โต filling the โต
Posted: Tue, May 30, 2017 07:36:33 AM
emptiness of my heart, by learning to live a spiritual life and walk the path that i espouse, is quite a task and one that on many days i do not feel up to doing. unlike yesterday, i could barely sit for fifteen minutes, before i had to jump yup and start the process of getting ready to head to work. this is a continuation of not being able to let go in my TENTH STEP last night and really has nothing to do with loneliness versus being alone. it does feel as if it is a symptom of a lack of trust in the POWER that fuels my recovery and the whole conscious contact process i have come to know and love. what i think and what i feel, however, are most of the time, not synchronized and perhaps what i am sensing as a lack of FAITH, is merely a touch of self-will.
part of this whole notion of letting go and allowing the POWER that fuels my recovery to work in my life, goes back to trust. trust is something that i had to learn to feel in a split second, after all my resources were limited and i NEEDED to get high. when i came top recovery, i was told and internalized the message that ALL of my instincts and my instant reactions were WRONG, colored by addiction and could not be relied on in any sense. the whole notion of: #8220;first thought, WRONG,” was pervasive throughout my life and i came to be riddled with self-doubt and for lack of a better term angst about how to proceed with my life. as i stay clean, i hear my peers, echoing that same sentiment, even after what i consider a significant number of days clean, and i wonder if i will EVER be able to learn to walk with confidence in myself and the manner in which i interact with the world. the message i get from my sponse, is entirely different, as he stresses that part of me that is in recovery and who has learned how to apply a principle or two in his daily life. he encourages me to think less and feel more and “trust” my intuitions and feelings, rather than trying to think my way through to solutions. be part of the process by staying focused on the now and allow the then to occur on its own time. that way of living relies more on a HIGHER POWER and is dependent on the very notion of conscious contact that the reading suggests is the cure to loneliness. when i have trouble sitting twice in a row, i begin to doubt myself and of course it has to be me, and it cannot possible be that i do NOT want to let go of a notion or three, i am just not behaving correctly and need to do major alterations to root out what it is about me that is preventing me from connecting.
what i am feeling, after a minute or two of this, is that i really want to be alone to prove the fact that i can DO this journey without the aid of some HIGHER POWER. what i identified as a touch of self-will, actually goes much deeper than that, and my “automatic” spiritual practices is plastering over a ginormous hole that needs filling. it is more than likely what one of my peers describes as a “GOD-shaped” hole, but i will leave that particular descriptor behind, for now. i am beginning to feel that i am powerless over what i believe about the spiritual nature of this program and the path i started two step cycles ago, has yet to be completed, even though i have moved solidly out of the main stream. it is not the nature of my beliefs that will connect me to a HIGHER POWER, my peers in recovery and the world around me, or at least not the nature of my beliefs about that HIGHER POWER. it is my beliefs about who and what i am, and how i fit spiritually in the world around me, that drives those feelings. perhaps, doing something because it has always worked is not the best reason for doing something at all. perhaps my recovery rituals are not that much different than my using rituals, and need to be at least looked at and possibly revised. it is not that i have outgrown recovery, but perhaps i have outgrown those practices i NEEDED to stay clean, back in those dark early days between my clean date and actually working a SECOND STEP in the program that has given me this new way of living. perhaps it is my insistence on being right and my FEAR at looking at that notion, that is hindering me in my spiritual path to becoming more that i ever was. perhaps i should stop trying to figure this all out this morning, let go, shower off and head on down to the office. which sound and yes feels like the next right thing to do. it is after all a great day to be walking on this side of the lawn.
part of this whole notion of letting go and allowing the POWER that fuels my recovery to work in my life, goes back to trust. trust is something that i had to learn to feel in a split second, after all my resources were limited and i NEEDED to get high. when i came top recovery, i was told and internalized the message that ALL of my instincts and my instant reactions were WRONG, colored by addiction and could not be relied on in any sense. the whole notion of: #8220;first thought, WRONG,” was pervasive throughout my life and i came to be riddled with self-doubt and for lack of a better term angst about how to proceed with my life. as i stay clean, i hear my peers, echoing that same sentiment, even after what i consider a significant number of days clean, and i wonder if i will EVER be able to learn to walk with confidence in myself and the manner in which i interact with the world. the message i get from my sponse, is entirely different, as he stresses that part of me that is in recovery and who has learned how to apply a principle or two in his daily life. he encourages me to think less and feel more and “trust” my intuitions and feelings, rather than trying to think my way through to solutions. be part of the process by staying focused on the now and allow the then to occur on its own time. that way of living relies more on a HIGHER POWER and is dependent on the very notion of conscious contact that the reading suggests is the cure to loneliness. when i have trouble sitting twice in a row, i begin to doubt myself and of course it has to be me, and it cannot possible be that i do NOT want to let go of a notion or three, i am just not behaving correctly and need to do major alterations to root out what it is about me that is preventing me from connecting.
what i am feeling, after a minute or two of this, is that i really want to be alone to prove the fact that i can DO this journey without the aid of some HIGHER POWER. what i identified as a touch of self-will, actually goes much deeper than that, and my “automatic” spiritual practices is plastering over a ginormous hole that needs filling. it is more than likely what one of my peers describes as a “GOD-shaped” hole, but i will leave that particular descriptor behind, for now. i am beginning to feel that i am powerless over what i believe about the spiritual nature of this program and the path i started two step cycles ago, has yet to be completed, even though i have moved solidly out of the main stream. it is not the nature of my beliefs that will connect me to a HIGHER POWER, my peers in recovery and the world around me, or at least not the nature of my beliefs about that HIGHER POWER. it is my beliefs about who and what i am, and how i fit spiritually in the world around me, that drives those feelings. perhaps, doing something because it has always worked is not the best reason for doing something at all. perhaps my recovery rituals are not that much different than my using rituals, and need to be at least looked at and possibly revised. it is not that i have outgrown recovery, but perhaps i have outgrown those practices i NEEDED to stay clean, back in those dark early days between my clean date and actually working a SECOND STEP in the program that has given me this new way of living. perhaps it is my insistence on being right and my FEAR at looking at that notion, that is hindering me in my spiritual path to becoming more that i ever was. perhaps i should stop trying to figure this all out this morning, let go, shower off and head on down to the office. which sound and yes feels like the next right thing to do. it is after all a great day to be walking on this side of the lawn.
∞ DT ∞