Ego

Starting With Me

/ Tim / Leave a comment

I was told from a young age that having both Irish and Dutch roots, I would be doubly stubborn. I’ll let those around me decide if that is true or not. For my part, I do know that I haven’t always agreed with the status quo and have tried things just a bit differently. I wasn’t a trail blazer, but did things my own quiet way and I lived a lifestyle that differed greatly from my family’s. I was different not just to be different because the pressure to conform was great. However, I knew that I wouldn’t be happy living the way that was ‘expected’ of me.

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In both career and lifestyle I chose my own path. It wasn’t without it’s challenges and I am sure that part of the pressure that I felt led me down a dark road that, fortunately also led to the doors of a recovery program a little over ten years ago. And also fortunately, I was not told how be or act, but was given suggestions that I was free to follow in order to begin living life on a more balance keel. These ‘suggestions’, the twelve steps of recovery, were up to me to follow and implement in my life at my own pace. I was still quite stubborn and this way of applying the program suited me well. And while I am hardly the poster boy for recovery, I have learned to live life on life terms, one day at a time.

I think that recovery has worked for me because it isn’t forced: nothing used to arouse me more than telling me what I ‘had’ to do. This is the philosophy of ‘attraction, rather than promotion’. I was given suggestions, the members shared their own experience, strength and hope, and I could take it or leave it. There is a lot of wisdom in this philosophy, with a far greater reach just that of sobriety.

Gandhi told us: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” You can’t force people to change, but you can give them the option of living life another way. Telling people what to do rarely works. Showing them how to do something has a much better chance at success. Letting others see what you are doing and how you are living allows them to make a choice. If, indeed, the changes that one makes in their life are attractive, others will follow suit and make similar changes in their own lives.

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I know there are a lot of problems facing the world: economics, climate change, and health challenges have such far reaching effects that as a rather stubborn individual, I have little chance of making any impact upon. In truth, few people ever do. However, I can live the changes I would like to see in the world. I can put out my recycling. I can live a healthier lifestyle. I can respond with kindness and compassion to situations. I can share. It may not seem like much to pick up one bottle off the street when there’s litter everywhere, but I am living my beliefs. And I am making my little part of the world just slightly better. Perhaps your neighbour will see what you have done and decide to help. Even if that neighbour doesn’t change, I have still made my world, and therefore, the world a whole, just an iota better than is was yesterday.

I can’t control what others do. I have learned that my circle of control has a radius that only stretches a few centimeters beyond the tip of my nose. I can’t tell people what to do or how to do it: many are just a stubborn as I am and just as intransigent to change. But they may be attracted to make a change when they see positive results in others. Demonstrating changes and offering suggestions won’t instantly move the world but it does make a small difference. And if the only difference is a little less stubbornness and a bit more peace of mind, then that’s fine with me.

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There is a Solution

/ Tim / 2 Comments

I finished reading a short book last week called: Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality. It’s by a Jesuit priest, Anthony De Mello who died in 1987 at the age of 56. The book, published posthumously, is really a compilation of talks he gave at various retreats throughout North America and his native India. If you get a chance, it is worth a read. The chapters are short and concise, and full of incredible wisdom and insight.

One of the things he discusses is his belief that people are not looking for a cure for their illness or their problems. Rather, they are looking for relief. How often do I look for relief from the pain and discomfort of an illness? If I suffer from knee pain, I would rather take a Tylenol, because the cure, losing the extra 30 plus pounds I’m carrying, would be work in the form of exercise and diet. It’s easier to get relief in pill form than curing the problem. I am unhappy in my relationship, so I seek some sort of an outlet to make it more bearable because to find a solution implies a lot of effort. Relief is faster, easier to attain, and, most notable, does not require me to make the changes that the cure requires.

