higher power – TectonicDraft

Alright. As my week wraps up and I review the hellish “through not around” that I waded in with my daughter this week, I want to take the opportunity to note some tangible tools I have learned.

Embrace the steps.

Step one. It’s not about me. It’s unmanageable. It’s not mine. Step two. Someone else has got this. Step three. Take a step back and let it be that someone else’s. Step six. Practice the pause.

I realize I’m skipping four and five here. It’s not to minimize them. Those ones have deeper digging. They do not pertain quite yet within my immediate, tangible action.

Create the tiniest gap.

My goal–that I haven’t taken much time to write about–is that I want the voices in my head to quiet. That quiet is the peace I am aspiring to. That quiet is a return to my best and highest self.

When the thought loops run rampant, as they are wont to do unchecked, I spiral out. I want so much more than that for myself. I am so much more than that.

I have options. I can tell the voice to fuck off. I can turn my attention to constructive actions. I can write down the thought loops and walk away from them. I can mantra in my head “words and opportunity”. I can ask to have it taken away. I can journal longform about it. I can ask myself “Am I acting from a place of love or s place of fear?”

Whichever I choose, the act of pausing and deciding creates a gap for the universe to come in and support me.

Move.

This is just a good go to on any day. Gets me simultaneously in my head and out of my head. It grounds me to the earth and the universe. It provides the connection back to self.

Reality is kinetic.

Perspective dictates that not only can people have entirely different experiences to the same situation, but those experiences can morph and muddle with time. Reality can shift and transmogrify, and none of it is real and all of it is real. Whatever we remember and however we filter it creates a picture through our lens and it becomes our truth.

This isn’t good nor bad. It’s life. This is something I’ve always been aware of, but I had many attachment thoughts about it. It is now clear to me it is something I need to accept. I don’t have a “how” for that right yet. But all the other tangible things I’ve come to acquire this week tell me that I can ask for the how and then I can wait and it’ll be given to me when I need it.

So….I’m learning to do the work and also just stop. Both and neither. Click click and click.

~~~~~~~

I want to add. My process normally is that I write and then I share and talk about it with Chris. I’ve found in the past that when I talk it over first, I never write about it, and I don’t like losing that part.

I’ve been trying to write this particular post all week and none of it came. It was too wordy and circumvented all the tangibility.

I was finally able to, yesterday, share with Chris the events that unfolded over the week. His week began with a seizure and recovery, and mine was full of navigating Tuesday with R and the week with the boys.

After connecting with Chris last night to share the story of my week, and after he listened so attentively and responded so compassionately, it allowed this post to flow easily. We were us, with all the extra personal growth we’ve worked for. It is goodness.

Part of my sponsee homework this week was to flesh out my higher power a bit more. Not necessarily to share with Beth, but to have a more tangible and articulated foundation for myself.

Chris and I had this two hour conversation tonight that rocked my night. I love those nights where we set up the computer to watch Heroes, but then fall into deep, connected conversation instead. The world falls away and it’s just him and me in this moment.

And it wasn’t until we had this two hour long conversation that I truly grasped the validity and necessity of forming and articulating your higher power. In part for myself, which I’ll expound on in a minute, and in part for Chris because he’s been in this process of working his fourth step for a couple months now. And it’s completely his journey and I want him to walk it as such, and at the same time, I know it’s been a hard process–one I don’t have experience to speak on–and it’s been on my radar that he hasn’t written anything yet. I imagine it’s a crazy hard thing to sit and explore and he’s so incredibly brave to even go there. Tonight, with our talking, as I articulated my higher power and he shared how he’s been fleshing out his own, I realized the beauty of the sequence of the first four steps.

How can you write out a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of yourself alone? That sounds terrifying and traumatic. That’s not a process I’d want Chris to endure without a solid higher power. You got a clear picture of your higher power tho? That sounds terrifying and completely doable. That’s the experience I prefer for him.

I haven’t done my fourth step yet. I’m not there. Tonight’s conversation was pivotal to all of this tho. I was saying how I had this solid higher power picture. I was saying my foundation is solid. So freaking solid. But also, I’m a sponsee for a reason and I don’t claim to know all the things. Beth wants me to be able to come to a point of articulation. Cool, I can comply with that. And I even said to Chris, “so while *I* feel I’m set with my higher power picture, Beth, she’s the poker and she comes in to poke at my views to show me what’s strong and what needs work.”

I know my place. Even when I want to snarkily boast about my evolvedness.

So I eloquently tell Chris about my higher power.

My higher power is the universe. I unquestionably view the universe as a thing that will always take care of me without exception. It is always looking out for my best interest, and the best interest of all.

As an added characteristic, I also view my higher power as a parent, who, when I come to it, vulnerable and broken and damaged and hurt, it will always show up with open arms, always wrap me in comfort and will leave no room for me to believe anything except that I am all-loved.

That is my higher power.

(Pretty cool, huh?)

And then, I played Beth in my head for a moment (poke poke poke) and considered “ahh, my higher power only works in the present.”

OH MY FREAKING GOD–

(No pun intended.)

I have spent all this time with a freaking kickass higher power and I only let him play with present me. Oftentimes I think about including him in future me stuff, but it’s not really in a tangible way. Never do I let him interact with past me.

This is where I call upon my inner Julie and allow her to say, “what would it mean to you that the universe was looking out for past Jill?” That past me-the scared little girl me–is safe with the universe. That she was being looked after back then, as well as right now–if I so chose to dive into the psyche of all that.

And I guess my immediate, involuntary response is, “Fuck you, you can’t be trusted. She got hurt and you didn’t look out for her at all.”

……

Well, that was unexpected. I probably have some work to do there. That was very honest and vulnerable of me. I was expecting to go somewhere else with all that. I was expecting that posing the question would bring a sense of relief and provide an immediate safe haven where past Jill could come out to play and heal. I expected immediate growth here and the opportunity to wrap it up in a neat little bow and call it a day. Figuratively and literally.

Instead I think I’m just going to call it a day and sleep instead. And think on this again tomorrow. There is time for forgiveness in tomorrow.

xo.

Tag: higher power

I can live and breathe and see the sun.

Why are you running away?