tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78744283135482581142024-03-18T14:33:18.635+00:00First 164How I used the 'Big Book' to recover: some personal experiences and views of one individual. This is not an official twelve-step fellowship website. I do not speak for any twelve-step fellowship. The material is shared for fun and for free. If it helps, great! If it doesn't, don't worry about it! My programme is a perpetual beta, so it changes with my experience.
If you're on the mobile app, click the hamburger (≡) in the top right for pages and links.First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comBlogger2462125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-69624528422072452092024-03-18T14:33:00.000+00:002024-03-18T14:33:16.948+00:00The recordings from the twelve-step retreat in Huty, Slovakia ...<p> ... can be found <a href="https://www.mediafire.com/folder/tcw4we3rtmc95/2024_HUTY_WORKSHOP_SLOVAKIA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>The retreat was organised by SA in Slovakia but covers the Twelve Steps and related matters from a more general point of view, albeit with a specific accent, at times, on S questions.</p><p>The talks are consecutively interpreted into Slovak.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-76300469751628578792024-03-18T09:04:00.002+00:002024-03-18T09:04:56.475+00:00Traditions in Relationships Q&A: 04: Trust<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">How do you address issues that challenge your trust?</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">I think what this question means is this: When your other half does something that suggests or shows they have done something I do not like, what do I do?</p><p style="text-align: left;">In marriage, the other person is not my slave; they are not my employee; they are not my servant; they have not undertaken to obey me as the overlord. I am not the superior moral arbiter. It is therefore inevitable that the person will do things I do not like. I likely do things my other half does not like.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Sometimes the person says they will not do something, but then they do, or vice versa. In my marriage, I do not force the other person to make solemn, binding oaths regarding ordinary everyday matters, to which I may legitimately hold them, by force of what? Punishment? Divorce? Death?</p><p style="text-align: left;">Setting aside the above, broad questions, we are left with the questions of honesty and fidelity.</p><p style="text-align: left;">No one is entirely candid and entirely truthful. In fact, full candour and full truth will kill the relationship. If each person told the other they look tired, old, and ugly, when they do (which everyone does, sometimes), that they find the person they can see on the television or the beach attractive, that they are bored or irritated and wish they had never married, each time such a passing thought crosses their mind, that the other person annoys them each time they do, this would spell disaster. Anyone wishing for total candour and total truth has no idea what they are asking for and is inevitably the sort of person who reacts badly to full disclosure. Typically the only people that are foolish and insecure enough to demand full candour and full truth are quite unable to handle even small doses of candour and truth.</p><p style="text-align: left;">There are situations of fundamental and material dishonesty, e.g. regarding financial matters that affect the household, and there are also situations of actual infidelity in a relationship where the requirement is fidelity.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I have never successfully changed someone's personality or the way they live or behave. If you have, please write a book. You'll make a buck.</p><p style="text-align: left;">When dishonesty or infidelity comes to light, a fundamentally honest and faithful person who has made a mistake, including an egregious one, will firstly know they have done this and will secondly know what to do about it. If they are committed to the relationship, they will be contrite and mend their ways. They will not need explanations or ultimatums. Either they will mend their ways, in which case the problem is solved, or they will not, in which case I have a choice: accept the ongoing dishonesty and infidelity as it is, or leave. <i>Changing them in not an option.</i></p><p style="text-align: left;">Regarding <i>suspicions</i> of dishonesty or infidelity: I've never met a secure person who worries about whether or not they trust the other person. If someone is fundamentally trustworthy, I trust them. I do not need to monitor or micromanage. If I do not trust them, why did I pick them? If the 'signs' are actually innocent, there is nothing to worry about; if they are not, the truth will probably come out, and probably soon: eventually there will be a major and undeniable slip-up.</p><p style="text-align: left;">In most cases of suspected infidelity I have come across, however, the suspicious person has the demand that their other half find them the only attractive person in the world and not interact in anything but the coldest and most business-like way with persons of the relevant sex. This is the sign of someone who is self-centered in the extreme and desires not a relationship but a mirror, mirror on the wall, who tells them they are the loveliest of all. The other person is of no interest except as a delivery system for micro-doses of emotional morphine to quell the pain of their insecurity. The problem, here, is not the relationship but the insecure person. Such questions should be resolved <i>before even thinking about dating</i>. I was such a person and had no right to inflict my unresolved personality on another person.</p><p style="text-align: left;">One of the first requirements for a successful marriage is the ability to trust a trustworthy person. The inability to trust would disqualify me. I have been in (very brief) relationships with people who are insecure, suspicious, demanding, and reproachful (note that these four characteristics tend to go together as a package deal), and I soon recognised that forming any sort of relationship with such a person was impossible. Intimacy requires trust; no trust, no intimacy; no intimacy, no relationship: just proximity with the enemy.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-91951696023714440852024-03-11T07:45:00.000+00:002024-03-11T07:45:30.798+00:00Group consciences and Bright Ideas<p>It is sensible in groups to propose big new ideas, discuss them, and vote on them <i>on separate occasions</i>. That's what we have done for years in my home group.