Remember that old saying; to be tied up in knots? I was thinking about that today. To be tied up in knots. It doesn’t say, to be tied up in a knot. It’s plural. Knots. Means that there are multiple knots and a lot of untangling and untieing to be done to get free.
Fear is the culprit in all of this. My self centered fear. Trying to carry the whole world on my shoulders. Too much self reliance on my part. It was so subtle I didn’t even know I was doing it. It just grew over a period of time, until finally I found myself overwhelmed and all the intertwining threads had me all wrapped up and trapped. That old powerlessness and unmanageability was back.
Help arrived in realizing that all I had learned in this program could do for me what I couldn’t do for myself. It didn’t matter how I felt. I knew that I had to accept my situation for what it was and then somehow to let go of it. That didn’t come from me, it came from friends in this program, who encouraged me to take the steps necessary to do this. Like my sponsor said, it took a two by four up the side of my head to get my attention and wake me up. I had been sleep walking and I needed to wake up.
Being awake and aware is the foundation of the spiritual life. One old timer used to say that the eleventh steps said “a concious contact with God” not an unconcious contact. I can get so used and accustomed to not drinking and being sober that I can start not paying attention to what’s going on. I can get hooked into all kinds of things around me and putting more importance on them than they deserve and let my primary purpose slip into the background. And my primary purpose is dependent on my reliance on my higher power.
Today, I was sitting and talking to an old friend and he said something to me that was one of the keys. He said to me that I was a good friend and that he could talk to me about anything. I felt the same way. And because we can talk about anything, he was able to let go of the suffering he was going through. He has a lot on his plate. But in this life, we all do. The solution to his being tied up in knots was in just that. We were sharing the solution and practicing this program in the process. And I, too, was able to get free of the bondage of self.
As I said, I was thinking about this and being grateful for all the gifts I have been given.