One of the things I noticed today was what I so often need and rarely achieve. Simplicity.
When I noticed this in a meeting today, I promised myself I would meditate on this later on. And now is the time. I know why I fail in this regard to achieve what I often need. The reason is that I have the perfect alcoholic personality. Over complicated. That self centered ego, which is often filled with so much thinking. How often I will sit down to place myself in contemplation only to find that my mind has wandered off and away from the silence, simplicity itself, and caught up in complication.
Why I was thinking about this earlier was the sudden awareness of how complicated thinking is the source of so many problems. It opens the door to my weaknesses. My character defects. The worst is anger and self centered temper problems. The worst thing is that after time I will find that none of this stuff is a reality. It’s just something to occupy my mind and it ends up causing me problems I don’t need.
I know that I’m not alone in this. I often communicate with others who struggle with the past, dragging it into the present. Made me go back and think about that spiritual man, whose prayer was, “For all that’s happened, Thanks. For all that will happen, Yes.” There is simplicity in a perfect way. What I need.
I know that without being aware of it that I often find myself talking about this with others like myself. Not addressing the simplicity I need, but the complications which push it aside. Yet it often helps me I notice, because it makes me aware of what might be missing.
For instance, if I stop and think about it, I am often in a good place. Content for the most part. Happy and glad that I’m sober and living a decent life. Progress that is the result of practicing this program. Yet in the middle of this come thoughts which can drag me back and down. Conflicts I don’t need pop up. Things which happened in the past that I apparently haven’t settled with. Truth is that I often cannot find why they appear again. The very things I need to leave alone.
Often they are junk. Resentments which no one needs. And I know what the BB says about this. Something I have witnessed over and over. Others going back out and drinking again and dying as a result of that. This disease. I definitely never want to go there.
That’s really why I need to open up and be honest with others and listen to their experiences and what they learned and can teach me to change. More than that I have to learn to lean on the spiritual nature of this program. My Higher Power. How often I need to be open with someone else in order to open my mind and my heart to prayer and meditation. Not just the Third Step but the Eleventh. Seeking to improve my conscious contact with the God of my understanding. Getting the help I need to push the blocks out of my path.
I guess the reason I needed to think about this was to remind me of what it is I need to do on a daily basis. To dedicate myself to this program and to my commitment to stay sober. To practice this program in all the areas of my life. I never want to drink again and getting complicated thinking out of my mind and to simplify the nature of this way of life for me is part of the answer. And being reminded that part of the answer is that I cannot do this alone. I need the help of people like myself and my Higher Power.