</p><p>It turns out that Thomas More set out this idea clearly in his book <i>Utopia </i>(1516):</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their motions.</p></blockquote><p>The notion of the 'perverse and preposterous sort of shame' echoes the line in the St Augustine Prayer Book <i>Sacrament of Penance</i> list of character defects.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Shame (hurt pride), sorrow for ourselves because our sins make us less respectable than we like to think we are, or because we fear punishment or injury to our reputation, rather than sorrow for what sin is in the eyes of God. Refusal to admit we were in the wrong or to apologize.</p></blockquote>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-49258447701459104352024-03-11T07:02:00.001+00:002024-03-11T07:02:31.685+00:00Don't give up! Give up!<p>If my childhood is my problem, I might as well give up now, because it's over and cannot be changed.</p><p>If other people are my problem, I might as well give up now, because they can't be changed, either.</p><p>If I am my problem, there is hope.</p><p>I used to argue with the programme.</p><p>The cockroach arguing with the exterminator.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-17763583804335411052024-03-11T07:01:00.000+00:002024-03-11T07:01:05.963+00:00The Unhappiness Monster<p>My starting point when facing any problem is the recognition that the <i>appearance </i>of the situation, which means how it appears to <i>me</i>, is incorrect.</p><p>If I'm unhappy, nothing I see is guaranteed to be in reality as it appears in my perception.</p><p>The faculty of discernment of true and false is offline, although the lights on the control panel are still flashing.</p><p>Appearances are created by me, by the Unhappiness Monster within, then taken for reality.</p><p>This is why recovery, although requiring a catalogue of those appearances, is not based on the accuracy of their description.</p><p>What is being described is a set of delusions, in order that their delusional nature can be discarded.</p><p>This is why spending two years with four ring binders of paper on Step Four is useless.</p><p>Much better to spend a month, two months, and produce thirty pieces of paper.</p><p>The only point of the pieces of paper is to produce a bonfire with them.</p><p>A small quantity of looseleaf paper burns easily.</p><p>Ring-binders, less so.</p><p>The danger of scrupulosity and wordiness in inventory is the turning of phantasms into fortresses.</p><p>The solution lies, instead, in the basic and simple hope that one is utterly wrong.</p><p>On that basis, the first sensible question can be asked.</p><p>What do You want me to do today?</p><p>From that starting point, the actual truth can be shown.</p><p>It can't be wrested or wrestled from the world of delusions.</p><p>If you shake the delusion tree, no real apples will fall out.</p><p>Instead, one must let this world pass away.</p><p>And then the next appears automatically.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-24278998764531125062024-03-07T07:18:00.002+00:002024-03-07T07:18:20.456+00:00Twenty Questions<p>Courtesy of the late Dr Paul O:</p><p></p><p><span style="color: black;">1. Do you lose time from work due
to your <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">2. Is <b>thinking</b> making
your home life unhappy?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">3. Do you <b>think</b> because
you are shy with other people?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">4. Is <b>thinking</b> affecting
your reputation?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">5. Have you ever felt remorse
after <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">6. Have you gotten into
financial difficulties as a result of your <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">7. Do you turn to lower
companions and an inferior environment when <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">8. Does your <b>thinking</b>
make you careless of your family's welfare?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">9. Has your ambition decreased
since <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">10. Do you crave a <b>think</b>
at a definite time daily?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">11. Do you want to <b>think</b>
the next morning?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">12. Does <b>thinking</b> cause
you to have difficulty in sleeping?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">13. Has your efficiency
decreased since <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">14. Is <b>thinking</b>
jeopardizing your job or business?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">15. Do you <b>think</b> to
escape from worries or troubles?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">16. Do you <b>think</b> alone?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">17. Have you ever had a
complete loss of memory as a result of your <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">18. Has your physician ever
treated you for <b>thinking</b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">19. Do you <b>think</b> to
build up your self-confidence?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">20. Have you ever been in a
hospital or institution on account of <b>thinking</b>?</span></p><p></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-5369308390422889622024-03-06T07:34:00.005+00:002024-03-06T07:36:21.407+00:00Honest sharing<p>There is a school of thought in AA that 'honest' sharing is the sharing of unprocessed negative impressions and first thoughts about those negative impressions. This would hold that any share that is well constructed, positive, cheerful, insightful, or funny, any share that is not messy, directionless, and incoherent, any share by someone who has <i>processed</i> the situation is <i>dishonest</i>.</p><p>This is, of course, nonsense. The person who compliments only the unhappy on their honesty probably has honest scepticism about the effectiveness of the programme and genuinely believes people are 'putting it on'. Let's leave that question aside.</p><p>Is there such a thing as <i>dishonest</i> sharing?