QUESTION???

[MajestyJo]

Learning to love yourself

How can I give the gift of love to others if I don't love myself? Acceptance is the key. When I can accept myself for who I am, I can start to love myself again.
Alateen-ADAT, page 270

I not only didn't love myself, didn't like myself very much either.

The people in the rooms loved me back to good health.

Going through the process was that looking back on it was quite funny. The dangling earrings, the different hair colours and styles, working the Steps so the inside felt like the outside. This was a time I applied the slogan, "Fake it until you make it."

Learning that my God loved and forgave me, even after all the things I had done in my past, helped me to love and forgive myself. The forgiveness was the hardest and took much longer.

Through His love and the Spirit of the Fellowship, I was able to get back my sense of self, which was no longer the lowest of the low, but someone worthy of recovery, who deserved good things happening to her.

Boundaries and detachment helped with others, but what I had to do was take the blocks from the high brick wall and stop detaching from others, quit isolating and allow myself to become vulnerable. It was one of the scariest times in recovery and through my Higher Power, we got me through it.

Glad it is a "WE" program. We can do, what I can't do alone.

Do you love yourself? The people in the rooms loved me back to good health.

[MajestyJo]

I do have to focus on myself. It is difficult watching my son go down hill in his addiction and last night I sat here shedding a few tears. I saw my dad do the same thing and wished much better for my son. I had hopes that after seeing me, my ex-husband, and my dad, that he would want to choose a better life for himself. He was 25 when I came into recovery and was well into his own journey.

All I have been able to do is pray for him. The last thing he wants to hear from me is talk of recovery.

As the Al-Anon slogan says, "Let it begin with me." Hopefully by walking my talk, he will make a decision to get help for himself.

[MajestyJo]

MountainWings A MountainWings Moment
#4260 Wings Over The Mountains of Life

If You Could Kick...
===========

If you could kick the posterior of the person who has hurt you the most,

...you wouldn’t be able to sit down for six weeks.

~John Hagee~

For so many years I beat myself up. I was my own worst enemy. It took a long time to get self-honesty and to stop pointing my finger at others and look at myself. Then I beat myself up even more. I had to learn to forgive myself as well as others in order to heal.

So true have been my own worst enemy for years. Was talking in laundry yesterday to a church lady and said to her, "So often I have to get out of the way so my God can work through me, instead of around me or over me."

[MajestyJo]

What Do I Need In My Recovery Toolbox

Each morning I get up and check to make sure I have all my tools in “My Recovery Toolbox”.. I never know whether I’ll need them to change my perspective, my actions or maybe even my attitude . One thing's for sure I know at some point in my day, I’ll be reaching for them…..

• the 12- Steps and Traditions
• the Slogans
• the Serenity Prayer
• my Recovery Friends
• the art of Detachment
• my hotline to God through Prayer
• my Recovery Books & literature

What else do you have in your recovery toolbox?

[MajestyJo]

This was posted on another site.

Tools I used in addition to yours was the phone. It was important to pick it up in good times and bad times to get in the practice of getting out of myself and asking for help.

The literature was a God given gift. Not just the Big Book and 12 & 12, but the daily meditation books. I like the ones with all the emotions listed at the back so I could look up all the reading pertaining to a feeling. It was hard for me to label them and give them a name because I had stuffed for so many years. I often just picked up a book (AA, NA, Al-Anon, Hazelden, the Bible, etc. said the Serenity Prayer, and then just opened the book and read what was in front of me. It works.

I always liked the saying, "God answers knee-mail." In today, I use that for heavy duty stuff because I don't do getting down on the knees very well. Before it was lack of surrender, in today it is old age.

There were many gifts along with the detachment. Setting boundaries, the ability to be honest, the principles behind the Steps and the Traditions.

The holidays are a good time to make sure my toolbox is full and up-to-date.

[MajestyJo]

My tool box in today, is trying to remember the lessons learned along the way on my recovery journey. The words of wisdom that I have heard from others and the food to fill my spirit that I find in the literature.

We can do what I can't do alone. If I am just listening to the sound of my own voice, then I am probably doing something wrong.

[MajestyJo]

What Step has been the most important tool in your recovery?

I am still of the mind, it is the Step 1, 2, 3 Waltz, I can't, my God can, just for today, I choose to let Him.

