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Post by caressa on Jul 14, 2011 12:43:01 GMT -5
As it says in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Acceptance is the key."
I not only had to accept my disease, I had to learn to accept people, places and thngs in my life.
I had to learn to accept that things are meant to be the way they are in the moment, that I didn't always have the key to change them and had to turn things over to my Higher Power.
Accepting my powerless was difficult. It was only when I learned that when I surrendered, I was empowered to do what I needed to do, one day at a time.
Accepting myself was even more difficult than accepting my disease. When I looked at it as dis-ease, then I knew that I had to look at me. Recovery is an outside job and I had to quit looking outward at other people, places and things.
When I find acceptance, I can be at peace with what is in today. It is exactly the way it is suppose to be, when I turn my will and my life over to the care of God.
That was another thing I had to accept. God does do for me, He gives me freedom of choice. I have a picture, which I don't have access here, that says, < wrong decisions > right decision. Unfortuantely, I am one of those people who have inquiring minds. I want my God to give me a little hint as to what is going to happen when I make my choice. What I needed to do was accept the consequences of my decision. The nicest things is that having made the decision and the choice, I can accept and choose again.
Acceptance is the key to my recovery today. Not just my happiness and peace of mind, it is for me, the corner stone of my recovery. The greatest gift is knowing that I don't have to like it in order to accept it. Acceptance is the pivotal point of change. I become aware, I admit, I need to accept before I can change my attitude and take action, or if needed, take action to change my attitude.
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Post by caressa on Jul 15, 2011 16:22:40 GMT -5
Accepting myself was something I found very difficult. All my life I had been told that my opinion didn't count. I didn't matter and my word was totally redundant. When you hear "If you were not so stupid, ...." all your life, you begin to believe it. I had to come to believe that I was not stupid. It wasn't until a friend shared at a meeting, "Lady, you may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them," that I started to believe and I was about 3 years sober.
I had been so beaten down, had become so introverted, and so fearful that I became isolated in my disease. It took a long time to take down the wall, often a brick at a time.
If I had been a better wife, my husband wouldn't have run around early in our marriage. If I was a better lover, my husband wouldn't have looked for affection elsewhere. If I wasn't so ugly, he wouldn't have gone to another woman to have his needs met. If my husband truly loved me, he wouldn't go out drinking and leave me at home. It must mean that I am unloveable. All those old tapes played in my head. I had to make new tapes and learn to accept them and deny the old ones.
Accept me for who I am in today is a gift from my God. Most of those old fear are gone, and although they can lift their ugly head once in a while, I can recognize them for what they are, and reject them.
Acceptance is the key. Until I can accept, I can not change.
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Post by caressa on Jul 15, 2011 23:58:14 GMT -5
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Post by SunnyGirl on Jul 17, 2011 15:33:25 GMT -5
"We cannot change anything until we accept it.
Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." - C. G. Jung
What a wonderful blessing the Serenity Prayer has been
for me. It never fails to calm my mind when I'm stressed
and it always seems to pick my spirits up. Knowing I have
a loving God who is willing to listen and guide me on this
journey is priceless.....
I've been having some difficulties trying to understand
why my younger Sis can't get her life together and stop
the life long pity party she's been on.... On giving acceptance
some thought, I've finally understood what the problem is.....
It's not her, it's me! She can't or won't change and it's a
situation where I need to accept her exactly as she is and
ask HIM to touch her heart...... I'm giving her to God and will
continue to pray for her!
My goal now is to stop wasting time trying to accept things
that CAN and should be changed but they're above my pay
grade. I'd love to have world peace and a cure for cancer,
but I have nothing to contribute to these worthy causes. I
can pray for that peace, but it's going to take action all over
the world to get it accomplished. Thy will not my will be done....
Peace on the journey, SG
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Post by caressa on Jul 18, 2011 11:14:57 GMT -5
In Al-Anon, we say "Didn't cause it, can't cure it, and can't control it. As soon as I accept those facts, the much better my life will be. If I can't change it, I know one who can. When I take things to my Higher Power, He can do a much better job than I ever could.
I have to be watchful of those "C" words.
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Post by SunnyGirl on Jul 18, 2011 13:31:26 GMT -5
;D thinking about having a tatoo done....
3 C's
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Post by caressa on Jul 22, 2011 0:47:29 GMT -5
Probably could have put all my posts in here tonight. It all boils down to acceptance of what is in the moment. When I don't accept some peron, place, or thing as not being where it is suppose to be in the moment, then the problem is with me and I need to address what it is that I am pointing my finger at. I may not be consciously pointing it, but the reality is for every thought outward, there are often three coming back at me, be it with my finger, my thought or my words.