</p><p>I think there is. Sometimes a person shares very general truths about the programme with no personal exemplification, no amplification, no <i>real content</i> beyond platitudes, with no apparent <i>emotional</i> connection to what is being said, no conviction that what is being said is true. Of course, this is better than nothing and better than sharing things that are <i>untrue</i> or, worse than that, <i>unprocessed</i> material. But the ideal is to find something to say that has <i>personal </i>meaning for one, to share what <i>we</i> were like, what happened, and what <i>we</i> are liked now, using <i>this</i> is the vehicle to make programme points.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-15202898639848855142024-03-06T07:32:00.001+00:002024-03-06T07:32:56.718+00:00Episode<p>Meetings are not reality shows. The attendees are not the stars, sitting in the tête-à-tête seat, face on to the camera, revealing 'what's really going on in the house'. One's shares should not be episodic rehearsals of drama, apotheosis, and dénouement; one should not aim to keep listeners <i>on the edge of their seats</i> with threats to drink or commit suicide one week, and lavish expressions of joy or bullishness the next. When I share, I'm not the star of the show. God is the star of the show. The programme is the star of the show. I'm the screen onto which the show is projected. I'm the material <i>used</i> by God to <i>demonstrate</i> the programme. I don't need to 'bring people up to speed' or 'get current'. It's not catch-up time, news hour, the confession box, or a real-time, blow-by-blow account of how I'm exercising self-will to fix the situation that was so bothering me last week; it's not a venue to render questionable action a <i>fait accompli</i> [that's my third French-ism of the article] by public proclamation.</p><p>It's a good idea to let current issues resolve themselves fully, and then to give it a minute, to <i>give time time</i>, to allow the understanding to settle itself down. This saves me firstly from presenting erroneous understandings based on 'taking the cake out of the oven too early' and secondly from making a show of myself in precisely the place I need to be somewhere that has a degree of camaraderie and comfort but also a degree of boundaried-ness. There should be nothing I share publicly that I would not say to <i>every single one of the people in the room individually</i>. Being <i>vulnerable</i> is not good. If I can be injured (which is what <i>vulnerability </i>suggests) by virtue of what I share, <i>I should not be saying it</i>. When I was new, I was regularly told, rightly, that what I was sharing was too much for meetings and should be reserved for one-to-one encounters, maybe with a sponsor, who had licence to provide input.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p>The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life. (Falstaff, King Henry the Fourth, Part One)</p></blockquote>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-27269930058156285502024-03-05T18:22:00.003+00:002024-03-05T18:22:28.103+00:005 March: considerations of the day<p>The <i>love of God</i> need not be sentimental. For those not sentimentally inclined, the notion of <i>loving </i>God is firstly inaccessible and secondly unactionable: one cannot <i>will </i>an emotion.</p><p>What I can do is organise my life and my day around <i>serving </i>God and attend diligently to plenty of prayers.</p><p>These prayers are not be judged by whether I find them interesting, enlightening, relieving, or uplifting. They're often not. They're judged only by their doing. A good prayer is one that is said.</p><p>Constant prayer automatically and usually fairly swiftly results in a radically altered day.</p><p>Add those up and you have a radically altered life.</p><p>Today, I don't need drink, drugs, acting out, or anything else to dull or alter my perception and interpretation of reality.</p><p>Everything starts with me and my attitude.</p><p>I do not need to cut or modify the link between cause (mentality) and effect (my life and experience of it).</p><p>If I do not like my life or my experience of it and desire change, it is always my <i>attitude </i>that needs changing first.</p><p>I've never met anyone (including myself!) with a problematic life that did not have a problematic attitude.</p><p>Head on straight, first, then everything else flows automatically.</p><p>***</p><p>If I am feeling battered, it is because I'm deliberately trying to handle something on my own rather than from the 'secret place' of being <i>within </i>God.</p><p>Disturbance of any sort is a lack of 'right relation'.</p><p>God's will for me is only ever what is possible.</p><p>That means that God's will for me is simply the list of things for me to do today, things I can do, or they would not be on the list, to the level I'm currently capable of doing them.</p><p>Anything beyond my tasks is none of my business.</p><p>I address intrusive thoughts with that: I say to them: <i>That's none of my business</i>.</p><p>***</p><p>When I am upset or think I have a 'problem', I'm NUTS: not using the Steps.</p><p>Today, I don't have problems. I have solutions. Problems with no 'solutions' are really facts, not problems, and I can withdraw my assessment of them as 'problems' by applying the solution of acceptance.</p><p>If I'm thinking about 'them', I can pull myself up short and refocus back on the task at hand.</p><p>If I'm worried, I am calculating without God.</p><p>With God, any situation can be dealt with practically and withstood.</p><p>There is no justification for fear under any circumstances. Prudence, yes; fear, no.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-36782912427303127702024-03-03T09:45:00.000+00:002024-03-03T09:45:35.683+00:00Sharing, humility, and responsibility<p>Whenever I share at a meeting, the game is this:</p><p>Can I stay within the time allotted without the bell being rung on me (or equivalent)?</p><p>Each time, my humility and responsibility are being tested.</p><p>Do I believe I deserve more than the allotted time?</p><p>Am I being over-ambitious in what I want to convey?</p><p>Can I content myself with saying one thing well?</p><p>Or am I falling over myself to say several things hurriedly?</p><p>Do I believe that, if I stop short of the allotted time, I am depriving others of my wisdom?</p><p>Or do I recognise that others also have just as much of value to share?</p><p>Can I be responsible for stopping myself?</p><p>Or have I outsourced that job to the time-keeper?</p><p>When I am told I've hit the limit, do I stop or carry on regardless?</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-13259874821075904992024-03-03T08:57:00.000+00:002024-03-03T08:57:08.619+00:00Religion and Sainsbury's<p>When I go into Sainsbury's [a supermarket], I don't have to approve of every product to buy the products I want.