My friend last night: "Why can we not tolerate pain, and why do we keep running from it?
My thought: because we are "pleasure junkies", ever searching for more of it, and pain does not feel good, especially the way we magnify it and feed it and make it bigger through our willful actions
When I stop trying to fight against it and realize that I have been through it a thousand times before and it has not killed me, I can deal with it and get through it a lot faster and a lot easier.
Your thoughts?
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Joni, Good question. For me, I like to be comfortable. No ripples on my pond please. When pain hit in the past, I ran toward relief- alcohol. I have obessive and complusive behavoir. I'm sure that doesn't surprise anyone here. Our make up seems to be people who can't handle pain on our own very well. Not sure why?
Working the AA program and with the help of a higher power I can now let go- let god. I now understand life will happen, there will be pain- but misery is optional like LJC said. I didn't know this before. I thought I was responsible for everything.
My friend has a good saying: when the sh*t hits the fans, I don't need to turn it on.
For me it's all about the drama. This alcoholic can take something small and build it into the biggest reason in the world to drink. I realized this one day when my boss said something that hurt my feelings. My norm would have been think about it all the way home, dramatizing the whole senerio, walk into the house, seathing because he's an *** and embelish the story to five times of what actually happened. That would lead to "I need a drink."
However once I learned to let go and realized that this was his issue and not mine, I just forgot about it. But....hey wait a minute....how boring is that, there is no drama. What am I going to seath about all the way home, what am I going to dramatize when I walk in the house. I actually laughed out loud when I realized how much work I put into dramatizing my pain.
Mike, I like you friends saying. I will settle for a drama free, boring, none rippling pond life.
And jazzy, you pointed out how much EFFORT we had put into making a big deal of someone else's opinion or issues, and how much WORK it took to stay sick. Amazing.
I have always like the concept that we don't have to DO DO DO every time something happens. To "be still" externally and internally, is often the very best choice we have.
Kewl stuff!!
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
