Topic for the week: Acceptance

[SunnyGirl]

I have always loved the slogan:

"Nothing changes if nothing changes".... And this is a
simple fact! But for me, accepting change is not always
easy!

Not all change is sudden, it kinda creeps up on you and
this kind of change I have less a problem with accepting.
It's sudden changes that I have such a hard time with...
When we lose a loved one, it's inevitable but acceptance
does take time. I know we all have sudden changes that
come up in our lives and some of them can feel catastrophic
at the time. But, no matter how long I stomp my feet and
cry, there it is and I really can't do anything about it and it
feels as if you have no control in your own life, it's scary.

Today I think that once I accept the reality of any situation,
I try to take a good long look at it and arrive at the decision
as to whether I can or not fix it. If I can't fix it I need to
figure out how I can learn to live with it. If the reality of it
is, it's here to stay for the long run, I just have to learn to
go with the flow.

Change and accepting it doesn't mean I have change everything
about me. I just need to check into what method I need to use
to get to where I want to go, I need to be a little more flexible.
I am still me and I can still have my hopes and dreams but I
just may have to be prepared to take a different path to get
there.

No more kicking my feet and crying.... I'm OK with making
lemonade out of the lemons.... And I might have to take that
fork in the road, but keeping the destination in sight keeps
me moving forward.

I think the recovery programs have really helped me with
finding acceptance for all that life has given me. I am going
to continue down that road to recovery.... ODAT

Your friend in recovery, SG

[caressa]

Acceptance for me is the key to recovery. If I can't accept my disease, I will surely relapse. If I can't accept my dis-ease, I will continually look outside of myself to make me feel better instead of going within and accepting what I find there, in the moment.

Acceptance for me is always about in the moment, in today. Accepting what is, knowing it is subject to change.

I had someone tell me that acceptance had no part of recovery because it wasn't mentioned in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. To me this is total HOG WASH! For me, acceptance is a necessary attitude I must find in order to take Step One - 100%.

Acceptance is one of the principles of the First Step. It is also part of the grieving process. So whenever we go through change, which is a grieving process, we need to find that acceptance.

So much of what is in today is a result of choices made. I need to accept that what I put out, I get back, unfortunately, sometimes it is 10 fold. Which is good if I make a good choice but not so good when I don't make healthy ones.

I also need to accept the fact that when I see something negative in someone else, it is a reflection from something within myself. Step Ten keeps me honest. With that honesty, comes acceptance and surrender to a Higher Power.

The Serenity Prayer says it all for me. I am so glad I can't wear it out. It is the wisdom to know the difference that takes practice, practice, practice.

When I can accept me, I can live in faith instead of fear.

[caressa]

Early in recovery, I asked my spiritual advisor what I had to change and his response was "Everything!"

This was hard to accept. I thought I was a pretty good person once I no longer had the drugs in my system. I no longer drank so what was my problem?

What I had to learn to accept was that the problem was not the pills, the alcohol, or the men in my life, the problem was me?

What I had to change was my way of thinking. I had to accept that it had become warped by this dis-ease and I had to find a new way of living.

I had to accept that I could no longer look out of myself for people, places and things to make me feel better. I had to go within and I had to connect with a Higher Power.

I had to accept a Higher Power. It meant I had to accept a God as I saw Him, this God that I had been so angry with. This God who I thought all my life was going to never accept me because I had done all the things that the 'church' said I should do.

I had to learn to accept the people around me. Accept where they were at and recognize that either they didn't have a program or they did and were not using it, at least not to my way of thinking.

But the hardest to accept was me and what I found on that journey inward. When I got honest, I had to learn to surrender it all to my Higher Power and accept what I found there in order to recover.

It has been a process. I has taken practice, practice, practice. I had to accept on a daily basis that I can't take this journey alone, that just because I worked on something once before, it will come back again, and hardest of all was to accept was my humanness. The workaholic, the perfectionist, the know-it-all, the caretaker, screaming shrew, the shopaholic, overeater, the codependent, the gambler, and the addict, had to change. I was one of the 'really' sick ones.

I had to accept that I am still a work in progress.

[BW]

Acceptance is always a fantastic topic...tho not always an easy concept to grasp...at least it wasn't for me in early recovery..It took a long time for me to grasp it. I thought I had to understand and "like it" to accept it..whatever the proverbial "it" was. Thank God I had a very patient and understanding sponsor. My first lesson in acceptance was acceptance of myself as a flawed human being. Once I finally accepted me then the understanding of acceptance of other things came easier. Then as I acepted the fact that God loved me as I am, flaws and all, then t followed that it was so much easier to accept others as they were and to drop the judgemntal expectations of others as well.

Thank You for allowing me to share and for a great topic.

[majestyjo]

What helped me was, "Accept what is in the moment, knowing it is subject to change. I don't have to like it, but until I find that acceptance, it isn't going to change." I can't move on, I am going to stay stuck and I need to take action to change my attitude or change my attitude so I can take action.

Attachments:

[majestyjo]

Daily Acceptance





"Too much of my life has been spent in dwelling upon the faults of others. This is a most subtle and perverse form of self-satisfaction, which permits us to remain comfortably unaware of our own defects. Too often we are heard to say, `If it weren't for him (or her), how happy I'd be!'"

<< << << >> >> >> 

Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives.



Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy of defeatism, they can be sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built





1. LETTER, 1966

2. GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1962


Accepting what is the moment, knowing it is subject to change. Until I can find the acceptance, I can't move on.

It was a real issue when I first came in about accepting my alcoholism. I knew I was an addict, my drug of choice had been more all my life. When I acknowledge that alcohol was part of that "more" and that I had used alcohol along with other substances, I could admit to my disease. It made it easier to accept when I said, "Dis-ease" not comfortable within my own skin and always looking for something outside of myself to make me feel better.



Another acceptance was the amount of damage I did to my body over the years. Acceptance of all the wasted years and space as the song goes. Not sure if my fibromyalgia is a result of the physical or mental abuse, a car accident I had at 17, or a combination. I was told that I had PTSD, but not by a doctor, but by a therapist in later years when I went for sexual assault counselling. Again the acceptance came from the recovery phrase, "I had to go through what I went through to get to where I am in today."



Even in today, fibromyalgia affects so many aspects of my life, I still have to find acceptance on a daily basis.



With my son in active addiction, I have to accept his choices, I don't have to like them. I am as powerless over his disease as I was over my own, prior to coming into recovery and surrendering to the program.



Through the program I learned to accept a Higher Power into my life. I was very angry at my God. I had to make an amend to Him and I had to go on a spiritual journey to find out who God was to me. I had to make God personal. I couldn't accept other people's God, because I felt if I did, I would stop looking for God, then where would I be. I had to find my own God and build a relationship with Him/Her.



There is a lot in my own life, like growing older, swollen feet, sores on my feet that don't want to heal because of my diabetes, my five types of arthritis, and lately, I have this feeling that I have bands around my ankles like prisoners wear. Maybe it means I am a prisoner of my own making or of my own mind.



The program is applicable to all areas of my life, and for that I am so grateful.

[majestyjo]

“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.

"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.



This was posted on another site, may have originated here. It is hard to keep track of what I have posted where and when.