Language of Letting Go - July 2014

[MajestyJo]

Monday, July 28, 2014

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Fear

One day, I decided to try something new. I took my ten-year-old son out on the St. Croix River on a Waverunner. A Waverunner is a small boating vehicle resembling a motorcycle.

We donned life jackets and embarked on an experience that turned out to be both exhilarating and frightening; exhilarating when I let myself enjoy it; frightening when I thought too much about what I was doing and all the terrible things that could happen.

Midway though our ride, my worst fear came true. We took a spill. We were floundering in thirty feet of water. The Waverunner was bobbing on the waves in front of me, like a motorized turtle on it back.

"Don't panic," my son said calmly.

"What if we drown?" I objected.

"We can't," he said. "We have life jackets on. See! We're floating."

"The machine is upside down," I said. "How are we going to turn it over?"

"Just like the man said," my son answered. "The arrow points this way."

With an easy gesture, we turned the machine right side up. "What if we can't climb back on?" I asked.

"We can," my son replied. "That's what Waverunners were made for: climbing on in the water."

I relaxed and as we drove off, I wondered why I had become so frightened. I thought maybe it's because I don't trust my ability to solve problems. Maybe it's because once I almost drowned when I wasn't wearing a life jacket.

But you didn't drown then either; a small voice inside reassured me. You survived.

Don't panic.

Problems were made to be solved. Life was made to be lived. Although sometimes we may be in over our heads - yes, we may even go under for a few moments and gulp a few mouthfuls of water, we won't drown. We're wearing - and always have been wearing - a life jacket. That support jacket is called "God."

Today, I will remember to take care of myself. When I get in over my head, God is there supporting me - even when my fears try to make me forget.

As they say in recovery:- ``Face everything and recover`` or ``Fear every thing and run.``

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Learning to Trust Again

Many of us have trust issues.

Some of us tried long and hard to trust untrustworthy people. Over and again, we believed lies and promises never to be kept. Some of us tried to trust people for the impossible; for instance, trusting a practicing alcoholic not to drink again.

Some of us trusted our Higher Power inappropriately. We trusted God to make other people do what we wanted, then felt betrayed when that didn't work out.

Some of us were taught that life couldn't be trusted, that we had to control and manipulate our way through.

Most of us were taught, inappropriately, that we couldn't trust ourselves.

In recovery, we're healing from our trust issues. We're learning to trust again. The first lesson in trust is this: We can learn to trust ourselves. We can be trusted. If others have taught us we cannot trust ourselves, they were lying. Addictions and dysfunctional systems make people lie.

We can learn to appropriately trust our Higher Power - not to make people do what we wanted them to, but to help us take care of ourselves, and to bring about the best possible circumstances, at the best possible times, in our life.

We can trust the process - of life and recovery. We do not have to control, obsess, or become hyper vigilant. We may not always understand where we are going, or what's being worked out in us, but we can trust that something good is happening.

When we learn to do this, we are ready to learn to trust other people. When we trust our Higher Power and when we trust ourselves, we will know who to trust and what to trust that person for.

Perhaps we always did. We just didn't listen closely enough to ourselves or trust what we heard.

Today, I will affirm that I can learn to trust appropriately. I can trust my Higher Power, my recovery, and myself. I can learn to appropriately trust others too.

The reading seems to say it all. It was like my previous post, looking in the mirror and what do I see?

Thought I had it, then realized I had none! Certainly not in myself and others had proved me wrong or done me wrong so many times. The walls were up and I was darned if I was going to break them down.

They had to come down in order to recover. I had to let others in and me out. I had to build a relationship with my Higher Power. I couldn't project it all onto Him, I had to do the action. I had to learn to trust Him and know that when the time was right, there would be change. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I learned to trust the process and know that I didn't have a race to run and that life was a practice field to a better way of life.

We talked about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, when it was safe to do so.

The key word is safe. You want to be able to put yourself out there for others to see with the hope that your words and deeds don't come back at you.

I was sharing with my sponsor tonight about all the counselling and group therapy session that I went to on my journey. The one counsellor said, "You process things well, you don't need counselling, what you need is a safe place to share."

After having a lot of things go in someone ear and out their mouth, I didn't always feel comfortable about sharing certain things at meetings. I shared with my sponsor. I also found a need to share with a therapist as well. I introduced them to the Twelve Steps. I was told to stay away from psychiatrists as they tended to label you. I probably would have walked away with a couple if I had gone. Yet for me labels, are just that. Any problem or issue in my life, I apply the Steps. I have learned to trust the process.

Don't always trust the people, but do trust the process of recovery. It works when you work it. It is something you can put your trust in time and again.

Written in 2010 on another site.

For me fear is lack of trust. I can`t trust God and fear too. That fear has to be replaced by faith, faith in my God, faith in the program, and faith in myself.

[MajestyJo]

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Have Some Fun

Have some fun. Loosen up a bit. Enjoy life!

We do not have to be so somber and serious. We do not have to be so reflective, so critical, so bound up within the rigid parameters and ourselves others, and often ourselves, have placed around us.

This is life, not a funeral service. Have some fun with it. Enter into it. Participate. Experiment. Take a risk. Be spontaneous. Do not always be so concerned about doing it right, doing the appropriate thing.

Do not always be so concerned about what others will think or say. What they think and say are their issues not ours. Do not be so afraid of making a mistake. Do not be so fearful and proper. Do not inhibit yourself so much.

God did not intend us to be so inhibited, so restricted, so controlled. These repressive parameters are what other people have imposed on us, what we have allowed to be done to us.

We were created fully human. We were given emotions, desires, hopes, dreams, and feelings. There is an alive, excited, fun loving child in us somewhere! Let it come out! Let it come alive! Let it have some fun - not just for two hours on Saturday evening. Bring it with us. Let it help us enjoy this gift of being alive, being fully human, and being who we are!

