Letting Go is Diffcult
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Letting Go is Diffcult
What remarkable things happen when you turn your will over to a Higher Power. If our way of living isn't effective then what? What have you experienced when you let go completely. What does this look like to others?
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http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...awakening.html
This is my experience. Took me a while to get here though, but I'm stubborn!
This is my experience. Took me a while to get here though, but I'm stubborn!
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Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 370
Originally Posted by Jeni26 
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...awakening.html
This is my experience. Took me a while to get here though, but I'm stubborn!
This is my experience. Took me a while to get here though, but I'm stubborn!
I'm still working too, but I've come a long ways. I am sober and while I still lose it once in a while, I'm at far more peace than when this started 50-days ago. But I can accept there is no "being done" when it comes to the personal development.
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Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Ohio
Posts: 3,785
I think there are two stages to letting go. There is the past and the ongoing.
I have let go of the past for the most part but as they say, more will be revealed and I find they tend to creep up on me. It is not that I totally forgot them it is just when they are revealed my feelings about them are quickly intense. The good part is that today I can see that and I have to ask myself if this is something I need to do something about, do I need to just let it go because, after all, it is the past. There are times that I feel I have every right to be upset about it, but even then, I have to ask myself how important is it really? Important enough to threaten my sobriety if I keep it?
I will share a little here. Friday I went to my brothers grave. I went to make amends. His headstone it flat and it had snowed. I knew the general area where he was laid but due to the snow I had to brush off about twenty headstones to find it. I felt so bad because I had been so selfish and resentful that I had not visited his grave in 28 years and here I was disturbing the rest of someone else's loved ones because of it.
Then I found it, I was so elated I even spoke out loud, "Thank God, there you are" but I was hit with an overwhelming resentment. "Our beloved Son". No "brother". I was so very angry. I had forgotten. My thoughts went to my mother and how selfish she can be. She always looked at him as "hers". It was her son and it was only her that grieved or I guess I should say, had the right to grieve. It was her way of making sure the world new that. I was also angry at myself because although I had not visited his grave I suddenly wanted recognition for being a sister.
But I caught myself. Was it important, yes. Did I feel I deserved to be upset? yes. Did I have a boat load of thoughts running through my head like replacing that headstone? yes. Was it worth my sobriety to hang on to? No.
So I said my amends. I also read him my lead that I had prepared for next month. I left my resentment towards him and towards my mother at the grave never to be dug up again. I also gave my forgiveness to both of them. I had let go and while it was emotionally draining, when I walked away, I felt free.
After dealing with some of the things I let stick there for over thirty years I don't ever want to have to do that much work again. I want to either keep it from hitting my side of the street or get rid of it as soon as I have identified it. The longer it sits the stickier it gets.
I am a happier person today. I feel free to do whatever I wish. I am no longer tormented by "My way". It is not easy but it has gotten easier as more time goes by. Identifying that I am trying to control is, I think, the most important part. Once I see it, I can no longer ignore it.
I think that I did what God wanted me to do at that grave site. The anger and resentment were mine, but the forgiveness and letting go, was his will, not mine.
I have let go of the past for the most part but as they say, more will be revealed and I find they tend to creep up on me. It is not that I totally forgot them it is just when they are revealed my feelings about them are quickly intense. The good part is that today I can see that and I have to ask myself if this is something I need to do something about, do I need to just let it go because, after all, it is the past. There are times that I feel I have every right to be upset about it, but even then, I have to ask myself how important is it really? Important enough to threaten my sobriety if I keep it?
I will share a little here. Friday I went to my brothers grave. I went to make amends. His headstone it flat and it had snowed. I knew the general area where he was laid but due to the snow I had to brush off about twenty headstones to find it. I felt so bad because I had been so selfish and resentful that I had not visited his grave in 28 years and here I was disturbing the rest of someone else's loved ones because of it.
Then I found it, I was so elated I even spoke out loud, "Thank God, there you are" but I was hit with an overwhelming resentment. "Our beloved Son". No "brother". I was so very angry. I had forgotten. My thoughts went to my mother and how selfish she can be. She always looked at him as "hers". It was her son and it was only her that grieved or I guess I should say, had the right to grieve. It was her way of making sure the world new that. I was also angry at myself because although I had not visited his grave I suddenly wanted recognition for being a sister.
But I caught myself. Was it important, yes. Did I feel I deserved to be upset? yes. Did I have a boat load of thoughts running through my head like replacing that headstone? yes. Was it worth my sobriety to hang on to? No.
So I said my amends. I also read him my lead that I had prepared for next month. I left my resentment towards him and towards my mother at the grave never to be dug up again. I also gave my forgiveness to both of them. I had let go and while it was emotionally draining, when I walked away, I felt free.
After dealing with some of the things I let stick there for over thirty years I don't ever want to have to do that much work again. I want to either keep it from hitting my side of the street or get rid of it as soon as I have identified it. The longer it sits the stickier it gets.
