Upon Reflection…

January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 / Tim / 1 Comment

One of the AA speakers I’ve listened to in the last year often says, “Life is lived forward but understood backward.” We live our lives moving ahead moment to moment but it is only on reflection in meditation or journaling or discussion that we see the patterns emerging and the fullness of the landscape of our lives.

July, 2022. I heard a voice, or at least a very strong idea in my head as I sat in a van returning from Panama to my home in Costa Rica. This insistent idea was that I needed to return to Canada. What???

I had been living very comfortably in the tropics for the past ten years in my home and among friends. I very much belonged there, I thought. When I questioned why I should go back home, the idea came that it had something to do with my wellbeing, that I just needed to be back up north. There wasn’t a clear reason, really, but the thought, the idea, was very persistent the rest of that day and the next. I thought plenty about it, it was part of my meditation and journaling. I rationalized that it had something to do about my mom who was 89 and in a nursing home.

I talked to my brother, mentioned that I was thinking of moving back to Canada. A few days later he told me that I could live in the little house at his business, which had been empty for several years. He had a vehicle I could use. He also needed someone to do some computer design work and help out in the office. I could go and visit with Mom, a half an hour away whenever I wanted.

Boom! I had a place to stay, a job and a way to move around back in a country where I no longer owned anything. Perhaps this was some sort of message from a Higher Power.

It didn’t happen right away. I had responsibilities to look after before I left. Patience. I moved back in December of 2022. I settled into a very different way of life just as winter was coming on. I became a regular at local thrift shops, buying warmer clothes and things for the house. I jumped into a new job with a commute that takes 30 seconds if I walk slowly and I got to spend time with Mom. I joined the local AA group and also went to other meetings in the area, often combining a visit with Mom in Stratford and attending meetings there.

There were times I felt lonely. After 5 PM and on weekends, I was alone on the property. I learned to adjust to a new way of life. I continued with my morning meditation and journaling. I got into more service work in AA. I was grateful, mostly, for where I was. I trusted that idea that this is where I was supposed to be.

In March of 2023 another persistent idea arrived: Get a new sponsor. I wasn’t going anywhere so I figured I may as well do as I was told. I had an idea of who I thought would be a good sponsor, but decided to ask a friend who sponsors a lot of men if he had someone he thought could sponsor me. He replied with the name of the guy I had been thinking about. Something was clicking. The new sponsor and I had a coffee together. I thought we would just be chatting now and again about ‘stuff’, but he suggested that we go through the steps again as outlined in the Big Book. And so we have.

I hadn’t a clue as to what lay ahead of me as I worked through the 12 Steps again with this man.

He shared with me the ‘Set Aside Prayer’ at our first Big Book session. It has become for me a touchstone of this path I am on in my journey: letting go to what I know to make room for new knowledge. Oh the things I am learning by letting go of preconceived thoughts and ideas and by not putting conditions on where my journey is leading me. I am learning to put my trust in a Higher Power, following through on my decision in Step Three.

I’m letting go, mostly, of trying to control my future. I know that I couldn’t have imagined what has happened to me in the past 18 month had I tried to control things. Upon reflection, I know that while telling folks that Mom wasn’t doing well was a plausible reason for returning here, I see now that the main reason I’m back has been for me: I needed to renew my commitment to the AA program. I needed to do some deep work with another man. I needed to listen to speakers talking about AA, the Big Book, the steps and my disease. I needed to share this program by working with others and be of service. I needed to see how close I was to taking a drink.

Upon reflection, I see that now.

Today I have a better understanding of what these past months have given me. I certainly didn’t as I was going through all the changes. I will be sharing some of this in future posts.

I don’t know where my journey is taking me. But my understanding of everything I’ve gone through has given me greater trust and confidence in moving forward. So I will continue to do what’s strongly suggested in Steps 10, 11 and 12 in order to grow, and I will trust the process. And, upon reflection, my understanding of these things will become clearer.

The Service Road

October 30, 2022October 27, 2022 / Tim / 1 Comment

I am not sure when I first saw a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II walking out on the moors of Scotland wearing a dowdy looking oil-skin coat and a headscarf. I was taken aback. I thought, until then, that the Queen would always be regally crowned, wearing her robes with her scepter close at hand. My thoughts about royalty, peerage and social class has changed over the years, but one thing that has not is my admiration for her commitment to her role as Queen. I can think of no finer example of a person who has lived a life of service to others. Hers was a less traveled, less popular road but she was always guided by her commitment to service. Her life is a challenge to all of us to work toward a life of service.

Why should I, or anyone, live a life dedicated to service? What’s in it for me? What will I get out of it?

These questions strike at the very reason why service is so important. Service gets ‘me’ out of the way. When I came into recovery I was told very early on; ‘service will keep you sober.’ Whether it was putting out books, washing coffee mugs or even sharing at meetings, I was being of service. I was getting out of my ‘self’ and into a collective understanding of things. My addiction was a result of an overactive Ego. I wasn’t much, as the saying goes, but I was all I ever thought about. When I was helping others I stopped, even just for a moment, thinking about me, my situation, my problems. I was thinking about the people around me.

No man is an island.

