Why is turning it over so hard?

Tessa · Senior Member

Why is turning it over so hard?

AGO · MIP Old Timer

OK, now this is just me, but I still after many many years can't "Let Go and let God" or "Turn it over" I literally can't wrap my mind around that concept on a gut level, but what I CAN do is "Let it be"

Let it be what it is

Accept it for what it is

and that's what lifts the weight off my shoulders

Many years ago I had my own business, and it's a long story but a sub-contractor left a dumpster on the side of the road for a few days after the job was completed full of concrete, it was a 25mph zone and that weekend a women came around the corner and hit it doing 65 mph, her brand new 60,000 car was totaled and she was put in the hospital in serious condition, she had been drinking and speeding, but the Police report said the accident was my fault, because that dumpster company wasn't licensed to leave dumpsters off private property, but it wasn't their fault, it was my fault for hiring them.

This is a law suit that could have totaled millions, and my insurance only reached 3 million, she had back and neck injuries.

I called another contractor in a panic, not only was my company ruined, as I saw it my life was over, I would spend the rest of my life paying this woman off.

He said, and I will never forget this, "Andrew, these things have a way of working themselves out. Tomorrow the sun will come up and you will go to work."

I looked back through my life, the companies I had worked for, the drama's I had endured and realized he was right.

Every single thing that had ever happened in my life had passed, every drama, every life changing and life threatening and career ending and I want to die now and I will never get out of this and I have always felt this way blah blah blah situation had passed, it had changed.

Usually resolving itself regardless of the effort I put into it, in ways I never could have imagined, that all my stressing and catastrophizing and worrying and running around and suffering didn't ever change the outcome.

A week or two later another sober friend was at a Lions Club fundraiser, and there was a women a few tables over in a neck brace, he overheard her conversation:

She said, "Yeah, I totaled my car a few weeks ago, I got a Police report saying it was the contractors fault, but the truth is, it was my fault, so I am just going to let my Insurance cover it."

Here?

In America? Someone being accountable for themselves???? Someone taking responsibility for their own actions and not suing someone when they had a chance to make free millions?????

Truth is indeed stranger then fiction

Let it be

I can do that

I say to myself a few days a week "Tomorrow the sun will come up and I will go to work, and this situation will resolve itself."

You want to know a secret? Something funny?

Yesterday I was at work and I put a tree into someones living room, well a good portion of one, maybe an 8 foot section of large diameter wood through their sliding glass doors exploding glass everywhere and obliterating everywhere the section of tree hit.

Today the sun came up and I am working in the garden, I have no idea how I am going to pay my rent or bills because I have been working for free this week now.

Situations like this have a way of working themselves out, and it's a beautiful day, I have the choice to suffer and stress, or enjoy it and watch the robins and squirrels go hop hop hop in my yard as I garden.

It's my choice.

My job is to fling sh*t against the wall, but I am not in charge of adhesion, that means I do the next right thing, I do the best I can, then I let go of the results, I let it be what it is and trust "God"

Your signature has a thing or two to say about this topic actually smile

-- Edited by AGO on Friday 26th of March 2010 12:03:01 PM

Tessa · Senior Member

AGO, appreciate your reply. I know things will get better. I've been down this road twice & recovered & gotten back on my feet. It's just so hard not to sit & dwell on the fear. I know my landlord isn't going to toss me on the street. He's too good hearted of a person to do that. But, I still fear telling him my situation. Knowing everything's going to work out. Also, my signature has been my main source of prayers. It helps me put things in perspective & understand things on a greater level. Thx

AGO · MIP Old Timer

I think it was Suzuki Roshi who said,

"Patience isn't waiting for something to change, as much as it is allowing the present to be what it is."

That's what I try to do, is have patience, not wait for things to change, but allow the present to be what it is.

Sometimes I'm not very good at it but the words help ya know?

Just Toni · MIP Old Timer

Hi There Tessa,

What you said in your Signature, that's all we got!

And that part of How it Works,

"The Fear of Economic Insecurity will Leave Us" . As a true blue alcoholic have pondered that one for years, yes, primarily the Fear does go, but gees, given your circumstances, speaking for myself, have to keep Praying for Help that the Fear stays away....

And I agree with AGO, I use that all the time, (well when fear is not knocking) or think it might be walking up to knock, It is What is Is....That is much easier a concept. ....

Just said a Prayer for you that things will turn around for you, and just like you looked back, it will be one of those looking back to....again, soon.

