Resentment

Cease Fighting

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

My 12 step program has given me the ability to look for the positive in people, to learn how to forgive and think of the world as a generally safe place.  As an alcoholic I’m generally full of fear, focus on the worst in people and hold resentments forever.

When I’m with my children or my family, positive thinking is fairly easy.  I love them, so I can easily find their good qualities and overlook their character defects.  It’s easier to overlook slights because I see their human condition.

At work it becomes more difficult.  I seem to be focused on getting the job done and running the business.  People tend to get in my way, not do what they tell me they’re going to do and just plain act stupid or lazy.  I spend the majority of my days irritated at some person, place or thing that slows down the idea of progress that I have designed for myself.  I forget about the people, people who have feelings, people who love and people who have pain.  I forget that they have an inner life and inner talk just like I have.  I forget that most of them probably have amazing stories of overcoming some kind of hardship or ailment.  I forget that in the grand scheme of things 100 years from now no one will remember the business that I did or the money that I made for the company.  What will be remembered is the compassion and love I showed another human being in the daily chore of doing business.  That love will be passed along to their family and friends and will one day cross the divide of generations.  There is no other work that is more meaningful than the way I treat people while I’m at work.

Since I’ve worked my 12 steps I supposedly have ceased fighting anyone or anything, but yet I still fight at work.  I fight for my place.  I fight to be recognized and I fight to be right.  I fight to keep business and I fight to do business.  My days are wasted on fighting.

What I’ve failed to do is turn it over to my higher power.  My only job is the footwork.  The results aren’t up to me.  Maybe it will fall apart, but if it does it serves a higher purpose and I must be ok with that.  My sanity and ultimately my sobriety are at risk.  We do not have the luxury of resentments like normal men.  We do not have the luxury to live a mediocre life of some good and some bad and let the chips fall where they may.  We are sensitive people.  Eventually the irritants and the resentments drive us back to the bottle.  We must live our lives aware and thinking of others.  When I don’t do that my self-will runs riot and my self-centeredness actually stands in the way of my own progress.

This week I’ve decided to focus on what is good about people.  I’m trying to find the good and verbally recognize it.  I’m working on gratitude for what they do right rather than focus on what is wrong.  The amazing part is I’m happier, my week is easier and I sleep better.  In a world where most of our business is done over the internet, we dehumanize people.  We forget there is a face connected with the name under the letterhead of our emails.

Just for today I will practice patience not knowing if something I do or say will be helpful or hurtful.

Resentment

~ Patti ~ 1 Comment

I’m thinking about resentment today as I dread to have to deal with someone today at work. I discovered working my 12 steps that I probably played a part in the demise of the relationships with those I resented in the past.  When I finally recognized that I indeed may have had some responsibility, forgiveness came easy.  But what about when I’m truly injured by someone in which I have no part to play.  I think the thing I resent the most is that the injurious situation made me feel like a victim.  I quit playing the victim role when I worked through the 12 steps and took responsibility for my own life and behaviors.  Now I’m several years sober and feel like a victim again.

Resentment: Merriam-Webster defines it as a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as wrong, insult, or injury.

Robert C. Solomon, a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin describes resentment as the means by which man clings to his self-respect.  He wrote that it is in this moment when humanity is at its lowest ebb.

When I read what doctor Solomon had to say my first thought was, “Really, MY humanity is at its lowest ebb?  I’m the injured party here.”  So I looked up the word humanity in the good ole Merriam-Webster.  It’s defined as the quality or state of being kind to other people or to animals.  So I guess under the definition, I’m not in a state of kindness.

Hey, I think I’m doing well not to retaliate and now I have to live in a state of being kind?

The truth is that the insult that was injurious was embarrassing and humiliating.  It happened in front of respected colleagues.  But, am I using the resentment as a means to cling to my self-respect?  If I am honest with myself I would have to say, yes, without a doubt.  And then I have to get honest with myself again and say that my self-respect can never be taken away without my consent.  The truth is that there is no insult or injury, psychological or physical that can take away the respect that I have for me no matter how hurtful the injury is.  Only I can do that and I did.  I allowed the situation to change the way I felt about myself and I became resentful.

I am told in my 12 step program that “Resentment is the number one offender.  It destroys more alcoholics that anything else.  From it stem all forms of spiritual disease.”  Now all of the sudden I’m on the path to self-destruction.  I’m in a moment when humanity is at its lowest ebb.  I’m told that resentment is fatal.

We are also told that “this world and its people were often quite wrong.”  But we need to be free of anger.  Anger is the “dubious luxury of normal men.”  Our course is to recognize that those who wrong us are spiritually sick and show them the same tolerance and pity that we would show a sick friend.  Then we pray.  We pray for ourselves that we would be tolerant and helpful.  We pray for the offender that they would find peace, prosperity and love.  We pray for them the things that we want for ourselves.

The thing is that you don’t have to believe in prayer to have it work.  During this process, if we are diligent we somehow lose our resentments and we save ourselves from destruction.  It’s worked for me in the past and it will work for me now.  It’s simple but not easy.

Just for today I will pray for my enemy all the things that I want in my life.

