π§ am i consciously π
Posted: Wed, Apr 8, 2026 10:18:26 AM
listening with all i have got: mind, body, heart, and spirit? truly a question for the ages and one that i cannot and will not treat as rhetorical. i can say that i have been known, in the not so distant past, to look at the messenger and miss whatever message i was supposed to hear, because my brain got in the middle. living in the real world, i know that i have to take many of the things i hear with a ten ton grain of salt, especially if it is coming from … in the rooms, however, i am more than certain that even if i do not respect the messenger, their message just may be what i need to hear today, even if that message is: DO NOT DO THIS!
for me, what most of my peers, associates and closed-mouth friends tell me, is spot on, even if in that very minute i do not think so. i have come to trust and even solicit their feedback, even when i think i “got” this. as much as i may want to spin and rationalize my shit, there are more than a few of my peers who seem to be full of themselves and i often wonder how they stay clean. i am quite certain that if i did what they do, i would not be able to sustain my daily program of recovery. that sort of value system is what this set of steps seems to be attacking and my source material this morning goes straight to the heart of that particular value judgement. what i lack is the ability to prevent the move from discernment to judgement, as my biases and prejudices push that forward. more than once, i have gotten what i needed by letting go of what i thought, in real time, to take on the message for later analysis.
i am quite sure that i will never be perfect at consciously listening to everything i hear around me, that is probably beyond any human capacity. what i can strive for, is to place the brakes on the discernment to judgement bullet train and pause before i jump to a conclusion of whether or not i need to take in what i am hearing. that sort of filter is something i need to put into place, no matter who the message may be coming from, even if it a trusted source, as they are only human as well. what came out of the depths this morning was that i “know” that the message may come from an unexpected source and my job is to stop beating myself up in real time for falling into the pit of my prejudices and allow myself the freedom to get what i need to get, just for today.
for me, what most of my peers, associates and closed-mouth friends tell me, is spot on, even if in that very minute i do not think so. i have come to trust and even solicit their feedback, even when i think i “got” this. as much as i may want to spin and rationalize my shit, there are more than a few of my peers who seem to be full of themselves and i often wonder how they stay clean. i am quite certain that if i did what they do, i would not be able to sustain my daily program of recovery. that sort of value system is what this set of steps seems to be attacking and my source material this morning goes straight to the heart of that particular value judgement. what i lack is the ability to prevent the move from discernment to judgement, as my biases and prejudices push that forward. more than once, i have gotten what i needed by letting go of what i thought, in real time, to take on the message for later analysis.
i am quite sure that i will never be perfect at consciously listening to everything i hear around me, that is probably beyond any human capacity. what i can strive for, is to place the brakes on the discernment to judgement bullet train and pause before i jump to a conclusion of whether or not i need to take in what i am hearing. that sort of filter is something i need to put into place, no matter who the message may be coming from, even if it a trusted source, as they are only human as well. what came out of the depths this morning was that i “know” that the message may come from an unexpected source and my job is to stop beating myself up in real time for falling into the pit of my prejudices and allow myself the freedom to get what i need to get, just for today.
∞ DT ∞