A Problem Is What We Make It.

This past summer, Robert and I were walking downtown in a fairly busy area, and found ourselves face-to-face with an attractive young woman. We did that little dance to one side and then the other, trying to move out of the way, yet moving in unison, so that we were still unable to pass. Almost every other time this happens, I find myself laughing with the other person, and then one of us will stop trying to get out of the way, and wave the other by, with good feeling on both sides.

This young woman became angry, we couldn't believe it. We've talked about it since, laughing that if that is a big annoying incident for her, she must be doing very well in her life. I wonder how she'd manage if she were to lose a loved one, or get diagnosed with cancer?

It took me years in Al-Anon to realise that my problems had precisely the room in my head and in my life that I gave them. I was shocked by that suggestion the first few dozen times I heard it, and then irritated and then angry - were these people trying to say that my problems were minor?

I thought them enormous, insurmountable, terrible and depressing. That was my take on them, that was my description of them, that was the amount of room I gave them in my life.

When I began in my fumbling way to try to practise gratitude, I slowly but surely discovered that I had many things in my life for which I could feel grateful. And doing that regularly, searching out the people, times and facts of my life for which I could feel nothing but gratitude, changed my attitude completely.

"How Important Is It?" became my favourite slogan, and I used it on everything over which I became upset or even slightly annoyed. My first sponsor would ask me, "Will you remember this in a week? A month? A year? Will you be lying on your deathbed thinking about it, and wishing you had handled it differently?"

I found her questions blasted my mind open to a way of living I'd never imagined. Why, I could let go of this stuff as soon as I decided to! It's my choice to decide that something may require thought or effort, but it only becomes a "problem," and only takes up room inside my head, if I choose to allow that to take place.

Let me say that another way - I may get stray thoughts flitting through my head, but I can sit quietly and watch them float by; I don't have to reach up, get a stranglehold upon them, and then spend the next two days obsessing over them.

I can watch them come and go, then turn my mind to thinking of that which gives me serenity, peace and joy. As with so much of this wonderful program, it's my choice. I do not have to give the committee of assholes any room at all inside my head. I've got the key to the lock on that door.

Blooming Cherry Trees, and Detachment.

From my front window I can see the deep pink Japanese ornamental cherry trees are coming into bloom. Another week or so, and they will be in full glory. I love this time of year - spring is on the way, and it lightens my heart, to see all the new growth starting.

I was listening to a speaker today, who said that one of the most difficult lessons in Al-Anon, is to fully accept responsibility for our own emotions. How many times have you heard someone say "He (she) made me so angry!"  There will often then follow an explanation of the way the other person  caused their anger.

When I was new to Al-Anon, I didn't realise how easily I could be manipulated. I didn't undetstand that as long as I viewed it as the other person "making me,"  I was stuck reacting to their behavior. I couldn't detach. They acted, I reacted, and thus began a chain of anger, frustration, hurt feelings, and obsession.

I've been asked to explain what goes through my head when I'm detaching. First, I observe, without editorial comment. If someone appears to be getting angry, I observe that, without deciding whether or not they have the right to their anger. This means I have let go of all of those "How dare she behave this way!"  or "He always/never..."  or any other of those self-righteous or critical comments with which I have responded, before I learned how to detach.

In order for me to believe that I have a right to my own feelings, I need to also believe that you have the right to yours. And I do believe this.

The actions we take while in the grip of those feelings, are usually a good indicator of whether or not we've grasped the concept of detachment. When I began to get better at detachment, I learned to observe my own feelings, without allowing them to sweep me away like a leaf being taken for a wild ride in a high wind.

I might think, "I don't like the way this person is speaking to me." Before Al-Anon, their anger would be met and matched by mine. Now, I can have that feeling, and respond with detachment by saying what I feel  - "I don't like it when you try to manipulate me into giving me what you want, by ignoring me or sulking when I refuse you."

I can decide if I want to continue the conversation, and if I do, under what conditions. This might be a matter of asking the other person not to make sniping or insulting comments because they are annoyed with me.  I might decide that their level of anger or determination is one that I'm not willing to deal with at this time, and I may bow out of the encounter by saying calmly that I'm not going to discuss it with them. I have choices all the way along, and I have control over my emotions. As the Promises in our book "From Survival to Recovery" state:

"We will begin to feel and will come to know the vastness of our emotions, but we will not be slaves to them."

