Today's Thought 11/21/03

For the trouble is that we are self-centered, and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavor.

--William Temple



This quagmire of troubles we men were caught in came, in part, from our best efforts to be self-sufficient. The harder we worked to provide our own cures, to control others in our lives, or to control ourselves, the more we fixed our attention upon ourselves. We could not see that the answers we were using were actually part of the problem, not the solution.



Even today we may be partially caught in the folly of this thinking. Whenever we think we see our problems and the answers clearly but don't open our incomplete selves to the wisdom of others, we are in danger of intensifying our self-focus. When we have a pattern of telling our fellow members the completed stories of our pain only when our pain has passed, we are maintaining our self-centered system. We can't lift ourselves out of our self-centeredness. We can only turn it over to our Higher Power and allow ourselves to be released.



I am grateful for the healing, which comes when I stop being so self-centered in my efforts.


From: Touchstones, Daily Meditations for Men

[Jon]

When we have a pattern of telling our fellow members the completed stories of our pain only when our pain has passed, we are maintaining our self-centered system.

Wow. That really stood out for me. I am the type of person that holds things in; the dark, the pain, the hopelessness, and only when it has passed do I tell others about it.

Why don't I share earlier? Why do I carry my burdens by my self?

Thats how I grew up. It's how I was hard wired. Nobody taught me this, I just assumed, at a very young age, that it wasnt a good idea to tell Mom things that might upset her. As a young, single parent, she was stressed enough as it was. And I tried to do my part to "protect" her.

The problem is that I never learned to turn it off.

When I look back at my relapse histories, it is very clear that I had the opportunities to unload whatever it was that I was going through. But if I did that I would have to be vulnerable, have to trust, and have to be human.

I had no experience with such things. If I came to you with my troubles, wasn't I then troubling you?

And if I couldnt get myself "better", than why would anyone else be able to.

For me, this is all about Shame. Feeling bad not about what I have done, but for who I am.

I work on Shame a lot today. In groups, therapy, and meetings. It's still there, but slowly, yet ever surely, it's getting smaller...and quieter.

I don't have to try and be what I thought a man was. I can just keep trying to be me.

Thanks...