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Post by caressa on Jul 23, 2011 12:10:33 GMT -5
Accepting my pain, is nto always easy. Many times, I just tell myself it isn't there and go about what I want to do. The thing that isn't good about this is that, I don't always use the same process for things I need to do. Once I come to that place of acceptance, things just seem to fall into place and I wonder why I fought it in the first place. In last night's meditation, I came to realize that I was being manipulative, and trying to 'figure out' what I should be doing. The thing was, there was no right or wrong decision to make. It was about what I wanted to do and I kept looking at what I thought I 'should' do, so your prayer BW was God sent this morning. It cleared a still murky picture. I made two phone calls. One about bridge and one about the meeting across the street. When I got honest iwth my feelings, I wanted to go to bridge. I had thought of it in the afternoon wondering if I would be too tired to go to play as a result of working. I hadn't been over to the meeting for a long time. I told myself that I should go over there. I hadn't been there for a long time. I had reasons for not going back and those reasons were still in place, and yet I tried to justify them away and thought, "Well you are coming up on an anniversary date, you should go." I got the call for a ride to the meeting first so decided to go with it. My friend all said, "So you decided social instead of recovery." I said, "Yep, I need the social, I talk recovery 24-7. I also had to accept the score. My partner and I hadn't played together for a long time and we had a few miscommunicaitons. The score wasn't bad, wasn't good, but I enjoyed the game. I had to accept the misakes, unfortunately as the hour grew later, most of them were mine. I played a wrong card and threw the whole hand out the window. Everyone made the contract but me.  That is not easy for me to accept at the best of times.  |
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 29, 2014 23:44:57 GMT -5
Quote: “Defiant individuals will always persecute others, yet will always consider themselves persecuted.” - - Alfred Adler Learned long ago, that fighting acceptance only prolongs the agony. Defiance was one of the reasons I kept on using for many years, don't tell me, watch me. That didn't get me too far. Not only do I need to accept my disease, but when I accept the pain that goes along with it, that much faster, the solution appears. Quote: "When you blame others, you give up your power to change." - - Unknown In early recovery, I didn't think I had any faults after I quit using. After all, I was raised to be a good Christian girl. It took me awhile to recognize that to err is human. I didn't want to admit to being human let alone the error. When I heard people say, "Well I am only human you know," I would get a resentment. I felt as though they used the saying as a cop out. They use their humanness to not change. In today, I tell it as it is. What you see is what you get. As a friend said to me on Messenger the other night, "g/f you are just 2 2 funny. I never know what is going to come out of your mouth next." Before recovery, it was all about the blame game. It was every one elses fault and the world owed me a favor as I was so hard done by. Today I embrace change. I don't want to be that person any more. She was not very likeable. She still has a lot of work to do on herself. God and I work on it one day at a time. Before recovery, I thought I was the best. I thought I was being the best me I could be. I also learned that you can't know what you were never taught. I was very isolated on the farm growing up and didn't have a lot of people skills. I didn't have a best friend until I was 17. When I met her, I was the follower. As my disease progressed, I became the leading authority. So glad that it is progress not perfection. Founds this after I made the other post. I am sure the word can be found all over the board. This is an old post found on another site, and it reminds me of what I shared with a couple of friends today. One especially identified, we are great starters, get things organized, delegate, and get things going, then it is old news and off to something new. I know I had problems following through and maintaining, and often had my fingers in too many pies, and as a result, had a problem with letting go. I wonder why. I think they call it control!  |
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Post by Caressa on Aug 4, 2019 21:10:29 GMT -5
Acceptance
To accept
what has been
what IS
and what will be,
To be able to stand
immovable
and unshakable
as a mighty rock
that does not complain
nor wince out loud,
To be able to accept everything
and still stand,
is to truly possess
great power.
It is when things
have already been counted as lost
that all things rise yet again
to be gained.
- - unknown
A strong rock can withstand any blow, any wave crashing
against it. After the wave settles, the rock still stands whole.
Its happiness can’t ever be lost or swept away because its
happiness does not exist outside of itself
majestyjo Avatar
majestyjo
EOR Lifeline
*****
Dec 1, 2016 at 3:03am
Quote
A good thing to remember.
Quote:
And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Big Book, p. 417
Quote:
"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference."
I don't have to like it in order to accept it.
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Post by majestyjo on Aug 13, 2019 8:32:47 GMT -5
Smiling, the thought that came to mind was "It is a very long week". It has been a long time since Sunnygirl posted. Grateful for this site, it helped me through a lot of pain and sorrow. There were times I couldn't get out to a meeting and EoR was there for me. So glad Linda and Tammyr are here to support me and the site.  |
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Post by caressa222 on Feb 11, 2020 6:09:36 GMT -5
Do you have a problem with acceptance?
Accepting what is in the moment knowing it is subject to change.
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That is not easy for me to accept at the best of times. 
. I will be back looking for Lin and others.