforts to control, to force life to conform to my will.  And I rest as peacefully as an infant in her mother's arms.

I am feeling pressured about the holidays.  Three presents I ordered by mail in November have yet to arrive.  I have almond brittle to make which is time consuming and requires precision or it will either burn or not set.  I have presents to wrap.  My organizing project is still in progress.  And I am having some health issues. 

At the same time, I am fortunate to have the resources to solve my present problems.  I can deal with the lost shipment.  I know how to make the brittle and have the tools I need to do it successfully.  I am further on my organization project than I have been for years.  And I have a doctor I can consult tomorrow for relief of my symptoms.  So I can turn this all over and be at peace.  I just have to keep going.  This is a program of action, after all.

*St. Francis de Sales is a French nobleman and priest, from the late 1400s to 1527.  He is the patron of writers and also the deaf for his love of books, language, and creation of an early sign language.  He believed in charity over penance.  That makes sense for my purposes today.

Blessed be.

Exuberance

The For Today quote is "Exuberance is beauty" by William Blake.

And the meditation for today is "I am not afraid to enjoy what is beautiful, nor to express my exuberance in whatever way occurs to me."

I think this is another way to embrace life.  Embrace wholeness.  Embrace feelings.  Be present.

All of these are good things in my recovery.  It is when I do not accept my feelings that I run into trouble.

Blessed be.

Keep peace within myself

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others. - Thomas a Kempis

I am struggling with my frustration with a friend.  He is doing very little to help himself and letting me and another friend do an incredible amount of work to sort out a major multi-year problem with his financial records and taxes.  I wonder if I am being used.  I wonder if I am being of service.  I wonder if I am being judgmental around him shirking his civic duties. 

I feel on edge about it.  We are so close to getting this finished.  I resent how much energy and space this is taking up in my head.  My own work is undone.  And I ask a simple thing like would you be willing to feed my cat for a couple days and he would rather not.  I can easily copy without his help. 

But what does this say about our friendship that I extend myself over and over and he does not, not for himself, not for me?  I think he is not in a place where he can do anything differently.  That must be the case.  And his other friend and I have done more than normal friends would do to be of help because we care and because we both need to be needed. We spoke at length, this other friend of his and me, last night.  Our stories are quite similar in some respects.  But she's been bailing him out on this financial record keeping for more than 10 years.  When she flat out said no she wouldn't do the manual labour of organizing all the records this time, he asked me.  And now she's doing the book keeping, with a mixed heart, just as I am cajoling him into getting the missing records we need. 

He keeps saying I am being patronizing or controlling or making him feel like an idiot.  I think he is being an idiot about this.  He has no sense of urgency or planning to get the project done.  It is like his friend and I care more about the project than he does.  And maybe that's true?  Maybe he really doesn't care that he is wasting limited financial resources, struggling more than he has to, and foregoing financial benefits to which he is entitled.  I find that really hard to understand. 

I am trying to practice acceptance.  At the same time, I would like to see this project done.  It is disrupting my own sense of well being.  I think I need to let go.  It makes me cry.  I feel resentful, angry, frustrated.  I don't understand his way of thinking or being in the world.  I need to focus on my own well being.

Blessed be.

What do I bring to my recovery?

You find in solitude only what you take to it. - Juan Ramon Jimenez

If I force preconceived notions onto a problem, what can I learn?  To learn something new, I need an open mind, a trusting mind which can wander into places that once frightened me. 

Rather than suppress thoughts and feelings, it is better to give them a good airing, to look at them in the clear light of day.  Unattended, hidden feelings, like illusions once defeated me.  Today, I know that feelings cannot hurt me as long as I'm willing to look at them and see them for what they are.

For today:  What I bring to my moments of solitude, when I look inward at my feelings and attitudes, is self-honesty and openmindedness.

This is hard to do, I think.  To trust my mind can wander into places that frighten me.  I have tools:  I know how to ground myself, how to calm myself, how to hold myself.  The fear is real and yet unnecessary.  I am capable of healing myself.  The risk is not as great as I have thought it to be.

Blessings.

Growth and Patience: a new egg metaphor

We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the eggs than by smashing it.  - Abraham Lincoln

I am tired and trying hard on some things, letting others slip.  I worry about my inconsistency and I feel lousy, physically lousy.  I am heavy again, really heavy, and I seem not to care.

Post script.  I do care.  I just have times of feeling lousy.  and then I pick myself back up and work my program.

Slow progress is still progress...

There is no fruit which is not bitter before it is ripe. -- Publilius Syrus*

Experience is not acquired without bruises and pain.  That's why I say I am grateful to be a compulsive overeater.  Without the disease, I would not know of Overeaters Anonymous and the twelve step program of recovery, which has been called a blueprint for a sane and happy life.