 

Heaven and Hell

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

Working the 12 steps is not an easy feat.  Most of us have a hard time with the God steps: 2. “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” and 3.” Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.”  As hard as they are, the process is gradual.  We do not come to believe instantly.   I’ve been working my 12 step program since the year 2000.  I still have to make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God every day.  It is not natural for me.  I want to control, so I have to make the conscious effort sometimes every hour.

Yet as hard as those steps are, that is not where people fall off the edge or quit.  Step 4.” Made a searching and fearless moral inventory” and Step 5.  “Admitted to God, ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs”, is what divides the sober from the drunk.  I see it over and over.  The minute we have to start looking at ourselves, we quit.

I thought that I was this sensitive, kind, innocent and self-sacrificing mother and wife.  And although there is some truth to that, I was also touchy, mean if I was angry and pretty self-centered.  I wanted to control the show or I wanted to play the victim.  In reality I volunteered myself for all kinds of things I didn’t really want to do and then was angry when I didn’t get recognition or respect.  It was difficult to look at the real me, but I was given the gift of an inventory.  Any good business takes an inventory at least once a year to record its assets and liabilities.  Writing out all of my resentments took me at least 9 months.  Every time I wrote a couple of sentences, I wanted to drink.  I learned really quickly that my resentments are what got me drunk.  I’d write a sentence of two and then have to leave it sit for days.  It would have been less painful for me if I had quit at that point and just drank.  After I had finished I had to share it with my sponsor.  I had resentments of people, places, institutions, situations, God, myself and my sponsor.  It was quite a long list.  I not only listed them but I had to write in detail each resentment and what happened.  I was told to be as thorough as possible.

My sponsor in detail went through each and every one with me.  I would read a resentment out loud and she would ask me, “Now what is your part?”  I’m here to tell you that I was so crazy and self-centered that at first I couldn’t tell the difference between my part and someone else’s part.  I’d take responsibility for other people’s wrongs and blame others for my wrongs.  I was embarrassed and humiliated by some of the things that I had said and done.

The interesting thing is that there had been nothing that I had done or been through that was shocking or that elicited any kind of a response except, “What was your part?” That made me at ease.  The other thing that is unforgettable about that experience is that when I finally come to terms with what my part was in the destruction of my relationships and in the destruction of my life, the resentments left and I had forgiven everyone who was on that list.  I had sat in church for 20 years listening to sermons about forgiveness and wanting to forgive, but when I returned home I was baffled about how to apply it.  When I look at my part, the forgiveness is automatic.

The process set me free.  I admitted and accepted that there are dark sides to my personality.  I quit hiding it and embraced it instead.  As a result, the dark sides have been brought to the light and I don’t have a need to act on them.  I don’t have a need to hide them either.  I am who I am and I like me today for all the good and all of the bad.  I just get to work on the character defects and I’ve asked my higher power to remove the ones that kept me drunk.  So far, he has.  The ones I get to work on keep me humble and in touch with other alcoholics.  It keeps me in the fellowship.  My character defects pull me in when otherwise my life would be so good that I may forget where I came from.

I discovered that there were patterns to my behavior and attitudes that got me into trouble or that caused a rift with a loved one.  At the end of the process I knew that I had created the hell that I lived in.  It was no one else’s fault but mine and it was all in my mind.  I began to think that if I created my own hell than I must be able to create my own heaven.  If hell began in my thoughts then heaven must too.  The truth about who I am set me free to create the life that I want.

Just for today I will discipline my thoughts and create something amazing

Peace on Earth

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

The camping trip this weekend was a good chance to talk to my sons, especially while traveling.  They are very much like me when I was in my 20’s.  The world seems like a daunting place to be and when you are 20 and realize what a violent state the world is in and what a sad history our own country has, it seems discouraging.  They are young and energetic but wonder about how wise it is to bring children into the world; they wonder how they can choose careers that make a difference.  They feel like there is nothing they can really do anyway.  And like me, they tend to overthink the issues.

I struggled to find anything to say that could truly bring light into the subject or comfort.  I mumbled something about change starting at home and in our own lives and allowing that to ripple into our communities.  I don’t believe they really understood what I meant or how that would even work.  I thought about it all weekend.

I’m a recovering alcoholic.  My 12 step program suggests that I drink because I’m irritable and discontent.  In other words I drink because of a lack of peace.  When I drink, like most drunks, I’m prone to less than charitable behavior.  I’m self will run riot.  When 80 percent of the population in prisons are addicts and alcoholics, you might get the idea that it’s the lack of individual peace that causes all of the crimes.

It makes sense to me that if every person in the world were at peace, there would be peace on earth.  Violence would disappear.  So, peace starts with me.  When I’m agitated about my job, or my kids, or the economy, or traffic, or lack of peace in my country or in the world, I’m not at peace.  My family soon follows suit and we gripe together.  Pretty soon, they are griping with their friends and I’m griping with my friends.  Doesn’t it make sense that the mood would eventually reach the other side of the globe?

I’m not saying we should never do anything, and I’m not saying I live in perfect peace.  I’m just saying maybe it would be a start.  Maybe it’s time I let go of guilt, resentment and fear.  Those are the ones that cause me all of the trouble.  I don’t drink over them anymore, but they still sit there in the recesses of my mind quietly causing they’re destruction and robbing me of my serenity and possibly robbing my family and coworkers of their serenity.

Just for today I will practice developing a peaceful heart by letting go of guilt, resentment and fear.  Who knows who it might reach?