Where acceptance is NOT the answer to all my problems:
When fear arises, I must accept (= not deny) that it has arisen. I must most certainly NOT accept it as a resident in my soul (= mind). To fear presumes that God is not big, strong, clever, resourceful, creative, and caring enough to provide me with the mental and ultimately physical resources to handle with love, skill, aplomb, and fortitude whatever circumstance arises in such a way that, natural pain notwithstanding, I can be delivered through the situation in question with joy, gratitude, and testimony to God’s omnipotence acting through and in me. To fear, therefore, is a mental act of dishonesty, which becomes wilful dishonesty as soon as the truth of the all-ness of God becomes known.
What is the answer? Ask God to remove the fear and turn my attention to what he would have me be: reliant upon Him and humbly seeking His will for me and the power to carry that out. Fear can must be transcended.
When anger arises, I must accept (= not deny) that it has arisen. I must most certainly NOT accept anger as a resident in my soul, either. Once it has performed its work of alerting me to a state of affairs in the world that is not to my liking, there is PLENTY that can and must be done.
Where I am angry because of how something is affecting some area of my ego (pride, self-esteem, personal relations, etc.), I have to ask God to remove me from the helm of these areas of my life and self and place me back at the helm of my actions on His behalf.
Even when nothing practical can be achieved, I can use Steps Four through Eleven to remove the blocks and create the space for God to effect a change in perception and a change in thinking, and this cannot fail to manifest as a change in external circumstances, because my external life, ultimately, is simply a reflection of my mental world.
The ‘acceptance’ passage from one of the stories at the back of the Big Book has a lot of great material. But it is not a substitute for the AA programme, which is spiritual (reliance on God) and altruistic (helping others) in nature.
For years in AA I accepted perceptions, emotions, thought patterns, behaviour patterns, circumstances, and even ‘secondary’ addictions as inevitable presences in my life. In truth, none of these should have been accepted. This does not mean that their presence had to be denied or that they had to be fought head-on.
Permanent change has never been effected in my life through a direct assault, except at a terrible price.
This does not mean that permanent change in perception, emotion, thought pattern, behaviour pattern, circumstance, and other addiction is not possible. Quite the reverse: but it is through absolute surrender and absolute devotion to the principles of the programme (with no half-measures in my approach but with cognisance of the fact that all I will get is progress, never perfection) that such change has occurred.
I must always accept that where I am is where I am.
I must never accept, however, that where I am heading based on where I am is inevitable.
That would be miserable resignation to lack, limitation, emptiness, and strife and a grotesque denial of the absolute power of God to transform lives rapidly and miraculously.
When fear arises, I must accept (= not deny) that it has arisen. I must most certainly NOT accept it as a resident in my soul (= mind). To fear presumes that God is not big, strong, clever, resourceful, creative, and caring enough to provide me with the mental and ultimately physical resources to handle with love, skill, aplomb, and fortitude whatever circumstance arises in such a way that, natural pain notwithstanding, I can be delivered through the situation in question with joy, gratitude, and testimony to God’s omnipotence acting through and in me. To fear, therefore, is a mental act of dishonesty, which becomes wilful dishonesty as soon as the truth of the all-ness of God becomes known.
What is the answer? Ask God to remove the fear and turn my attention to what he would have me be: reliant upon Him and humbly seeking His will for me and the power to carry that out. Fear can must be transcended.
When anger arises, I must accept (= not deny) that it has arisen. I must most certainly NOT accept anger as a resident in my soul, either. Once it has performed its work of alerting me to a state of affairs in the world that is not to my liking, there is PLENTY that can and must be done.
Where I am angry because of how something is affecting some area of my ego (pride, self-esteem, personal relations, etc.), I have to ask God to remove me from the helm of these areas of my life and self and place me back at the helm of my actions on His behalf.
Even when nothing practical can be achieved, I can use Steps Four through Eleven to remove the blocks and create the space for God to effect a change in perception and a change in thinking, and this cannot fail to manifest as a change in external circumstances, because my external life, ultimately, is simply a reflection of my mental world.
The ‘acceptance’ passage from one of the stories at the back of the Big Book has a lot of great material. But it is not a substitute for the AA programme, which is spiritual (reliance on God) and altruistic (helping others) in nature.
For years in AA I accepted perceptions, emotions, thought patterns, behaviour patterns, circumstances, and even ‘secondary’ addictions as inevitable presences in my life. In truth, none of these should have been accepted. This does not mean that their presence had to be denied or that they had to be fought head-on.
Permanent change has never been effected in my life through a direct assault, except at a terrible price.
This does not mean that permanent change in perception, emotion, thought pattern, behaviour pattern, circumstance, and other addiction is not possible. Quite the reverse: but it is through absolute surrender and absolute devotion to the principles of the programme (with no half-measures in my approach but with cognisance of the fact that all I will get is progress, never perfection) that such change has occurred.
I must always accept that where I am is where I am.
I must never accept, however, that where I am heading based on where I am is inevitable.
That would be miserable resignation to lack, limitation, emptiness, and strife and a grotesque denial of the absolute power of God to transform lives rapidly and miraculously.