LOVE MONTH: DAY 26: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
I don’t see the world full of peril. I see the world full of love. That shift is what happens when we “rigorously” apply these principles, in my experience.
Love and grief can co-exist and not diminish one-another in any way. Without grief, my joy is lessened. I believe we get the extent of one emotion based on how willing we are to sit with the other, often opposing emotion. So, joy and grief; or sadness and happiness; but often any emotional response to life brings about the ability to respond emotionally to all of it.
I am not talking about big, dramatic (egoic) responses to life. I am talking about sitting still with our emotional responses and not acting on them.
What we do, as addicts, is dull our emotions and all life responses. We still carry them in our spirit and in our bodies, where all emotion is stored until we learn to release it. The emotion is there, waiting for us to check in to our life and pay attention.
So, newly recovering addicts have emotional and dramatic responses to everything. Panic! Anger! It is part of being new. When we keep doing this after a few years, it is no good. It means we have not learned the simple premises that are available in these steps.
One of the reasons we have the steps in the order they are given is that they feed on one-another in the process of becoming.
I am becoming emotionally mature in these steps. I stop blaming others for my problems and my life (step 4). Then I begin to see where I need to shift my attitudes and behaviors to make my life more appropriate for the person I am going to be (steps 6 & 7). Then I get to adjust my mistakes and do a cleanup of the wreckage I created (steps 8 & 9). Then, I get to keep doing this on a daily basis. Then, I can finally learn to meditate. The praying part is easy. Step 11 tells me how to pray and what to pray for. The part often left out is the meditation.
This is where we get to pay attention to what we are feeling. It is MY job, not my sponsor’s or anyone else’s to recognize this. I journal and meditate every day for that purpose.
THEN I can walk away from that place and out into the world, filled with love. Why? Because, I have slain the dragon (purple screaming monkeys!) that live in my brain/ego/mind. OK!
Because, as this quote states, if the world is full of peril and dark places, it is because I believe they are there. Whatever I believe is the problem.
So, I must daily examine what I believe. There is no peril, except what lives in my brain/ego/mind. All that lives in the world was created in love…everything! And in love is how I see it when I am practicing these things.
The steps have brought me to love; over and over and over again. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. And the more I focus on the love, the less often I ever see the darkness or the peril. It is all about perspective and focus.
So, if life feels perilous and dark, find the love and place your focus there. It will change the world and all that’s in it!
Dolphin Hug 