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 writer came face to face with a decision to put principles above personalities, and let it begin with me. Are we able to focus on what we can give instead of what we can get? If we can practice these elements, we can change our attitudes. We can focus our actions on a loving principle which help our character defects diminish.
Thought for the day: Placing principles above personalities guides me to be someone I'd like to have in my own life.
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This thought for the day is quite profound. I spent many too many years and too much energy trying to force solutions on my A, all of which resulted bad feelings on both sides. I do not agree with many of my A's decisions, but my A also has numerous positive qualities. It's a difficult juggling match, keeping my focus where it needs to be. I remain a work in progress, ODAT.
"Placing principles above personalities guides me to be someone I'd like to have in my own life".
I so want to be someone I'd like to have in my own life and I am working towards that. It's been humbling to realize that many if not most of my troubles and issues are not magically gone since leaving the main A in my life. It has really forced me to take a look within myself instead of always looking outside of me for the source of whatever is wrong in my life.
That being said,when I am able to stay focused on myself I see and experience life in a completely different way. I am able to see good in others and life is just much better.
Thanks Lyne for your service and everyone for sharing on this reading. This reading shows me how my expectations, resentments and personal giving can be linked. The reading uses an example of attention seeking behavior or needs or wants from another person that are continuously unmet. Having experienced this repeated from some people in my life, it's easy for me start quantifying giving on the part of others and give or withhold by the result of that measurement. Sometimes calling this judgment "detachment" is convenient rather than facing and working on my resentment that is simmering under surface. That takes program work I may not be ready to do.
If I am giving as I would to anyone else but my heart really isn't in it, it doesn't always result in a warm fuzzy feeling as the outcome as this reading implies. There can be an element of surprise on the part of the other person and I may not get a positive response to my positive behavior. What I try to practice is to continue to have healthy boundaries concerning my giving to others without regard to my relationship to/with them. If I find it difficult to give of myself to certain people, I start by at least practicing and affording the same courtesy and respect to them that I, myself welcome. This helps with practicing humility and reinforces my awareness that no one is above nor below anyone else. I continue to make progress from this starting place one day at a time.
-- Edited by tiredtonite on Monday 17th of April 2023 08:22:04 AM
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
