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so this is certainly one of those readings, that as i said a year ago, i can say me too! either i am listening and can talk about my experiences with the wonderment of all i actually hear, or i am not and i can bemoan the fact that i need improvement in this area. even though i would love to go to one extreme or the other, the reality of the situation is i fall somewhere smack dab in the middle, and today i am okay with that little bit of factual information. before i get too deep, here is a little shout-out to a friend far, far away:

Linda L
12 trips around the sun
and still CLEAN.
Way to go my friend.
Be well and kind to yourself,
after all, you are worth it!

moving into the here and ever now, as i consider my active listening skills and how i apply them, it is NOT, for a refreshing change, not an opportunity today to say how far i am from the ideal. i am far from perfect, some of my peers, really share the same stuff, over and over and over and over again, in meetings as well as one-on-one, and they do get tiresome. there are times, when i wonder if it would be a kindness to tell them to shut the fVck up and listen to what others have to say, but then that is just the judge, jury and executioner, coming out to play. when that trio starts to warm up, i know it is time for me to deep dive into a state of listening for the will of the POWER that fuels my recovery, via a quick meditation session.
i come however not to bury Don, but to let him express his human frailties and allow himself the opportunity to also show the other side of the coin, and yes there i one. for as many times as i am cringing inside listening to one of my peers, there are also the times, when i can just listen. no critiques, no running commentary and the terrible trio are napping quite nicely somewhere deep down inside.i hear what is being shared and when the share is complete i feel my emotional reaction to what was shared. in false humility i would say that rarely happens, and in false pride would say it happens all the time, the mark is certainly somewhere in between and since i am already being quite redundant, i will repeat that i am okay being in the middle of the pack here.
so last night, as i was catching up on my recorded TV shows, i got a call from my friend who is the ward of the Boulder county and as i listened to him speak of his hopes and dreams, i was amazed that regardless of what his life has been as a result of using, he still thinks that somehow, he can have “just a couple of Coronas, at a BBQ in the backyard of his house, with his loving wife and family.” he has also come to believe that it would be better to have his kid see him high and in jail, close by, rather than 1000 miles to the southwest, where he can never be seen. i heard both those statements, to the former i commented that based on his past experience a couple of anything was not a very likely scenario. the latter i left alone, and will probably do so when i write my weekly missive to him. today i need not be callous or cruel, even though the bit about iut better to see his kid in local county jail, really starts a whole lot of judgement going on..
anyhow, i am on this spiritual journey and now that my crazy season has officially started i can say that accepting who i am today, is much better than disparaging myself for who i am not yet. will i ever have the spiritual grace to just be i dunno, but what i do know, that the only chance i have to achieve that state comes through the rooms and the teachings of the fellowship that has given me this way of living.

∞ DT ∞