Ready To Give

"Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive."
~ Meister Eckhart

I read the above quote just before heading out to work at Cathechism classes at church today. After only a few hours sleep last night I was not at all enthused about going. My bed felt far too comfortable and my body weary. But I read this and prayed to be open.

We are a very small parish. There are only 3 children who attend Mass with any regularity. So it was wonderful to hear the sounds of over 20 children fill the sanctuary this morning and even greater to see them enthused throughout the day. Many of these children's grandparents or great grandparents were once regular attendees in our parish. Through quarrels and misunderstandings quite a few of their descendants stopped coming and those hard feelings are still festering. Insensitive priests, misunderstandings between parishioners, and who knows what all, lies between the faith of the generations. Only yesterday I heard the story of one family who left the church because of a mean spirited comment made by the priest in the midst of the Mass. A comment he stopped the Mass to make. I don't blame them for walking out 30 years ago and I believe that there comes a day when one has to take responsibility for nursing a grudge for so long.

One of the activities the children did today was to go outside and pick a rock to symbolize how hardened we can let our hearts get. Then they used play dough to make a shape that symbolized a softer heart. During the course of the day I over heard one little girl look resentfully at a group of boys, who were doing their best to make her miserable, and say, "They make my heart so hard." I hear you, sister.

I have my own issues with hardening my heart. Every day is an opportunity to release a bit of that hardness. Today was no exception. After classes were over and I was on to other things, someone commented on one of my glaring character defects while I was in the midst of repeating it for the umpteenth time. I found myself shutting down emotionally lickety split. It wasn't too long before I was sitting in silence and brooding. I thought to myself, "I'm nursing a grudge." My next thought was about how I really had no desire to let go of it....nursing it felt rather good. Then I thought about where nursing a grudge would lead me and I prayed for the courage to let it go.

One of the best pieces of advice I heard in these Joe and Charlie Big Book Study talks was about resentments (step 4). There they say that the original hurt at the hands of someone else - the first time, they did it - no problem - it's only natural and human to feel the hurt. But the second time I replay the situation in my mind, to feel the pain again - I'm doing it to myself now. And every time I replay it I make what they did a little bit worse and what I did a little bit better. This is the way an alcoholic mind works, anyway. The way my mind works.

So I'm in the process of letting go of today's hurt.
Before I shut my eyes tonight I will have worked it through and let it go.
I'm not always so willing to do the next right thing.
But hanging onto my hurt will only harm my recovery.
And I can be stubborn in the weirdest of ways.
Remaining pissed off at someone, while knowing full well that the consequences will do more damage to me than them, is enough motivation today to make the smart choice.
I'm grateful to know that choice exists.
I often don't want to follow through on it.
But I'm still grateful to know it's possible.
Sounds like a gift to me.

Nibbling At The Edges

It's Monday. Tomorrow's the first of the month. I've spent countless of either of those days determined to revamp my life complete with a written list from A to Z. These days I know the urge to revamp happens when I'm feeling shame. Revamping is just another way of spelling insanity but that hasn't stopped me from spelling it 100 different ways, thousands of times. Since coming home from treatment 10 months ago alarm bells clang when I start forming a mental A to Z list. God help me if it makes it to the writing stage.

The flip side of that is that often I've thought - oh tomorrow's Monday, the first of the month, the last of the month, whatever, that's tomorrow.....I'll just keep engaging in this behaviour until then.

Shame is such a shitty companion yet today it's letting me know I need to look at what's going on beneath the surface instead of making some list of above surface activity as if that has the power to transform me. Shame could propel me into making a gigantic list with which I could convince myself if I just followed it religiously enough I would be okay. Except I won't let it. To try that would mean I'd also be gritting my teeth, white knuckling it and holding my breath until my rigid walls of perfection crumbled under my humanity. I think the longest I've lasted is 3 weeks. The longest 3 weeks ever. Okay. Really, my record is ten seconds but I could convince myself it's much, much longer if it weren't for those hormones that kick in at the 3 week mark. They mess with my denial every month.

The last few days of stuffing my feelings with food is what I'm feeling shame about this morning. While staying away from my binge foods I skirted around the edges as close as possible. Which is insanity in itself. Let's see how close to the pit I can get. That's right up there with sniffing empty beer bottles or sticking my nose in an empty bag of chips and inhaling deeply. Nibbling at the edges to see how close I can get without tumbling right in.

I wasn't interested in surrendering anything, although the thought did cross my mind. "Later", I said as I ate another cookie. "Later", I shouted as I drank a pop. I've forgotten what it feels like to go to bed certain that I've morphed into the beached whale's sister. It doesn't matter that I'm 60 pounds lighter than the last time I felt this way. I still felt like the morphing process was complete. And that's why recovery from compulsive overeating has nothing to do with weight anyway. Thinner does not necessarily mean healthier. Heavier does not necessarily denote unhealthiness. Recovery has to do with the journey between the head and the heart.

And that journey is taken baby step by baby step. No A to Z list will cut it. As I sat alone in the coolness of the church yesterday I thought about what baby step I could take towards sanity. I thought back to this post and how unwilling I've been to follow through with my gift to myself. I'm still looking for distraction. I sat there and decided a baby step could mean 5 minutes of being present a day. Don't change anything else Hope, just sit for that 5 minutes. Okay I can do that. I sat there very aware of how much grace I need. Of how screwed up life gets when I live it on my own terms and the hell with nudges from the Spirit or advice from a friend. I left church with less shame and more hope.

Then I came home and ate the rest of the cookies.
After all, it wasn't Monday yet.

Baby Stepping My Way Forward

I don't think I can stand another post about the radio documentary, can you?. I'm obsessing about it and that's not good. So for today I will change the subject on purpose. Tomorrow I'll try and do the same. No guarantees.

Today was a birthday meeting at AA. The guy whose birthday it was we've been wondering week to week when he'll show up for his cake. His sobriety birthday was last month but work took him out of town. He showed up today sans cake and so the chair of the meeting handed me the chair duties while he went and bought a cake. I had a wedding to go to right after the meeting.

About a year ago when I was getting ready to chair my first meeing I said how nervous that made me. My sponsor asked, "What are you afraid of - making a mistake?" Um, yes. Definitely yes. Her question simmered me down and gave me perspective. If there's a safe place to screw up it's in a recovery meeting. Well, except we alcholics/addicts tend to be perfectionists, but at least we can laugh about it and recognize the insanity of it.

So I didn't fret when the meeting ran over time. I just handed the chair duties back to the cake buyer and ducked out to go to the wedding. I have no appropriate clothes to wear to such a celebration. I didn't realize that until I went to get dressed this morning. After a nearly 60 pound weight loss no wonder I have no fancy schmancy clothes to wear. The only semi appropriate dress in my closet was too big so I opted to get back into my jeans. We're pretty casual at the little church in the wildwoods that I go to so I wear jeans every Sunday. And flip flops some days. Or thongs, as they used to be called, before thongs got hijacked to describe a different pary of the anatomy. Doesn't that just crack you up?! I have a pretty pair of lime green thongs on my feet.

Anyway the birthday fellow is one of my favourite AA people. He speaks wisdom every time he opens his mouth. Because I chaired I didn't get a chance to tell him how his journey has impacted mine. I have his phone number in my wallet though so I may just call him later on tonight. We have similar years of sobriety but he was the one who I watched at meetings and said to myself, "he has what I want." I listen hard when he shares at meetings.

Best thing I heard at the meeting today was that it takes baby steps to get where we're headed. Those baby steps add up but we have to be patient for them to do so. It made me make a mental note to ask myself every day what baby step can I take forward today?

For today it was not to write about the radio documentary.