Why Can't I Learn This Permanently?

A program friend and I were talking yesterday, about the way we still, after many years in program, can find ourselves "nose to the wall."

We learn wisdom - get busy, impatient, hungry/angry/lonely/tired - promptly forget what we learned, revert to old behaviors, and bash the end of our schnozz on the unyielding bricks, of that wall of reality.

Sometimes we fall, and sit there, shaken, wondering how we ended up here, one more time. We may feel saddened and disheartened: we may begin to weep with pain and frustration. We may begin to judge our progress as "not enough." We may decide to give our nose a couple of extra, intentional whacks, in the hopes of reinforcing the lesson.

Sometimes we remember to call a program friend or our sponsor, and "reason things out with someone else." Perhaps we attend a meeting, and everything that's said seems to speak to us. Or maybe just one person's words, or what they read from program literature, seems like a loving gift of gentle reminding, from our Higher Power.

We can rant and rail about how stupid we are to have forgotten, we can add to the pain by shaming and insulting ourselves. Or we can try to forgive ourselves for the forgetting, trust that we are right where we need to be at this moment, and get up to start anew from this point in time.

I pray for the spirit of forgiveness, for myself, and for those around me, to fill me up and wash out the other, older ways of thinking, which sometimes do creep back to fill my empty spaces, when I forget to fill myself with healthy choices. I pray to be open to the lesson, when I find myself back at the wall once again. I pray for enough self-love, to be able to let go of all the ways in which I hold myself back, through impatience and frustration. I pray for the wisdom to "know the difference," to work for acceptance, and letting go. I pray for the ability to admit my part, while my poor sensitive nose resembles Rudolph's in its redness.