Detachment has allowed me to have mastery of my emotions, instead of being a slave to them. It's a much calmer life. I have compassion for other people, when they are slaves to their own emotions and acting badly. I don't judge them for it, because I recall all too well what it was like to be in that place, but I also don't take responsibility for anyone else's anger today - I don't make anyone angry, just as nobody makes me angry.  Anger often comes from the stories we tell ourselves about how the other person should be acting. Expectations create resentment. Resentment creates anger. Anger is a terrible master; I was a furiously angry person for the first 40 years of my life.

I'm full of gratitude for Al-Anon, because nowadays when I tell people that, they have a tendency to look at me, and start to laugh, saying, "I can't picture it." I have a hard time recalling that myself. That's the blessing of working the program.

Common Denominators - Obsessive Thinking

If I were asked to pick the one character trait I have found most destructive of my peace of mind, this would be it. I have the sort of mind that, without program intervention, climbs onto that gerbil wheel and runs for hours, sometimes days at a time, until I'm sick at heart with rage, fear and frustration.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, obsessive thinking is when I have one idea in my head, and I just keep chewing it over, angry, fearful and distressed, walking through my day with my body in the here and now, but my head somewhere else entirely. That one idea becomes all I can think about; it takes me over completely.

It wasn't until I joined Al-Anon that I began to grasp the idea that I have some control over what goes on inside my own head. I may not be able to stop thoughts from arising, but I don't have to latch onto them like a trap slamming shut, and carry them over to the gerbil wheel for a little workout. I can honestly state with full conviction that I have never climbed back down from the gerbil wheel feeling anything but worse than when I started.

Obsessive thinking drains my energy, poisons my day, and renders me incapable of enjoying my life. I will be moving from one thing to the next like a zombie, consumed with my obsessive thinking, while hiding behind my cheerful facade. It creates a feeling of tremendous alienation from the world around me, and makes me feel helpless and hopeless.

So how do I deal with this? How do I not get started, or once started, stop?  I ask my HP for help.

I call my sponsor, or another program person, and speak honestly of the madhouse between my ears. That breaks my isolation. I read program literature or listen to a speaker tape. That reminds me that we are all in this together, and I am not a solitary lunatic, but one of a large group, many of whom will take my phone calls.

If I can laugh at myself, I can break that pacing back and forth of obsessive thinking. Obsession requires total serious concentration - laughter makes this impossible, because I am given, through the laughter, some detachment from myself.

I I cannot change whatever it is, why expend all my energy and life-force obsessing about it? Back to Step One: I admit that I am powerless, and my life is unmanageable while I'm obsessing. I turn it over, I work my program, and I receive relief. For that relief, I feel a deep and abiding gratitude.

Living With Crazy People

There's a well-known speaker in AA and Al-Anon, by the name of Father Tom W. He's a Jesuit priest, with an amusing and insightful message - you can find free downloads on the internet at various sites. (If you have trouble finding a free download, you can email me and I'll send you some links.)

I've been listening to a series of his Al-Anon talks titled "Living With Crazy People." It's helped me to reorient myself, and today, I realise that I'm not the only member of this household who is living with a lunatic. My husband is also living with a crazy person. I need to remember that.

When I begin to feel frustrated and annoyed with his "isms," I need to remember that I have "isms" of my own. I have my own insanity. The reason I chose the title of this blog, was because it is only when I view my world through an Al-Anon filter, that I am able to let go of my ego, and be more of the person I want to be.

When my ego is driving, I might get a few minutes wild exciting ride, but the end of that trip is a fast collision with a hard tree. When my Higher Power is driving, it's a slower drive, but I arrive safely.

The problem as I see it, is that any time I try to start a struggle for the steering wheel, my HP just lets go -  doesn't even try to keep driving, just moves out of the way immediately, saying, "Right, then - you carry on, and call me if you need me."

Bang! Head-on into the tree of reality I smash. I am a crazy person. I may be a crazy person with some Al-Anon sanity, but at my core, I am barking mad. I forget this at my peril.

Start again. Step One: admit my powerlessness. Step Two: know that my HP can restore me to sanity. Step Three: agree to let my HP drive for a while.

I can be a slow learner, but I do come around eventually, and I'm grateful for that.

Let It Be. (And If You Can't, Call Someone!)

For me, this has been one of the most continuingly difficult lessons of Al-Anon: detach. Let it be. Let go of the outcomes, let go of other people's choices, let go of what I want, what I think I need, what I feel, what I once felt, all of it.

Open my tightly clutching hand, and let it fall away. Turn my thinking to another topic, find a way to entertain myself, which will keep me not only off the gerbil wheel, but out of the room inside my head where that wheel is kept.

