ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 21: “If we live our lives looking for the excitement and exhilaration that change can bring, we will be much happier than when we are eventually forced to accept it anyways.” ― Daniel Willey
Change puts us into a surrender mode. We either give ourselves up to the process of life, or we beat ourselves bloody with the notion that life can be managed by us. Life is going to be life. We really MUST wrap our minds around it.
We all get to see those who think their next plan is going to succeed and create the life they dreamed of. This is never going to happen. When we get powerless over alcohol and drugs, we must also embrace the notion that we are forever powerless over our lives as well.
This drives newcomers crazy! It certainly did for me. I could not figure out what life was going to be like, and I kept trying to manage it. Yeah, that worked. I made decisions, based on self, that were extremely painful when I held on to them for dear life.
I have read all the books that tell me I have the power to do things. These are great, till I get up against the brick wall and try to power through it with my will. I fight and fight and fight, usually ending up sad and crying and wondering why God hates me so much.
I have forgotten that I am not powerful. I will never be powerful. All the great books and inspirational speakers in the world are not going to help me get powerful. I am POWERLESS. And I do not know the first thing about surrendering. I GET surrendered!
This is an important distinction. I hear people say this BS in meetings all the time. “I surrendered…” Oh, really??? Wow! I am dubious.
I would have recognized these problems many years before they existed if I had the POWER to surrender. I don’t, never have, never will. I always know that surrender would be a great idea if I could do it, but I cannot.
THAT is the purpose for and the need for the steps and a spiritual path where I get done with running the show and driving the bus. Okay!
Today I am less inclined to figure my life out. I do what is right in front of me and I make plans for what is necessary. Then I do one footprint at a time. Anything more and I am a crazy person, and trying to get all the world to run the way I think it should.
My addiction could have been cutoff years before it got so painful for everyone if I had the ability to do anything about it. I would have surrendered after the first 400 blackouts, but I didn’t. It wasn’t in the cards for me to do that until I did.
We must learn to understand and sit still with what IS, not what we want, not what we or others think things SHOULD be, but what IS. That is the underlying gold in Acceptance. And I need to find the gold. I need to let go of thinking that I have anything other than LIFE coming to me. I don’t, never have, never will.
And when I get surrendered (again and again) to the powerlessness of my life, I get to be free of the energy I used to exert my will on everything. I am peaceful and calm with ALL of it! Yay! And I also get to see the beauty and grace of what DOES come when I quit fighting. Yay again! Life is beautiful and I am happy. This comes with understanding…deep into the heart of myself, that I am powerless and it is a very, very good thing!
Dolphin Hug 