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.
My thinking has gone totally astray. I want to know too much, need to know it all. By this thinking I have stopped thinking at all. I've struggled with a HP. I am now at a point where I really don't know what spirituality is or what a spriitual journey is. I can understand that a spiritual journey means that the journey has spirituality.... but what does it MEAN? How do I know what spirituality is...how do I know if I've found it... how do I know what I am looking for?
I know I cannot "think" about my HP anymore. I have come to the understanding that I need to just take things one day at a time and one incident at a time. I am workiing so hard at doing everything I must to to keep my serenity but I am blocking out so much. I'm at a point where I AM AFRAID TO THINK. I'm afraid that if I start thinking again I will go overboard again and loose my footing.
If I only knew or understood what spirituality was and how it made people feel. How do you know that you have found it? Where do I find it? What do I look for?
Yes, I am finding peace in my days. I am going through the process of praying for help. I am trying to keep my self focused on the moment and on ME. These things have helped me.
I feel like I am lost in a locked room. I'm told all the answers lie within, but I don't know where my key is... actually I beleive my key lies within my spirituality. My 'within' has been closing up and wants so badly to open up again. I NEED help and am searching anxiously.
Please, anything you can share on spriitauality would be helpful and appreciated.
I can certainly resonate to both struggling to stop thinking so much and also with struggling to find that spirituality or connection with a Higher Power that everyone is always talking about. I will share my own still-very-much-in-progress journey with you in the hopes that it helps you in some way make sense of your own journey.
I think because of some of the spiritual language in Alanon (turn my life over, etc.), I at first really struggled with the idea of HP because it seemed like he should be OUT THERE somewhere, and I found myself scanning the horizon for him, uncertain if whether, how, when I should feel is presence.
Gradually, however, I realized that I come from a faith tradition that believes in HP as a still quiet voice within, and as that there is the Divine in every person. For me, it helped to go back to that conception of my HP and to really listen--to myself, to other people, to the Universe to see if I could discern that quiet voice within in everything I encountered.
For me, it has helped immensely to try to "tune in" to the quiet, the serenity of the divine. When I feel tuned in, I feel like I can hear something that's not just my intellectual self talking to me, guiding me, helping me. I have also shared my struggle to feel connected to my HP with my HP. Recently, for example, I had gone to a really beatiful spot in my town that I go to occasionally when I want to pray and feel connected to my HP. I sat on the edge of the hill there and look out upon the sky and horizon, and the trees, trees, trees, stretching out before me, and I prayed outloud (a practice I find immensely helpful and a practice that always helps me feel more connected to my HP) told my HP exactly what was on my heart. In the midst of the prayer, the following poured out of me: "I realize I am afraid of you. I don't want to be, but I am. I am really struggling not to see you as someone who when I share who I really am with you, will punish me. I want to be connected to you, but I don't always actively feel our connection. Please help me see and feel your benevolent and merciful presence in my life."
I think, as my prayer shows, a spiritual journey is exactly that, a spiritual journey. I hadn't actually realized fully how much I have this terrible image of HP as a punisher and someone who wreaks havoc until I was in the midst of the prayer and made the connection as I was talking to my HP. This was a HARD thing to admit, but I felt better and more connected with my HP for saying what was really on my heart.
For me, I have had to very much think of even connecting with my HP as a journey. I ask for help in finding and connecting with my HP. And, I show up to quiet places and seek him out there. I find the more I seek and invite my HP's spirit in, and the more I say directly I want my HP in my life, miracously, the more I feel this connection.
I can so relate. I've tried everything: asking my God to reveal himself, writing a letter to God, reading Big Book, Came to Believe, etc. everything. I don't feel any existence of anything like that (for me). My sponsor has told me not to think about it, I did OK for almost 4 months and prayed earnestly....but I am tired of praying to something that I don't even feel is there. And if it's inside of me, I don't know how to make contact with it. I've asked everyone "with time" and followed all of their suggestions. I feel no serenity and everyday takes so much work. I have SO much to be grateful for, and I try to keep my focus on that everyday but everything feels so difficult. It's so hard to believe that any God that cared would stay so out of reach. I only pray now because my sponsor says I have to - the whole thing feels totally fake. I don't get it and I am so fearful that I never will.......