I am a happier person today. I feel free to do whatever I wish. I am no longer tormented by "My way". It is not easy but it has gotten easier as more time goes by. Identifying that I am trying to control is, I think, the most important part. Once I see it, I can no longer ignore it.
I think that I did what God wanted me to do at that grave site. The anger and resentment were mine, but the forgiveness and letting go, was his will, not mine.
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: C.C. Ma.
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The following will take place if desired and effort is put in motion.
"The Promises
(From pages 83-84 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."
Linked with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
"The Promises
(From pages 83-84 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."
Linked with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Last edited by Dee74; 12-15-2013 at 10:01 PM. Reason: copyright requirement
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This is something I am working on now. A bit late in my recovery but I really believe this is something I had to come to rather than something I did. There were lots of steps which came before I even considered letting anything go. Basically so much got on top of me that I had no choice but to let go. For me it was letting go of control, stopping trying to micro manage everything, and especially letting go of my expectations. I don't think it looks too different to others, I may be less tense, maybe it seems like I care less, but in actual fact I am able to care more. For me it has been learning to live in the moment and stop trying to work towards something. When you spend so much time trying to manage outcomes you are never truly happy in the moment. I am a work in progress...
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Join Date: Feb 2013
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Letting go for me was more of the realization I didn't have much control to begin with. I thought I did but in all reality I didn't. So it was more of just accepting what is instead of arguing with it.
Other than I have a choice here and there, I really don't have control over much. I can't control anything outside myself for the most part and most of the time I can't really even control my own thoughts. They pop up as they wish. No matter how much I meditate. They just come and go as they will.
It all got easier...and pretty much all life in general did, when I finally just said that life can do what it wants. I just don't have to cling to it or try to change it. I just have to worry about what I do. And they key word for me is do. I have to take action.
And that's about all I can control. My actions. Even if I feel like crap I don't have to act like crap. Even if I feel angry, lost, confused, or scared, all I have to do is just feel it and try to do something to help comfort myself in a healthy way. Sometimes I know what to do. Sometimes I don't.
All I know is drinking ain't an option. No matter how much I want alcohol to be something different than it is, I can't change it. It will always get me drunk. It will always shut me down.
Just me.
Other than I have a choice here and there, I really don't have control over much. I can't control anything outside myself for the most part and most of the time I can't really even control my own thoughts. They pop up as they wish. No matter how much I meditate. They just come and go as they will.
It all got easier...and pretty much all life in general did, when I finally just said that life can do what it wants. I just don't have to cling to it or try to change it. I just have to worry about what I do. And they key word for me is do. I have to take action.
And that's about all I can control. My actions. Even if I feel like crap I don't have to act like crap. Even if I feel angry, lost, confused, or scared, all I have to do is just feel it and try to do something to help comfort myself in a healthy way. Sometimes I know what to do. Sometimes I don't.
All I know is drinking ain't an option. No matter how much I want alcohol to be something different than it is, I can't change it. It will always get me drunk. It will always shut me down.
Just me.
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Arizona
Posts: 3,680
What Sugarbear said really resonates with me, I give my will and life over to the care of a HP...and as I move onward with recovery, I don't have MY HP, not just one...I give it to A HP.
There are things I surrender to Sobriety itself, things I place in the "hands" of the Universe, things I place in the hand of my better self, wiser self, more stable self...than the self that used to run things.
Then there is the whole honesty thing. I am only as honest as I am currently capable of being. I'm not intentionally in denial, or being dishonest. but there are things i have not yet learned to see...so I hang on, not even realizing I am doing it.
I'm really "not there" yet.
But so far, to the outside it appears less insane and volatile. LESS out of control than it did when I was trying to control it. Inside it feels like a relief many times, other times it feels like a Rx, something I know I am supposed to take, but am not yet in the habit, and forget, then I feel bad and it's like "Oh, I forgot to take that!"
And there are many things I don't know how to surrender. Like static electricity, I THOUGHT I put them down, but find out they are still stuck to me and I'm dragging them around.
There are things I surrender to Sobriety itself, things I place in the "hands" of the Universe, things I place in the hand of my better self, wiser self, more stable self...than the self that used to run things.
Then there is the whole honesty thing. I am only as honest as I am currently capable of being. I'm not intentionally in denial, or being dishonest. but there are things i have not yet learned to see...so I hang on, not even realizing I am doing it.
I'm really "not there" yet.
But so far, to the outside it appears less insane and volatile. LESS out of control than it did when I was trying to control it. Inside it feels like a relief many times, other times it feels like a Rx, something I know I am supposed to take, but am not yet in the habit, and forget, then I feel bad and it's like "Oh, I forgot to take that!"
And there are many things I don't know how to surrender. Like static electricity, I THOUGHT I put them down, but find out they are still stuck to me and I'm dragging them around.
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I was a complete control-freak. I became a control-freak because I lived in a violent, chaotic and regimented home when I was growing up, and felt that if I could control things in my life, it would all work out. Well, it sure didn't and I began drinking as it became harder and harder to control things in my life. There is very little we can control, except our reaction to things. When I finally let go of control, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
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