Letting Go: The Journey for your Life

[Wolfchild]

1) I walk down the street
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost? I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place again.
But it isn?t my fault.
It still takes long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in? it's a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

[12StepTV]

Inspirational!

[aquinas]

Hi Everyone I'm new to this stuff. But here are my thoughts on letting go. In the program one of the first things we are taught is to "let go and let God." However, in order to do this one must believe in and have faith in a higher power. I remember when I first started going to meetings. I was agnostic. I thought everyone who spoke about God, prayer, and meditation were nuts. However, I was so desperate, that I was willing to disregard my own thoughts and do what people staying clean were doing. They told me to go to meetings. They said to get a sponser. I was told to pray, every morning, and thank my higher power at night for another day clean. I did these things on a daily basis. Soon I started to see the fruits of my work. There were times when I was in great pain, and the right person would just happen to show up. There were many coincidences that I could not explain. I began to develop faith. I started to believe that there was some kind of energy that loved me and wanted me to be happy and healthy. As my faith grew I began to be able to "let go" of things I could'nt change. I began to trust that God would be there. The energy I call God never lets me down. I now have learned that I can trust him. The more I try to get understand what my higher power wants from me, the stronger my faith becomes. Faith is trust. I can let go because I know that God will handle what I cannot. Peace.http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ilies/c031.gif

[Ann]

Welcome Aquinas, glad you joined us.

Hugs

[Wolfchild]

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Alternate: If at first you don't succeed, give up; it probobly isn't worth doing
Alternate: If at first you don't succeed, perhaps skydiving is not for you.
Alternate: If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
Alternate: If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888)

[Ann]

Oh I like those, Wolfchild, gives me a whole new perspective

[Rusty Zipper]

hiya aquinas...

wolf, you met me huh?

and sweet ann, a howdy to you ...

agw & gol...................... pattee

[Rich S]

Sweet sweet words of salvation... Thank You so Much Ann,

rich

[Wolfchild]

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
~ Martha Washington


Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.
~ King Whitney Jr.

[Rusty Zipper]

Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd, is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But the risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he has forfeited freedom.
ONLY A PERSON WHO RISKS – IS FREE

xxoo & blessings...

pattee

[ronnell220]

Listen, I'm new to this and have found this because I'm tired of what I'm doing. I have couple of good things about to happen for me but I know if I keep going the way I'm going it won't happen. First off, let me tell you I'm a black gay man i a relationship with a man that's also getting high. I'm 55 he's 25, we're both HIV+ and really have no business doing this stuff but I still do and wind up feeling bad and broke afterwords. I keep asking GOD to help me but I keep giving in to my desires of the flesh. Sex is a big issue with me and I realize it's a trigger for everything else that happens. I just don't want to be lonely. Excuse me if I'm all over the place but right now I feel as though I need to get this stuff all out of me. Now....I'm about to leave the facility I'm in to move on my own but I'm scared to death because I've never lived by myself. It seems as though I'm making alto of excuses but I'm just telling you the facts \. I know I have to leave this alone but I always seem to gravitate back to it. All I have to do is say NO but to me that's the hardest word in the dictionary. I don't know how I'm going to do this but I know that I have to do this if I'm ever going to make a place for myself! I want to stop. All I have left is $83 and I owe most of that out but I figure I can talk to them and make some kind of arrangement. I'm asking for your prayers. I'm not a bad person I'm just caught up with some bad things and hopefully, with the help of GOD and in the name of Jesus Christ I'll get through this. This is tough but I think I can get through this with GOD's help. I'm tired and I need a change. Please, right now we don't need to hear any lectures on my relationship. I feel if I can stop the smoking I can stop everything else. I think I have to concentrate on one thing at a time. What do you think? Am I making any sense? I hope and pray that someone out there will hear and feel what I'm trying to say, ok

[Fluttering]

Hi ronnell

Welcome!!! We are so pleased to see new faces and hear new voices..Hope you keep posting and let us know how you are doing and how we can support and encourage you.