Hugs,

Toni

-- Edited by Just Toni on Friday 26th of March 2010 05:51:21 PM

Ellen E · Senior Member

I know just what you're feeling and it's certainly no fun. Turning things over and leaving it with God was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do and even now, I sometimes have trouble with it. But when I've gone through all the fear and agony and whatever it is is still staring me in the face, when I finally---at long last---get it through my head that "I can't, He can" then I come to the "I think I'll let Him" stage of surrendering whatever it is.

There's one part in the Big Book that helps me many times. I don't know if you've done your steps yet but even when I'm not concentrating on a particular step, any part of the book I land on is a help to me and what came to my mind in this case is a sentence in the 4th step. It's on page 68 and it says, "We ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear." Now, that's in the directions for the 4th step but it still has helped me immensely just to remember to do that in tough times because it gets me out of the mode of worrying---which is fear, bottom line---and back into the mindset of concentration on becoming what God would have me be. Fear gets me drunk, sobriety sets me free and He wants me to be sober and free. I still have to have redirection sometimes because I still get sidetracked with fear, but it doesn't say we'll never fear again, it just says we'll "commence to outgrow fear."

I heard a great speaker several years ago who talked about the fact that he could either live like the King's kid he really was or live like a bum if he wanted to handle things himself. His Higher Power would let him flounder around struggling for just the basics and doing things on his own power or he could live like the child of a King that he really is. He said that his Higher Power was the King and would give him everything the child of a King was entitled to---but only if he asked and let his Father handle things. Any time he wanted to take over the reins and do it himself, then his Father would let him. But when he did it all himself, then he'd always end up barely scraping by not knowing where his next meal was coming from a lot of times again. All he had to do was the footwork. He had to tell his Father He could handle everything and then he had to hit the pavement and let people know he was available. He might lose his apartment, but then he'd tell his Father he needed somewhere to live and lo and behold, he'd end up with a house or something! But he had to be willing to let his Father the King handle things and then do the footwork. And sometimes his Father would let him suffer a little bit before he got what he needed, but he learned that with trust and patience, if he let his Father handle it and he did the footwork, it worked out great. That's all. That sounds simple, but oh how hard it can be! To do that, he had to be willing to take the chance that his HP Father was going to say no to something he asked for. But he had learned that even if he didn't get what he prayed for, he'd still get something that would prove better in the long run because it was what he really needed.

Listening to that speaker was an important part of my story so I told it. It made a big difference to me and maybe it will for someone else that I shared what I remember.

Aquaman · MIP Old Timer

Let it Be - just like the beatles song.

angelov8 · MIP Old Timer

Do what you can do for now and let it go. Can't wait till I can figure out how to do that all the time.

This week I had something I began to worry and obsess about(what an alcoholic obsessing?) I kept thinking it could be life and death and I should do something. Thank God I mentioned it to someone else 1) get out of myself and my conflicting thinking, 2) Tried to maintain conscious contact with HP, 3) took next right action, and then 4) accepted that situation was what it was-even if the very worst was true, then I could accept it.

I got no clear answer for 12 days. Within hours of feeling that acceptance inside myself, I got a response about the situation. Clear as a bell. The person I was sure had committed suicide, answered my messages, said thanks for your love and concern, I was out of town and off the grid. So my situation turned out to be a big story in my mind. However, I felt that clearly my HP wanted to show the way to acceptance in all situations, even when the crisis is real and deeply painful.

Tonight in my meeting someone said they read today, "Worry is spitting at God".
Concern and desire toward right action is never wrong. Running the show and wanting an answer right now is self-centered thinking and leads to a tightness that cuts me off from receiving from others and God. Others shared how hard it is when you do all the right things and the answer doesn't come.

How exactly do you "Let it Be?" How does that shift in thinking come about? I hope I can figure out how to get there so I can be here as much as possible.

-Angela

AGO · MIP Old Timer

angelov8 wrote:

How exactly do you "Let it Be?" How does that shift in thinking come about? I hope I can figure out how to get there so I can be here as much as possible.

-Angela

I don't know really, but when I am unable to "let it go" as in I am still gripping it, and I am literally unable to stop obsessing or worrying, and no amount of praying is helping, and I keep coming back to looping about it, because it's still there, it hasn't changed, and I am unable to "let it go" I can accept it, using the acceptance speech and other AA tools, and as Aquaman stated, I literally "let it be" and hear the Beatles song in my head.

Something I learned in Alanon was the three A's (and the last C, I can't control it) bu tthe three A's are:

Awareness

Acceptance

Action

So if I become aware of the situation, next I have to accept it for what it is, and sometimes there is literally no action I can take. As in simply acceptance is the answer.

