Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of May 29:

Worry and fear can alter our perceptions until we lose all sense of reality, twisting neutral situations into nightmares. Because most worry focuses on the future, if we can learn to stay in the present, living one day or one moment at a time, we take positive steps toward warding off the effects of fear.

In the past, many of us tried to anticipate all possible disastrous outcomes so that we would be prepared to protect ourselves. But today, our program, our fellowship, and a Higher Power allow us to view this self-protectiveness more objectively. When we anticipate doom, we lose touch with what is happening now and see the world as a threatening place against which we must be on constant alert.

Most of our fears will never come to pass, and if they do, foreknowledge probably won’t make us any better prepared. But as we grow in faith, self-esteem, and trust in our Higher Power, we become capable of doing for ourselves what our anticipations could never achieve – taking appropriate action in any situation.

Today’s Reminder

Today I will recognize that worries can be potent and mind-altering. I choose not to indulge in them at all.

“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

~ Louisa May Alcott

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Miss Alcott faced her family’s financial problems with a desire never to be poor. She inherited an inclination toward perfection from her parent’s transcendentalism. Her mother equated the family’s poverty with the inequality between the genders. Miss Alcott never married and became a (first wave) feminist. She was also an abolitionist and a nurse in the Union Army during the War for Southern Independence. She indeed saw storms in her time.

But more than anything, she was an individual. Her writing helped her claim that reality. Most writers do what they do out of necessity as much as desire. Her developing individuality helped her claim her gift, because she was ready to let it claim her. The causes that she embraced were necessary for the exaltation of the individual. It only makes sense that she would be drawn to them.

The Twelve Step program helps me to recognize that I am so much more than a member of this group or that one. I am an individual and my manifestation as such will embolden others. When groups are dominant, individuality becomes a crime. The manifested individual produces the positive freedom that justifies the negative freedom produced by a group. Worry is the abdication of the individual to the demands of the group, whether it be family, religion, or government. If the individual feels the need to hide, the group has become an oppressor.

From Courage to Change of May 28:

I have heard it said that the only valid comparisons are between myself as I am and myself as I used to be. When I think of Step Two and of being restored to sanity, such a comparison comes to mind.

I remember an incident some twenty years ago in which I was riding my motorcycle to a meditation class. I was late and in a big hurry to arrive on time. Right outside the meeting place I crashed my bike. My attempts to force solutions, to rush to an encounter with serenity, had failed. Did I feel contrite? Not exactly. Even then, I felt the irony of rushing to meditation, but mainly I felt angry that the town had failed to maintain the road on which I was riding. Rather than taking responsibly for my own haste and carelessness, I blamed others and saw myself as a victim. I did not feel thankful to have survived; I felt angry that I had been roughed up and thrown off schedule.

Today’s Reminder

Looking back, I see many examples of the grace of a Power greater than myself at work in my life. I see progress in being restored to sanity, and I am increasingly confident that my progress will continue.

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves.”

~ Maltbie D. Babcock

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Rev. Babcock was a Presbyterian minister and an American writer. He was known for his intelligence and oration. He battled depression, and was, at one point, hospitalized for this condition. He spent four weeks in a sanitarium in Danville, New York for “nervous prostration.” He visited the Holy Land a decade later and on his return trip, he and some of his associates contracted Mediterranean Fever, now known as brucellosis, which is known to cause depression. He ingested mercuric chloride and slit his wrists and died at 42. His wife published one of his poems after his death that has since became a Christian hymn, called, “My Father’s World.” He and his wife had two children, both of which died in infancy.

His wife lived on to be 86 years of age. If not for her, her husband’s writings would not have survived his suicide. If not for her, the Christian hymn would not have been preserved. Her name was Katherine Elliot Babcock (nee Tallman). I have found no significant biography on her life.

I have heard that it is a fallacy of logic to dismiss the message because of the failings of the messenger. I have also read that the Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed you have to consider the messenger in conjunction with the message. I’m not sure which camp I sit in. If you are preaching and teaching about a way to live that you yourself cannot live, should I trust the burden of these words in my life?