</p><p>In Step Eleven, I don't have to approve of all of the beliefs of the person I am reading or listening to, to benefit from what is useful.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-8166333101882898512024-03-03T08:55:00.001+00:002024-03-03T08:55:20.922+00:00Burglar alarm<p>The first thing the burglar does on entering the property is disable the burglar alarm. He then beckons to his accomplices to join him.</p><p>The first thing the ego does when entering me is disable my ability to detect its presence.</p><p>This is why I must not deviate from the programme. The first deviation will deactivate my awareness of the further deviations waiting in the wings, encouraged and enabled by the first to storm the bastion.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-26682519240994086692024-03-03T08:51:00.000+00:002024-03-03T08:51:07.429+00:00DIY<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me 'Can you give me a lift?' I said 'Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it.' (Tommy Cooper)</p></blockquote><p>In recovery, we can't recover <i>for</i> other people. They have to recover <i>themselves</i>. But we can give them the necessary guidance and encouragement to establish a relationship with God.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-31976478267727140352024-03-03T08:48:00.000+00:002024-03-03T08:48:09.409+00:00Why am I still sober?<p>In 1993, they told me to do the Steps. Maureen told me to never go to fewer than two meetings a week. They told me to trust God and work with others.</p><p>No one from those groups in 1993 has called me up and told me that they were wrong, that they are so sorry for misleading me, and that I actually need to do something else to stay sober or get well.</p><p>I just do what they said. I figure I don't have the authority to override their advice, because I was the babbling idiot they were giving the advice to, so there is no basis on which I would stop doing any of those things.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>The root of all evil lies in three ideas:</p><p>1. I can do whatever I want</p><p>2. No one has the right to command me</p><p>3. I recognise no god but myself</p><p>Father Vincent Lampert</p></blockquote><p>The root of drinking again lies also in these.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-82989362104080160422024-03-02T07:26:00.003+00:002024-03-02T07:26:57.766+00:00The tyranny of upset. AHA!<p>I was triggered by a thousand things. Upset by a thousand things. I would express my upset in a thousand ways. In my belief, everyone else had to change or stifle themselves in order for me not to be triggered. The most upset person in the room, I became the tyrant. I started to see people tensing up when I walked in the room, because they knew they were now 'on parade'. My litany of upsets became the basis for the rulebook by which others had to live <i>for us all to be OK.</i> The purported victim (me) was actually the persecutor, the bully.</p><p>Very occasionally, it's my moral duty to contribute to collective change. In situations where I have legitimate authority, I can, to some extent, call the shots. In every other case, the change I must seek is within myself. If I'm not easy to be around, I'm the problem, not other people.</p><p>I'm not the Wizard of Oz. I'm not the Authority. I'm not the Captain of Knowing Things. I'm not the Moral Arbiter. I'm not the Great Seer. I'm not the Grand Poobah.</p><p>What does the programme suggest as the underlying principles? Anonymity. Humility. Acceptance. AHA!</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-1405259527512738712024-03-01T09:23:00.003+00:002024-03-01T09:24:04.602+00:00What does self-centredness look like?<div>Self-centered is sometimes really obvious: taking more than one's fair share of the birthday cake, or insisting that the gang go to the film <i>I</i> want to see. Sometimes it comes in less obvious forms. Here are some that I have been egregiously guilty of over the years:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Reacting with panic or a sinking feeling to news headlines without even reading the article.</li><li>Feeling gloomy, depressed, or anxious and automatically assuming this is a reflection of reality.</li><li>When encountering something I consider disagreeable, muttering ‘typical’ to myself.</li><li>Finding all sorts of objections to television programmes, other media offerings, tweets, statements by public figures, etc., because I have found something that does not accord with my values, views, and supposed virtues.</li><li>Sifting television programmes, other media offerings, tweets, statements by public figures not for their actual content but for opportunities to find fault and attack.</li><li>Turning on the radio or television or ‘going online’ in order to find things I disagree with or find horrifying and with the hope of starting or engaging in an argument.</li><li>‘Calling things out’ [i.e. condemning] when it’s not my duty.</li><li>Believing that ‘calling things out’ is always my duty.</li><li>Believing that showing patience, tolerance, kindness, and love in the face of what I find disagreeable is being a doormat, being walked all over, and ‘letting’ others ‘misbehave’, that they will never understand their error unless I explain it to them.</li><li>Believing that, unless I am activated as the universe’s chief instrument of justice, things will just go from bad to worse, and the miscreants, offenders, wrongdoers, and cads will simply run amok, unchecked by my diligent policing.</li><li>Believing that everyone else needs to change, but I’m just fine as I am, thank you very much.</li><li>As a consumer of media content, believing I have a stake and an actual right to suggest or dictate what the producers should or should not be producing, how the plot should proceed, how the characters should be formed, portrayed, or developed, or what values, views, and supposed virtues of mine should be taught to the world through the prism of the content.</li><li>Getting angry because plotlines and characters do not develop as I wish, or adaptations do not reflect my view of what the original author intended.</li><li>Being unable to receive content communicated in other ages, at other times, in other places, or by other groups without filtering it through the sieve of my own values, views, and supposed virtues.</li><li>Seeing people in other ages, at other times, in other places, or in other groups as backward, ignorant, wrong-headed, malicious, or dangerous.</li><li>Seeing progress as an unalloyed good, with ‘progress’ happening to align with my own values, views, and supposed virtues, and ‘history being on my side’.