I was meditating, when the phone rang. So I stopped and answered it. I also stopped what I was meditating on. After the phone conversation I found myself wrapped up in another subject. Suffering.
I had a couple of calls this week that went down the same road. Individuals suffering from within and not knowing the solutions to things outside of themselves. Hard to separate one thing from another and come to the peace we all need within ourselves. Not the confusions and hurts, which accompany what we’re going through.
As I talked to these individuals I had to ask them questions about what was going on. In fact, now that I think about it, I have had more than just a couple of these conversations. About four or more.
The first thing that comes to mind is that here we are trying to live a spiritual way of life. Then why are we suffering? Is that what the spiritual way of life is all about? I mean I have come to have hope and belief in a Higher Power. Someone who is more powerful than myself and who can change me and the life I’m living. For instance is sobriety about suffering? I know that my active alcoholism was all about suffering and unbearable pain. Is that why I’m here? I don’t think so.
Part of that is I believe our expectations of ourselves and others. Something we came to believe in while growing up. Something in our unconscious minds. Like Bill W. says in the Eighth Step in the 12&12. That damaging emotional conflicts deep in our unconscious mind have twisted our personalities and altered our lives for the worst. Was he wrong? Not if we are to believe psychiatrists and spiritual directors. My wonder is how did Bill know that at the time he wrote it? I’m sure he learned that from doctors and more knowledgeable people, who were helping him at the time. I know I have learned that from spiritual writers and directors and from the writings of psychiatrists and psychologists. Unfortunately it’s real.
And what’s the answer? Dr. Scott Peck in his The Road Less Traveled, Fr. Thomas Keating, and other spiritual writers I have read all say the same thing. The answer is spiritual. And that means changing myself. For instance using that spiritual axiom in the Tenth Step in the 12&12. Whenever we’re disturbed there is something wrong with us. And then working on myself to come up with the honesty to see what that is. I know that when I first read that I rejected it. Then, as honesty began to grow within me, I began to see where I was wrong and I had to work to correct that. I was to stop focusing on others and circumstances over which I had no control.
It’s about what the Serenity Prayer says. I had to surrender and accept that I’m not in charge like I want to believe. By the same token, neither are others in charge of me. I give them that power from within me. The misery and the suffering comes not from them, but myself. And that’s where the emotional disturbances within me come out and take over my mind and begin to run my life. Just like Bill said. And I remember one spiritual writer tell us to place guards around our minds to keep our human emotions from taking over our minds and our lives. He said there is nothing more destructive in this world than human emotions. That means I had to wake up and pay attention to what’s really going on.
Bill W. even writes about this in the Language of the Heart. An essay that goes back in time. About the alcoholics need to acquire emotional maturity. And how to do that? The spiritual way of life. Relying on and depending on my Higher Power to do for me what I can’t do for myself. To stop believing that I have to suffer. Allowing my emotions to run my life. To ask for help. Using the Eleventh Step. Prayer and meditation. Employing the rest of the Twelve Steps where necessary. Talking to others like ourselves and then listening. Learning to accept and stop fighting everyone and everything within. Surrendering and accepting a new way of life and thinking.
I have found peace and happiness in my life in sobriety in this program. Once I began to accept this was a spiritual way of life I began, through the Steps, to change. Over time I stopped being like the person I brought into this program. I began to give up some of those character defects, which could only cause me pain. Like I said not over night. Time takes time, like the sign says.
Then I began to replace what was taken out and putting in new things within me. A new way of thinking and living. Like caring for others. Like developing gratitude. Growing in faith and trust in my higher power. Learning to share and listen to others like myself and following suggestions and directions. Wasn’t easy, especially at first. But gradually it started to come into fruition.
Anyway this is what I was thinking about today. Grateful for this way of life and my sobriety.