No matter what, love yourself.
Love yourself, even if it feels like the world around you is irked with you, even if it feels like those you've counted on most have gone away, even if you wonder if God has abandoned you.
When it feels like the journey has stopped, the magic is gone, and you've been left sitting on the curb, love yourself. When you're confused and angry about how things are going or how they've gone, love yourself. No matter what happens or where you are, love yourself. no matter if you aren't certain where you're going or if there's anyplace left to go, love yourself.
This situation will change, this time will pass, and the magic will return. So will joy and faith. You will feel connected again - to yourself, God, the universe, and life. But the first thing to do is love yourself. And all the good you want will follow.
- From Journey to the Heart, by Melody Beattie.
So beautiful I had to share.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Monday, May 5, 2014
Writing Multiple Fourth Steps
I recently added In This Moment Daily Meditation Book put out by Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) to my list of daily readings.
The May 5th entry talks about making a "searching and fearless moral inventory." Part of the entry goes on to say "The hardest part of doing my inventory is breaking through denial. I can't inventory something I don't know exists. Once I'm aware of a behavior, I'm usually willing to write it down, share it, and ask that my defect be removed. Getting there takes time and that's OK with me today."
One of the things that has been bothering me lately is that I managed to go through a full Fourth Step without spotting my love addiction. When it came time for me to do my Fourth Step, my sponsor "followed the book." There was an actual spreadsheet I was given to fill out. It had tabs for resentment, fear and sex. Each tab had columns to fill out (although to be fair the sex tab had a list of questions I had to answer about each of my sexual relationships): "I have a resentment towards/of (bb pg 64)" "because or why (bb pg 64)" "my instinct for (...) has been/was affected (12/12 pg 42)" and so on. It took me over three months to fill in the entire thing, and my printed Fourth Step came out to somewhere around 90 pages (although to be fair it printed in fairly large font).
And yet somehow I didn't see a glaringly obvious defect: and what's more my sponsor didn't see it either. (At least if she did, she didn't tell me!) It would only seem natural that addictive patterns would show themselves in these types of inventories. The fact that it remained hidden was a mystery.
This baffled me, but reading this reading shed some important light on this for me. I'd always thought it silly that I'd need to do Fourth Steps in multiple programs. The "fearless and searching moral inventory" wasn't going to wear different hats. But now that I have a new addiction - and a new defect - I have something to write down, share, and ask to have removed. I need a new Fourth Step because I couldn't inventory something I didn't know existed.
The May 5th entry talks about making a "searching and fearless moral inventory." Part of the entry goes on to say "The hardest part of doing my inventory is breaking through denial. I can't inventory something I don't know exists. Once I'm aware of a behavior, I'm usually willing to write it down, share it, and ask that my defect be removed. Getting there takes time and that's OK with me today."
One of the things that has been bothering me lately is that I managed to go through a full Fourth Step without spotting my love addiction. When it came time for me to do my Fourth Step, my sponsor "followed the book." There was an actual spreadsheet I was given to fill out. It had tabs for resentment, fear and sex. Each tab had columns to fill out (although to be fair the sex tab had a list of questions I had to answer about each of my sexual relationships): "I have a resentment towards/of (bb pg 64)" "because or why (bb pg 64)" "my instinct for (...) has been/was affected (12/12 pg 42)" and so on. It took me over three months to fill in the entire thing, and my printed Fourth Step came out to somewhere around 90 pages (although to be fair it printed in fairly large font).
And yet somehow I didn't see a glaringly obvious defect: and what's more my sponsor didn't see it either. (At least if she did, she didn't tell me!) It would only seem natural that addictive patterns would show themselves in these types of inventories. The fact that it remained hidden was a mystery.
This baffled me, but reading this reading shed some important light on this for me. I'd always thought it silly that I'd need to do Fourth Steps in multiple programs. The "fearless and searching moral inventory" wasn't going to wear different hats. But now that I have a new addiction - and a new defect - I have something to write down, share, and ask to have removed. I need a new Fourth Step because I couldn't inventory something I didn't know existed.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Newcomers. . .
The May 4th Voices of Recovery quotes The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous: "All who have experienced the pain of compulsive eating and want to stop are equally welcome here." It goes on to tell the story of a woman who came to the meetings fighting the program. "I had no desire to refrain from compulsively eating. Instead, I wanted to diet. I did not take the suggestions seriously. Tradition Three illustrates the reason for my inability to grasp this program. I wanted the weight loss and even the pleasure of it without having to earn it first. Today when I watch newcomers struggle with the program as I did, I try to show the same compassion and acceptance as those before me."
I remember my first day in Overeaters Anonymous. I came into the rooms believing that I didn't need the program - I was fine. When the woman who shared told my own story, I was shocked. But I decided to sign up. She'd lost all her weight so clearly whatever these people were selling worked. I asked her to sponsor me at break and felt I had put a check in the box to have them wave the magic wand that would fix me.