To wish for the rewards of growth without having to go through the growing pains is futile.  Avoidance of pain stops growth cold; and when growth stops, regression is next.  Recovery calls for going through each step, feeling all the feelings and having the patience to wait for results.

For today, I accept with gratitude whatever progress I am making, however small.

This.  I have been frustrated with my progress being slow.  Better some than none.  I am grateful for all that I have today.  Tomorrow will look after itself.

Blessed be.

*83-42 BCE, born a Syrian slave, freed and educated in Italy, famous for his proverbs and improvisation.  Famous too for the sayings, "a rolling stone gathers no moss", "it is better to learn late than never", and "no man is happy who does not think himself so".

In the moment

Only in a hut built for the moment can one live without fear. - Kamo no Chomei

Fear comes from projection.  My mind does not say, "This is a fine, pain-free, worry-free moment in which there is nothing to fear.  Therefore, enjoy it."  Instead, it leaps ahead, conjuring up all sorts of mishaps and calamities.

As difficult as it is to shed old habits, I keep remembering the relief and freedom and joy that came from the first time I tried abstaining one day at a time and not worrying about what would happen tomorrow.

For today, my life consists of single moments.  I occupy them one at a time, savouring the fullness of each, and find there is no room for fear.

Yesterday, I spent 1.8 hours at a counsellor on trauma.   And $110.  I cried.  My body has pain in there somewhere that just leaks out, over and over.  But as much as I was anxious, it was not fear.  Gentleness and pacing are two of the words she suggested I ponder this week as I practice holding space for my own healing.

Blessed be.

Growing up emotionally

Man is a born child, his power is the power of growth. - Rabindrath Tagore*

Addiction stops emotional and spiritual growth, stripping its victims of fully half their potential.  As a compulsive overeater, I grew physically and intellectually but remained stunted emotionally, unable to provide sustenance for that part of me which food and academic learning cannot nurture.

When I heard the words, "I am powerless over food," I felt a surge of relief, a letting loose of a heavy burden, and my spirit danced with joy.  With the obsession broken, I am all lightness and hope, reaching out like a child toward that growth that was lost to me.

I thank God for the miracle of recovery - a second chance to work toward all that I may become.

For today:  There are no limits to growth.  Abstinence and weight loss are just the beginning.

This is the reading For Today, September 26th.  I always find it amazing to read what I need to read when I finally do pick up this little reader.

In Step 1 in the 12&12, it describes the emotional pain of compulsive over-eating and then states, "we never grew up."  Growing up is painful.  To do it twice because it was incomplete the first time, is painful. 

*Bengali / Indian poet, composer, novelist.  Winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.

For Today: Rivers, Streams, Floating, Panic, Acceptance... oh my!

Yesterday, at the course I'm taking on cognitive behavioural therapy for depression, one of the teachers read a guided imagery called The River which saw you on the bank of a large, wide, deep river, with boats coming and going, against the current and with the current.  The boats were named; there was "Contentment", "Depression", "Anger", "Joy", and many others.  Some came closer and closer to you and you did not want them near you.  You climbed down the sunny bank where you were seated and waded into the river.  You put your hands up and said "stop".  The boat kept coming.  You grabbed it by the stern and tried to push it away faster, but it just got mired on a sand bar and stayed longer.  The boat "Joy" you tried to hold onto but it pulled you off your feet and broke free.  And eventually you learned to climb out of the river, dry off on the sunny bank, and watch the boats come and go, the ones you want, the ones you don't, knowing that they come and go and there is nothing you can do to control them in any meaningful way.

And then this morning, I found a reading in the Melody Beattie daily reader, The Language of Letting Go.  She writes:

Picture yourself swimming - floating - peacefully down a gentle stream.  All you need to do is breathe, relax, and go with the flow.  Suddenly, you become conscious of your situation.  Frightened, overwhelmed with "what if's?" your body tenses.  You begin to thrash around, frantically looking for something to grab on to.  You panic so hard you start to go under.  Then you remember - you're working too hard at this.  You don't need to panic.  All you need to do is breathe, relax, and go with the flow:  you won't drown.  

Panic is our great enemy.   

We don't need to become desperate.  If overwhelming problems appear in our life, we need to stop struggling.  We can tread water for a bit, until our equilibrium returns.  Then we can go back to floating peacefully down the gentle stream.  It is our stream.  It is a safe stream.  Our course has been charted.  All is well.

And this is comforting.  Today, I will let myself float downstream more than I grasp frantically at old ways to anchor myself.

