One of the great helps I received from my old sponsor was one of those things, which kept me sober. That was when my old sponsor told me I needed to spend each day in the day. In other words I was told to stay exactly where I was standing and not to go any further.
The result was that it helped me not go and get angry, resentful, anxious, fearful, by projecting my thoughts ahead of where I am at the moment. I knew from experience that, if I went ahead of where I am at the moment, that it would raise all these negative emotions into my life.
I heard someone talking today, who had catapulted themselves into total anxiety and fear. Anger. If they had prayed the Serenity Prayer over what it was that they could not change, they could have achieved peace and even happiness. They were telling themselves that they had the power to change what they were projecting into the future. They kept convincing themselves that they would forcefully change another person, but kept growing in fear and becoming angrier and angrier at someone else.
I know I can make decisions about what I am planning on doing in the future, but that’s as far as I can go today. I have to let go and stay in the moment. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow. The future is a total mystery to me. Things may or may not work out the way I want them to. I definitely know of those who have gone back out and drank again, because their emotions, as a result of projections, drove them there.
I need to practice this Second and Third Steps in my life. I need to trust my Higher Power. To have faith and hope, but that’s as far as I can go at the moment. I’m not in charge. I can only do what I can at the moment. I need to be grateful to my sponsor and others, who have helped me to stop thinking I know what is going to happen in the future. Like I was told to look down at my feet and see where I’m standing and not to go any further.
I am so grateful to my sponsor and others, who have helped me to deal with the moment and not what I cannot see or know. I can well remember the results of my projecting in the past. It was awful. I don’t need or want to go there again.
I was always reminded that I’m here to stay sober a day at a time. That’s all I have. Nor am I to drift back into the past and see what I think happened, when I had planned something and projected into the future. I had to change. I got that help, when I was willing to stop thinking I was in control and could change the future.