She told me to read from the Big Book, and I read Bill's Story and put the book down again. Not only did I not relate to the story, but I figured that all the Big Book contained was a collection of people's stories. Why would I bother reading about a bunch of alcoholics when I could sit in a meeting and hear people tell me about their own stories of recovery - and on topic, too!. I was already sold on the program, just get to the good stuff!
That sponsor told me to write down three things I loved about myself every day. I thought it was the dumbest assignment in the world. And yet when I sat down that night I couldn't think of a single thing. Everything I loved had a "yeah, but. . ." attached to it that was a disqualifying factor. I eventually found myself on the phone with another woman I'd met in meeting, sobbing because I couldn't find anything to love about myself.
Eventually I was able to identify a few items - I have a set of freckles on my leg that looks like a happy face; I always have a flower painted on my big-toenails; and I have three freckles on my foot that make a straight line. Each night I came up with three new things - sometimes it was that I loved a dish I cooked, other times it was that I loved knowing how to knit. But each time I failed to understand what the point of this exercise was.
Every time I asked that sponsor why we were bothering with this (get on with the wand waving, already!) she told me we were working on my first step. She asked me to identify trigger foods, so I started cutting out things like soda and coffee. Eventually my "abstinence" was to not eat French fries, doughnuts, or drink coffee and soda. Yet I still binged on sweets and snack foods to my heart's content. So after three months I decided I was wasting my time and left program.
When I came back I decided I could do it on my own. For the first two months back in the rooms I was back to my original "abstinence" - still binging away - and I decided that I could identify my own trigger foods. Since my first sponsor didn't "do anything" for me, I'd sponsor myself!
But through this all, I was just as clueless as that woman was. I wanted the results without the work. I didn't want to surrender to another person. I didn't want to work the steps. I didn't want to change my life. I just wanted the magical fix.
But there is no magical fix. There is a miraculous one - but that requires work to attain.
It wasn't until after I'd gotten another sponsor, surrendered, and gone through my first step that I learned what my first sponsor was doing: she was trying to show me that my life was unmanageable. She was waiting for me to notice just how hard it was for me to find things I loved about myself, and she was waiting for the light bulb to click that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was doing to run my life wasn't working. But because I never left the disease, I never was able to see what she was trying to show me.
Today's reading was a good reminder of just how much I struggled as a newcomer, and just how much I need to show compassion to those still suffering from compulsive overeating.
I remember my first day in Overeaters Anonymous. I came into the rooms believing that I didn't need the program - I was fine. When the woman who shared told my own story, I was shocked. But I decided to sign up. She'd lost all her weight so clearly whatever these people were selling worked. I asked her to sponsor me at break and felt I had put a check in the box to have them wave the magic wand that would fix me.
She told me to read from the Big Book, and I read Bill's Story and put the book down again. Not only did I not relate to the story, but I figured that all the Big Book contained was a collection of people's stories. Why would I bother reading about a bunch of alcoholics when I could sit in a meeting and hear people tell me about their own stories of recovery - and on topic, too!. I was already sold on the program, just get to the good stuff!
That sponsor told me to write down three things I loved about myself every day. I thought it was the dumbest assignment in the world. And yet when I sat down that night I couldn't think of a single thing. Everything I loved had a "yeah, but. . ." attached to it that was a disqualifying factor. I eventually found myself on the phone with another woman I'd met in meeting, sobbing because I couldn't find anything to love about myself.
Eventually I was able to identify a few items - I have a set of freckles on my leg that looks like a happy face; I always have a flower painted on my big-toenails; and I have three freckles on my foot that make a straight line. Each night I came up with three new things - sometimes it was that I loved a dish I cooked, other times it was that I loved knowing how to knit. But each time I failed to understand what the point of this exercise was.
Every time I asked that sponsor why we were bothering with this (get on with the wand waving, already!) she told me we were working on my first step. She asked me to identify trigger foods, so I started cutting out things like soda and coffee. Eventually my "abstinence" was to not eat French fries, doughnuts, or drink coffee and soda. Yet I still binged on sweets and snack foods to my heart's content. So after three months I decided I was wasting my time and left program.
When I came back I decided I could do it on my own. For the first two months back in the rooms I was back to my original "abstinence" - still binging away - and I decided that I could identify my own trigger foods. Since my first sponsor didn't "do anything" for me, I'd sponsor myself!
But through this all, I was just as clueless as that woman was. I wanted the results without the work. I didn't want to surrender to another person. I didn't want to work the steps. I didn't want to change my life. I just wanted the magical fix.
But there is no magical fix. There is a miraculous one - but that requires work to attain.
It wasn't until after I'd gotten another sponsor, surrendered, and gone through my first step that I learned what my first sponsor was doing: she was trying to show me that my life was unmanageable. She was waiting for me to notice just how hard it was for me to find things I loved about myself, and she was waiting for the light bulb to click that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was doing to run my life wasn't working. But because I never left the disease, I never was able to see what she was trying to show me.