Steps 10, 11, and 12 are maintenance Steps. I need that daily inventory, I need that contact with my Higher Power, and I need to get involved in service, if I don't give it away, I don't get to keep my recovery. I need that spiritual defense against that first drink/drug.

[MajestyJo]

Expectations of Others

It is our job to identify our needs, and then determine a balanced way of getting those needs met. We ultimately expect our Higher Power and the Universe - not one particular person - to be our source.

It is unreasonable to expect anyone to be able or willing to meet our every request. We are responsible for asking for what we want and need. It's the other person's responsibility to freely choose whether or not to respond to our request. If we try to coerce or force another to be there for us, that's controlling.

There's a difference between asking and demanding. We want love that is freely given.

It is unreasonable and unhealthy to expect one person to be the source for meeting all our needs. Ultimately, we will become angry and resentful, maybe even punishing, toward that person for not supporting us as we expected.

It is reasonable to have certain and well defined expectations of our spouse, children, and friends.

If a person cannot or will not be there for us, then we need to take responsibility for ourselves in that relationship. We may need to set a boundary, alter our expectations, or change the limits of the relationship to accommodate that person's unavailability. We do this for ourselves.

It is reasonable to sprinkle our wants and needs around and to be realistic about how much we ask or expect of any particular person. We can trust ourselves to know what's reasonable.

The issue of expectations goes back to knowing that we are responsible for identifying our needs, believing they deserve to get met, and discover an appropriate, satisfactory way to do that in our life.

Today, I will strive for reasonable expectations about getting my needs met in relationships.

Do I project expectations on to others who are not capable of meeting them?

[MajestyJo]

"The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations."

-- Julie Cameron

Many of us unconsciously believe that we’re unworthy or defective. We adopted this belief very early in our lives when the people we looked up to disapproved of our demands, wishes and behaviours. We concluded that we had to learn to be good.

Unfortunately, ‘being good’ usually meant giving up our own differences or uniqueness. We learned that we might get the love we wanted if we acted and felt like others wanted us to.

If we seek true joy and connection with life, we now need to remove these artificial masks and express our deep authentic nature.

Higher Awareness

This quote was so me growing up, all those old tapes playing in my head. I was a 'bad' girl because I didn't conform to the norm. I didn't feel and think or act the way I was told a good little girl, mother, daughter, wife, friend, etc. should be.

It was seeing as myself as different so therefore, I was wrong, I was nothing and I was a bad girl because I could never meet the expectations of others or my own because I had placed the bar so high.

The role playing had to stop, the masks had to come off and the wall had to come down. I had to allow myself to be vulnerable and learn to trust the process and know that my Higher God had my Higher Good in mind and would lead and direct each day to a better way of life.

I learned to lower the bar, not take on the expectations of others, and learn to find my own truth and what was right for me.

[MajestyJo]

As it says in the Big Book, the higher my acceptance, the lower my expectations. It is hard to accept what you don't know. I accept that I don't know and that I shouldn't speculate and draw negative energy to me. Just be in the moment, accept what is, and life moves on.

I know I don't have to like it in order to accept it. It is just hard to decide my feelings when they are shadowed by what I would call doubt. Not in God, perhaps in myself, wondering if I have the courage and strength to go through what ever is ahead. I have had prayer from a lot of people, I would like to think that whatever happens, it will be alright, whatever way it turns out. When I do my meditation, I have asked what I needed, and I keep getting the word "courage" and for that I know the strength comes from my God and the people in my life.

a few seconds ago QuoteEditlikePost Options Post by majestyjo on a few seconds ago
So many times I project expectations onto other and I measure it with my own yard stick. So often they are not capable of meeting them, and they feel like I am putting them down and calling them stupid.

When I put expectations on myself and I can't meet them, I feel stupid and less than for not measuring up.

All we are asked to do is try.

[MajestyJo]

There is nothing I can give you which you do not have;
But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within reach, is joy.

There is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see, we have only to look.
I beseech you to look

---written in 1513, by Fra Giovanni

[MajestyJo]

Today's thought is:

. . .i beg what i love and i leave to forgive me.
--Lucille Clifton

When a loving relationship comes to an end, we don't have to view the ending as a failure. It is not a failure when separation comes after we've understood that fundamental needs and wants cannot be met in the relationship. We have done our best. We have soberly and maturely faced the truth of our need to move apart. We have communicated this as openly and lovingly as we can. We can count this ending not as a failure, but as a success.

