honeypig

I agree, alicia--many, many times my willingness was stymied by my UNwillingness to move forward unless I had the perfect plan plus an answer for any problem that might arise. I needed to see exactly how things were going to go, to know that if THIS happened, I would do THAT, and to know precisely how it would all end up. Of course, this didn't allow much progress to be made, as you might imagine.

Now, I would never say a plan is unnecessary, quite the opposite, in fact. But that plan can't be rigid; as you say, there needs to be a willingness to edit, add and discard when conditions or situations arise that could not have been foreseen.

In AA, they talk about being "on the beam." Here's a link to an explanation of that term: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...emmet-fox.html

I'd like to add to that something that I read elsewhere about that beam and how it's used for navigation. While it's true that the plane's nav system steers by set coordinates, the plane does NOT just lock on and fly a straight, unswerving path to its destination. There are constant tiny course corrections to account for wind and so on. In reality, the plane spends very little time right ON the path and most of the time CLOSE TO the path, not actually on it but heading that direction. It's not hard to imagine--think about driving your car. Constant small movements of the steering wheel b/c of bumps, potholes, larger vehicles, pedestrians near the curb, narrowing of the road, etc., right?

I do think of this when I feel frozen in place, unable to decide. I have to become willing to accept the uncertainty, willing to move ahead even knowing that my plan isn't perfect and won't/can't cover all contingencies. I have to be willing to believe that the answers to those unforeseen problems will be shown to me when I need them, even though I can imagine neither the problem nor the solution right now.

Man, it's a lot to ask of a mere human being, isn't it? But you know, when I've been able to do it, it sure does seem to work...