FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 5: “If only everyone could know and live with their inner craziness. Would the world be a worse place for it? No, people would be fairer and happier.” ― Paulo Coelho
Yay! This quote totally embodies the reason for doing steps 4-9! Most newcomers strive to rid themselves of their busy, crazy brains. That is not the point of any of it. Even meditation is not about getting it to shut up, but to befriend it all.
When we work through these steps, we begin to make friends with the person we have been trying so desperately to kill…US! And part of this is learning to accept every aspect of our beings, including the insane thing living in our brain and talking (screaming) all the time. That “Director” telling us how to run the play!
When I get to understand where some of my batshit crazy ideas come from, when I truly get down to “causes and conditions” and my old beliefs about myself and my life, I am coming to a place of greater freedom and peace with self. I have learned to sit quietly in meditation with what my friend used to call “the maniac” and laugh. I don’t have to kill it! And I don’t have to quiet it! I just need to learn to live with it and NOT act on those great ideas! Oh!
And to NOT react to everything I believe about YOU. Wow! There have been many opportunities for me to ask others how they perceived a situation that I saw in a certain way. Their perspective is always so different than mine! Because I am so incredibly self-centered and so intent on making the world dance to the music playing in MY head, I see it from that perspective. Totally different.
So most of the amends we make can include the conversation with the other person that we are acting from a faulty point of view to begin with.
Once we come to this kind of understanding with others, we can begin to question the veracity of most of our thinking and beliefs about how life works and has worked in the past. We made up stories, quite often, about these things and have never thought to question either the stories or the rules that were formed about how life should be when we were too young to remember these views.
Believing what we have believed all of our lives is hard to walk away from, but we have to in order to see what life is really about and how it all really unfolds.
I remember saying to someone early on in my experience in this deal that I did NOT want to be brainwashed in AA! And they told me it might be possible that my brain could use a good washing…this is ALWAYS true for me. How nice to know that!
So I am getting my brain washed in wonderful ways, and I am happier than ever before in my life! And I understand what happens in my mind a lot of the time, and I can laugh, because what I think is pretty crazy…so happy to know it is okay!
Dolphin Hug 