No Action Equals Action

"This is a program of action." "The hardest action you will ever take is to simply do nothing when you want to do everything."

I went to an amazing AA meeting this morning. It was the Sunday morning gratitude meeting at the Lincoln Park Alano Club. I love talking about gratitude - probably because I had so little of it when I showed up to AA. I laugh in my head when people come up to me after a meeting to talk to me about gratitude - commenting on how much of it I have - I think, if only you knew the way I used be! More and more people are telling me that I need to talk - that I need to tell my story to help other people. Anyway, this meeting is more like the meetings I am used to at home - the table meetings - where the topics are more broad and there is less structure to the flow of the meeting and somewhat less predictability. You get more variety I think in terms of the comments. Anyway, the topic evolved into "doing the next right thing." Doing the right thing, even when you don't want to, even when the pay off is bad or there is no pay off, doing the right thing anyway even when the pay off of doing what you want to do is so much greater. Doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. I wish I always did the right thing, instead of doing what I want to do, but I don't.

I spend too much time in my own head. My relationships with people unfold there - in my mind - without the participation of the other person sometimes. Occasionally I have thought - wow, I feel really sorry for all the people who live in my head and don't even know it. How difficult it must be for them to carry on their end of a relationship there. I've realized how much of the chaos in my life is of my own making - and that at least half of it is in my mind. If I could just shut my head up - things would improve. It all originates there in my head, as I scheme and plan and try to get what I want - or what I think I want - only to find out that I don't want it once I get it. The biggest part of this problem with my own head, is the inability to not act on the things that are going on in there. That's why part of Joanne's comment stuck in my mind - it is hard - it is incredibly hard to do nothing when you so desperately want to do something. The hardest thing is to just sit there and be.

I am really intent on changing my behavior though because I have become so painfully aware of the ways in which my own behavior has harmed me. I repeatedly do things that hurt me, knowing that it hurts, and knowing that it is familiar, I just keep doing it. I keep doing it, somehow expecting different results, and the result is always the same. I am trying to get to myself to try something different here, which in my case, means doing nothing and simply being. That is the key to changing my relationships. The more meetings I go to, the quieter my head is, and the longer I stay sober, the more I appreciate the quiet. I appreciate the peace and serenity that I feel, when I work for it, and slowly but surely the frantic, racing mind, the imaginary chaos - it is becomming more and more uncomfortable where I used to seek it out. I still don't always do the right thing, but I am trying. I know that the only way to change what goes on in my head is to change my behavior - change your behavior and your thinking will follow - you have to act your way into right thinking. I love the AA slogans!