Have I told you lately?

We went out to dinner with a couple that has been at the marina for a few years.    Somehow we started talking about expressing love.  My wife and I looked at each other and said that we start the day by saying that we love each other, and we end the day that way as well.

I can remember my grandmother telling me that it is important to tell those you love that you do indeed love them and to reinforce those words with actions of love.  Sadly, I don't know that people express in words or deeds their love.  The couple we were with at dinner said that they haven't said "I love you" in six years.   But they have only been married for six years!

I take a lot of life's lessons from music.  One of those songs that came into my head as we were talking was Van Morrison's "Have I Told You Lately that I Love You".  It's a beautiful song and one that reminds me to express verbally the love that I feel for someone who fills my heart with gladness.

You see, in spite of those times that weren't glad,  I still felt a huge amount of love for the person that I knew was being controlled by alcohol.  When she wasn't drinking, times were wonderful.  It was only when the disease would plant itself firmly between us that I would feel love diminishing.  I think that we are lucky that the flame didn't die out.  There were some pretty cold embers and not much spark for a long time.

Another thing that my grandmother said was not to go to bed angry.  Well,  I went to bed a lot of nights angry.  It did nothing good for me.  I would sleep little, be worn out the next day, and feel resentful and miserable.  Now, we do our best to resolve issues so that we can go to bed saying that we love one another.  I have learned that promptly admitting when I am wrong goes a long way towards getting over anger.  

I believe true intimacy with other people is borne out of self love.  I know my own understanding of love and intimacy has changed a lot since becoming a part of this recovery program. Before recovery,  I felt righteous indignation, resentment, superiority and justified distancing was something I was rightly entitled to. Thanks to recovery today I feel intimacy isn't a contest of wills but an exercise in vulnerability.  I found these two Al-Anon books helped me to understand myself and my partner:  Sexual Intimacy and the Alcoholic Relationship and the Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage.

I am glad that we don't just co-exist without love.  It might work for some people.  Or perhaps there is love, but it isn't easily expressed.  I like that we have worked on being able to re-state our love and communicate it freely. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack.  If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.

Have I Told You Lately that I love you?
Have I told you there's no one else above you?
Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness,
Ease my troubles, that's what you do.

For the morning sun in all it's glory,

Meets the day with hope and comfort too,

You fill my life with laughter, somehow you make it better,

Ease my troubles, that's what you do. ~ Van Morrison

Some thoughts late in the day

It's really late for me to be posting. But there were a few things that I needed to go over in my day as it comes to a close.

This nightly inventory is something that I have done now for quite a while. I go back over my day, what I have done, who I was with and what happened.

So here is what happened today. This morning I had discussions with a few of those people who will be assuming my projects and duties when I retire. This has been a lot tougher to deal with than I thought. For some reason it feels as if the "lots have been cast" on my career. I know that this was inevitable. Still there is a sense of sadness that after so many years of working here, I am now in a transition mode with my staff as the clock winds down towards my retirement.

I decided to clear my head and went down to the boat at noon. Even though the boat was at the dock, just having her back in the water after haul out last week feels good. Her bottom has been painted and her electrical system was checked over. I just needed to be down there and gently rocked for a couple of hours. I felt the presence of God as he enveloped me in peace.

I sat on the floor when I came home and tried to get my old dog to eat something. She had a choice of stewed chicken, some beef, salmon or cat food. She picked the cat food and ate two cans. I feel that I can sleep peacefully knowing that she has a will to live for at least another day. I know that her time is near. I'm just not ready to let her go.

I have come to terms today with compromises that I have made recently. I am willing to let go of someone who has breached my trust but yet I still hold that person close in my mind and heart. I pray for wisdom to deal with my defect that allows me to give another chance to someone who most likely isn't deserving. I am striving to grow in understanding. And to not let myself become lost in the tragic decisions of another.

I think that today was a good example of what this program has done for me: I can get through difficulties without anger and resentment; I can feel compassion and love where trust has been broken, and I can feel pain and loss but still have hope.

