Letting Go Of Negativity - Choosing Hope.

I learned as a very small child not to have hope; it only made the ensuing disappointment and pain much harder to bear. I shut down that part of myself when I was very young, never realising this until I reached Al-Anon, and began to try to work a program based upon choosing to have a positive attitude.

One of the most powerful beliefs I carried into Al-Anon, was:

"Don't hope for the best - worry about how I'm going to deal with the worst, when it arrives, as it surely will."

It rarely occurred to me that good things were just as likely to happen, perhaps more likely, than the worst of my anxious imaginings. I kept myself in a state of dread and fear, anticipating with foreboding, whatever was coming down the road in my direction.

In Al-Anon, I have learned that I don't have to allow my feelings to dictate my mood. I can choose a positive attitude. I can choose to believe that my Higher Power is looking after me, even if I don't always agree or appreciate at the time, the way things work out.

I've learned that if I await the future in a state of dread, I am poisoning my present.

When I choose hope, I am opening myself to possibilities beyond my ability to
envision, and results I wouldn't have considered. I am choosing to live in my present moment, with an attitude allowing me to experience joy in the smaller gifts of life - a pot of unusual daffodils slowly beginning to bloom on my back deck, a huge lily sprout emerging between the leaves of the crocus which have bloomed and finished, the sight of my little dogs snoozing in a patch of sunlight, my husband making me burst into laughter with his wry commentary upon daily life inside the head of a recovering alcoholic.