Don't go there, and stand in the doorway, wondering if I should just "go over, and dust it a little..." I know from long experience that in this area, I have much in common with the alcoholic - once I move that mental wheel even an inch, habit and compulsion will sweep me onto it, and before I realise it, I'll be running as fast as I can go, ramping up what might have begun as a slightly uncomfortable feeling, into a mess of overwhelming pain and frustration.

Last night, after the meeting, in the coffeeshop, we were talking about how hard it can be to call someone. That phone is the heaviest thing in the world when we are in the "I should be able to handle this myself!" state of  mind. Maybe we are suffering from false pride, not wanting to admit to others that we are in pain. Perhaps we are ashamed that we aren't further along in our program, that we don't have the answers right now, to help ourselves. Maybe we are afraid we will be bothering the other person, or setting ourselves up for an obligation.

I have been in all of those places, and believed all of those premises.  I have also learned to let those thoughts go through my head, and then go over and pick up the phone and start calling. 

If you decide to wait to feel comfortable, before your first time of calling a program friend when you need to, you will never do it.

It is going to feel wierd and uncomfortable. You will squirm and agonise, feel embarassed, and awkward. Everyone does. Call anyway.

There will be those who aren't home. Either leave a message asking to be called back, or go to the next person on the list. If you reach someone, ask if they have a few moments to talk. If they don't, thank them, and call the next person on the phone list.

Accept that these first few phone calls are going to bring up a host of feelings that you don't particularly like to feel. Look at it this way: you were most likely scared spitless the first time you went out onto the road in a car, learning how to drive, but the end result was enough to make you willing to suffer through that fear.

The end result of learning how to reach out, is the massive wealth of experience, strength and hope, just waiting for you to walk over, pick up the phone, feel what you feel, and plug into that source of help and comfort.

Think of it as learning how to drive your life down the road into serenity.

Relativity Isn't Just A Mathematical Concept.

I was reminded, by the story of a newcomer at my home group last night, just how fortunate I am, to live the life I have today.

That's another reason I continue to attend Al-Anon meetings - to remind myself of where I used to be, and to give newcomers a promise that "it works if you work it."

I may still have days when I just am not able to wrestle my mood back onto the rails, but I have to allow for that - I cannot do what isn't humanly possible. I have to forgive myself for those days, and also, not assign to them, too much weight. A less-than-wonderful day doesn't have to be a sinister indication that anything is wrong. A fretful state of mind can seem a portend of doom approaching, but only if I regard it with fear, rather than making allowances for these as occasional happenings.

When I get up the next day, and I'm feeling better - well, that's a blessing, and I'm also grateful for those who read my blog and leave encouraging comments.

I like this from today's reading in Hope for Today:

"Giving the program away is an affirmation that I have some program to give."

That's why these reminders are so helpful - I have a tendency to indulge in all-or-nothing thinking; and forget that where I am is vastly, marvellously, better than where I was.

The sun is shining again, so I'm going dog-walking.

Generating Trouble.

From  ODATIA, page 52:

"Mental sobriety is a state of reasonableness, rational judgement, balance. It is emotional sickness when we continue to be apprehensive and anxious when we really have no reason to doubt.
I will pray today and every day, for healthful, wholesome thinking, so that I may not generate trouble for myself."

Before Al-Anon, I had no concept of how I generated trouble, I was under the firm impression that all trouble in my life came from outside me, and I was just reacting to it.

Practising the Steps has taught me that I caused much of my misery by hopping up onto the gerbil wheel at the slightest sensation of unease, and giving it a good workout. I ran as though all the Furies of Hell were after me: as if I were training for a new speed record.

I could take a minor situation and through obsessive thinking, turn it into something which occupied my thoughts to the exclusion of anything pleasant, and had a physical effect upon me - making it impossible to sleep, eat, relax.

I was a master at generating trouble. I couldn't let anything go, I couldn't detach, I couldn't enjoy my life. I can see now that these were lessons learned in early childhood - that was how the adults in my life dealt with their environments, so that must be the way it's done.  I added years, without maturing in mindset: a fearful angry person. Before I could achieve any perspective on my own internal dialogue, I needed to deal with my resentments, and martyrdom - until that happened, I accepted whatever sentiment wandered across my mental horizon, as the truth, not understanding it was the truth only according to me.

My first sponsor set me a task - for one week, I was to question all of the editorial comment from my internal dialogue, and to act upon none of it. I was to work towards achieving a state of relative quietude inside my own head.

Right. Sure. I'll start that immediately.

I must have been gazing at her with a snarky disbelief upon my face, for she reiterated her directions in her "brook no argument" tone, and finished with a rhetorical question about those who are negative about each and every suggestion or idea offered to them, and how was that expressing willingness, could I tell her that, please?

