Step12.com

[tim-one]

Awr shucks, Dallas. Thanks. Kinda humblatin' and nice to hear.

I'm s'posed to be doing other stuff. Don't blow my cover.

Woops. Too late. He's reading over my shoulder again.

Got a lot of reading to catch up on here.

Love ya,
Tim1

[ccs]

HI! Tim One Ditto on what Dallas said you are missed when you stay away so long
nice to see ya

[pollypickle]

great topic, love all the responses, thank you all!

I definitely find that the big book (and thus the program of recovery) describes a direct link between my relationship with God and my relationship with Self + others.


I also like this one definition of love I read once:

Love is the willingness to extend myself for my own or another's spiritual growth.

That makes the opposite of love for me LAZINESS, which is a big one for me. I can't extend myself past my comfortable egoic boundaries if I am sitting at the computer.

On that note....

[tim-one]

Thanks, Pickle. Good.

I hear that the opposite of love isn't hate. It's apathy.

But I also think love is something you do, like you said. So ... yep ... laziness.

Have I done love today? Better get busy.

Love ya,
Tim1

[angel143]

[ROBERT]

I see some Road Less Traveled stuff here..huh ....love is as love does

[Dallas]

Maybe what you really see here is "The Road of Happy Destiny" because it appears to be "The Road Less Travelled".

[pollypickle]

[pollypickle]

[ROBERT]

yea pollypickle-lets see your in PA. i'm in IL. OK..Yea I can spot PECKS work 700 miles away

[Kayliz]

I agree that successful recovery in AA is all about successfuly using the spiritual and fellowship principles of AA to relate to others in a loving, caring way. And, when we can't be loving and/or caring, to use these same principles to help us recover from that. An excerpt from the book (follows) I mentioned shows how I move in and out of balanced relational behavior and that seems to be par for the course. What I have found is that accepting and showing compassion for myself and my partner (also in recovery) in our most troublesome behavior has helped us to move deeper into sobriety and helped to forge a stronger bond between us.

EXCERPT


HEART DISCOVERY
The circle of AAers at dusk in the sweltering heat in the front garden of a small church in a suburb of White Plains, New York, were intimate strangers to Michael and me, though not, for the most part, to each other. The subject was humility, and as I sat among them listening to their stories, I suddenly saw the entire scene subtly shift to be infused with a gauzy-like spiritual presence that made the whole experience surreal and very sacred. Later, I told Michael that it is a wonderful Grace that we are part of – to be able to travel anywhere in the country and sit with people we hadn’t met before yet join in sharing our most vulnerable emotions and scary attitudes.
On his birthday, Michael and I spend two precious days and remarkable nights together, staying at the Hampton Inn in Tarrytown, New York which was adjacent to White Plains. I had brought Elaine Pagels’ book, The Gnostic Gospels6 with me and we explored – as we generally do – our purpose for being, the meaning of life, and our frustrations with living. This visit together underscored again how dear Michael is to me, as I know I am to him. We argue, talk, walk, eat, and make extraordinary love when we meet. The centerpiece of our relationship, however, is God because we know no power other than God could have joined our two very disparate lives into such harmony and beautiful intimacy.
We are also in a paradoxical relationship. Profound lovers who mirror father and mother, sister and brother to each other, Michael and I see each other also as husband and wife, teacher and student, and fast friends. But as addicts in recovery, we also struggle continually with each other’s ‘character defects’ and impulsive appetites.
A case in point: Not long after one of my visits with him, I feel estranged, abandoned, and I question the validity of my love for Michael. This is predictable. When we rub up against our character defects, I am ready to run. I see that, in my life, I am chronically perched, ready to run. It is a deeply-entrenched pattern. I notice it, now, when I speak informally with my colleagues at school and pausing to observe my inner presence with them. I see that I will talk a few seconds or minutes, then turn to go – as if I need to rush off somewhere. It’s like my whole life has been poised in “crunch” time and there is always some real or imagined deadline, some action, some task, some something that I have to rush off to, so I can’t stay and truly visit with anyone.
Of what am I afraid? What motivates my hypervigilant, bunny rabbit mentality? Is it because I believe people will take up my time, my precious time that I have so little of to do, do, DO? I am reminded of Martha of the sisters Martha and Mary in the gospels. I want to be like Mary at the knee of the Christ, and sit awhile absorbing this glory that is life, complete in and of itself, without need of my Martha-like frenzied and anxious intervention and control.
One morning, in meditation, I get a glimpse of what is distasteful about my character- the Katherine (or Martha) aspect of me, which I have historically seen as the “good” me, the socially-acceptable and politically-correct me. Layered over fear and anxiety is Katherine’s quality of ‘know-it-allness’ of which I am generally unaware when I am engaged with others. And I can see now that it is a defense and barrier to which people negatively respond. They either seem bored or disengage. When I speak, I sound evaluative and controlling (known in lay terms as “bossy”) – certainly qualities I dislike in others – yet, here again, I am powerless over it because typically I can’t see it or hear it. My unconscious, ‘know-it-all’ face is what others see – the scowl, the skeptically lifted eye-brow, or the bitter, turned-down mouth.
This visage is a legacy from me as juvenile Katherine, responsible for eight siblings when my mother was away during the day working as a maid. To control them, I followed my mother’s example and learned to judge and criticize and punish. But as young “left-in-charge-of the-kids” Katherine, I am chronically panic-stricken, because I am not an adult and don’t really know what I am doing, though I pretend that I do, and am constantly hypervigilant about my mother’s expectations when she returns home.
Today, upon reflection, it is evident that the “parentified” child in me colors my adult view of the world. It is very much akin to what the French cinema star, Emmanuelle Béart, observed in the movie, In Search of Debra Winger7, “I mean, in real life anyway, we have a tendency to be kept by the child we have been, right?”

[ROBERT]

---ROCK ON Kayliz!