Lisa~ I can so relate. I've been doing the praying and it seems fake. When you said "It's so hard to believe that any God that cared would stay so out of reach. I only pray now because my sponsor says I have to - the whole thing feels totally fake. I don't get it and I am so fearful that I never will......." I can relate so well! You are not alone! Hang in there and share with me the secret when you get it and ill do the same!
Reaching out for help is the start of surrender because you are giving up control. Spirituality means many things for me today. I learned these variations in program. Spiritual can refer to my motivation. If I am motivated to be happy and do good stuff one could say that "my spirit is up". When I am depressed and procrasting and doing the "poor me" thing one could say that "my spirit" is down. Spirituality also suggest that there is another part of me that is not physical and attached to people of entities beyond this material world. I believe this and I connect my physical existance with the spiritual world. I cannot see my Higher Power as I use to believe that "He" was described. I see my Higher Power in many different forms such as just one of these is if I see another person doing a kindness to someone else for the sake of just being kind in character...I know that this is a display of my HP's will. I see the person as displaying my HP's character and so on. I want to do that same will even to the alcoholic. My HP never held the negative feelings for my alcoholic that I did.
I don't try to preceive my HP or spiritual principal and solutions in my head. My head and brain are too small to hold concepts like this. I learned to take the surrender I needed with my Higher Power and let it travel approximately 12 or 13 inches down ward and work with it in my heart. At first I had to do that consciously today I can do it unconsciously and habitually. Some people will say that this is faith practice and I have come to agree with that. I have gone one step deeper in that I have accepted it (the existence and relationship with) my HP as my center, my core. The awareness and practice are now subconscious and I rarely have to work at trying to figure God or spirituality out. I learned in the program a definition of "Faith" that goes beyond what I use to understand. "Faith is not so much the believe in a thing without proof but the reliance on it without reservation."
You gotta start somewhere though and most starts come in Step One of this program. "Admitted we were powerless over alcoholism and that our lives had become unmanagable."
Step two is the natural progression; "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could lead us to Sanity" (From crazy to un-crazy if you like.)
Step three is an anchor or foundation in the journey. "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God." It's your journey so change the our into my and continue to practice.
"I can't, God can, I'll let Him/Her/It/Them etc. as you understand God.
That the short version. I gave it to you very near how it was given to me years ago when I first got into the program. Keep coming back cause there's more coming.
Linda, I am so glad you are out there. Sometimes they say that many people have this problem, but I don't think so. My meeting today felt like torture as everyone described their "constant contact with God" and all their spirtual connections. It makes me feel like a failure. Asking me to "believe" is equivalent to me asking the room full of people to believe that it will be snowing in 5 minutes (I live in So.Cal). No matter how much you pray or act "as if" it's NOT going to snow! It just isn't.
I do like all of the people I've met in Alanon and I am grateful for the education in how to deal with my son's troubles (by fixing myself). I just don't feel any peace and my anger at God is now returning full-force because he seems to only make his presence felt by those he chooses. It feels lonely and sad. If I find any answers I'll let know.
I got this email today and feel it fits to put it here.
> We have days when we experience the small coincidences in life -- our car > breaks down and we run into an old friend at the service station; we're > thinking about someone and she calls just because we've been on her mind; we > ask ourselves a question and the answer appears on the side of a bus or out > of the mouth of a stranger at the bus stop. These serendipitous events > usually leave us with at least a bit of awe.
> The more serendipity we have in our life, the more spiritually connected we > are. We're turned in, attentive, aware, and detached. We're getting > responses to questions and meeting the people we need to be with at just the > right moments. We couldn't have planned it better. We couldn't have planned > it at all.
> Serendipity is a sign that we're letting the universe organize the events > that lead to answered questions and fulfilled dreams. Life becomes a process > of unraveling a mystery.
> Today I will recognize the serendipity in the day's events.
I wonder if getting this email today was one of those serendipitous events..... HUNH! I'm still looking for answers but am more hopeful now that they will come.
The serendipity is actually synchronicity. When you allow yourself to be open to positive things happening you actually notice these events around you that we put down to coincidence. When you are opening up spiritually more of this energy will occur. Just let it happen. Luv Leo xx