</li><li>Feeling unsafe in the face of disagreement or challenge to my own values, views, and supposed virtues.</li><li>Requiring others to shut up or go away if I do not like what they say.</li><li>Believing others’ differing values, views, and virtues to be a personal attack on me.</li><li>Mistaking others’ disagreement for hatred, oppression, or vendetta.</li><li>Expressing or signalling my values, views, and supposed virtues when no one has asked for them.</li><li>Repeating them, with increasing shrillness, when no one takes any notice.</li><li>Explaining them when no one has asked for an explanation.</li><li>Feeling stifled, shut down, or as though I ‘do not have a voice’ unless constantly expressing myself and what I believe, think, and feel.</li><li>Feeling put out, bullied, ostracised, disregarded, overlooked, ignored, ‘not heard’, or ‘not seen’ when the majority or even one other person believes, thinks, or feels differently than me and has the temerity to say so.</li><li>Being a bad loser when a vote does not go my way, and thinking or saying, ‘This does not end here.’</li><li>Being on the look-out for opportunities to appeal to ‘authorities’ when I do not immediately get my own way.</li><li>Escalating in the face of setback or defeat.</li><li>Avoiding settings with people who believe, think, feel, and act differently than me.</li><li>‘Them and us’-thinking, with the ‘us’ being a small, ever-shifting coterie and the them being everyone else: wrong, stupid, or immoral.</li><li>Becoming excited at the prospect of rallying to a particularly emotive cause, particularly if there is an ‘enemy’ that can be vilified.</li><li>An instinctive identification with the apparent victim in any scenario before acquainting myself with and assessing all the contributory factors to the situation.</li><li>Being bored by peace, banality, and mundanity.</li><li>Being excited by threat and conflict.</li><li>Being thrilled and finding purpose at the prospect of rescuing those I believe cannot help themselves.</li><li>An instinctive dislike of and hostility and suspicion towards authority and being quick to champion causes where the ‘enemy’ is some form of power structure, institution, establishment, or historically powerful force.</li><li>Broadcasting my views with temporary frames or overlays on social media, garb, badges, lapel pins, provocative publications legibly sticking out of my bag or pocket, or other public mechanisms.</li><li>Being attracted to fashionable causes.</li><li>Being attracted to unfashionable causes merely to create a profile for myself.</li><li>When reading or listening, being more aware of my own reactions than what is actually being communicated.</li><li>When being asked to discuss a text, other content, a discourse, or an issue, talking about myself and how I feel about it, particularly what I object to.</li><li>Unconstructive criticising and complaining.</li><li>Arguing by riposte, sarcasm, one-liner, ad hominem attack, slur, diversionary tactic, or rhetorical question.</li><li>Being triggered.</li><li>Being offended.</li><li>Running mental narratives about how other people are wrong, stupid, or immoral.</li><li>Mentally arguing with those I consider wrong, stupid, or immoral.</li><li>Actually arguing with those I consider wrong, stupid, or immoral.</li><li>Feeling oppressed, put upon, or ill-used when asked to do something, especially if menial, fiddly, time-consuming, unchallenging, repetitive, inefficient, or dull.</li><li>Not wanting to do something for someone unless I understand why and approve of the reasoning.</li></ul><div>What is the antidote?</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Patience, tolerance, kindness, and love.</div><p></p><p></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-81378041529965777382024-02-29T09:40:00.000+00:002024-02-29T09:40:06.348+00:00Step Four: adjustment to the method<p>For years, I've been 'expanding' the third column of the resentment inventory (the bit where we say what is affected: pride, self-esteem, personal relations, etc.) with supplementary questions, to really maximise the benefit and learn how it's my Little Plans and Designs in the seven areas of self that are the root cause of my resentments.</p><p>As an alternative to asking those questions at that point, it's possible, of course, to simply state which areas are affected at this point, and to leave the investigation of what is behind those seven areas of self (what I'm after: self-seeking; what I'm avoiding: fear) until the page 67 questions, on self-seeking and fear.</p><p>There are now folders of worksheets that incorporate this. If you want to wait until page 67 to ask these questions (which is more in line with the actual Big Book), then you might find these useful:</p><p><a href="https://www.mediafire.com/folder/mt6qk7c4hhztx/STEP+04+REVISIONS" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">HTML versions</a><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.mediafire.com/folder/gaaj72aueoszo/STEP+04+REVISIONS" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Markdown versions</a><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.mediafire.com/folder/hrh7or08u8sne/STEP+04+REVISIONS" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">PDF versions</a></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-50078438048781776832024-02-29T09:02:00.001+00:002024-02-29T09:02:46.384+00:00The gross deceptions of pathos<p>At a few meetings of AA and Al-Anon, the format includes each attendee sharing briefly how they 'feel', right at the start of the meeting. I'm all for active inclusion, and round-robin or tag formats can be excellent. I do wonder about the utility of inviting public disclosure of emotional states. Such states are not instructive for others, and I'm skeptical of the wisdom of prompting unboundaried people to disclose, on the hoof, unprocessed private matters to a group of people of mixed acquaintance: there are almost certain to be people one does not know, and I, for one, am careful about disclosing such details to complete strangers. We are encouraged to share experience, strength, and hope on the topic of alcoholism (or the equivalent) and recovery. Disclosures of innermost conditions might be best reserved for friends, sponsors, psychotherapists, and clergy.</p><p>Setting these questions aside, I'd like to examine how this was once portrayed to me. Someone suggested that they liked this format very much, because it allowed 'people without a voice to be vulnerable'.