The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
The slogan Live and Let Live is an instruction to stop obsessing about other people's business, and focus on our own. But how to do that? Once we stop focusing on others, what do we pay attention to?
The author of today's page had a hard time with this question. A sponsor suggested to focus on what they had done today. Just today. The author discovered that becoming aware of our own life, our own needs, enables us to make choices about how we want to live. The author shares that an unexpected benefit of Al-Anon has been "Loving myself as a new-found friend."
Today's Reminder: Today I can choose to take responsibility for my own life. If I stay out of others' affairs and become more aware of my own, I have a good chance of finding some serenity.
Quote from Herman Hesse: "Each man's life represents a road toward himself."
I had heard "live and let live" all my life. I thought it meant let others do what they will, regardless of how it affects me. Thinking that way, I was only paying attention to half of the slogan, just the "let live" part. I was forgetting that it starts with "live" -- meaning me, my life, I have to live it.
But what do I even want in my life? How do I choose, if I'm not basing everything on what I believe others want me to do or to avoid upsetting others?
As I started to get a clue to what Al-Anon is all about, I remembered the title of a popular self-help book, "How to Be Your Own Best Friend." I have not actually read this book, but I really like the title! In so many ways, Al-Anon is teaching me how to be my own best friend, and in doing this, I can be a better friend to others, better parent to my children, and more content in my life.
MIP family, how are you being a friend to yourself today?
Thank you FT for your service and share. This slogan means a lot to me because for years I focused on my A, and tried to force solutions, and of course nothing worked to achieve the changes that I wanted. Focusing on myself was a totally new concept, and when my sponsor and program kept repeating this to me, I finally got it. Even now when things are difficult, I know I am powerless over others and at the very best, I will be able to control myself. I'm a work in progress, and will always be without perfection.
Thank you FT for the daily and for your service. Thank you both for your ESH & shares. The slogans, for me, truly signify much of how recovery works. When I arrived, I found them to be trite and silly - yet, over time, they are golden tools! Live and let live was a huge reality check for me. I had absolutely no idea how to remove myself from the middle of everything including many other's 'business'....add to that, I was expected to focus on me, keep my focus on me, and be gentle + practice self-care. All of this was foreign to me when I arrived - my habits/obsessions had become who I was, and were extremely unhealthy.
Today, I practice differently. I do all that I can, all day long, to choose gratitude and joy. Live and let live reminds me what I am accountable for (me) and what I am expected to do (for me). I can be of service to others, and my best course of action there is to be asked or refrain until asked. I pause often and no longer offer unsolicited advice or opinions on the choices, actions, etc. of others. My mouth finally has a filter, thanks to recovery.
Happy Friday all - it's a great day to be in recovery, choosing to practice happiness, joy and freedom! Love and light to all - make it a great day!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Thank you Freetime for your service, and to all who shared above! What great tidbits of wisdom!
This place has become a morning touchstone for me. A ritual. A reconnection. It is one of the things I do to support me. After years and years of trying to be everything to every person, all the time. I know many of you can relate to that mindset.
I have recently pulled a rib-head "out" of alignment. It is very painful and is impacting my work and ability to enjoy things I do at home to support me... so I have made my doctor's appointment, and I am using a TENS unit to reduce inflammation. Most of all, I am not berating myself for not "getting things done." Right now, I need TLC... and I am giving it to myself!
Enjoy this Friday, for it will never come again!
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"The wolf that thrives, is the one you feed." - Cherokee legend
"Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields... Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness." Mary Oliver
Thank you for your service Freetime and the reinforcements above on this topic that seems to be my number one topic right now.
Exhibit A: I'm at the (very empty, large, socially distanced) beach right now on vacation! I cried on the shore yesterday, making a connection to myself and HP. All those years I abandoned myself. But yesterday I felt like I had a clear vision on just how to 'focus on myself', to live for myself, and what that would look like. It's difficult when it's been 3 or 4 decades of only living for others, in others' business. I like the idea of just focusing on today. What am I doing today, that is uniquely mine to do and be? I am catching myself every fifteen minutes or so, drifting off into rumination about what someone else is doing, what they did in the past, what they might do in the future. It's so liberating whenever I catch that glimpse of being able to let that go. I'm practicing this as often as I can, until I don't have to practice it so much perhaps. I tend to make small, incremental steps with the aid of my HP, and the next thing I'm looking forward to is getting to the next stage in this (of not having to go down the rabbit hole first before remembering to get my head out of other people's lives).
Thank you, FT for the great share and for your service.
Taking care of someone who at best was difficult was a challenge to my live and let live but I did take timeouts plenty of them to make sure I took care of me when I got the latest back spasm I put limitations on what I could do. I focused on taking care of me and she actually bashed me for thinking only of myself and I turned and looked at her and said if I was only thinking of me I would not be here making sure you are fed and have water and your cats are taken care of but yes I am going to take care of myself in the meantime and I am not going to do anything that aggravates an already nearly unbearable painful condition. I told her if my help wasnt good enough, say the word and I will go home and stay there and then she shut up And I guess realized she was shooting herself in the foot and decided to stop
I want to do what is right by others but not at the expense of me. Id love to give and to lend a hand but not at the expense or abandonment of myself
If that is not good enough for others, I can always pack up my toys and go home and I do. I couldnt say that before recovery. Live and let live, staying in my own lane, yup program has taught me how to be loving and kind but Im also mindful of my needs and taking good care of myself
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