Today's reading was a good reminder of just how much I struggled as a newcomer, and just how much I need to show compassion to those still suffering from compulsive overeating.
Finding a Higher Power Part 2
Once I was able to get past the initial fact that I not only needed a higher power, but I needed to surrender to it, I did the first thing I could think of: I went to church.
I was raised Catholic but stopped going to church when I went to college. This happened to coincide with a big wave of scandals and a huge payment of damages to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. But what rocked my faith the most was the fact that the priest of the mass I regularly attended was one of the people on the news for molesting small boys. This is the man I received communion from; the man I gave confessions to.
It started out first that my faith in the Church was shaken, and then my faith in Christianity as I began to learn more of the history of the Church and the bible. I'd always had difficulty relating to Jesus. Not that I didn't respect his teachings, but I'd just never been able to reach a point of believing in him as my "Lord and Savior."
So now, here I was more than a decade later trying to get back to a point of faith. I sat in mass and found myself fighting not to roll my eyes. I felt out of place and uncomfortable there. I tried staying late to sit in silence in the church and pray, but I still felt like an interloper. I didn't give up immediately. I kept going to mass, sometimes taking my young son with me. But the feeling that I was a fraud kept plaguing me.
So I went to my sponsor and asked for help. She told me that if I didn't like the Catholic God, then I should just make my own Higher Power.
In a meeting, I once heard a man share how he found his own Higher Power. His sponsor told him to take a piece of notebook paper and fold it in half length-wise (i.e. like a hot dog). One one side, he was to write all the things he hated about organized religion and the religious beliefs of others. On the other side he was to write down all the good things, and the things he'd want in his own higher power. Once this was completed, his sponsor told him to rip the sheet in half down that dividing line. Here were the applicants for the job of his Higher Power. Now he could throw out the ass-hole he didn't like and hire the one he did.
So I started my research. I looked into theologians like former Dominican priest Matthew Fox, Judaism, eastern religions, I even spent a good deal of time looking into paganism. In fact, one of the most helpful books I read was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religion by River and Joyce Higginbotham. That book described various faith systems, ways people look at religion, and even talks about scientific findings that could support the basis of an earth-based faith. But most importantly it taught me ways to meditate and pray that were deeply meaningful to me.
It was almost a four month process of research, meditation, and reflection that led me to the point where I now had a Higher Power with capital letters. I was able to look back on the way that program had changed my life, and how I had changed as a result of program. These were things I had never been able to achieve on my own. Finally I knew I had found the belief that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I had at last taken the second step.
I was raised Catholic but stopped going to church when I went to college. This happened to coincide with a big wave of scandals and a huge payment of damages to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. But what rocked my faith the most was the fact that the priest of the mass I regularly attended was one of the people on the news for molesting small boys. This is the man I received communion from; the man I gave confessions to.
It started out first that my faith in the Church was shaken, and then my faith in Christianity as I began to learn more of the history of the Church and the bible. I'd always had difficulty relating to Jesus. Not that I didn't respect his teachings, but I'd just never been able to reach a point of believing in him as my "Lord and Savior."
So now, here I was more than a decade later trying to get back to a point of faith. I sat in mass and found myself fighting not to roll my eyes. I felt out of place and uncomfortable there. I tried staying late to sit in silence in the church and pray, but I still felt like an interloper. I didn't give up immediately. I kept going to mass, sometimes taking my young son with me. But the feeling that I was a fraud kept plaguing me.
So I went to my sponsor and asked for help. She told me that if I didn't like the Catholic God, then I should just make my own Higher Power.
In a meeting, I once heard a man share how he found his own Higher Power. His sponsor told him to take a piece of notebook paper and fold it in half length-wise (i.e. like a hot dog). One one side, he was to write all the things he hated about organized religion and the religious beliefs of others. On the other side he was to write down all the good things, and the things he'd want in his own higher power. Once this was completed, his sponsor told him to rip the sheet in half down that dividing line. Here were the applicants for the job of his Higher Power. Now he could throw out the ass-hole he didn't like and hire the one he did.
So I started my research. I looked into theologians like former Dominican priest Matthew Fox, Judaism, eastern religions, I even spent a good deal of time looking into paganism. In fact, one of the most helpful books I read was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religion by River and Joyce Higginbotham. That book described various faith systems, ways people look at religion, and even talks about scientific findings that could support the basis of an earth-based faith. But most importantly it taught me ways to meditate and pray that were deeply meaningful to me.
It was almost a four month process of research, meditation, and reflection that led me to the point where I now had a Higher Power with capital letters. I was able to look back on the way that program had changed my life, and how I had changed as a result of program. These were things I had never been able to achieve on my own. Finally I knew I had found the belief that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I had at last taken the second step.
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