Maybe it is best just to share one’s experience and let the listener chose what is best for themselves.

I suppose Rev. Babcock left it to his wife to live out the Step Two ideals he invertedly wrote about. If you hear harshness in my words, it comes from my heart for the apparently devoted wife he decided to leave behind.

Here are a few more quotes from Rev. Babcock:

“to have failed is to have striven, to have striven is to have grown.”

“Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them. Everyone must be challenged. A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.”

~ Maltbie D. Babcock

I suspect he missed a “chance of a lifetime” on the return trip from the Holy Land, there in Italy, with associates he could have reached out to.

From Courage to Change of May 27:

There have been days when many of us felt that good times would never come again. After so many disappointments, it seemed too painful to continue to hope. We shut our hearts and minds to our dreams and stopped expecting to find happiness. We weren’t happy, but at least we wouldn’t be let down anymore.

Caring, hoping, wanting — these are risky. But as we recover from the effects of alcoholism, we may find that the risks are worth taking. In time, it may not be enough to simply avoid disappointment; we want more; we want rich, full, exciting lives with joy as well as sorrow. Just finding the willingness to believe that joy can exist in our lives today can be very challenging, but until we make room in our hearts for good times, we may not recognize them when they arrive.

Nobody is happy all the time, but all of us are capable of feeling good. We deserve to allow ourselves to experience every bit of joy life has to offer.

Today’s Reminder

I will not let fear of disappointment prevent me from enjoying this day. I have a great capacity for happiness.

“I want to grow in my willingness to make room in my life for good times, having faith in their arrival and patience in my anticipation.”

~ Living with Sobriety

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I have no investment in notions of feeling good. Feelings are what fall off of me while I am moving, pushing forward in life. They are the breeze that comes through the open window of my vehicle. For me, emotions are the most deceptive of guides. They only become relevant if I can dominate them and use them to support the vital plans of my daily living.

Now, intuitive connection across the Veil of life and death is magical. That sense of life beyond the frivolous mundanity is where I am invested. Emotions tend to make their home in my autonomic nervous system, like my beating heart and regular breathing. That is the animal of my life. That is the impulse of biology.

But there is a space between stimulus and response in the human psyche. It can and should be expanded. It is the place where freedom is forged. In that place, I can slow down enough to listen to Infinity and translate that to a properly employed will. It is why I was created with a frontal cortex and a somatic nervous system.

“Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance. For after all, God gave us brains to use.”

~ Bill W. in Alcoholics Anonymous,

From Courage to Change of May 26:

“Anything worth doing,” goes a slightly cockeyed version of the old saying “is worth doing badly.” Perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis are three of the worst effects of alcoholism upon my life.

I have a tendency to spend my life waiting for the past to change. I want to spend the first hundred years of my life getting all the kinks ironed out and the next hundred years actually living. Such an inclination to avoid taking risks, to avoid doing anything badly, has prevented me from doing some of the things I enjoy the most, and it has kept me from the regular practice that produces progress.

If I’m unwilling to perform a task badly, I can’t expect to make progress toward learning to do it well. The only task that I can pretend to perform perfectly is the one that I have left entirely undone.

Today’s Reminder

Al-Anon encourages me to take risks and to think of life not as a command performance but as a continuing series of experiments from which I learn more about living.

“All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.”

~ James Russell Lowell

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Living a life dancing around emotional tripwires has definitely led to the second-guessing of my intent of will. And yet, doesn’t the Twelve Step program show us the importance of evaluating our motives? How do I separate these two similar roads that lead to very different lives?

For me, I have to slow down and move away from living (or not living) life on impulse. It can be impulsive to withdraw or to immediately apologize for something my broken guilt-o-meter misidentifies as wrong. The plan is everything for me. There are specific times and places to look back over my day, a day that I took the courage to live. I find the correct ways to use my will as identified in the program, moving slow enough to make my mind more effective. Over time, I can make on the spot corrections based on habitual, planned, self-evaluations. But in the beginning, I need to be free to make on the spot errors to learn. I cannot grow into life with an atrophied soul.

