AA Meeting…

Part of my current life experience includes attending AA meetings with a recent DUI recipient.

Part of my current life experience includes living in an environment that is exceedingly stressful, not only because of someone else, but because of the way I have “chosen” to respond.

I didn’t realize how much “I” am contributing to the stressful environment, until today.

At the close of the AA meeting, we held hands and I HEARD the words as I repeated them with the rest of the attendees.

God help me to ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE.

Probably most everyone knows the rest of the saying…but it was the first part that helped me remember my part in the chaos.

Years ago, Byron Katie and “The Work” helped me to gain some much needed perspective about being at peace with “life”.  And, Cheri Huber’s writings and retreats helped me learn about accepting the unacceptable, not as a victim, but as exactly the opposite.

Guess it’s time to start questioning my BELIEFS about a lot of things I’ve been looking at incorrectly.

Again.

🙂

Respecting your elders…

There is a joke that “i was taught to respect my elders, and now there isn’t anyone left”.

Sadly, that is not the case for Susan Nola. There are plenty of opportunities to respect others living in The Villages.

It is easy to respect your elders when they are strangers.

Susan is finding it difficult to respect the elders she interacts with on a daily basis. There is the living situation elder. There is the working situation elders. (notice the reverting to 2nd person in this post, it’s not easy to own up to shortcomings in person)

We read stories about not going to bed angry, about words spoken in anger or frustration, and about the loved one, or friend, who doesn’t return from the trip to the store, or the day at work…some tragedy strikes and the person left behind bemoans the fact that the last words spoken were harsh.

Susan has a tendency to be sensitive and she takes things personally. She is polite as she quickly points out, verbally or in writing, how the imagined slight or criticism is invalid. Usually, thankfully, she recognizes the bits of truth in the message, and she is able to polish the rebuttal…however…

There are two things she wishes, desperately, that she could master. One is to LAUGH about the situation. Life is just too darned short not to laugh. The other is to sit quietly and take in the message. Byron Katie says “perhaps what is being said about you is the truth”. Instead of rushing to correct the perception of the person delivering the message, Susan would be wise to listen, consider, decide if the message is valid and calmly, perhaps quietly, thank the messenger.

Susan hopes that the people who want to see her succeed in life understand that she forgets, sometimes, that there is no attack in the messages being delivered. And, more importantly, even when there is a form of attack, it is NOT PERSONAL.

Laughter cures everything.

Laugh.

We, I mean I, have a new Precedent!

This blog title is a play on words of the event that took place on January 20, 2009.

What a day yesterday was…I’m still awake after Inauguration day, even though I vowed to be asleep by 11PM. I’ve seen many occurrences of millions of people, in one place at a time, on TV before, but usually the events being covered are in Germany, or China, or Taiwan and usually involve some dictator or military happening. To see AMERICANS, out in the freezing cold temperatures, waiting for hours and hours, Americans…it’s a wonder to behold. Apathy is not a word to use to describe America since the “race to the White House” began, to be sure.