When I was training as a paramedic they taught me about something called SOAP

Subjective

Objective

Analysis

Plan

Subjective is what the report is, ex car crash at x loc, x number poss patients blah blah, subjective is what others have told me about the situation. helpful but not "real" data.

Objective is actually what I see with my own two eyes and can document

there is a car with a crumpled front end, a spider web crack in the windshield and a male with lacerations on his forehead no mention of a car accident or what I think happened, like the TV show says "just the facts maam" his BP is X, his PULSE is X and he is alert and oriented x4 and he tells me he swerved to hit a cat. (subjective)

Analysis: There was a car crash and the male hit his head on the windshield as per the report, the crumpled front end of the car, the windshield, and the lac(eration) on the forehead of the male

Plan: Stop the bleeding, transport the male to the hosp to check for internal injuries etc call CHP to tow the car and secure the scene

We do this to assess for example, did he have a CVA (stroke), what caused the accident, are there bodies in the bushes? what was the mechanisms of injury? any possibility of spine, neck, head or internal injuries? We only believe what we can see and touch with our two hands, and we investigate the entire scene.

I literally do SOAP for the stories in my head. What is hearsay? What of the story in my head either originated in my head, or was gleaned by my supernatural telepathic and motive reading mind?

What can I document as FACT? What can I TOUCH with my own two hands?

It seems complicated, but this stuff all goes through my in head in a second, and if needs be, dozens of times if not 100's in order to manage my interior life.

I don't know, because of my week, when I will be able to pay rent, so I leave my landlord a Facebook message, and garden in the yard, wash clothes, do dishes, prepare food and enjoy my day. Later this weekend I will have more information, so I can take more action.

Once I do the best I can, I HAVE to let go of the results or the sounds of my own wheels will have me putting a bottle in my mouth or sorting my gun collection by barrel flavor.

Like the BB says, the first order of business is to still my upset, it only makes it worse, never better.

My day was 98% fantastic with 2% stress, for someone in my up against the wall need to come up with rent in less then a week and pay all my other bills too but I have no work scheduled and just worked for free this week and only have 200$ to cover 1k in bills in less then a week, I'll take it.

It will work out, it always has before.

Faith is jumping off the cliff and asking for help 1/2 way down, and I'm in free fall and it will be OK.

Larry_H · MIP Old Timer

My experience was that it became easier to turn it over after I started trusting God.

In the beginning I did not trust God because I thought I was a bad person who was due punishment from above. Slowly but surely I saw other Alcoholics in meetings who had done similar things in their past as I, but were being helped by God.

I decided that if God would help them he just might help me also. That was the beginning of a change in my attitude and being able to turn it over.

Larry,
----------------
Anything an alcoholic lets go of has claw marks all over it

Sid · Senior Member

I appreciate all the helpful responses here as well. I as well have an issue with letting go and dwelling on things I can't change. I am working hard on a change of attitude and allowing the present to be what it is. I will try to follow the examples and suggestions posted here.

AGO · MIP Old Timer

Hey Sid, Read the Doctors story I think it starts on Page 407 of the fourth edition, especially when it gets to the "acceptance speech"

ACCEPTANCE

....." And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.

When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, or
situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake.
Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober ; unless I accept life on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."...

Acceptance has taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we each have a right to be here.

When I focus on what's good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what's bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases. When I focus on people's bad qualities, they multiply; when I focus on people's good qualities, they seem to grow and grow.

Perhaps the best thing of all for me is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of other people are, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. I have to discard my 'rights', as well as my expectations, by asking myself, "How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety?"

I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that's God's will for me.

I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my level of acceptance. When I remember this, I can see I've never had it so good.

-- Edited by AGO on Sunday 28th of March 2010 06:39:44 PM

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Aloha Tessa...It is hard (less so today) to turn life and life events over because that
is not my habit and it requires me to switch rooms; go from the material existence
room to the spiritual existence room. I need, I've learned, to remain in the spiritual
existence room. Switching is confusing and when I get confused I get frustrated,
angry and rageful. I didn't know about the spiritual existence room till I got here.
Before getting here I was always in the other room and you could tell by all of the
rukus I was causing. LOL. Practice, Practice, Practice. smile

Sid · Senior Member

Thanks for the post AGO. I have also placed a bookmark to read the entire chapter tomorrow.

I thought what JerryF had to say was interesting as well. I actually went to church today for the first time in I don't know how long and the topic of the sermon was very similar to your thoughts on the material versus spiritual.

In any event I will keep working as I know Tessa will and have no doubt we will both continue to make progress.