Transformation

I had a meeting with an old colleague this morning. During the course of our conversation, I told him how a proposal that a group of us had worked on was not submitted to the granting agency on Friday. Another scientist who is the principal on the project was supposed to submit it. Unfortunately, he didn't remember until Sunday night which was too late.

My old colleague looked at me in a bit of shock. He said to me, "Something's different about you. You seem so laid back and at ease. You've never suffered fools gladly. Is there anything wrong?" I had to laugh.

The old me would have been filled with resentment and judgment over the proposal not being submitted. The old me would have castigated myself over leaving it in the hands of someone else. Instead, I chose not to let it ruin my Monday. I went to my home group meeting and did a program on Step 10. Amazing how God arranges things so that I hear just what I needed to hear when I need to hear it.

The transformation that I feel daily fills me with gratitude. I'm glad that I don't have to react out of anger or judgment. I can feel myself flying even on days when I think that I can only crawl.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. ~Richard Buckminster Fuller

Restraint of tongue and pen

"Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument. The same goes for sulking or silent scorn. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness. Our first job is to sidestep the traps. When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think. For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic." Step 10. From 12 x 12

I am learning restraint and have been for several years. Yet, there are still times that I want to unload with both barrels of a verbal tirade. There are many times when I can feel what I perceive as injustice, lack of respect, and just plain selfishness from another inviting me to let go of all restraint.

I have read that reactivity is a mindless, thoughtless reflex and involves the least evolved, most primitive parts of us humans. Restraint on the other hand is equated with thoughtful, conscious self-control and indicates better ego functioning. All very true. But there are moments when the primitive parts of myself are fighting with the more civilized me. It would be so easy to let the beast within win.

I think that I've always been a sensitive person. I know that I'm an intuitive person. I can feel a slight in the air almost like a dog can air scent his beloved human. This hypersensitivity has created a lot of problems in relationships over my life time. It's because I knew that I was being told lies, I knew that the promises were going to be broken, I knew that something unpleasant was going to occur.

And yet, I generally didn't go into an external rage. I wasn't a dish thrower, a verbal abuser, or a trafficker in sarcasm. Instead, I practiced restraint. I would try to rationalize, and yes, deny what I was really feeling. But my restraint only went so far. Instead of voicing my displeasure and binging on an emotional outburst, I would opt to be the wounded victim, the self-righteous martyr. Rather than confront a situation directly, I would give the silent treatment. And all the while inside I was fuming, wanting to release the tiger from the cage.

I still do some of that manipulative self-righteous fuming. But I have also learned to speak up in a rational and reasonable way when something really bothers me. I generally think about what is going on, what I feel, look at what my role is, and make a decision whether it is important enough (How important is it?) to speak up about. Often times if I have a "cooling off" period and detach from the situation, I decide that the affront wasn't really about me. I don't know the intentions of another and what is going on with them. Maybe they are just having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, a bad year, a bad life.

If I do decide to speak up about something, then the approach that I now use is to be direct and say what is bothering me: e.g. "I am uncomfortable about....". I think that a measured approach rather than the shotgun blast approach is less messy and isn't tinged with regret later. Because once out of my mouth, I've found that the indignant rage will deflate me faster than a pin stuck in a balloon. I feel blown apart, without any energy or purpose.

There are lots of triggers that can sabotage self-restraint when it comes to personal relationships. I know that I don't want to swing from one extreme to the other by either reacting too much or restraining myself too much. I strive for balance and awareness. Hopefully, those will take me on the higher road to kindness.

Step Ten

Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

This is my favorite step. I like it because it incorporates all that I've put into action through the previous nine steps. But most of all, it means that it's okay for me to recognize and admit my mistakes promptly and then move on.

Step 10 means that I take my own inventory and not someone else's. I've had a lot of opportunities to take the alcoholic's inventory. But that isn't what this is about. And this step isn't about my being right. It's about my having the humility to acknowledge that I make mistakes and that I need to look at my motives and my deeds.