Blessed be.

At the beginning we sacrificed [compulsive eating].  We had to, or it would have killed us. But we couldn't get rid of alcohol unless we made other sacrifices. We had to toss self-justification, self-pity, and anger right out the window. We had to quit the crazy contest for personal prestige and big bank balances. We had to take personal responsibility for our sorry state and quit blaming others for it. Were these sacrifices? Yes, they were. To gain enough humility and self-respect to stay alive at all, we had to give up what had really been our dearest possessions--our ambition and our illegitimate pride. - As Bill Sees It

I am living much more simply - no grand plans, just 24 hours at a time.  My emotions are getting more attention instead of being brutally suppressed.  I am taking personal responsibility for the things I can change.  And giving the rest up.  Not only is that the best I can do, that's all I can do.

Blessed be. 

For Today: My feelings suck but they are mine and I can feel them

One of the things I love about working my program is the "for today" meditation books, I have several.  And they always seem to have something that speaks directly to my experience and helps with the troubles of the day.

I was at counselling yesterday and it was difficult.  I am not used to feeling so sad and actually sobbing.  This morning I picked up the Melody Beattie The Language of Letting Go daily reader (Hazelton, 1990).  And low and behold, the reading for April 6th is on patience with feeling my feelings.  It's worth typing it out (for that seems to go into my head better than just reading it):

How sick and tired we may become of people telling us to be patient or to learn patience.  How frustrating it can be to want to finally have something, or to move forward, and then not have that happen.  How irritating to have someone tell us to wait while our needs have not been met and we're in the midst of anxiety, frustration, and inaction.

Do not confuse the suggestion to be patient with the old rule about not having feelings.

Being patient does not mean we go through the sometimes grueling process of life and recovery without having feelings!  Feel the frustration.  Feel the impatience.  Get as angry as you need to about not having your needs met.  Feel your fear.

Controlling our feelings will not control the process!

We find patience by surrendering to our feelings.  Patience cannot be forced.  It is a gift, one that closely follows acceptance and gratitude.  when we work through our feelings to fully accept who we are and what we have, we will be ready to be and have more.

Today I will let myself have feelings while I practice patience.

The part that hit home for me was "controlling my feelings will not control the process".  I have to simply feel, and be, and my recovery will come as it comes.  I cannot drag myself into more recovery.  I have to be kind to myself, feel how I feel, and trust the process.  Patiently. 

I remember how many people with 30+ years of sobriety at the AA Round-up a few weeks ago said they had to pray to live in recovery for the next 24 hours every morning.  They worked their program on the faith they too could have the recovery they see in others.  They weren't sure it was working but they did it anyway.  And eventually it worked for them.  These are the Promises of working a 12 Step program.  And I have to be patient to let them be realized in my life.  As the OA Promises say, they come sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but they will always materialize if I work for them.

Blessed be.

For Today - A Tiger Doesn't Change Her Stripes

Abstinence is as easy for me as temperance is difficult.  - Samuel Johnson

What does that mean?  Temperance is consuming moderately, I think.  Ironically, the first definition is "abstinence from alcoholic drink" and the synonyms are "teetotalism, abstinence, abstention, sobriety, self-restraint, prohibition".  But I know from my own experience that abstinence is saying no to compulsive food behaviours, including certain foods that I can't just stop eating at a normal portion.  Temperance, I think, suggests, limiting the amounts of certain foods or drink, even though the synonyms seem to confuse the two concepts considerably.

And the point for me is I can't do temperance for some foods.  I just can't.  I eat them until they are all gone.  The only way I have any "temperance" around them is if I don't have them in the house and I have to go out and get them.  Then, my "temperance" is limited only by how much of the food I purchase.  Once I have it, I eat it all. 

Today's reading concludes:  "As a compulsive overeater, it is far easier for me to abstain from overindulgence in food than to try to become a 'normal' binger."

I'm getting better, maybe, at bingeing one day and then getting back on track the next.  A binge used to trigger weeks of more bingeing.  So I am starting to recover.  But I know in my heart and in my body that these trips from abstinence into temporary bingeing (I really don't think I can call it temperance), are harmful.  I feel slow, sticky, foggy.  And this bingeing is not the normal eater's overindulgence.  It is the compulsive overeater's flight from feelings.  Just as a tiger doesn't change her stripes, my recovery is not to normal eating, it is to a new way of dealing with life on life's terms.

So the challenge is to find new ways of living with my emotions that manage the lows without excess sugar, fat and simple carbohydrates.  I think until I have a reliable way of riding through my emotions, I will continue to binge.  So this is my focus -- to cultivate new skills for old problems.

Blessed be.