I slunk off home feeling hard done by, woke up the next day, and decided in my stubborn fashion, to prove to her that it couldn't be done, it was ridiculous, it was asinine, it was a waste of time....oops, that's editorial comment, isn't it, and I'm supposed to be allowing life to flow past like a tinkling stream...

By the time I met up with my sponsor again, had I used a water allusion, it would have been more of the "natural disaster" and "swept all before it" or "engulfed completely" sort, than her choice of a gentle stream. I'd been shocked to discover just how much of my thinking was driven by anxiety and apprehension, and how similar to bailing the ocean with a teaspoon it had felt, trying to achieve peace and quiet in that madhouse between my ears.

I had an inkling of the depth and breadth to which the floodwaters of my pessimism and fear could spread, given any encouragement whatsoever. Trying to curb my "editorial comment" gave me a grasp of just how entrenched it was.

I felt powerless, and I knew unmanageability; I had seen it in action in my life. I had, instead of wandering through my day while living in resentment about the past, or dread of the future, spent some time in the here-and-now, and didn't like it one bit. "Why would anyone want to live in the now?" I asked, when we met again. I laugh writing that, but I wanted an answer that would make sense to me.

As I saw it at the time, my sponsor failed me, giving me the feel-good reply, "Because the now is all you get, my dear." What a patient woman she was, putting up with being bombarded with carefully-thought-out justifications for staying stuck in my unhappiness, which had been bad enough to drive me into Al-Anon, but once there, I didn't want to have to exert myself making any real changes. I wanted a fast solution to my ex-husband's drinking.

Give me the secret code, I'll plug it in, he'll be recovered, and we'll live happily ever after. Or not. Even now, with all that I've learned and know, I can still get stuck in that place of "Why should I have to..."

I shouldn't have to. In the best of all possible worlds, I wouldn't have to. But this isn't, and I do, if I want to get anywhere. I was washing the dishes tonight, listening to my silent, internal, editorial comment, and sighing to hear how childish it was. I like to tell my sponsees, when they get into the "But why? Why?"  drawer,

"It is what it is."

"Yes, I realise that, but blah blah, and I just need to know why it is."

"What if you can't find a reason? Are you going to predicate your recovery upon getting reasons you find acceptable? Life doesn't always give us nice tidy reasons. It is what it is."

I can hear their teeth gnashing together in frustration, and think with great affection of my first sponsor, who listened with such warmth and love to all my tooth gnashing.

That's how program works; we receive it, and we pay it forward.

Obsessive Thinking, Part 2 - Running on the Gerbil Wheel is Not What Your Doctor meant by: "Get more exercise."

I've got a couple of shorthand ways to describe obsessing - "foxhunting" is one, and "on the gerbil wheel" is another. The latter came about when I was visiting a friend, whose kids had a gerbil, and while we talked, the gerbil was on the wheel in his cage, running for all he was worth. "Look at him," my friend commented - "he really thinks he's getting somewhere!"
I answered, "I can relate to that, I do the mental equivalent."
We grinned at each other, then said, in perfect unison: "Obsessing!"

When one is in public, and wants to share, without giving anyone in the immediate vicinity clues as to just what is being discussed, these little shorthand terms come in handy.
So we meet and ask each other, "What have you been up to?" and sometimes the reply is: "Foxhunting." Or, "Oh, not so good, I've been on the gerbil wheel, for 3 days straight!"

"Gerbilling" just seems such a perfect way to describe the process; all that mad exertion and energy expenditure, and when we climb off, finally, haggard, and gasping for breath, where are we? In the same damn place we were, when we first climbed on. What a colossal and futile time-waster "gerbilling" is: not to mention how it saps our morale, and poisons our moods.

We have a choice, we always have a choice, whether we see it or not. We choose to climb on in the first place, and when we're in full stride, we have nothing keeping us on it, but our own decision to stay there. I can see, in hindsight, that I used the gerbil wheel as a way to give myself the illusion that I was making progress, (just as the gerbil may believe that if he just ramps it up a notch, he may step off into a superior cage, maybe with a little girl gerbil, or some different seeds to eat.)

Unlike the gerbil, we've got opposable thumbs, we can climb down off the gerbil wheel, go over, open the cage door and walk out into freedom. Some days, freedom is just too alarming and overwhelming, when we are new to it. So we go back into the cage and pull the door to for a while longer, it's safe in there. Constricting, boring, but safe. We climb on the wheel and take ourselves for a manaical run at top speed, until we feel sufficiently wearied, and are willing to dismount and try some other form of cerebral exercise.

Such as working our program.