When I first did this step with my sponsor, I was asked to have a checklist of a daily inventory for things to watch for. These included some of my big character defects: self-pity, resentment, negative thinking, self-condemnation, dishonesty. This checklist at the end of the day helped me to be aware of my actions.

Eventually, I no longer had a check off sheet on paper but would go over at the end of the day the part that I played---whether I made conscious choices about my behavior or whether I was just reacting to what others wanted from me or what I thought would make them like me.

Now I find that whenever I feel uncomfortable at any time during the day, it's time to take my inventory. If I'm sad, then I look at why that may be. Is it because I am fearful about something? I have to be honest with myself and not rationalize my actions, and then I have to either make an apology or change my behavior. I do this by being aware, accepting what I have done, and then taking action to remedy the situation.

My sponsor has told me that promptly admitting my wrongs means to act within 48 hours--not a week or a year--but within a time frame that allows me to calm down and get some perspective. If I'm really angry about something, I need some time to see my part in the situation and then I can make a sincere apology, rather than one that feels like I'm eating crow.

It's important in this step for me to pray for willingness to see the viewpoints of others. I keep a journal and write in this blog about things that bother me. And I can also give the situation up to my Higher Power. That sometimes is the only thing that keeps me from going round and round in my head over something that I can't seem to resolve on my own.

I can remember wanting to have a "discussion" with the alcoholic when she was drinking. I know now that I was trying to pick a fight. I would do everything that I could to thrust my character defects onto the other person because I didn't want them within me. That was a bad plan and I've learned that it's better to keep my mouth shut. I don't need to apologize for something that I didn't do (I did a lot of that), nor do I need to respond to the moods or actions of another when it's none of my business. If it's not my job to fix something, then the best thing that I can do is to just let it go.

"[ Step 10 has ] helped me come to grips with the knowledge that being right is not good enough. Right facts with a wrong attitude is wrong. It's not really so much an issue of wrong vs. right as it is fear vs. love. When I'm acting out of love, you can say anything, and it's okay with me. When I'm acting out of fear, I argue. I have to prove I'm right." from How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics , © Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 1995, page 298.

I don't know if I could.....

I don't know if I could still live with active alcoholism. I was thinking about this yesterday as I watched how happy my loved one is. And so I thought about how much I love her, but I questioned whether I could live with her drinking again. And the answer is: I don't know.

Those years were tumultuous. And even though I feel at peace much of the time, I know that the anxiety of being around someone who is actively drinking would tear at me. I hear it talked about in meetings: the pain and the sadness of living with active alcoholism. I listen but did I really hear what they were saying? Maybe I was stuck in my smugness thinking that it won't happen with us. But the alcoholic is only one drink away from disaster.

Even though I practice the program and know about detachment, it's still hard for me to envision detaching sufficiently to remain in an alcoholic relationship. Why am I thinking about this today? I don't actually know, other than my inventory is telling me that I feel anxious, like a shoe is about to fall. Maybe it's seeing the contrast of a happy person who is sober and thinking back to those unhappy times when alcohol was in charge. God, I don't want to go there ever again.

Back on track

I inventoried the things that were making me feel anxious. And basically a part of it is fear of uncertainty and the other part is my fear of confrontations. I know that these are uncertain times and that there is nothing that I can do about changing that. I have accepted uncertainty and the fact that I don't have a solution.

What I do have is some clear direction for this day. I know that I'm going to be rowing with the team tonight. I know that I have a work meeting this morning. I know that I have reports to work on. Those are the things that are certain about this day. I'll stick to those things that I know rather than try to understand or clarify processes that are unfathomable.

And with regard to confrontations, I decided that asking more questions and getting clarification in dealing with businesses and people is something that I can do. It doesn't mean that there is a confrontation, but that I have a clear understanding of situations in order to make an informed decision. I can disagree respectfully with someone and take care of myself without having an argument.

So today is a new day. I'm glad that I went to the meeting last night and that there are interesting things to do today. Anxiety is a state of mind that can be acknowledged, inventoried and let go.

