Daily Reprieve

Equipped with the updated and more useful ideas of God, I can move forward:

Useful Idea of 2021: God and I are one, even though I am not God. This is the paradoxical truth that makes me free in recovery and life. ~ Improving my communication skills between my truest Self and My Higher Power is a key element to spiritual growth and empowerment. God ignores my linguistics degree in manipulation.

Useful Idea of 2021: God is an investor in my Intent of Will and asks that I surrender my fears, trade them in for trust in a covenant relationship between the Higher Power and myself.

Useful Idea of 2021: God is my Life Source urging me toward expressive experience. He/She is God of everything or nothing in my life. I chose the former in a Step 3 covenant reaffirmation.

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Unuseful Idea of 2011: I lack potency. ~ The concepts and thoughts that I value will be overshadowed by a stronger presence.  The products of my mind and heart will be dismissed as insignificant in a crowd, and assaulted in the presence of a strong presentation.

The Beginning of Humility

“There are few absolutes inherent in the Twelve Steps. Most Steps are open to interpretation, based on the experience and outlook of the individual.

“Consequently, the individual is free to start the Steps at whatever point he can, or will. God, as we understand Him, may be defined as a ‘Power greater. . .’ or the Higher Power. For thousands of members, the A.A. group itself has been a ‘Higher Power’ in the beginning. This acknowledgement is easy to make if a newcomer knows that most of the members are sober and he isn’t.

“His admission is the beginning of humility — at least the newcomer is willing to disclaim that he himself is God. That’s all the start he needs. If, following this achievement, he will relax and practice as many of the Steps as he can, he is sure to grow spiritually.” – As Bill Sees It, page 191 (which in turn quoted from a letter Bill Wilson wrote in 1966).

There is nothing I hate more in this life than that sense that I am being ignored, whether it be real or imagined. As a creative soul, I have works that I hope will live beyond me in both time and impact. As a co-dependent aberration of my Self I fear the exile and rejection of those I hope to help, those that matter to me. I have lived my childhood dancing around tripwires of irrational guilt which was usually the result of exposing my humanity to the detriment of the exoskeleton of invulnerability. I forged a family icon as an expression of family superiority and uniqueness. I learned to hide silently and let the icon champion family pride at my expense as a person. Over time, I would find an escape through the military where the expectations where not mysterious and ever changing. Then I built a family of my own and the icon returned.

My journal writing gave me a refuge in my family of origin and remained with me into the marriage bed. My writing began and ended my marriage. I now count the post-marital apocalypse as the Goddess Eris doing for me what I could not do for myself. I now realize that when the fortress I built became a prison, the heart of God’s child within me screamed to be set free. The golden apple of discord that Eris bade me to consume brought an iconoclastic humility into my soul. My God ignored the proclamations of the icon, and heard the truest version of my Self. I have discovered that the pursuit of humility is the pursuit of happiness. I am heard when I learn to listen. Humility is the beginning of my positive freedom, my Self-actualization. It is also better to develop a process to encourage the connectedness that comes with humility than to suffer the consequences of humiliation that comes from isolated pride.

Although I am grateful that my Higher Power sent Eris my way, I would much rather work a process toward humility than reap the consequences of humiliation. I have no desire to live a life of perpetual chaos.

Useful Idea of 2021: My family icon of protective pride lacks the potency I need to live. The concepts that I value will be heard as I listen to the concepts that others value. There is no stronger presence then the God of my understanding in the true expression of my life. As a connected being it is impossible for me to be dismissed. The confidence that comes from humility will answer the pride that comes from fear.

This entry was posted on August 5, 2021 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Journal, Life, Personal, Recovery, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.