Letting the Good Stuff Happen
Getting there!!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 5,750
Letting the Good Stuff Happen
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Letting the Good Stuff Happen
Before recovery, my relationships were lousy. I didn't do very well on my job. I was enmeshed in my dysfunctional family. But at least I knew what to expect!
—Anonymous
I want the second half of my life to be as good as the first half was miserable. Sometimes, I'm afraid it won't be. Sometimes, I'm frightened it might be.
The good stuff can scare us. Change, even good change, can be frightening. In some ways, good changes can be more frightening than the hard times.
The past, particularly before recovery, may have become comfortably familiar. We knew what to expect in our relationships. They were predictable. They were repeats of the same pattern - the same behaviors, the same pain, over and over again. They may not have been what we wanted, but we knew what was going to happen.
This is not so when we change patterns and begins recovering.
We may have been fairly good at predicting events in most areas of our life. Relationships would be painful. We'd be deprived.
Each year would be almost a repeat of the last. Sometimes it got a little worse, sometimes a little better, but the change wasn't drastic. Not until the moment when we began recovery.
Then things changed. And the further we progress in this miraculous program, the more we and or circumstances change. We begin to explore uncharted territory.
Things get good. They do get better all the time. We begin to become successful in love, in work, in life. One day at a time, the good stuff begins to happen and the misery dissipates.
We no longer want to be a victim of life. We've learned to avoid unnecessary crisis and trauma.
Life gets good.
"How do I handle the good stuff?" asked one woman. It's harder and more foreign than the pain and tragedy."
"The same way we handled the difficult and the painful experiences," I replied. "One day at a time."
Today, God, help me let go of my need to be in pain and crisis. Help me move as swiftly as possible through sad feelings and problems. Help me find my base and balance in peace, joy, and gratitude. Help me work as hard at accepting what's good, as I have worked in the past at accepting the painful and the difficult.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Letting the Good Stuff Happen
Before recovery, my relationships were lousy. I didn't do very well on my job. I was enmeshed in my dysfunctional family. But at least I knew what to expect!
—Anonymous
I want the second half of my life to be as good as the first half was miserable. Sometimes, I'm afraid it won't be. Sometimes, I'm frightened it might be.
The good stuff can scare us. Change, even good change, can be frightening. In some ways, good changes can be more frightening than the hard times.
The past, particularly before recovery, may have become comfortably familiar. We knew what to expect in our relationships. They were predictable. They were repeats of the same pattern - the same behaviors, the same pain, over and over again. They may not have been what we wanted, but we knew what was going to happen.
This is not so when we change patterns and begins recovering.
We may have been fairly good at predicting events in most areas of our life. Relationships would be painful. We'd be deprived.
Each year would be almost a repeat of the last. Sometimes it got a little worse, sometimes a little better, but the change wasn't drastic. Not until the moment when we began recovery.
Then things changed. And the further we progress in this miraculous program, the more we and or circumstances change. We begin to explore uncharted territory.
Things get good. They do get better all the time. We begin to become successful in love, in work, in life. One day at a time, the good stuff begins to happen and the misery dissipates.
We no longer want to be a victim of life. We've learned to avoid unnecessary crisis and trauma.
Life gets good.
"How do I handle the good stuff?" asked one woman. It's harder and more foreign than the pain and tragedy."
"The same way we handled the difficult and the painful experiences," I replied. "One day at a time."
Today, God, help me let go of my need to be in pain and crisis. Help me move as swiftly as possible through sad feelings and problems. Help me find my base and balance in peace, joy, and gratitude. Help me work as hard at accepting what's good, as I have worked in the past at accepting the painful and the difficult.
Nature Girl
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
The past, particularly before recovery, may have become comfortably familiar. We knew what to expect in our relationships. They were predictable. They were repeats of the same pattern - the same behaviors, the same pain, over and over again. They may not have been what we wanted, but we knew what was going to happen.
Dysfunction was my normal, I knew how it felt, what to expect, and I knew how to cope with it day to day. It was predictable and I could plan my day knowing how it would unfold. The pain was a minor inconvenience, even though it was eating me alive. I could justify my dysfunction..."my son's an addict donchaknow, of course I am dysfunctional" and people accepted that and let me be.
Change was scary. I didn't know what to do with scary. I was uncomfortable when I didn't hurt, I had too much time on my hands when I wasn't busy being the codie detective or chasing after my son.
As I changed, it began to feel good. It was slowly becoming my new normal...but this scared me too because I just knew this couldn't last, that the pain would be worse when I fell again.
Perhaps this is why recovery is a slow process, perhaps this is why there are 12 steps to my program with each step building a foundation on which to build the next one. That's all I could handle, one little step at a time.
Even today I get nervous when my life becomes too good. When all is well, everyone is healthy and I feel at peace, I wonder not so much if it may change, because life is ever changing, but I wonder how I will handle it when change steps in and reroutes my plans.
I lean on my faith for this. Today I trust that life will lead me to where I am supposed to go. I know I will survive it because I survived that which almost killed me. And today I trust that whatever the future holds for me, I will embrace it as a blessing waiting to happen.
Fear of change has been replaced by faith, and that has made all the difference.
Hugs
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