Often I have complained I am trapped in behaviour and thinking patterns. Often I have felt a victim.
The truth was: I wanted the pain to go but I still wanted to keep all of my ideas, ideals, attachments, and values.
Questions I have asked myself over the years:
Am I willing to live without the chemical rushes of guilt, rage, and victimhood?
Am I willing to yield up every pleasure, every "asset", every "virtue" in Step Seven as well as all the bad stuff?
Am I willing to place character building ahead of comfort?
Am I willing to seek only God's will?
Am I willing to stop depending on any individual for my happiness?
Am I willing to let go of everyone from my life should their paths lead them elsewhere?
Am I willing to admit that every perception I have may be distorted and cannot be trusted?
Am I willing to admit that I actually secretly enjoy the pain I am inflicting on myself by my behaviour because it makes me feel alive?
Am I expecting God to rip the thinking or behaviour from me without my own consent or willingness?
Am I trying to use good action to hustle God into doing for me what I should be doing for myself?
Do I want relief or recovery?
Do I want freedom from the bondage of self regardless of the pain the process will cause?
Or would I prefer, instead, to decorate the prison and hope for the day when a reprieve will come from on high?
Do I want to serve God or my own mind?
Do I genuinely believe in the futility and fatality of being trapped inside the goldfish bowl of my mind, painted, as it is, on the inside with visions of hell I myself have conjured but take to be the world?
Am I willing to let the sky turn black and be led?
The truth was: I wanted the pain to go but I still wanted to keep all of my ideas, ideals, attachments, and values.
Questions I have asked myself over the years:
Am I willing to live without the chemical rushes of guilt, rage, and victimhood?
Am I willing to yield up every pleasure, every "asset", every "virtue" in Step Seven as well as all the bad stuff?
Am I willing to place character building ahead of comfort?
Am I willing to seek only God's will?
Am I willing to stop depending on any individual for my happiness?
Am I willing to let go of everyone from my life should their paths lead them elsewhere?
Am I willing to admit that every perception I have may be distorted and cannot be trusted?
Am I willing to admit that I actually secretly enjoy the pain I am inflicting on myself by my behaviour because it makes me feel alive?
Am I expecting God to rip the thinking or behaviour from me without my own consent or willingness?
Am I trying to use good action to hustle God into doing for me what I should be doing for myself?
Do I want relief or recovery?
Do I want freedom from the bondage of self regardless of the pain the process will cause?
Or would I prefer, instead, to decorate the prison and hope for the day when a reprieve will come from on high?
Do I want to serve God or my own mind?
Do I genuinely believe in the futility and fatality of being trapped inside the goldfish bowl of my mind, painted, as it is, on the inside with visions of hell I myself have conjured but take to be the world?
Am I willing to let the sky turn black and be led?