From Courage to Change of May 25:

An Al-Anon meeting is where I am most likely to get an honest answer to the question, “How are you?” This is refreshing to me, because for a long time my only possible answer to this question was, “I’m fine, how are you?” — even when I wasn’t fine at all.

Denial is a symptom of the effects of alcoholism. Just as alcoholics often deny their drinking problems, many of us who have been affected by this disease deny our problems as well. Although we may have been living in chaos, worried about our families, full of self-doubt, and spiritually, emotionally, and physically depleted, many of us learned to pretend that everything was just fine.

Today it is important for me to be in an environment in which honesty is practiced. I don’t necessarily launch into a detailed description of my woes or my joys — but when asked how I’m doing, I try to ask myself what the real answer is. This frees me from the habit of denial and gives me choices.

Today’s Reminder

How do I feel today? How am I doing? If I can answer those questions truthfully, I am more likely to pursue the help I need and to share the happy times with others as well.

“We can say what we mean only if we have the courage to be honest with ourselves and with others.”

~ The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage

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Those of us who have experienced intimate betrayal, the witch hunt of religious organizations delving into private writings, and the prejudice of a judicial system aiding in the kidnapping of one’s children, know that a person’s honesty can be forged into a devastating weapon.

The anonymity of the Twelve Step program was essential in finding a safe place to evaluate my own motives and learn to trust again. The principle of being honest, truthful, and genuine is a hard-won prize in recovery and can only be fostered with others you know are truthfully invested in the well-being of its members. Not everyone can be trusted with our vulnerability. But I absolutely need to be honest with myself and with others who live in self-benefiting altruism. Those who claim to be offering aid self-sacrificially are a threat. If I am able to be honest with myself, I can choose to be honest with others. And I can choose who those others are.

From Courage to Change of May 24:

In the words of Oscar Wilde, “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.”

Translation: My will gets me into trouble. I aim for some goal or other, but even when I get it, I am rarely satisfied. It doesn’t make my life complete, so I raise the ante, set a new goal, and push even harder. Or I don’t get what I want and feel inadequate or deprived. Maybe that is why not one of the Twelve Steps talks about carrying out my will.

The only times I have ever found lasting satisfaction were when I let go of self-will and committed myself to seeking the will of my Higher Power. Prayer and meditation are two means by which I seek to discover what God’s will holds for me, and they help me to gain access to the power to carry it out.

Sometimes my hopes and desires are forms of guidance. When I am willing to place God’s will above my own, those dreams have a chance of becoming a wonderful reality.

Today’s Reminder

The path to my true heart’s desire is to surrender to the will of my Higher Power.

“We know that God can and will do anything that is for our ultimate good, if we are ready to receive His help.” ~ The Twelve Steps and Traditions

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I want to be filthy rich. Obviously, my Higher Power’s will doesn’t seem to be invested in that goal. Is His will in conflict with mine? Why do I desire to be exceptionally wealthy? I would like to be free of financial anxiety. I would like to be able to help myself and others when it is needed. I would like to reward the significance of social investment. I would like to be powerful. It seems that what I truly desire is to be anchored in serenity, to be useful, to have respect. But why?

I see that if I was just handed the cash I would never ask the questions about my own motives. I would never delve into my psyche. I imagine that the further I dig, the more I discover my actual will is not at all in conflict with the Higher Power. It is that fearful, isolated, responsive will that is in conflict with my Higher Power and my Higher Self.

Thus, it might save me some time if I trust the will of my Higher Power and grow into the parallel fulfillment of both our wills. I suspect this to be true.

From Courage to Change of May 23:

Sometimes the healthiest thing I can do for myself is to admit that I’m not perfect. I am human. I make mistakes.

But it isn’t always easy to admit this to someone else, especially when my mistake affects them. Pretending that something never happened, or that it doesn’t matter, or justifying the action seems so much more inviting to me. But there is a price to pay if I refuse to own up when I’ve been wrong — guilt.