</p><p>Pathos is defined by Wikipedia as:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions, especially that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity, sorrow, and the like.</p></blockquote><p>Now, what the chap apparently meant, when we strip away the pathos, is this: it allows 'people who do not normally share to express themselves candidly'. That's the denotational content, and that's fine. I actually support that idea.</p><p>Let's turn to the pathos aspect.</p><p>Firstly, let's look at <i>how</i> the above words generate pathos.</p><p><i>People without a voice</i> create the image of people who cannot communicate orally because they have no vocal apparatus or such apparatus is damaged. That would, indeed, be a terrible state to be in. One would rightly feel sorry for such a person. <i>To be vulnerable</i> suggests defencelessness, helplessness, and weakness. It suggests that the individual is a poor creature, not on a par with others, with no agency, open to attack from all sides. The image here is of a baby fox whose mother has been killed by a fox hunt, of a hedgehog approaching a motorway, of an infant left on a doorstep.</p><p>Now, the pathos is quite unnecessary. Worse than that, it distorts reality, strips the individual in question of agency and therefore responsibility, and actually reinforces the ego states that recovery seeks shatter.</p><p>Regarding the <i>people without a voice</i>, there is the implication that such individuals are being actively excluded from contributing at meetings. Occasionally, AA and Al-Anon meetings do have hand-picked sharing, but it's rare. When that's the case, that's per the group conscience, and anyone who does not like that format need not attend. Generally, at meetings, one speaks up or raises one's hand. The standard line is, 'Please come in and share. The meeting is now open.' It is quite untrue, therefore, that anyone is being prohibited or prevented from sharing. The suggestion that they are <i>is actually an attack on the group</i>, misrepresenting what is going on. This is one of the main mechanisms of the ego: <i>I'm in a bad way, and it's your fault not mine</i>. The truth is: the people who do not normally share are choosing, meeting by meeting, to stay silent. No one is forcing this: this is their choice.</p><p>Projecting out the responsibility for not sharing <i>onto everyone else in the room</i> (either the group itself or the others who <i>do</i> share) not only represents an attack but also strips the individual of agency and responsibility. They're not responsible for their not sharing: <i>others are</i>. <i>And it's up to others to do for the individual what they should be doing for themselves</i>, namely learning to raise their hand, overcome fear through right action, and speak up.</p><p>Why might someone not share? Well, it requires concentration and effort, so laziness is one reason. It might be because the individual genuinely believes they have nothing to add. This is sometimes genuine but usually a fig leaf for fear of what others will say. The problem is really vanity: the fear that one's image will be tarnished, or the irrational fear of attack.</p><p>This dovetails nicely with the question of <i>vulnerability</i>.</p><p>In speaking candidly in a meeting, one is not thereby becoming <i>vulnerable</i>. In meetings, people do not generally cross-share, and people are almost universally compassionate. Attack is almost unheard-of. Meetings are not debating societies or annual general meetings where you could well be exposed to vilification. The most that could happen is <i>judgement</i>.</p><p>What's the truth about judgement? Firstly, everyone is observing everything all the time, and that entails judgement as well. Not necessarily condemnation, but certainly judgement. The mind naturally measures incoming information against the existing body of information, values, precepts, etc. The <i>judgement</i> we're enjoined to avoid in recovery is the condemnation of persons or excessive moralisation. Ideas can and must be assessed: significant discernment is required. Discernment can be entirely neutral and detached <i>emotionally</i> and entirely respectful of the <i>person</i>, as distinct from their words, behaviour, or ideas.</p><p>When one shares, some people will like it, and some people won't. And the same applies in reverse. Fair's fair!</p><p>If candid sharing, because of very sensitive content or because the individual is impaired and unable to look after themselves, is genuinely opening them up to danger, then such vulnerability should be <i>discouraged</i> not <i>encouraged</i>. If the danger is real, <i>do not make yourself vulnerable</i>. If it is not, <i>sharing is not being vulnerable</i>.</p><p>Here's how I was encouraged to share when I was new:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Everyone has something to offer, including you, so offer it.</li><li>Put your hand up to share or speak up at the earliest opportunity: once you've shared you can sit back and enjoy the rest of the meeting.</li><li>Giving not getting is the guiding principle, so give by sharing.</li><li>To <i>feel</i> part of AA, participate fully. Help set up the room. Talk to people. Share.</li><li>Don't worry about what other people may think or say.</li><li>It doesn't have to be good: you'll get good only if you practise.</li><li>Sharing something is always better than sharing nothing.</li><li>You learn as much from bad shares as from good ones: your own or others'.</li><li>You're responsible for your own recovery: no one is going to recover you <i>for</i> you.</li><li>If your heart is pounding: let it; share anyway.</li><li>Literally nothing bad will happen if you share, so go for it!</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">If someone is having difficulty sharing, I would suggest the following:</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>No one is standing in your way. We all have voices: our job is to use them.</li><li>There is nothing vulnerable about sharing, because you are safe.</li><li>You're not weak, helpless, or defenceless: you've got God on your side.</li><li>Ask God for help and dive in!</li></ul><p></p><p></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-9690771126125292212024-02-25T10:18:00.006+00:002024-02-25T10:18:57.962+00:00"Could not manage"<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives
had become unmanageable. …</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own
lives. (Big Book)</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Unmanageability is the corollary of powerlessness. If
alcoholism could require me to drink and then continue to drink, I am not in charge.