Whether we experience an ending as something we ourselves have chosen or as the result of another person's decision, we will have to experience our feelings of grief. At first, we may feel only anger; underneath may be the pain of loss. If we allow our feelings to surface and don't deny or deaden them, we'll be surprised at how easily we're able to let them go. We'll feel our hearts expand and make room for love, both from ourselves and from others.

Today I'll delight in my honest, moving relationship with myself.

You are reading from the book:

Glad Day by Joan Larkin

Written in May 2004 on another site:

It took me seven years in recovery to take what for me was a risk, and get into a relationship. We got together three times and broke up three times. The last time I prayed to my Higher Power and said, "Please don't let me be the bad guy for the third time, if this relationship isn't going to work and is over, let it be him to be the one to break it off." I said the prayer on Monday night, and on Wednesday when I was at my home group, he phoned andd left a message on my answering machine.

I firmly believe the relationship was meant to be, but when each of us had learned our lessons to be learned, it was time to move on. Just because someone comes into my life I have learned, doesn't mean it is always forever and ever. We seperated as friends and when he sees me, he says, 'Hiya kid! How are you doing?"

My lesson was to set boundaries. This person got comfortable in 'my' space and didn't make space for himself. They say if you only have one feeling in a room, then someone has no identity. This is what happened all my life. I had lived my life through other people. When you have two needy people living together, you have two people looking for the other one to make them feel better. We end up with expectations and feelings of betrayal and abandonment because we are looking at someone to do something they are not capable of 'being' or 'doing' in the moment.

We need to build that relationship with ourselves and our Higher Power. We need to go to our HP for help and he will supply all our needs and sometimes our wants and wishes, so be careful what you pray for. The other person has a Higher Power too, and He just might think you are an answer to someone else's prayer.

I will never forget the horror I felt when I heard at my first Al-Anon meeting the phrase, which has become my life line, "I am responsible for my own happiness, happiness comes from within!" I had looked at my ex-husband with an attitude of "Preform, make me happy!" and then I came into recovery and people had the nerve to tell me it wasn't his job. What do you mean, I can't blame him for the unmanageability in my life. What do you mean, it wasn't all his fault? In today, the buck stops here. As I tell my sponsees, "For every finger you have pointing at someone, you have three coming back at you! Take your own inventory!"

Since I've been working the Al-Anon program, it has dawned on me that my relationship with the alcoholic, which I resented for so long, has had critical lessons for for me, him too if he wishes to address them.

[MajestyJo]

Shared with a Dart's driver today about having a resentment against someone in Al-Anon who told me that I was responsible for my own happiness. It did not go over well, even though I was in recovery. A sure sign that I had a lot of issues to deal with.

Letting go of resentments, anger, and sadness is all part of the grief process we go through.

[MajestyJo]

Being in Control

Don’t you just love being in control? But don't you find that the more you try to control everything, the more stressed and out of control you feel?

How about, trying to curb the urge to control? Do as much as you can to make things happen. But know when to loosen up, let go a little and relax into the flow of life.

unknown to me
So many people are under the illusion that they can control their life and the get into the if only, if they, if he, etc.

I hear people in recovery say they can only control themselves. Powerless over alcohol means I can't control it. Alcohol and drugs are but a symptom of my dis-ease, the problem is me. When I try to control others, I have to realize that I don't have the power. When I want control of myself, I have to surrender to the program, turn things over to my Higher Power, and in doing so, I am empowered to do what I need to do for myself in today.

When I think I am in control, that is when I know I need to let go and let my God.

[MajestyJo]

Do you do change well?

Ironically, since my two falls, I have had a lot more pain to deal with. My biggest change is not being able to do what I use to do, in the way I would like to do it.

I wasn't able to go to see my sister today. I wasn't able to make the pie I wanted to bake. I never got any laundry done this weekend as I had planned to do, with no thought of doing it tomorrow.

Sometimes, change is about changing things in the day, it doesn't have to be about things in the past. It is about doing what I need to do for myself in today.