As I mentioned in my last blog, I've been reading another book by David Richo called "When Love Meets Fear: Becoming Defense-less and Resource-full". Great book. It's where I got the line about the one obstacle to grace being control. Boy, has that line been turning over my life as a gardner would turn over garden soil at the end/beginning of a growing season!
Further into the book, Richo (who is not a recovering alcoholic, but who has psychotherapy clients who are...) writes down a long list of affirmations all having to do with fear. He refers to the list as an inventory. This week, I committed to memorizing this list of affirmations (all 156 of them...) over the next several weeks. Memorization and recitation is a huge, albeit strange and ongoing part of my recovery work. It has been almost from the beginning and for the last couple of months I've been waiting to come across something new and beautiful to memorize.
This list of fear affirmations jumped out at me and after getting over the initial block of "there's way too many of these to memorize!" negative thoughts, I quickly responded to the fearful self with a kind reminder that I don't have to memorize all 156 at once. I can do them, like many other things I've memorized or committed to in the past, one line, one day at a time.
Here are the first twenty affirmations to give you a sense of this different type of fear inventory: (FYI: I've found that when memorizing a long list like this it works best when I go one line at a time and then progress forward in groups of five --once I have five lines down pat, I move on to the next group of five, one line at a time):
I trust my true fears to give me signals of danger.
I admit that I also have false fears and worries.
I feel compassion toward myself for all the years I have been afraid.
I forgive those who hypnotized me into unreal fears.
I suggest now to myself, over and over, that I am freeing myself from fear.
I have fearlessness to match my fear.
I trust my powers and resourcefulness as a man.
I trust my abundant creativity.
I trust the strength that opens and blossoms in me when I have to face something.
I believe in myself as a man/woman who handles what comes his way today.
I know how to rise to a challenge.
I am more and more aware of how I hold fear in my body.
I stop storing fear in my body.
Now I relax those holding places.
I open my body to joy and serenity.
I release my body from the clench of fear.
I relax the parts of me that hold fear the most.
I let go of the stress and tension that come from fear.
I let go of fear based thoughts.
I let go of basing my decisions on fear.
As I have been doing this memory work, I think that it's having a real impact on what is happening in my life. In the last week since I've been doing this work, I've encountered four different people, three of them sponsees in very early recovery and another person who writes a blog recommended to me by a recovery blogger who thought I might be of help to this person she'd encountered in the blogosphere. All four of them are going through their own dark nights of the soul. Each is dancing close to a level of hopelessness and despair that almost leads me to call 911 and have them taken into protective 72 hour mental health hold. And in fact, one of them was hospitalized on Monday night for just that reason: his friends thought that he was in danger of hurting himself or committing suicide.
With each, I've attempted to be with them in their despair. I'm not at all confident that I am saying the "right thing", helping or hurting. I strongly suggested that one go into a 30 day treatment center or detox unit, but he refused because he doesn't want to be a "loser who goes into rehab." When I heard him say that, I paused briefly to consider how to best respond and ended up blurting out, "Well, too bad! Go anyway!" After a brief silence and just as I was thinking that he was going to hang up on me, he began to laugh from his gut, almost hysterically for several minutes. He thanked me for making him laugh for the first time in 9 months (he'd had some years sober but had fallen away from meetings, got involved with a younger woman and when she broke up with him and learned of his alcoholism, he drank. He's not been able to get sober for the last 9 months... Later that same night I got a short text message from him letting me know that his friends had had him hospitalized. He's out now and I believe still sober...but still resisting the rehab.
All four of these people have reminded me of the importance of hopelessness and despair. Dr.Earle used to say, "Thank God for Despair!" (in fact, he wrote an article in the AA Grapevine years ago with that title). The reason for his gratitude for such an unlikely candidate as Despair was that he'd learned over the years that while despair was quite painful and unpleasant, if only he would be willing to walk or sit through it, inevitably on the other side of despair would come some form of enlightenment or awakening. Always. I've begrudgingly come to agree with this insight. I sent him a text yesterday saying that the prerequisite to willingness was not wanting to do something. And in that since, he was in a really good place!
I've watched fear up close this week. I feel more alive. I feel more, period. I think I'm going to keep doing this fear work. Even though it frightens me somewhat. ;-)
Take care!
Mike L.
