Loving

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Thoughts Create Feelings

“Until today you may not have been aware of how unkind, unsupportive, impatient, critical, angry, frustrated and rough you can be with yourself. Just for today be aware of how you treat yourself.” — Until Today, March 8th

Ask yourself this. If you knew you’d live 30 more years, and decided that you were going to really love life to its fullest and be super happy, but also knew that you would never have an intimate, loving relationship with another person, how would you do it?

In other words, if the ability to use a relationship to make you feel fulfilled, loved and happy was removed from the picture, how would you live life to the fullest and be happy?

This exercise allows you to live the life of your dreams without needing another person to make it happen.

Once you’ve figured out how to do this, the relationships that are unhealthy will begin to fall away, making room for those that will, emotionally, be much healthier for you.

Get it?

Please don’t see this exercise as an opportunity to punish or beat yourself up, to be the victim, or to deprive yourself. Rather, see it as an opportunity to get out of this idea that we NEED a someone else to love us in order to be happy.

It’s totally reasonable to desire loving people in our life and to enjoy those relationships. But when we stop NEEDING that to be fulfilled, we cease to become dependent on having or keeping a relationship in order to be happy. I can’t ever expect to love my life “no matter what”, if it DOES matter what. If I NEED to have —— , or NEED to do ——, or NEED to earn ——, or NEED to feel —— to be happy, I’m missing out on being happy right now!

I’ve mastered the ability to shift my thoughts to produce the feelings I want. This ability was really important to me because I want to feel good, and to do so, now all I have to do is think “good” thoughts.

Do thoughts that make me uncomfortable pop into my head? All the time!

The difference between me and those that aren’t loving life or are dependent on something happening to love life, is that they allow those thoughts that make them feel uncomfortable to hang out for a lot longer. It’s a simple math equation: the shorter amount of time that you allow yourself to think about things that are upsetting, the more time you’ll have each day to feel great!

In other words, the longer we allow our negative thoughts to percolate, the less we love life.

There are lots of reasons people allow this:

They may like being intellectual.

They may have a victim mentality.

They may like the attention they get when they tell others about their pain.

They may not know how to stop.

They may be too lazy to take the actions required to shift their thoughts.

They may not feel they deserve to be happy and love life. Their may be some shame.

They may feel that ruminating, contemplating, investigating, and searching for ways to fix the problem will eventually allow them to uber one it and one day be happy again (I get this answer a lot).

They may be using (alcohol, drugs, women, gambling, work, caretaking, etc) to take away the pain and obscure their feelings.

Of course there are many more reasons. But I came to this understanding about myself at 20 years sober, in 2002, when I really dove into the program, treated it like an educational class, and came up with a system of recovery that works really well for me.

And as a result of practicing it diligently, ILML!

– JamieQ

New Year’s Resolution
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New Year’s Resolution

”The person who has gratitude to express has in some sense been lifted from a place of lack or need to a place of well-being and abundance.” — Attitudes of Gratitude in Love

Why is negativity such a guiding force in most peoples lives? Why do we get sucked into blaming, complaining, self-pity, debating, and obsessing on things that don’t really make us happy? It’s not a question that I have a good answer for, but I do know that, in the last year alone, I’ve spent over 10,000 minutes there. That boils down to about a half hour every day.

Reflecting on that fact, I feel the majority of that time was wasted. Yes, there were certain lessons that I needed to learn, but in retrospect, I would’ve rather spent each one of those minutes focused on things that make me happy, fill me with the feeling of abundance, and create harmony in my life.

But life is all about evolving. Today is the first day of a new year, so for my resolution, I resolve to spend even less time being in a negative frame of mind, and more time focused on gratitude. This is the best way I know how to love my life.

— JamieQ

Solution Consciousness
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Solution Consciousness

“Inspiration comes from solution consciousness.” — Ananda Sangha

Here’s what happens when I’m thinking about the problem for more than 5 seconds:

  1. I get upset about the problem.
  2. I blame myself or someone else.
  3. I feel frustrated.
  4. I play the victim.
  5. I feel self-pity.
  6. I want to escape from my situation.
  7. I attempt to control, dominate and manipulate people to get them to change.
  8. I whine and complain to others.
  9. Feeling upset, I may take action that inevitable hurts me or others.
  10. I never find the solution because I’m focused on the problem.
  11. Lacking faith, I feel hopeless & angry.

