FOOD FOR THOUGHT- OA/AUGUST 2014

[MajestyJo]

Sunday, August 31, 2014

You are reading from the book Food for Thought

Accepting Guidelines

Some of us have gone through life thinking that we did not need to follow any guidelines. Somehow, we got the idea that special circumstances placed us above the rules. We looked for shortcuts and rebelled against the tedium of discipline. Considering ourselves exceptional, we decided to make our own guidelines. These were usually based on doing what we felt like when we felt like it.

When we get to OA, we may spend a short or a long time experimenting with the program, adjusting it to suit ourselves. Sooner or later, we discover that our adjustments do not work. The OA program works, provided we follow the rules and work it as it is, not as we might like it to be.

Once we accept the rules at a gut level, they lead us out of negative restraint into positive freedom. By following a few simple guidelines, we become free from slavery to compulsive overeating and self-centered confusion.

Thank You for Your guidelines.

It took a lot of accepting on my part. All my life it was rules and regulations, and I felt they were meant to be broken, and if you didn't break them, you bent them to fit the occasion.

I was one of those people that tried to put things together without reading the instructions first.