Applying the Steps in All my affairs

Principals before personalities   

Our common unity comes first person recovery depends on it

 Mountains out of mole hills

These are all the issues I am dealing with as I face life on life's terms in my new Job.

I have missed you guys  tremendously, I must say that first.  Everyday I think of this blog and what I want to write, yet find myself too utterly exhausted at the end of my work day to get my fingers floating across the keyboard.  I would do it early in the morning if I didn't leave so early.  Ten hour days, working my body beyond anything I have ever done before....  I am ass kicked by the end of the day.

I am entirely grateful to my program of twelve steps and traditions.  It is through the learnings and understandings of those concepts that I have been able to move through my new job outside of the fellowship of recovery.  It is these learnings that I can transfer into all of my affairs and become a truly productive member of society....  Although I gots to tell ya, It's not bloody easy.  I feel like this ol' brain is being forced into a new direction and it's rebelling at every turn.

My new job aside from being physically demanding has also put me in a position of power.  Finding balance between staying in my own higher power and letting my ego grab that power has been a bit of a struggle for me.   With anything new there is a certain level of fear involved.  Where there is any fear my ego is hot on the trail.  Instead of suggesting things to my crew I find I am dictating.  Instead of encouraging I am criticising.  These are not my normal traits for dealing with co-workers.  By the end of the week my days were longs and miserable.

Waking up this morning I was in self kicking ass mode, In my head beating the shit out of myself for being such an ego maniac all week. Desperately trying to hand it over to my higher power.  Making mountains out of mole hills.  I sometimes forget the larger picture and get lost in the details.  There are far larger problems in the world right this very moment to help me put my little power struggle into  perspective..... like the day I walked into the rooms of my twelve step fellowship, completely broken from the mass destruction I made of my life.  This is small potatoes compared to that, yet my mind is worked way up about it.

I am reminded of placing the common unity of my Crew over my ego issues.  The success of my entire team will benefit from placing that unity above my own issues of power and control.   I have been dictating the way to do things and what to do and when to do them.   I am no longer attracting my crew to follow my lead I am promoting it.  These are all concepts I was aware of going into this position, yet seem to have lost track of  the past few days.  I have become a dictator not a leader.

H.A.L.T  is another acronym that I was aware would become an issue with starting this job that I lost focus of as well.  I let myself get hungry yesterday and my day went to hell in a pretty little hand basket.  Anger started to rise and I couldn't extinguish it.  I have stopped talking to my higher power and was feeling lonely, without realizing it.... and hot damn I was way beyond tired.   This allowed a co-workers personality to become greater then the principal of working as a team.

Man all these realizations of just how much this program has given me is way beyond my scope of gratitude right now.  Upon the answers flooding my mind this morning after surrendering it, tears have threatened to wash me clean of all the stress I have inflicted upon myself this past week.  I am always amazed at how hard I am on myself, how down right mean I can be in my own head about my own body, mind and emotions.   I should be showing myself the most love, the most kindness and compassion.  It's not egotistical to love one self and to treat oneself with compassion.  I respect others greater then I respect myself... thats just ass backwards.

I have learned a lot this past week and look forward to my day off today.  For the next few weeks I am afraid to say, only one post a week will be what I can afford.  Hopefully things will settle into a routine and my body will begin to adjust and I wont be so wiped at the end of the day.  I do truly enjoy to write and derive great benefit from it.  

Have a great week, Lots of love to you on your journey!!

Be the Change You want to See

Attraction not promotion is a wide spread concept in the realm of the co-dependent person.  Show me anyone who is dependent on something to alter their moods and I will show you the co-dependent nature within them.  I am a severe co-dependent.

I have lived my life from a place of promotion, I used the term tell sell in my past.  My whole mission in life was to get people to buy in to my theories and perfected ways of life.  Another way to look at this was manipulation.  I would manipulate people to see things from my point of view  to help retrain peoples  minds to new ways of thinking... my ways.  This for me falls under the personal aspect of attraction over promotion.

I promoted weight loss and eating right with my ex husband like a drill sergeant expecting her crew to live up to standards that were not their ideals even if they were mine.  I would hide the junk food, I would punish my ex husband for not wanting to get more active by staying extended time at the gym.  I would harp about how great I felt and  how much I wanted this for him, yet he just wouldn't budge.  That was my promoting something he was not yet ready for.  Funny thing was, as soon as I let up on the tell sell, he began eating healthy and lost a good deal of weight.  With no longer promoting it, I flipped the scales and attracted it just by living it.

I see how this has transferred into  my life in a twelve steps fellowship and the community of the rooms.  People don't want to be told what to do.  I sure as hell hate being told what to do.  I watch people, the ones that don't stuff cliche catch phrases in my ears and are looking serene in their own lives are the ones that I  listen closely too when they speak.  These are the people I seek  out after the meetings.  These are the people that 'attract' me.   The people that come up to me after a meeting to tell me how I should handle a problem are the ones still promoting and I avoid them, because they are a version of the old me, and I am interested in moving forward not back.

When it comes to the  newcomer, stepping up when asked is attraction.  I don't feel the need any more to rush over to the new comer and bombard them with the things that have worked for me and give them a list of the sponsors I think would be good for them.  I share from the heart,  I do key tags when asked and let them know during the hug that they never have to use again and when asked to share with the newcomer I tell them what worked for me.  Nobody wants to be told what to do and nobody wants to feel pressured.

Even with raising my daughter I now understand that she learns so much more by watching how I live then by the words coming out of my mouth.  If I want to raise a strong inter-dependent woman I must first lead the way by being one.  I need to attract her to follow me, not promote it.   I truly believe when you align yourself with your highest power, that energy will bring the people that need what you have to give your way.  There is no struggle or fight to save someone's life, there is no distress over watching someone not get it, because the people ready to 'get it' will be attracted to you.

I am so excited this was a different topic today, pushes my mind into new thoughts patterns. Growth is about rewiring the mind, it's constant and it challenges me.  I like that.  Have a great day friends!!