This last five days or so has been one of deep reflection and filled with a thirst for understanding. Not of the world outside as much as the inside, and what things that happen in society and the world at large really mean to this life, this direction, this passion of mine. Sure, I could easily go the apathetic route and just put on an aire of not caring one bit, but that would be ingenuous. I could also start wallowing in what the assumed consequences could be and that would do me very little good if any at all.
Yes, anger, amazement and astonishment, disdain and pure rage ran deeply through these emotional pathways. In the old days I would still be on a bender, trying to assuage my reality with chemicals of one kind or another. Trying to argue and manipulate my world into something that I could handle, not manage, but handle somehow. I am noting that at almost five years sober at the moment, I have had a more honest and meaningful life in that amount of time than I did in the thirty or so years before that. Not that my life did not have meaning and eventful things and growth did happen, though the context and connections of it all were lost, the same mistakes and character faults repeatedly making life...well... unmanageable.
It is probably amazing to some of those around me that knew my old self, this emotional sobriety not escaping my notice at times too. It is humbling in itself just to see it, it is even more valuable when used though. So when the pendulum of change and life start swinging erratically, the pen can sometimes provide light to that much needed pinnacle of stability.
So what is that supposed to mean anyways? Like I have said, an emotional sobriety or stability for me is fairly new in my life. In keeping with the practices that keep me sober, one of them is allowing me to being able to examine more easily the human condition happening to me at any given point. That practice can and should be used at any given time and during times of great disturbance, doubled and tripled down on. So I started from the outside, the things that were bothering me the most, the resentments and fears. Turns out, just as before there was nothing but unmet expectations of the way I wanted things to be. I have been through rejection and embarrassment, through losing and I have been in many positions that were not the way I wanted them to be.
My University of Washington Huskies Football team were undefeated until last night. Embarrassed at home on the biggest stages of their careers, their play completely unexceptional. Yeah, I have been there myself before, many work and social situations completely blowing it. I said to myself that that's ok I guess, I mean they didn't owe me anything... They didn't owe me anything... hmmm Now that took me down a trip on that road I am familiar with. That road of it's none of your business what other people think, right size your own expectations and when has life ever really been just what you envisioned it to be? Humbling? Yes, and also frustrating, embarrassing, challenging, defeating and most of all very telling. It will be this way for myself, for my football team and for my country going forward, a response is called for, the reaction will be insufficient. So what is the response? It will be subjective as everything always is, but it will take work, firstly, I suggest I look on the inside.
I have been through many things in my sobriety that would have made me drink in a heartbeat before. Health issues, deaths, some of life's most challenging problems, I didn't have to drink over it, I did not need to lose my sense of hope and just plain knowledge that things can and do change. The very best part of it is that if the expectations are for one thing they hardly materialize. Rather it is the right sized and proper minded expectations that will more often than not be exceeded and even then sometimes to your wildest dreams. I went back into what I am owed, which is nothing in all honesty. I can count the blessings that I have received through work, and a way of life, and a country that protected my ability to have these things, but I am not owed. I would gladly be humbled by being able to accomplish and hold onto a smattering of this things freely given to me. So with the expectations at a proper level, the issues that most trouble me these days are grandiose to say the least. Then the dubious practices of self destruction, second guessing and ego massaging is not introduced and the real causes are revealed.
So in my recovery, the patterns of deceptive thinking and egoistic thoughts were laid more bare, their entrails easier to follow, the messages decidedly returning to the same point, the same drone. As default settings we humans are selfish, it is part of that whole survival business. When the survival part is taken away, that selfishness gets misplaced onto just about anything and everything. When all of these factors converge, I myself have to hit the brakes and stick my head out of the window, or pull it out of my inverted behind. So, first of all my ego and my selfishness, my wants and not needs were bashed horribly by factors I as yet understand. My expectations were obviously set too high or on too big of a pedestal, so when they did not get met my thinking went into a different mode. That right there was the part that really set off the alarm, I could tell that my thinking was toxic, was not going to do any good to me or those around me for the time being. I went back into the practices, the meditation, the prayers and the cleaning of my energies. For too long I had held a poisonous resentment that I thought would be relieved trough vindication by others, by life, by a vote, that it was fair and on my side. It didn't happen that way and the blade was thrust even further, twisted and the reality set in some more. Because I couldn't get out of the way of my own thinking without some concerted effort, or work again. I just had to think about it.
I had with all my heart thought that I was being open minded, when instead I was closing off portions. Not walling it off but throwing up the shield in certain directions at times. When the great disappointment came I didn't remember enough of my practices. I did not just think that I am not owed anything from anyone or anything. I have expectations that are either going to be met or not and in that regard, how can I be let down unless I do it to myself. There are great challenges that await me in my real and individual every day life, they will not be magnified or made minute by very many outside sources at all. The pendulums of life will swing whether I expect them to or not and at times like this I must always remember it may be the pen, and not the pit that sets the balance again.
