It's been a year...

Hello blogging world! I have spent the last year not updating my blog, but avidly reading those that I follow and I thought it was time for me to get back to writing. I will keep this short today but here are a few pieces of information about me: I am still sober-it was 17 months on the 4th of March. I got married in September, our daughter turned 2 in January, and I am fully immersed in school (where I am studying chemical dependency counseling). I am still struggling with acceptance, I forget to be grateful all the time, but I think I am learning-which is sometimes very painful. I still have hope that I will figure out how to give it to god, let go of my imagined control of the universe, and just be okay with being me.

Gratitude List

For the last three nights I have been writing a short list of things I am grateful for for that day. When I started the first night, I could only barely think of ten things. I think this is really sad. Of course, I didn't put things like "breathing" or "my vision" or "my health" on there and I really could have because I am grateful for those things too, but they didn't even cross my mind. The next night, I thought of eleven. Last night I thought of fifteen!

For me, I think this is a good practice because it brings me back to myself and takes me on a positive journey throughout the day and lets me realize that I am a blessed person. Sometimes I tend to get really wrapped up in the few things  that are not going right that I forget to notice the hundreds of things around me that make life wonderful for me. I hope never go a night without being thankful for my child. She did make the list, all three nights- above breathing and seeing and being alive and healthy.

Acceptance, part one.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation-some fact of my life-unacceptable to me, and 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 the world by mistake. "


"Unless I accept life completely 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." (Pg. 418, 4th edition, Alcoholics Anonymous)



I have read this passage from the Big Book before in meetings and have been referred to it a couple of times when I was venting about how everyone and everything would be just fine if the rest of the world would just do what i want done-sometimes in jest, and most times not. I think it will take me awhile to actually put this notion into practice because I have come to believe that I honestly and truly ACCEPT very little in life-I am always wanting something else, something "better" and if I don't have it now, I am upset. This is the basic point that I have been missing over and over again-until I accept that things are as they should be and that I cannot know what is yet to come, I will continue to be upset day after day. There is no relief from the suffering of desire for more, more, more until I can accept that balance in my life comes with letting things be as they are in the moment they are in.  If I can finally realize that my way is not the only way, or even the best way, and that other people and places exist in time and space as they are meant to, individually and as a whole, then wow-I really think the world will totally open up to me.


"Acceptance requires a bit of humility. Acceptance requires the ability to accept that you might be wrong. At the very least acceptance requires the ability to allow others to be wrong without letting it totally screw up your day."-William Berry

Potato Project. Day One.

“Like any other living, growing thing, love requires effort to keep it healthy.”-Leo F. Buscaglia

“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still”-Chinese Proverb

                                                           

“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”- Lao Tzu

"Bound to suns and planets by invisible cords, I feel the flame of eternity in my soul." - Helen Keller

We are all connected. From the starving child who has no clean water who maybe will not make it to adulthood to the richest fat cat in the United States. From the staunch liberal to the farthest right winger. From the oldest living being to the newest soul born to earth. I think it is important to realize that we all share a common connection-we all have light inside of us- flowing from a pool of light that binds us. Sometimes it is imperative that we step outside of ourselves to see that even the person we resent the most is fighting battles within and dealing with the external world the best they know how. Living can be hard, but embracing our connectivity can sometimes be even harder. If we realize our togetherness, our separateness will cease to alienate us, if only for a moment.

What kind of life do I want?

This is my first blog ever! And I am going to start off with a bang! I think I would like to devote this blog to the things in life that I find most inspiring. Also, i want to be able to visualize what it is think I want in life, as well as the things I thought I wanted. When I was a teenager I had big dreams about what my life would look like when I was 27. Actually, I think I thought I would be dead by 30 ( I was such a romantic)  so maybe I didn't even really imagine my late twenties- but I did dream of what some of my adult life would look like--and since basically NONE of those ideas manifested in reality-I would like to explore why that was and see if those ideas would still work for my life now.  I haven't decided how personal I want to get with this, but probably I will end up realizing that if I want an honest view of what I want, I have to give an honest representation of who i am.  Perhaps this will be more of a chronicle of what my life has led up to...I guess we shall find out. ( I guess it is awfully presumptuous to write "we", as if anyone would care to read this...)