What if I hate the job I working at? What might the cure be? I could quit, discover my passion and work at it. But that would mean moving out of my comfort zone and living in uncertainty. So, I seek methods of relief. Maybe it’s recreational drugs or booze. Perhaps I go for high risk activities or adrenaline rushes. There are many routes to find relief and avoid the cure.

Finding a cure to my challenges means finding the root cause to my woes. And few people are willing to look that deep. It may mean some self-reflection. It may mean some outside assistance with a psychiatrist or other therapist. It may mean admitting to past mistakes in life choices. And for most of us, our Egos won’t allow us to go that deep. So, we stay stuck, looking for momentary relief rather than trying to cure our ills.

Finding a cure means making changes to our lives. Many people tell me that I live their ideal life. I tell them that they can do the same thing if they want it. But few are willing to make the changes in their lives necessary to live this life. Few are willing to take the risk. Living in Costa Rica does imply an incredibly special lifestyle that I love. But it also means that I live far from my family. It means adapting to a new culture and a new language. It’s not all butterflies and bananas all the time. We are all free to do whatever we want in life if we are willing to accept the consequences. The cost of the cure, of making life changes, is much higher than the cost of relief.

So many of us seek relief from the suffering rather than a cure from whatever ails us. We try to avoid the challenges in life by putting on blinders. It’s easier, often a faster but it offers only momentary relief, and then we must seek that relief once again. Over time, we begin to identify with our pain and make it part of our being. We forget that it there is a cure. And we forget that if we are willing to do what it takes, there is a solution.

The “Care” of My Higher Power

/ Tim / 1 Comment

Many folks do very well in recovery until they come to working Step Three. Here we are asked to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the ‘care of’ a Higher Power, as we understood him. And many balk at this step. Their past experience has not been positive when dealing with things around God and religion. I understand. The God I grew up with wasn’t easily understandable: at one moment, kind and loving and at another throwing my soul to the bowels of hell for all eternity.

As much as I tried to work within the religion I grew up with, I couldn’t. So I left it, took a fork in the road to another idea, that of spirituality. My addiction did a great deal to slow down my progress along this road but with recovery, I found myself moving forward again. I didn’t believe in some old guy with a white beard in some celestial space surrounded by throngs of angels. And while I appreciate Christianity and it was how I was raised, I no longer believed in that either. The truth is, I couldn’t have told you exactly what or how my Higher Power was, but I knew that there was something more than what my five senses could interpret from the world.

And that’s one of the miracles of this program. It doesn’t force me to believe anything. It’s a Higher Power of my understanding. I don’t expect you to understand my relationship to my that Power, and I respect your relationship to yours. As I have grown in recovery I have received greater understanding. I expect that I will continue to grow in that understanding. But what about those who are diligently working the Steps and are finding it difficult?

I’ve learned that you’re making a decision. It need not be all cut and dried and finalized. I know my understand of my H.P. certainly wasn’t then nor is it now defined. In fact, I don’t want to define that power because that will put limitations on it. I use the word ‘god’ in meetings, because it’s convenient, but it certainly isn’t ‘god’ in the traditional sense.

scenic view of night sky

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A regular at my home group who has been in the program for many, many years once shared with me that if a new person in the program is finding that they are living in less fear than they were before, then they have a Higher Power. If they are living a life that is more manageable, then they have a Higher Power. And if they are thinking about what they are doing before they do it rather than following their egos, then they have a Higher Power. They may not ever be able to define it, but they know that there is something that is helping them; something or someone with a greater knowledge that is nudging them along this path. If they want to call it God, or Christ or a G.roup  O.f  D.runks, it doesn’t matter. They’ve figured out that they’re better off with whatever Higher Power is ‘caring for’ them than when they were still out there and the person in their mirror was the one in charge of decisions!

Trust the process of the Twelve Steps: all of them. As you go along you will find that you are ‘cared for’ in so many ways. Open-mindedness and willingness go a long way in recovery to help us all to see that we are connected, which for me, is what spirituality is all about.