If I am not in charge, I cannot manage my own life. Note the rewording in the book <i>itself</i>. <i>Our lives had become unmanageable</i> is referring not to any intrinsic 'unmanageability' of 'people, places, and things' or to any <i>actual</i> consequences that might have manifested. It is not referring to any other personal defects or shortcomings. It is the automatic consequence of powerlessness over alcohol. An active alcoholic is not in charge of their life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-52404865615014178772024-02-25T10:09:00.000+00:002024-02-25T10:09:12.479+00:00Happy, joyous, and free<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. (Big Book)</p></blockquote><p>Try this:</p><p>Say to God:</p><p>"I do not know how to be happy, joyous, and free, today.<br />Show me what to believe, think, and do today,<br />to be happy, joyous, and free."</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-73335497903879106662024-02-25T10:04:00.000+00:002024-02-25T10:04:25.232+00:00Worry or grievance<p>Whenever a worry or a grievance enters the mind, say, out loud:</p><p>"God's looking after that!"</p><p>Then return to the task at hand.</p><p>Repeat as many times as necessary.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-38664591904191245432024-02-24T07:44:00.001+00:002024-02-24T07:44:21.726+00:00Changing a bad state of mind<p>If I don't like my feelings, my thoughts are to blame. Feelings are simply the readily perceptible side of a thought. Take the feeling, turn it over, and there's the thought.</p><p>Feelings coalesce to become moods, states, affect.</p><p>The only way to pick part the mood, state, or affect is to wait for the next feeling to come along, ready to drop into the pool of the mood, state, affect, and intercept it: ask it what thought is behind it. Then I can start to sift what I want to allow into the pool and what I want to reject.</p><p>The pool is always being drained. If, consistently over time, I allow only the right thoughts (with their attendant emotion) into the pool, the pool eventually clears.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-90752365666599092842024-02-24T07:35:00.000+00:002024-02-24T07:35:35.271+00:00'Pinions, problems, and the real reason I'm angry<p>At any given point in time, there's usually a major situation in the world that garners an awful lot of attention. Everyone seems to have a 'pinion ('opinion' in the idiolect of a countryside person in a George Eliot novel), and the 'pinion is usually voiced vociferously, with self-righteous indignation, often with a single statistic, a picture, an infographic, a rousing slogan, or an unanswerable rhetorical question intended to settle the complex matter once and for all.</p><p>Now, if you were reading this two years ago, five years ago, in two years' time, or in five years' time, the topic would have been or might well be different than today's. It doesn't matter what the situation is: the dynamic is the same.</p><p>Superficially, the response might be: Fair enough! There is wrong in the world, and one's moral obligation is to pick a side (the right side of course) and express one's condemnation of the wrong side! This is how the world is changed!</p><p>I used to engage in this, but now I do not.</p><p>I recently 'slipped' on this question and mentally involved myself with an issue <i>du jour</i>.</p><p>I pulled myself up and stood back.</p><p>How did I pick <i>this</i> issue? Because it was a war? Not a good enough answer. According to an encyclopaedic source, there are five major wars taking place in the world right now, seventeen other wars, nineteen minor conflicts, plus numerous other clashes and skirmishes.</p><p>Was I equally upset about all of these? Nope. Was I upset about these in proportion to the deaths? Nope. Brief self-examination revealed that compassion for suffering per se or the desire for peace were not the real motivation behind my engagement. When I <i>think</i> about these other conflicts, I feel compassion and I desire peace. But then my attention drifts. The question is: why is my attention drawn to <i>this</i> and not to <i>that </i>conflict?</p><p>Conflicts aren't the only fodder for such engagements. The situation might be political, societal, or even scientific or academic. In terms of human rights abuses, a couple of countries spring to mind that have occupied my attention extensively. These countries are also regularly in the news. However, according to one particular think tank that creates an index of human freedoms and their restriction by human rights abuses, the two countries ranked somewhere in the middle of the league tables of all countries in the world. One of them was ahead of at least one hundred other countries in terms of human freedoms. However, most of the countries performing worse than our two reprobates are rarely, if ever, in the news. It turns out that, as with war, my attention was snagged by these two countries for reasons other than a genuine, egalitarian, and non-partisan interest in human rights.</p><p>When I cast my mind back to the various issues in the public eye that have caught my attention over the years and occupied my consciousness, I find consistently that the values I claim lie at the foundation of my indignation and involvement, whilst genuine in themselves, are not the reason for the indignation and involvement, because those same values, when violated in a hundred, a thousand other situations, 'fail to launch', do not activate my indignation and involvement.</p><p>What's the real reason, therefore?</p><p>I love drama. I love identifying a victim, siding with the victim, donning the garb of rescuer, and <i>crusading</i> against the perpetrator. Why? Because this is the mechanism by which I project out my own shame, guilt, and fear. Rather than dealing with it internally, I ignore it, but, because it is part of me, I see it. Where? Wherever <i>will have it</i>. It's much easier to visit a theatre than build one from scratch. If there is an <i>existing</i> situation that has become the venue for the playing out of this dynamic, it is much easier to buy a ticket for the stalls or audition as a cast member, join the fray, the mob, the swarm of locusts, than to try to kick up a stink about human rights abuses or wars that are <i>not</i> in the news.