There is a tremendous amount of experience strength and hope here as well as humor and love

[Rusty Zipper]

ronnie, i do hear you!

thoughts and a prayer head'n your way...

ronnie, coming here is a start...

reacing out, and asking for help is huge!

no lectures huh?

stil want it your way!

ok, no lectures...

for me, i found out all the years i tried, and tied to lick my flaws, foibles, and addictions on my own, brought me to my kness...

i found out as you, i had to reach out, and ask for help...

i did, took what was suggested, and found out they were, and our musts!!!

all good wishes ronnie...

love

rz

[stevolium]

Yes , harpo42 , you have validation from me . Flip the switch for crying out loud when there's a small child involved . Sure , there's the serenity of acceptance , but , there's also the courage to change stuff . BE WELL !! Stevolium

[Wolfchild]

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.
~John Keats

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
~Eric Hoffer


Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.
~Ice T


Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait, watch and work. You don't give up.
~Anne Lamott

[kevin 311]

Ann, thanks for that first post

I'm falling asleep now but that's on my reading list for tomorrow

[unbroken]

Letting go is just about the scariest thing I can imagine, Thank you for helping me <3

[nocoincidence56]

Most of my life the idea of God was an abstraction, something for idiots. After repeated treatments, divorce, loss of everything but my life (and nearly that more than once), I would not stop. I complied, submitted, resisted, generally halfheartedly tried. I never was willing to give myself 100% to change. Finally, at the age of 50 I found myself in a special treatment center, one I had been to two months earlier. I would admit to you I was an addict and alcoholic, but I would not give up anything else. After nearly falling into another rehab romance, it happened....In a moment several things became clear and vivid, I had to let go of friends, family, relationships, material things, down to the way I thought. Until then nothing else worked. I had to let go of everything!! As I did that the war which raged inside of me ceased. There was peace. I saw, understood, realized, accepted.....For once there was unity within myself. My arrogance fell away and I went to my knees. To what I did not know, I simply knew that until that moment everything I had attempted in the past had failed. I was ready to change..Damn the fear...For me Letting Go is Surrendering...as in any war, for surrender to be effective, it has to be unconditional. Anything I was unwilling to let go of indicated a lack of total surrender.......A half measure. Since that moment my life has undergone terrific change. I have a God of my understanding, my ex-ex-wife and I are reunited, I am working at a treatment center (the one where I surrendered), and helping others. I live each day feeling the feelings and know I don't have to use to escape them. Life is a blast, be the days painful or not!! I had to let go/surrender to achieve victory. I had to die to be reborn.....Nov 27, 2008 I will have two years sober, longest I have ever been.............................................. .......Thank you Ann.

[Rusty Zipper]

congratuations 56

I had to die to be reborn

i'm hear'n ya on that!

rz

[Jadikavi]

I guess I am new here. Kind of a complicated place this internet forums anymore they are ... Yes? Tube Google Twitter face space my...
So anyways... Just saying hello. Haven't found a thread topic worth jumping into right now. I was in AA for 27 years. I ascended beyond the 12the Step.
I still attend Open AA Meetings and Al-Anon. However I may attend a Closed Meeting today. I guess I should read about the 12 Concepts for World Service. That is what my calling is today. I am a World Server. My vision is for Unity among all the races and kingdoms, Plant, Animal, Mineral.
We are in both exciting and perilous times right now. The best I can do is hold a Vision for Humanity in the Highest form I can and practice Rainbow Light Meditations. Peace to all who are near and Peace to all who are afar.
To all that have gone before and all who will follow after. I Send out my Love and Gratitude to my Guru all the Deva's and Diva's , the Saints, Sages, Lama's, and Dharma Bums. Medicine Men and Women. All the drummers and mummers... Swamih's, Yogi's. Yoginin's.. Sages, Shamman's, Crones and Beings of Light that are assisting us in this Great Work for humanity.
All is held in great and highest regard as I Open To Recieve and Transmitt my light out to the world.
Your Still The One !

Namaste

[Rusty Zipper]

welcome aboard jadi!

the 12 Concepts for World Service egh?

i took a look a few years back on it, and my head started spinning!

congrats on your spiritual time...

and hey, i march to a beat of a drummer...

i am one!

good wishes on your journey jadi

blessings

rz

[jacksmith123]

very insightful post. To let go is a good deed. You are not becoming a loser by letting go. You grow as a person by doing so. Other people feel good around you. Forgiving is the greatest virtue