No one, absolutely no one, can live alone. We by our very nature need a mother and father and we need care for the first years of our lives. Even the hermit who lives is a cave relies on others. How long would one survive alone? Robinson Crusoe had Friday and Tom Hanks in Cast Away had Wilson. We all need someone because despite how much one might detest others, we are social creatures. I want to do more than simply survive in this life; I want to thrive. I can’t do so without others and other’s need me as well. It’s a two-way street. Together we can go further, arrive at better decisions and become much more than we ever could alone.

Service to others, to individuals or to the community helps me to learn my strengths and my weaknesses. I can learn and teach when I am of service. It is more than helping or doing for others. It is being there when they need a hand yes, but it is also allowing others to help me too. I have said before that while the saying is, “It takes a village to raise a child,” it also takes a village to maintain an adult and help them to thrive.

Service serves humility

Humility is often confused with humiliation. I was taught early on that humility was stating what is; the truth without exaggeration nor denigration. Humility keeps my ego tamed. Every time I find myself angry, resentful or fearful, I can always trace it back to my Ego and the desire to have things my way and not the way they are. I believe that service helps to keep me humble and reminds me that life it not all about what I want. I meet my own needs by helping to meet the needs of the community as a whole.

I also believe that service helps me to develop self-appreciation, a facet of humility. In helping someone with a project, teaching others or allowing them to teach me a new skill, in offering an honest opinion, or receiving criticism, I can learn to love, honour and value myself. In this way, service to others is also service to me: the community of which I am a part, will continue to learn, grow and develop.

Queen Elizabeth is but one model of service that we can find in our world today. We don’t have to go far in own communities to name others who are as committed and duty bound to serving others: a teacher who puts in extra hours tutoring or coaching, the nurse who also volunteers at a local hospice, the members of Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Each may have their own reasons for doing their work, but the result is the same: a community that is a little bit better off than it would be without their service. It’s a road that we all should walk down. As the Beatles have been reminding us for almost 60 years now, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” Together we can trudge that road of happy destiny.

. . .

I just finished Michael Singer’s latest book, Living Untethered. This is his long awaited follow-up to his other books, The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment. I was struck by one of his conclusions about the purpose of life. It is not to find happiness, to live in peace or to have all your needs met. Nor is our life’s purpose to gain fame, fortune and recognition. It is to be of Service. I encourage you to seek out his books.

Opening the Door to Change

October 23, 2022October 21, 2022 / Tim / Leave a comment

When I was still in the throws of my addictions I only had a faint idea of what I was really doing to myself; the physical, emotional and mental harm I caused, not only to me, but those who cared about me. Part of that is because I spent most of my time seeking out and planning out the next ‘party’ and part of it was because of my ‘buddies’ at the time. I hung around folks who acted like me and thought like me. One of the first ‘suggestions’ I received in recovery was to step away from those people, places and things that were part of my life that I wished to leave behind; close that door and open a new one. Simple enough advice, but why did it take decades to realize it?

In order to change how I was living, I had to change how I was living.

I replaced my barstool for a chair in a meeting room and changed what I thought about by listening to and reading recovery literature. I started to listen to others in recovery. I started to talk to others about what I was going through. I helped out with cleaning up after the meetings and did some socializing with the new people I was meeting. I got myself an excellent sponsor and I began to study the Twelve Steps of Recovery with him. Over the course of the next six months I changed a great deal. The change was gradual, almost imperceptible to me, but very obvious to those that I hadn’t frightened off in the previous years. I changed my perspective, what I was looking at, and everything changed.

G.I.G.O.: Garbage In: Garbage Out…..or…..GOOD IN: GOOD OUT!

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Every one of us is the direct result of what we put into our bodies, minds and spirit. Western society’s fixation of fast cheap food had pushed obesity to the extreme. You simply can’t have a healthy body if you continue to put unhealthy food into it. Same with the mind. If you want a healthy mind, be aware of what you are putting into it. What are you watching, reading, listening to? Who are your buddies? Where are you spending most of your time? As the saying goes; tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are!

It takes mindfulness, conscious action and a determination to build the life you want to have. I used to put the cart ahead of the horse. I thought that if I had x, y, and z then I would be happy. I have discovered that happiness is the result of living according to my values and principles. Happiness is the realization that I am living right. When I am happy, the x, y and z will come to me, or, more likely, I will discover that I while I may ‘want’ those things, I really don’t ‘need’ them.

Yes, I had to leave my old buddies behind when I came into recovery. I found new ones who honoured my recovery and who helped me along the way. I let the old buddies know where I was and what I was doing and left the door open for them to come through but made it clear that I had no intention of walking back through that door and onto my old barstool. And as long as I continue to pursue new ‘Good’ to put into my body, mind and soul, I know that I will continue to move forward in life.

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The ‘Tim’ of the past is gone.

One of the most profound lessons I had to learn in recovery was that I had to let go of the ‘Tim’ that I knew in order for a new person to emerge. This is a lesson that I repeat daily, asking my Higher Power to ‘relieve me of the bondage of self’: to free me from my ego’s enslavement. If I wish to continue to grow today I must shed the old skin of yesterday and I do that by being mindful and aware of the people, places and things I’m spending my time with. Only by this daily renewal do I continue to move forward in this incredible journey of discovery that is life.