Saturday, January 10, 2009

Serenity Experiments

When I first came into a 12 step program, I had a sponsor that suggested I treat using the tools of the program as experiments - in other words, try something for awhile and see what effect it had. The first suggestion she made was that I go to a meeting every day for two weeks and see what happened. Well, I didn't do a very good job of following that suggestion because I was too flaky to be consistent. But I managed at least part of a meeting six days out of seven and went to two on Saturday. Lo and behold! I felt SO much better. My flakiness diminished and my emotional pain was drastically reduced. That made a believer out of me. From then on, I tried out every suggestion at least for awhile. Some of them worked better than others but I learned how to use the tools of the program in my own life.

Right now I'm at another transition point in my life. I don't like transition points. They require decisions. They require change. I'm feeling unsettled and flaky. I'm in a certain amount of emotional pain. BUT it's time. My leg is almost healed. I'm almost finished with the projects I'm doing for my old employer. It occurs to me that serenity is the state of mind I most need when I'm at a transition point. Oh yes, I sarcastically say to myself, it is probable that the tools of the program could work again in this situation.

So, my first experimental tool will be a meeting every day from now until the end of the month.

3 comments:

Liz said...

okay, then. Good decision. I wrote my Step Study on my calendar. Commitment. What is the opposite of flaky??

Mary Ann said...

Opposite of flaky? For me I think it would be focused. Mom

Eric Wayne Mix, DO said...

I've found the same thing to be true through my own experimentation! First it was just a hypothesis. Then, after much experimentation, it advanced to being a theory. Now the data are so overwhelming that I've decided it's scientific law...on par with such things as gravity :-))

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