FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 13: “We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing?” ― Swami Satchidananda
We become free when we act on our own behalf to rid our lives of those things that we do not need to carry. I could not move on with a better life until I cleaned up the messes I had made in the past. I want a better life; isn’t that the purpose for this work? So I have to do what the work indicates.
And I have received a great deal of peace and serenity in the midst of the chaos of life. I am free to be present to what is going on. There is little calamity in my life…when others bring it to me, I get to choose whether or not I am going to engage. I seldom do. That is why I do not jump in and play in their shit.
Addicts tend to be so self-immersed in drama that there is little room for solutions. There is a repeated idea that is old and outworn, but there is a tendency to cling to that as the only possible solution.
Recovery is about sitting still in the midst of our self-imposed calamities and letting things (life) unfold as it will. Doing the best we can with what is present and letting the rest be resolved by that Power that gives us solutions.
If my solutions come from within, I have to sit still and wait. If they are the result of past ways of working through a problem, I probably need to let go of that idea.
I watch addicts try to use the same old baseball bat on all of their life. We do this until we recognize that we are viewing life upside down and backwards. Most of us have trouble in two arenas…Pink and Green. This is either in relationships or finances.
And either way, the answers are always going to be of a spiritual nature, so why try to figure it all out for ourselves? We seem to grow past this difficult stage of development rather slowly. Probably because we are not going to look for spiritual answers until they are the only ones left. And we seem to forget that life is what happens while we are busy making other plans, as Mr. Lennon stated. I believe life is what happens while we are trying to figure shit out.
I agree with Swami…we are here to live minute by minute, doing the best we can to make the most of each breath we get. As we clean up our wreckage, and our lives are 100% our own creation; we get what we need to do just the next indicated thing. That is all anyone gets, but our perception of life is so upside down and backwards. And the work continues, and the work continues.
I ask only for knowledge of what is mine to do this day. And the skills and resources to do that. These will be provided in the moment they are needed, not before or on demand. Oh!
Dolphin Hug 