For years I dragged guilt behind me like a heavy duffel bag. Al-Anon offers me an alternative — the Tenth Step. I continue taking personal inventory and when I am wrong, I promptly admit it. When I admit the error, I take responsibility for my actions. I free myself from the burden of an embarrassing secret, and I move closer to accepting my imperfection. It becomes much easier to love myself if I accept myself as I truly am, mistakes and all.

Today’s Reminder

Today I will have the courage to look the truth in the face, admit my errors and my achievements, appreciate my growth, and make amends where I have done harm.

“I care about truth not for truth’s sake but for my own.”

~ Samuel Butler

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“…they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false.”

~ Dr. Silkworth in ‘The Doctor’s Opinion’ of Alcoholics Anonymous

The first principle of the 12 Steps is honesty, truth, and a genuine self-awareness. The core of alcoholic insanity is persistent, recurrent delusions. It possesses an individual and echoes through the web of intimacy supporting that power of the chemical parasite. The confession in meetings that one is an alcoholic or addict is a hard-won, honest recognition of the problem. The individual could just as easily say, “I am an alcoholic, and I will not lie to myself any longer about that reality.” In Al-Anon one could say their name and confess that they have a self-destructive obsession with the alcoholic/addict in their lives. They probably don’t because part of their path of honesty is to also see the positive inventory of their lives separate from their loved ones.

The famous quote from Shakespeare says, “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man,” seems to suggest that a good litmus test for one’s ability to be true to oneself is found in the demonstration of how true one is to other people.

From Courage to Change of May 22:

I used to think that if I ever looked carefully at myself, my secret fears would be confirmed: I’d see that I am hopelessly flawed and unworthy. Al-Anon has shown me that if I face the effects of alcoholism by working the Steps, this belief will fade away. I’ll see that the truth I’ve avoided is my own inner beauty.

I am powerless to change the fact that alcoholism has afffected my life. Only a Power greater than myself can overcome the effects of this disease. I call upon that Power for help with the Second and Third Steps. These Steps help me to trust that, although the ground on which I stand may quiver, I will not fall, for I am held firmly by One whose will is not so easily overturned. Regardless of how shaky I amy feel, I am safe.

Such a spiritual foundation makes a truly searching and fearless moral inventory possible. Only when I risk taking a close look at myself can my fears give way to the truth: As a child of God, I am all I need to be – loving, lovable, and splendid.

Today’s Reminder

Today I will take some time to strengthen my relationship with my Higher Power. This will bring me closer to seeing the truth as my ally and recognizing my own inner loveliness.

“I now choose to rise above my personality problems to recognize the magnificance of my being. I am totally willing to learn to love myself.”

~ Louis L. Hay

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Please take a gander at my latest writing. Yes, Auila Saulter is yet another pen name. The different names I use have their own creative energy. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page.

Looking for inner beauty seems dangerously narcissistic to me. Love and light and flinging flowers in the air; who actually wants that as a way of life? In a world crumbling under the burden of sloppy agape, maybe we need to appreciate the beauty in the beast. I have seen my own shadow in Jungian terms; the thing I have kept locked away. The thing I have faced in this program attempting to find a path of intergration.

I value strength over beauty. Without strength, beauty is just a target. I am no longer a slave to the outward apprasial. I would rather be effective than good. I think the pragmatic morality of this program surpasses the white-toothed facade I grow up with.

Let’s be geniune and see where that takes us.

From Courage to Change of May 21:

When I take the Seventh Step (“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”), I calmly ask for help. I don’t beg or demand: I neither grovel nor puff myself up. I needn’t demean myself, and I have no one to impress. I am simply accepting my place in my relationship with my Higher Power, no more, no less. True humility to take my rightful place in the wonderful partnershp I am developing with the God of my understanding.

Humility is said to be perpetual quietness of heart. It means that I do my part and trust God to take care of the rest. Although I may not know how my help will come, I can remain serene. All I have to do is to ask my Higher Power for healing.

