I have been clean for:
I Stand With Ukraine

Welcome

Journal

Some memes

Feel Free to steal and repost these memes!

Surrender meme Work the steps meme

โˆต resisting change โˆด

Posted: Thu, Jun 15, 2017 07:35:45 AM

seems to be the root of what makes me most uncomfortable, when angst permeates my life. it would be so nice to say, that nothing ever gets under my skin. i have learned to tolerate, accept and let go of, everyone and everything in my life, in the here and now. yes, that would be nice to say, the reality is, that i have yet to achieve that Buddha-like state and am more apt to follow a corruption of Descartes famous line; “i resist, therefore i am!” the facts, plain and simple, is that i am hardly ever, one of those who lays down and accepts my fate, and that attitude pervades everything else, to the exclusion of knowing when and where to resist.
change is inevitable, as i tell the men who call me their sponsor, and if one is living a program of recovery, it will almost always be for the better. as soon as the words leave my mouth, i start to wonder if i truly believe them, or am i just playing one more hypercritical card, telling others what they SHOULD do and ignoring that same advice for myself. i know that the change manifest by living this program of recovery, is always part of a better path for me. i also know that as a rule, i choose to resist that change for as long as possible, wallowing a the swamp of self-pity and despair. there is a certain comfort, in al;lowing myself to play the victim. i GET to abdicate responsibility to something or someone else. i GET to live in blithe ignorance of what is going on inside of me and most importantly when something, as part of the process, occurs that i find undesirable, it is not my fault. the notion that i may be responsible for my recovery and my life, is one i reject through resisting the process of change in my life.
it is quite true, at least for me, that when the pain of not doing is greater than perceived pain of doing, i act. what i often find, however, is that i have very little control about either the pace or the nature of the change, and i have already had the change active in my life for a bit of time. my letting go of resistance is just the final formality. i have a very serious blind spot to what change i think is happening and has happened in my life. many times the culmination of a process occurs without me even noticing. a case in point, the removal of my desire to use, which should have been a major red letter day on my calendar. what happened instead, was that my life filled up, my six months of being on the “five minute plan” has change to the hour and finally just for today plan, and the bone-crushing, jaw clenching jones that i lived with was simply gone. until i was asked by a peer when that left me. one of the outcomes of the biggest changes in my life, had come and gone unnoticed. i did not even realize that the the desire to use, as manifest by my constant obsession to use, has been removed form my daily life,. of course, i still was working under the assumption, that once my judicial troubles were cleaned up, i would use again, and amazingly when that time came, i had changed even more. in fact, as that event approached, i realized that change from who i was, was a good thing and that i really did not want or need to go back to the life of using, just for today.
the upshot of all of this, is a realization that change is always going on in myself and the world around me. i can ignore that fact and resist its effects, or i can wake up, be present and stop resisting, just for today.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

This day in older entries

๐Ÿšง instead of being ๐Ÿšง
486 words ➥ Monday, June 15, 2026 by donnot
๐Ÿคž i once feared ๐Ÿคž
450 words ➥ Sunday, June 15, 2025 by donnot
๐Ÿ˜– what if they ๐Ÿ˜Ž
442 words ➥ Saturday, June 15, 2024 by donnot
๐Ÿ”Ž finding and ๐Ÿ”
564 words ➥ Thursday, June 15, 2023 by donnot
๐Ÿ™Œ releasing the old, ๐Ÿ™Œ
325 words ➥ Wednesday, June 15, 2022 by donnot
๐Ÿ˜ฑ what if ๐Ÿ˜ต
340 words ➥ Tuesday, June 15, 2021 by donnot
๐Ÿšš moving forward ๐Ÿšš
378 words ➥ Monday, June 15, 2020 by donnot
๐ŸŒŠ manufacturing at least ๐Ÿšจ
635 words ➥ Saturday, June 15, 2019 by donnot
๐Ÿšฃ the pain ๐Ÿšค
717 words ➥ Friday, June 15, 2018 by donnot
๐Ÿ‘Š fear, doubt, ๐Ÿ‘Ž
775 words ➥ Wednesday, June 15, 2016 by donnot
ยป any change ยป
752 words ➥ Monday, June 15, 2015 by donnot
there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain
448 words ➥ Saturday, June 15, 2013 by donnot
ยฟ release the old and embrace the new to grow ?
583 words ➥ Friday, June 15, 2012 by donnot
โ„‘ i can cling to my fears, doubts, self-loathing, or hatred โ„‘
513 words ➥ Tuesday, June 15, 2010 by donnot
ฮผ i have often heard it said that ฮผ
421 words ➥ Sunday, June 15, 2008 by donnot
ฮด my mind manufactures a hundred excuses... ฮ”
483 words ➥ Thursday, June 15, 2006 by donnot
โ†” releasing the old โ†”
200 words ➥ Wednesday, June 15, 2005 by donnot

Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 1

2) In loving the people and ruling the state, cannot he proceed without
any (purpose of) action? In the opening and shutting of his gates
of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence
reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be without knowledge?