Monday, November 9, 2009

An Open Mind.

A reader very kindly wrote and suggested I try doing a fear inventory, similar to a resentment inventory as laid out in AA's Big Book, but with my fears listed in the first column.

I found this enormously helpful. (Thankyou, Mitch.)

I will be forever grateful to Al-Anon, for having made me teachable. When I am offered the precious gift of a suggestion about how I might deepen my understanding, of 12-Step, and of myself, I am well-disposed to listen, and to try putting it into practise.

My little blurb on my home page about "feel free to write to me" isn't just lip service - this has been my recurring experience in 12-Step - my Higher Power offering me a solution, through the words of a fellow member.

When I came into program, if you didn't fit my narrow definition of "normal" I'd shut you out. I may have been outwardly courteous, because I'm in that age group - we were taught to be polite to strangers - but inwardly, I'd be writing off anything said to me, because look who was saying it. I wanted to reject you first, before you got a chance to reject me. That felt safer. It was a lonely way to live, and I missed a lot of wisdom I could have learned from. I'm trying to make up for that now.

4 comments:

  1. That was the "safer" way to live wasn't it? However, I learned very quickly it wasn't the better way. I too missed a lot because of living that way in the past. Loved this.

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  2. So true. I am in the heartache of a break up right now that I wouldn't be in if I had just written him off. Instead I got to know a kind and gentle person that struggles with life just as I do. And I will miss him. And though I don't like this pain, I am grateful.

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  3. I'm sad that you learned early that the world wasn't a safe place to reveal your true self. I'm glad, however, that you overcame that fear, and I'm reminded how easily and thoughtlessly we wound others.

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  4. The fear inventory (along with resentments and sex) is something that I did for my fourth step and that I get my sponsees to do. The things that I fear all relate to relationships.

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