👓 regaining my perspective 👓
Posted: Fri, Mar 9, 2018 07:31:33 AM
here i am, at the worst part of the worst week of each month, the weekend of my on-call week, planning my escape possibly for three times this weekend. it is true, that for most of this week, there is very little for me to pay attention to, however the last Saturday that i was on-call, it was a sh!t-show, just before my first planned escape, and man ,oh, man, was i torqued off! a perfect example of letting a tiny little detail work me over through my self-obsessed sense of entitlement. the reading speaks of the “small things,” that can drive me to distraction and while that is all well and good, the question is not WHAT but WHY!
last night i GOT to hear a speaker, youngish in recovery and who has yet to find a fellowship to call their home. what was shared, was pretty close to the expectations i had formed, once they announced their clean date and identified as a “drug addict.” at first i was pissed off, which seems to be my default reaction to the little things today, and resolved to “tell” somebody, in no uncertain terms what qualities i deemed necessary to speak at that meeting and they better damn well do as i say. what i did was give hugs around and walk away, without hammering anyone or saying anything about how disappointed i was at the quality of the speaker. this morning i am grateful, for not behaving in the a$$hole manner that once ruled my life and seeing it was my expectations that got my all worked up and letting go, as the reading alludes to, was what i needed to do.
the fact is, it is my expectations, self-obsessed entitlement and need to exert power, that makes the small things drive me to such extreme reactive distraction. writing this little exercise this morning, i “get” why i used to walk around so angry so much of the time, that it became my default feeling. not only did it protect me from others getting too close, it also filled the excuse bucket, at those rare times when i wondered for a split second whether it just might be the drugs. the cocoon of anger that i so carefully crafted was more than the foundation of my wall of denial, it was intricately woven in that whole pattern of denial and as i got less angry about everything not being in my control, i began to see who i was and what i needed to do.on that note, it is off to the races and into the world filled with all sorts of little events, slights and processes that appear to be designed to piss me off, after all i really am the “center of the universe,” NOT!
last night i GOT to hear a speaker, youngish in recovery and who has yet to find a fellowship to call their home. what was shared, was pretty close to the expectations i had formed, once they announced their clean date and identified as a “drug addict.” at first i was pissed off, which seems to be my default reaction to the little things today, and resolved to “tell” somebody, in no uncertain terms what qualities i deemed necessary to speak at that meeting and they better damn well do as i say. what i did was give hugs around and walk away, without hammering anyone or saying anything about how disappointed i was at the quality of the speaker. this morning i am grateful, for not behaving in the a$$hole manner that once ruled my life and seeing it was my expectations that got my all worked up and letting go, as the reading alludes to, was what i needed to do.
the fact is, it is my expectations, self-obsessed entitlement and need to exert power, that makes the small things drive me to such extreme reactive distraction. writing this little exercise this morning, i “get” why i used to walk around so angry so much of the time, that it became my default feeling. not only did it protect me from others getting too close, it also filled the excuse bucket, at those rare times when i wondered for a split second whether it just might be the drugs. the cocoon of anger that i so carefully crafted was more than the foundation of my wall of denial, it was intricately woven in that whole pattern of denial and as i got less angry about everything not being in my control, i began to see who i was and what i needed to do.on that note, it is off to the races and into the world filled with all sorts of little events, slights and processes that appear to be designed to piss me off, after all i really am the “center of the universe,” NOT!
∞ DT ∞