</p><p>On one occasion I made the fatal mistake of <i>really reading an awful lot</i> about the 'situation', avoiding polemicists and partisans and steering myself towards rounded, synoptic materials. Fatal, because I was no longer able so clearly and unequivocally to 'take a side'. The situation was unfathomably complex, and I realised that my criticisms added nothing to the debate: I hadn't the foggiest idea how the situation should be resolved, and nor did anyone else, it appeared. I could throw verbal stones at the castle, but the ramparts would remain firm. I could hurl abuse at the falling raindrops, but that would not end the storm.</p><p>I decided, with that particular situation, to hold my tongue. If all I could do was attack, and I had no fully thought-through, well-informed, cogent, coherent, and plausible contribution by way of solution to the many underlying problems, what was I seeking to achieve? Had my fulminating changed anything on the ground? Had anyone been convinced by my arguments? Had anything actually changed?</p><p>No. I had added noise to a noisy situation. That was all.</p><p>Except that was <i>not quite all</i>.</p><p>What had changed was <i>me</i>.</p><p>I was angry, and my anger was irresoluble. Every time the topic was brought up, it was as though the wound, the cause of the indignation were being re-inflicted. I was impossible to be around: when the topic was raised, I was set off like a string of Chinese fire-crackers. No one benefited from this unpleasantness. Even when the matter was not brought up, I would go online <i>and find people arguing about the matter and join in</i>. So proud of myself I was, for raising my standard and going to war!</p><p>Whenever I'm getting indignant about matters in the public domain, I now recognise I'm capitalising on the existence of a public debate, for my own psychological reasons: I <i>enjoy</i> self-righteousness. I <i>enjoy</i> condemnation. I <i>enjoy</i> displacing repressed emotions and igniting my conceptions of world events with this fetid fuel. This was <i>not</i> an expression of morality. Quite the reverse. It had to go.</p><p>Two further points.</p><p>Firstly, is the fact that a particular question is prominent in the public domain not <i>proof</i> that the question <i>is more important morally</i> than others? There are many reasons why particular issues or conflicts make the headlines and others do not. Geopolitical significance, vested interests, tribalism, sentimentality, habit, advertising revenue, polarisation, suitability for dramatisation: reasons abound. But it is quite clear that the absolute extent and nature of the human suffering involved is not the chief driver of prominence of a matter at the public level.</p><p>Secondly, is it ever legitimate to get involved? I ask these questions:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>How am I choosing <i>this</i> issue over others?</li><li>What are my motivations?</li><li>Should other issues more insistently command my attention?</li><li>Is the contribution I am proposing to make a valuable one?</li><li>Is indirect support potentially more valuable than direct action?</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">As a result of these questions, I do not engage in public and only very rarely engage in private debate on matters of the world. I do not deny their importance, but I deny the value of my mental and verbal engagement, particularly when that mental and verbal engagement is involuntary and triggered.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Instead, I give money to think tanks and organisations <i>that actually do good</i> on the questions that concern me. This fulfils my civic obligation without any collateral damage.</p><p></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-61558249313560516942024-02-24T07:18:00.000+00:002024-02-24T07:18:08.266+00:00The vicious cycle of mental attack<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>When I attack, I'm making your sin real.</li><li>If your sin is real, so is mine.</li><li>I feel guilt for all of my sin, past and present.</li><li>I also feel guilty for the present attack.</li><li>This compounds the guilt.</li><li>To conceal the guilt, I attack again.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">Note, moral flaws are real, the moral law is real, and there are moral consequences. Others' flaws are God's business; my own flaws are to be surrendered to God to be washed away and to create space for my redirection to the performance of God's will.</p><p style="text-align: left;">But what we're talking about here is the <i>moralism</i> directed at others, the wrath, the condemnation, the holding of others in an oily pit of turpitude: that's the problem; that's the liquid in the circuit.</p><p style="text-align: left;">It is possible to recognise and deal with one's own (or others') defective attitude or actions in an entirely neutral way without allowing the emotion associated with that recognition (situational guilt and situational anger) to swill over the top of the container and infect the person as well, dark-flowering into shame and rage.</p><p></p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874428313548258114.post-4409258411477408902024-02-23T13:54:00.001+00:002024-02-23T13:54:06.504+00:00Low self-worth<p>When I've felt low self-worth, the feeling is the emotional component of my own self-assessment.</p><p>In other words, low self-worth is the result of my own assessment of me.</p><p>I have assessed myself.</p><p>And I have then validated, approved my own assessment of myself.</p><p>To have low self-worth, therefore, requires one to have a very high regard for one's capabilities.</p><p>If I didn't so highly value my own ability to assess myself, I couldn't think ill of myself.</p>First 164http://www.blogger.com/profile/12936177300596174303noreply@blogger.com