Sunday, June 7, 2009

The Object of Our Focus

In several recent meetings, people have been talking about their struggles with getting rid of defects of character. It's coming not so much from those new in the process, but from those with quite a few years. I've never been a big fan of this whole issue of defects of characters and I've written about that before, so won't repeat it here. What I haven't talked about though, is how I approach those things in me that I don't particularly like or which seem to cause me and/or others harm or hurt.

My approach, like most things AA, is not really original. I first learned about this technique by reading Dr. Paul O's story in the Big Book (Acceptance is the Answer) and seeing how he dealt with these defects in himself and in others by not focusing on them, but rather, focusing on what's good in others and in himself. He described this as his "magnifying mind" --- whatever he focused on got bigger. If he focused on his wife's weaknesses, it was the weaknesses that would grow and multiply. If, on the other hand though, he focused on the good qualities in his wife, those qualities seemed to magically grow. In fact, they grew so much that they seemed to annihilate the negative traits that used to occupy all his waking moments. He found the same thing to be true in terms of how he looked at himself: if he focused on the negative, the negative grew. If he focused on the positive, the positive grew.

I also learned about this different approach to living from Dr. Earle (also an author of one of the stories in the Big Book, Physician Heal Thyself). He too was not a big fan of the defect of character bandwagon in AA and didn't spend much time at all talking about such rubbish. He encouraged newcomers to not rush into the 4th/5th step process --- to hold off on that until at least a year of being sober. He felt that most of us were sufficiently convinced of how horrible we were as human beings that we didn't need to devote excessive energy in early recovery on giving more strength to such self-loathing and self-hatred. Of course, if someone had something really bothering them and weighing them down, he'd always make himself available to talk that stuff out so that it didn't drag us down into a dark hole---but for the most part, he suggested that people focus on healing their bodies, getting connected with others in recovery and getting settled in the "not drinking" part of the program.

In my own early recovery, I bought into the popular AA logic in terms of expending much energy trying to change myself and my surroundings and relationships. Tried to repair years of damage in a single bound only to cause even more harm and hurt. Eventually, I was convinced that that was not working and worse than not working, it was causing more harm. I became willing to try another way and that's when I started trying to develop the new habits of being kind toward myself and others, trying not to tear myself and others down by judgments and condemnation, trying to find compassion for myself and others.

Eventually, I started seeing that each of my so-called "defects" were like coins: they all had at least two sides. The side that I had always seen as the bad, negative and painful side. But they also had another side to them which seemed to balance things out for me: the other side was the good and the whole. Alcoholism is the best example of one of the coins: the negative side was easy (too easy) for me to see and document. But the positive side put things in balance: were I not an alcoholic, I would not have all that I have in my life right now: my recovery, my relationship with my son, my wife and other children. None of those relationships would be as deep and real as they are were it not for the fact that I am an alcoholic in recovery. And I wouldn't be an alcoholic in recovery if I had not been an alcoholic in my disease. Both sides of that coin are absolutely necessary, and therefore, good.

So in the end, I've come to see so-called defects of character not as cancerous growths requiring surgical removal. I see them more as leaves on the tree of my life: each and every one has a reason and a purpose. And each and everyone one of them will eventually serve it's purpose and will eventually fall to the ground. I don't need to rip them off: they will fall when it's their time.

My life goes though cycles of growth, hibernation, death and rebirth. Everything is perfect. Everything has been perfect. Everything will be perfect. Just the way it is.

Take care!

Mike L.

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