Living a Role.

"What really matters is not what function you fufill in this world, but whether you identify with your function to such an extent that it takes you over and becomes a role that you play. When you play roles, you are unconscious. When you catch yourself playing a role, that recognition creates a space between you and the role."
                                               Eckhart Tolle

Angry Readers.

Every now and then, a blogger will receive a comment which almost steams off the page, the anger is so apparent. The writer always seems to be "Anonymous," and the writing vitrolic. Seems like I'll get one of those, and then reading through some more Al-Anon blogs, will see that a few others have received an ugly comment, as though the reader is going along dumping their toxic anger a bit at a time, on people who won't respond.

I try my best to be accepting and compassionate, but I don't believe that this requires accepting rudeness or incivility. Your anger isn't my fault because you disagree with what I wrote. Your anger is your responsibility.

I no longer try to calm down someone raging in anger - I walk away, or I delete their comment. I'm finally gaining a clearer perspective that by doing so, I'm removing their audience. Ranters love an audience, I've noticed.

At the meeting tonight, one of the women I admire for her strength, patience, tolerance and acceptance spoke of a little mantra she uses to remind herself:

I give enough, I do enough, and I am enough.

Powerful self-acceptance.

Asking For Help

Why are we so determined to do it ourselves? I once thought that this was a sign of power, of being  capable, efficient, successful. I considered asking for help a weakness. I've learned that when I ask for help, that's when I'm humble. I'm admitting that I cannot do it on my own, that I am in need of company, support, love.

Sitting around fuming and waiting will never get me what I need. Other people cannot read my mind, I need to ask. I need to understand that when I ask, there are going to be times in which the other person is unavailable or unable or unwilling, and that I must accept. If I can't get help from one person, try another. My sponsor isn't always going to be at the end of that phone, she too has a life. So what then?

Call another friend. If there is no person available to speak with me, I can read program literature, or turn to my Higher Power.

I have had to learn that I can give myself the encouragement love and support which I always sought from others. I can calm myself down in the same way that I used to wind myself up. When I make my own happiness and my own serenity my first priority, that's self-care, and I deserve that.

I thought today that my life feels very different now, because I am getting affirmations from program friends, and my siblings, that I am a good, warm, loving, compassionate person. What's different is that I don't have my ex-husband chipping away at my self-image, telling me the opposite. My heart is lighter, and joy fills me at the smallest things - sunshine pouring over the roof of the cathedral one block away, and visible from my living room window, assistance I render to someone in the building: time spent sewing jeans for myself: playing with cats as a volunteer for the SPCA.

I feel that I am a lucky woman to be living my life today, I have found peace that I sought for so long when married to the alcoholic. It was impossible because of his lying. Some people can live with that, and accept it as a symptom of the disease, but for me, because of my childhood, I need to be able to trust.

I pray for gratitude for all with which I'm blessed today. I pray for tolerance, patience, and a loving spirit.

Bumper Sticker.

I saw this the other day, and wondered if the driver was a member of a 12-Step group:

Don't believe everything you think.

Excellent advice.

Accept The Things I Cannot Change.

We can't change other people, they can barely change themselves - consider how many New Year's resolutions are made and broken shortly thereafter.

I was at first so shocked by the realisation that the alcoholic was lying to me, earlier in my marriage, that I tried to deny it to myself. He presents himself as the soul of honesty; I wanted so much for that to be true, that I tried to believe it when told that were I not the person I am, he wouldh't have to lie to protect himself. Twisted, alcoholic blaming, which awoke my guilt and caretaking behavior, but the truth, as an old AA guy once said, is that "The rocks in our heads, fit the holes in theirs."

I had to fight my way free of years of childhood indoctrination, before I could get to the place where I truly understood - what he does, he does because of who he is, not because of who I am. When I could finally let that shame go and accept, I could speak up about what it was really like to be married to him.

I could understand that there might, in some far future, be a chance of his changing, but I needed to deal with the here and now.  When my friend died, so quickly after diagnosis, it was brought sharply home to me that if I wanted honesty, I had to give it to myself, I could wait forever for him to stop lying to me. I had to leave.

It's been six months, and it's been hard in ways I expected, and those I didn't, but I know it was the right choice. Even when my grief threatens to overwhelm me, I still know it was the right thing for me to do.

I thank my Higher Power for the friends who've supported and helped and encouraged me, old and new, and for the comfort given when it's all felt like too much, and I've only been able to say softly, "Oh, please help me."




  

Respecting Others.

When I see someone sneer at a member who is crashing about in pain amd sorrow, unable to follow the social niceties, seeking only comfort, I feel a sad and tired anger. We are all the same, we breathe, we eat, we long for love.

When you turn to another person and feel superior because you are not suffering enough to make a fuss, you are negating their personhood.  This life is short, and we can spend it enamelled into our self-chosen categories of "Us" against "Them" but we are fooling ourselves if we think we are living life in any better way than the one beside us.

This season speaks to loving one another, as does our program. It isn't always easy or comfortable to reach out to say, "I see you, I hear you, I am here with you, I understand your pain" but that's what Bill W started trying to do.

Please, don't look for differences in the faces around the table, look for your common ground.

Grief Lives Inside A Cardboard Box.

Two nights ago, I was going through a box, with an eye to unpacking it, and found first the beads my friend had draped around my neck when he greeted me at their door, last Mardi Gras, then the material I purchased on our trip together, and finally, at the bottom, the earrrings I had worn for the 2 days of cleaning up the blood from his partner's attempt at suicide just after my friend died.

The thought of going on without him, was impossible for the one who'd loved him on sight, and for 21 years thereafter. I didn't deal with the death of my friend, or the pain of cleaning up all that blood because I couldn't, at the time, I was trying to be strong for the one alive and trying to find a way to go on without him.

When we lost our mate, whether to divorce or to death, the loss is the same. We're faced with trying to construct a new life without them, without all the little shared jokes and shared history, without this person who knew us when we were younger. What I'm discovering, is that I never did have what I thought I did, it was founded upon a web of intricate, convoluted lies.

 I recall driving home to sit on my couch, and ask aloud. "Who are you? I do not know you in the way that I went for so long believeing that I did."

I can struggle with this reality, or I can do what Syd has written about this week, and simply trudge through, with a faith that I will understand at some point, or maybe never, but in the meantime, I can give kindness to those around me, and for today, that has to be enough.