.
Yes, anger, amazement and astonishment, disdain and pure rage ran deeply through these emotional pathways. In the old days I would still be on a bender, trying to assuage my reality with chemicals of one kind or another. Trying to argue and manipulate my world into something that I could handle, not manage, but handle somehow. I am noting that at almost five years sober at the moment, I have had a more honest and meaningful life in that amount of time than I did in the thirty or so years before that. Not that my life did not have meaning and eventful things and growth did happen, though the context and connections of it all were lost, the same mistakes and character faults repeatedly making life...well... unmanageable.
It is probably amazing to some of those around me that knew my old self, this emotional sobriety not escaping my notice at times too. It is humbling in itself just to see it, it is even more valuable when used though. So when the pendulum of change and life start swinging erratically, the pen can sometimes provide light to that much needed pinnacle of stability.
So what is that supposed to mean anyways? Like I have said, an emotional sobriety or stability for me is fairly new in my life. In keeping with the practices that keep me sober, one of them is allowing me to being able to examine more easily the human condition happening to me at any given point. That practice can and should be used at any given time and during times of great disturbance, doubled and tripled down on. So I started from the outside, the things that were bothering me the most, the resentments and fears. Turns out, just as before there was nothing but unmet expectations of the way I wanted things to be. I have been through rejection and embarrassment, through losing and I have been in many positions that were not the way I wanted them to be.
My University of Washington Huskies Football team were undefeated until last night. Embarrassed at home on the biggest stages of their careers, their play completely unexceptional. Yeah, I have been there myself before, many work and social situations completely blowing it. I said to myself that that's ok I guess, I mean they didn't owe me anything... They didn't owe me anything... hmmm Now that took me down a trip on that road I am familiar with. That road of it's none of your business what other people think, right size your own expectations and when has life ever really been just what you envisioned it to be? Humbling? Yes, and also frustrating, embarrassing, challenging, defeating and most of all very telling. It will be this way for myself, for my football team and for my country going forward, a response is called for, the reaction will be insufficient. So what is the response? It will be subjective as everything always is, but it will take work, firstly, I suggest I look on the inside.
I have been through many things in my sobriety that would have made me drink in a heartbeat before. Health issues, deaths, some of life's most challenging problems, I didn't have to drink over it, I did not need to lose my sense of hope and just plain knowledge that things can and do change. The very best part of it is that if the expectations are for one thing they hardly materialize. Rather it is the right sized and proper minded expectations that will more often than not be exceeded and even then sometimes to your wildest dreams. I went back into what I am owed, which is nothing in all honesty. I can count the blessings that I have received through work, and a way of life, and a country that protected my ability to have these things, but I am not owed. I would gladly be humbled by being able to accomplish and hold onto a smattering of this things freely given to me. So with the expectations at a proper level, the issues that most trouble me these days are grandiose to say the least. Then the dubious practices of self destruction, second guessing and ego massaging is not introduced and the real causes are revealed.
So in my recovery, the patterns of deceptive thinking and egoistic thoughts were laid more bare, their entrails easier to follow, the messages decidedly returning to the same point, the same drone. As default settings we humans are selfish, it is part of that whole survival business. When the survival part is taken away, that selfishness gets misplaced onto just about anything and everything. When all of these factors converge, I myself have to hit the brakes and stick my head out of the window, or pull it out of my inverted behind. So, first of all my ego and my selfishness, my wants and not needs were bashed horribly by factors I as yet understand. My expectations were obviously set too high or on too big of a pedestal, so when they did not get met my thinking went into a different mode. That right there was the part that really set off the alarm, I could tell that my thinking was toxic, was not going to do any good to me or those around me for the time being. I went back into the practices, the meditation, the prayers and the cleaning of my energies. For too long I had held a poisonous resentment that I thought would be relieved trough vindication by others, by life, by a vote, that it was fair and on my side. It didn't happen that way and the blade was thrust even further, twisted and the reality set in some more. Because I couldn't get out of the way of my own thinking without some concerted effort, or work again. I just had to think about it.
I had with all my heart thought that I was being open minded, when instead I was closing off portions. Not walling it off but throwing up the shield in certain directions at times. When the great disappointment came I didn't remember enough of my practices. I did not just think that I am not owed anything from anyone or anything. I have expectations that are either going to be met or not and in that regard, how can I be let down unless I do it to myself. There are great challenges that await me in my real and individual every day life, they will not be magnified or made minute by very many outside sources at all. The pendulums of life will swing whether I expect them to or not and at times like this I must always remember it may be the pen, and not the pit that sets the balance again.
.
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