"If you have a problem and you can do something about it, there is no need to get anxious about it because you can actively do something to solve it. On the other hand, if there is nothing you can do to solve it, getting anxious about it is useless -- it won't fix the problem. So either way you look at it, whether the problem is solvable or unsolvable, there is no sense in getting anxious or upset about it. Try thinking like that about one of your problems. Just sit for a minute and think, "Is there something I can do about this or not?" from Shantideva

Aware of Ego

One of the topics that I've been reading about and that has come up in a recent meeting was how ego can keep us focused on our pain. Here are some things that I've read about being ego-centered:

• Ego-centered people don't love themselves. They become ego-centered to overcompensate for the fact that they don't love themselves.
  
• Ego does nothing for anyone else without expecting something in return. Ego-centered people are constantly striving for the next achievement or the next pay-off so they can feel self-important. The reality is that they are not "self" important.
  
• Ego-centered people may actually dislike themselves and are very busy being ego-centered in order to hide their true feelings of self-hatred.

The opposite of being ego centered is being spirit-centered. We no longer Edge God Out. Instead, I become more grounded in the present and live with the trust in my HP. It essentially comes when I have my head and my heart in alignment. I'm not relying on my HP when I use my mind to project fear disguised as bravado and confidence. Instead I'm trying to control people, places and things because I have no trust that anything will go well unless I exert control. When the ego is in charge, I have a fear of loss that results from false thinking that if I don't control my universe and everything in it, then I will lose those things that are dear to me.

In order to trust, I have to listen to what I feel in my heart. If I no longer am run by my ego, then I become more open to all kinds of opportunities for growth and can begin to experience love, joy, and serenity.

If I can come to recognize when my ego is controlling me, then I can choose to let go of it. For me, Step 10 is an ego buster. I become aware of when my ego is in charge and I admit when I'm wrong. I examine what I am doing, acknowledge that I am acting out of fear, pride or the other many ways that ego manifests, and then try to get my head and heart in alignment.

This isn't easy for me because I have used the ego and it's products of fear and control for a long time. It's really a hard and sometimes scary process. I've always trusted my mind to figure things out and not listened to my heart because my intellect overpowered it. Now through this program, I'm learning to feel rather than let thinking run everything. By doing so, I am no longer separating myself from others or from my HP.

"Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people's lives are due to unconsciousness.....they are self created, or rather ego-created...."drama". When you are fully conscious, drama does not come into your life anymore....the basic ego patterns are designed to combat it's own deep seated fear and sense of lack. They are resistance, control, power, greed, defence, and attack. Some of the ego's strategies are extremely clever, yet they never truly solve any of it's problems, simply because the ego is the problem itself." (The Power of the NOW by Eckhart Tolle p150)

Fake it Til You Make It

I have heard the expression "Fake It Til You Make It" at several meetings. I never really understood how it would help me. I've never been comfortable with the "faking it" part, although I have done it a lot during my life.

I think that it's better to just walk the walk and work the program, keeping honesty in mind, rather than having the "liar" alarm go off in my head.

Nonetheless, I felt like a fake at a meeting on Friday. I didn't want to go to the meeting, instead I wanted to go home, make it an early evening, and get some rest. But I went to the meeting, and generally felt restless and uninspired. The topic was Let Go and Let God. I shared but knew that I wasn't really letting go of much inside of me. My sharing felt like I was "faking it".

I've learned that there's no magic formula to get out of a bad place or to get past the low points that sometimes come along. Doing a quick inventory made me realize that I was feeling sorry for myself and letting my thinking get the best of me. I called my sponsor and talked about the fake feeling I was having. It was important for me to realize that I'm not always going to feel great. And that the times that I feel down because I'm not getting what I want can be an opportunity for me to remember that there's a purpose to life's events. And no matter what happens, good or bad, I can learn to laugh more and to cry less.

So here are some things that help me to get past those moments of dis-ease:
1. Recognize resentments and take an inventory
2. Let go of worries and fears.
3. Live and let live
4. Give more
5. Expect less

I can't go back and make a brand new start to the day, but I can start from now and make a brand new ending to the day.