Today’s Reminder

Today, when I ask my Higher Power to remove my shortcomings, I will try to do so with a peaceful heart.

“Humility will help us see oursselves in true perspective and keep our minds open to the truth.”

~ Alcoholism, the Family Disease

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The Seventh Step is an advanced version of Step One. I admitted I had become powerless over the burden of self and my spirit had become enslaved. Recognizing that, just like with addiction, I could not break free of the burden of self on my own. I had developed a swollen, isolated ego as a coping mechanism against the pain and threat of social rejection. This ego appeared swollen in the same way my hand held in front of my face would appear to be everything I see. Comparing my view of it to the hands of others who surrounded me, my hand-covered face was blinded to potentially life empowering connections. When that hand was moved into the crowd of my fellow human beings, I could see a world around me that had been obscured. My ego connected with other egos appears smaller but is actually held at a distant from my spiritual vision in its proper place. Humility is gaining psychic distance from one’s own ego. It allows me to see the value of the other egos of my environment. The sober person of AA develops humility to increase respect for others and for the Higher Power, to live separated from the burden of an isolated self, and to explore spiritual freedom.

From Courage to Change of May 20:

Like alcoholism, obsessive thinking can be too much to handle. My best hope in battling it is not to begin, bacause once started, it gains steam and becomes harder to interrupt.

Before obsessive thinking takes hold, there is usually a point at which I have to make a choice. I can opt to mentally toy with a subject that has held my mind hostage in the past and is therefore dangerous. Or I can recongnize the danger and try to drop any thought of the topic from my mind, praying for my Higher Power’s help I can reach out to an Al-Anon member for support before tackling a topic to which I am vulnerable, so that my thoughts won’t have a chance to get locked inside my head.

I will exercise the power of choice by refusing the invitation of obsessive thoughts. If I don’t pick them up, I won’t have to let them go.

Today’s Reminder

I am learning to pay attention to my thinking. If there is someting I cannot contemplate without becoming obsessed, I will respect that fact and act accordingly. I will gather the strength and suppor of my Al-Anon program, my friends, and my Higher Power before I try to reason it out. And if it is none of my business, I won’t pick it up at all.

“If you work on your mind with your mind, How can you avoid an immense confusion?”

~ Seng-ts’an

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I was joking with others in my Al-Anon meeting that there should be a Ruminators Anonymous. I can remember reading a book called The Depression Cure. The premise was that our bodies have not evolved as fast as our culture and our optimum living environment was established in the hunter-gather period of our existence. It is as if we are living on another planet that requires a special suit and supplements for survival. We are aliens of our own making. I take vitamin D to replace the sunshine I miss as a result of the great indoors. I take fish oil supplements to replace the omega oils found in the wilderness that gave birth to my species but has been lost to us because of mass farming techniques. There are other things I do not remember, but I do recall his emphasis on devoloping a discipline against excessive rumination. He suggested that we allow ourselves no more than five minutes before breaking free and getting into some form of physical activity.

I also find that rumination corrupts my meditation, and thus interfers with my connection to my Higher Power. I developed some effective meditative habits from the teachings of Christopher Penczak in his book, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft. In my early days of alcoholic recovery, I looked to the Sleeping Prophet, Edgar Cayce. His method of intuitive connection fit in with one of my most personally powerful Psalms. My memory of Psalm 127:2 has said that it is vain for me to rise up early in fear, to take rest late overwhelmed with worry, for my Higher Power gives blessings even while we sleep. Falling into an inbetween place of waking and slumber is better for me than having my intuitive listening practice hijacked by rumination.

My AA Sponsor struggles as I do with the paralysis of rumination, the imprisonment of depression. He has suggested that I look into the People’s Chemist. It is a suggestion I intend to fully explore.

[ https://www.thepeopleschemist.com/ ]

I suppose the point of this reflection is that we can use the work of the collective mind to overpower the destructive habits of our individual minds. I cannot imagine what a mentally entangled life I would be leading in isolation. I am grateful.