Here’s what happens when I’m thinking about the solution:

  1. I get hopeful that this can be solve.
  2. I get creative about how to solve it.
  3. I open my mind to new ideas.
  4. I ask for help from others.
  5. I get excited that I can solve this.
  6. I turn it over to God if I can’t figure it out, which is a great solution, until such time as I’m inspired with another solution.
  7. Naturally, I invite abundance in.

So the question is, “How do we live in the solution, so that whenever an obstacle arises, we perceive it as an opportunity, never getting upset or frustrated?”

My solution is simple, and works every time when I’m consistent in practicing the following actions:

  1. Sleep 8 hours.
  2. Get to bed before 10pm.
  3. Awake before 6am.
  4. Listen to inspiration words on arising.
  5. Meditate.
  6. Stretch/do some yoga first thing.
  7. Connect with source.
  8. Affirm ILML and am excited for the day.
  9. Make my bed.
  10. Do some light exercises.
  11. Turn on some fun music – dance and sing while getting ready for the day.
  12. Shower, brush my teeth, hang up my towel nicely on the rack, use mouthwash, shave, get my hair looking good.
  13. Have a conversation with myself, talking to both “Big Me” and “Little Me” telling them I love them and they are awesome.
  14. Straighten up the bathroom.
  15. Straighten up the bedroom.
  16. Straighten up the house.
  17. Smile and laugh. A lot.
  18. Compliment others. Often.
  19. Keep my mouth shut, unless I have something nice to say.
  20. Dress nicely in unwrinkled, clean clothes that match and reflect the very best me I can be as I go out in the day.
  21. Engage in hobby at least once a day (play guitar, surf, do some art, write some poetry, knit, garden, play with kitty, etc).
  22. Reach out to others to see how they are and let them know I love them.
  23. Bring my spiritual backpack to the coffee shop. Read out of the books, highlighting things that resonate. Journal about how things are going and what’s happening in life. This infuses my mind with great ideas and let’s me take an inventory of the great stuff in life and the areas I can improve in.
  24. Engage in my responsibilities to the best of my abilities to reflect the fact that I’m self-supporting through my own contributions.
  25. Eat healthy throughout the day, but not late at night.
  26. Encourage others to be their best.
  27. Don’t offer unsolicited advice.
  28. Don’t help others if they can do it themselves, unless they ask and it seems like you’re not enabling them.
  29. Eliminate caffeine after 3pm.
  30. Yell out ILML! throughout my day.
  31. Drink plenty of water.
  32. Get to, and participate in, a 12 step meeting where I can hang out with my tribe and share intimacy (into me you see), and gain life wisdom.
  33. At home, take a bath before bed, letting the day wash away and soaking in the hot water to calm my mind.
  34. Be thankful for another great day of life.
  35. Read in bed until I fall asleep, remembering that today well lived creates a life of wonderful yesterdays.

That list may seem long, but the truth is, we already have a long list of things we do each day. The more that list is comprised of items which invite solution into my life, the more ILML! — JamieQ

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Loving The Best

From page 19 in The Best of Bill it says “Let us always love the best in others – and never fear their worst”.

When I focus on what’s wrong with other people, they look worse, and I’m more miserable. The next time I do that, I’ll stop. Then I’ll focus on the good stuff. When I do that, everything gets better. That’s what I love about recovery, I don’t need to be upset for more than a few minutes each day when I use the tools. ILML

This is a great reminder that when I’m thinking other than loving thoughts about people, it means I’m in fear about something (usually fearing I’m not getting treated how I want to be).

Just because they did something that I disapprove of, doesn’t mean I need to focus on it, or fear it will happen again, or that the consequences of their behavior will hurt me. I’ve found for every character defect, there’s an opposite and opposing wonderful character trait. In fact, as my step-mom, a faithful Alanon always said, “Our defects are simply our assets out of balance”. So, rather than focusing on the defect, let me realize that they are just like me – a little out of balance every once in awhile. This allows me to move from resentment to compassion, opening up the door to see the good in everything. And when I do that, I realize once again, that indeed, ILML.