So many rules. So much shame we've lived with. It simply isn't necessary. We have been brainwashed. It is time now to free ourselves, let ourselves go, and enter fully human into a full life.

Don't worry. We will learn our lessons when necessary. We have learned discipline. We will not go awry. What will happen is that we will begin enjoying life. We will begin enjoying and experiencing our whole self. We can trust ourselves. We have boundaries now. We have our program for a foundation. We can afford to experiment and experience. We are in touch with our Higher Power and ourselves. We are being guided, but a frozen, inanimate object cannot be guided. it cannot even be moved.

Have some fun. Loosen up a bit. Break a few rules. God won't punish us. We do not have to allow people to punish us. And we can stop punishing ourselves. As long as we're here and alive, let's begin to live.

Today, I will let myself have some fun with life. I will loosen up a bit, knowing I won't crack and break. God, help me let go of my need to be so inhibited, proper, and repressed. Help me inject a big dose of life into myself by letting myself be fully alive and human.

Looks like I was a day ahead of myself. I posted cartoons because I was thinking fun.

Life is for living enjoy it. Recovery is important and you need to pay serious attention to the program lined out in the literature and the words spoken at meetings, but remember to be grateful for a second chance at life.

[MajestyJo]

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Accepting Powerlessness

Since I've been a child, I've been in an antagonistic relationship with an important emotional part of myself: my feelings. I have consistently tried to ignore, repress, or force my feelings away. I have tried to create unnatural feelings or force away feelings that were present.

I've denied I was angry, when in fact I was furious. I have told myself there must be something wrong with me for feeling angry, when anger was a reasonable and logical response to the situation.

I have told myself things didn't hurt, when they hurt very much. I have told myself stories such as "That person didn't mean to hurt me." . . . "He or she doesn't know any better." . . . "I need to be more understanding." The problem was that I had already been too understanding of the other person and not understanding and compassionate enough with myself.

It has not just been the large feelings I have been at war with; I have been battling the whole emotional aspect of myself. I have tried to use spiritual energy, mental energy, and even physical exertion to not feel what I need to feel to be healthy and alive.

I didn't succeed at my attempts to control emotions. Emotional control has been a survival behavior for me. I can thank that behavior for helping me get through many years and situations where I didn't have any better options. But I have learned a healthier behavior - accepting my feelings.

We are meant to feel. Part of our dysfunction is trying to deny or change that. Part of our recovery means learning to go with the flow of what we're feeling and what our feelings are trying to tell us.

We are responsible for our behaviors, but we do not have to control our feelings. We can let them happen. We can learn to embrace, enjoy, and experience - feel - the emotional part of ourselves.

Today, I will stop trying to force and control my emotions. Instead, I will give power and freedom to the emotional part of myself.

If I can't control my own emotions and manage my own life, how can I expect to do it for others. Recovery begins with me, and yet I still can't change any one, all I can do is share my experience, strength and hope, that it may some day help others. I needed to learn to walk my talk and I pray that others when they see me, see recovery.

i.e. Today a guy with a walker bumped my heels twice coming up the ramp behind me. I normally would have done a number on his head, I walked away. I didn't do very well though, I cursed at him when he couldn't hear. I know my God and I heard, not sure about the lady who walked in front of me, but they were bad enough words that I had to ask my Higher Power for forgiveness.

[MajestyJo]

Thursday, July 31, 2014

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Letting Go of What We Want

For those of us who have survived by controlling and surrendering, letting go may not come easily.
—Beyond Codependency

In recovery, we learn that it is important to identify what we want and need. Where does this concept leave us? With a large but clearly identified package of currently unmet wants and needs. We've taken the risk to stop denying and to start accepting what we want and need. The problem is, the want or need hangs there, unmet.

This can be a frustrating, painful, annoying, and sometimes obsession-producing place to be.

After identifying our needs, there is a next step in getting our wants and needs met. This step is one of the spiritual ironies of recovery. The next step is letting go of our wants and needs after we have taken painstaking steps to identify them.

We let them go, we give them up - on a mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical level. Sometimes, this means we need to give up. It is not always easy to get to this place, but this is usually where we need to go.

How often I have denied a want or need, then gone through the steps to identify my needs, only to become annoyed, frustrated, and challenged because I don't have what I want and don't know how to get it. If I then embark on a plan to control or influence getting that want or need met, I usually make things worse. Searching, trying to control the process, does not work. I must, I have learned to my dismay, let go.

Sometimes, I even have to go to the point of saying, "I don't want it. I realize it's important to me, but I cannot control obtaining that in my life. Now, I don't care anymore if I have it or not. In fact, I'm going to be absolutely happy without it and without any hope of getting it, because hoping to get it is making me nuts - the more I hope and try to get it, the more frustrated I feel because I'm not getting it."

I don't know why the process works this way.

I know only that this is how the process works for me. I have found no way around the concept of letting go.

We often can have what we really want and need, or something better. Letting go is part of what we do to get it.

Today, I will strive to let go of those wants and needs that are causing me frustration. I will enter them on my goal list, then struggle to let go. I will trust God to bring me the desires of my heart, in God's time and in God's way.

[MajestyJo]

This reminds me of what I use to say several years ago in recovery, "You all belong in Romper Room, you are a bunch of "Wanna Bees."

I know that my God meets my needs. It was about me being accepting of that. It is hard when I had a mind conditioned to more for so many years.

In today, He has given me some wants and desires. I have also learned that it is best if I am careful for what I ask for, I just may get it.

Found this on a site I use to post on:



PULLING THINGS THE WAY WE WANT THEM TO GO DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK!