Flying by the seat of my pants - Something new

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My new work life has started  with my old life not even close to being wrapped up. I feel I am straddling two boats that are quickly drifting apart. It feels weird to be doing something different going someplace different and having new co-workers.

I took a leap and went to work for another company. It is weird actually having people other than customers to work with each day.  I have been isolated a lot over the past few years especially this year.

I have a new office and a new computer to go along with the new co-workers.  Yesterday I panicked a little with all the information coming at me. My mind has been coasting for awhile now and is now realizing that the vacation is over. I don't mind I am ready.

I have done just about all the soul searching and spiritual work someone can do with all the alone time. It has been one big 4th step digging for anything buried that might be holding me back. My bags are pretty light and for that I am grateful.

I need to prove to myself that I have still got it.  Luckily out of the six people I am working with I am actually the youngest so at least I can't use the old card as an excuse. I was scared yesterday and wanted to run away. I always think somehow other people are quicker than me. It may be true sometimes but I can hold my own. I eventually work things out for myself and usually develop a system that make things easier for me.

There is drama there with all those personalities. One person has a kind of negative view and tells me just how hard it is to get things done and how unfair things are there. I have found that too much time with them and I feel discouraged like I am climbing a big mountain.

Luckily we are pretty independent so besides my training we won't be hanging out much.  I forgot about office politics I am the kind of person that ignores that kind of stuff unless it affects me personally. I was never good at playing the game.

I am working my first showroom duty today with two other people. I know nothing about the product so I will be flying by the seat of my pants. Wish me luck.

The Fourth Step - Beyond Denial

I wrote a long post on the Fourth Step the other day and got so bored with it I ditched it before I posted it. At least I think I ditched it my mind isn't what it use to be it is better in some areas and worse in others.

What do I know about the Fourth Step? I have done the dirty deed a few times over the past 20 years but finding the truth about yourself can be difficult depending on the thickness of the layer of denial you have built up over the years. How honest can you be if you have spent most of your life hiding things from yourself?

My sponsor a very smart and enlightened person started me out with an easy assignment for the Fourth Step. She told me to write my life's story or the story of my life up until that time. I was pretty excited it seemed like a fun task actually after all it is all about me.

I started with all the things that happened to me and all the people that hurt me. At that time most of my life I had been a victim of one tragic thing after another and I was pretty hurt. I don't do anger just hurt. It helped me to see just how sad my story was. It was good to get it out on paper.

I still wasn't ready to take any responsibility for my part in anything. I was always victim without control which turned me into the most passive aggressive person on the planet.  I controlled everything in my own way and when alcoholism came into my life it gave me the very excuse I needed to hone my skills even further. With the steps I began to see who I really was and the my world of denial began to come crashing down.

My worst fears came true I was a terrible person after all and I did deserve everything that happened to me. It isn't true of course. This is where Fifth Step come in handy. The Fourth Step is about finding out your not perfect you are just like everyone else and maybe just a little bit like the people you are complaining about.

Admitting that we have flaws makes us more human and compassionate. We can relax and not spend so much energy maintaining that perfect exterior we show to the world.

It was actually very freeing to let go of the denial.  As long as I focused on other people then I couldn't move forward. With the Fourth Step the program could start to be about something I could control, me.

Admitting we have flaws especially when we feel that alcoholism has ruined our lives is really hard. Not admitting it doesn't mean we don't have flaws it just means we are in denial. With the Fourth Step we only admitting them to ourselves and not making them public. Baby steps is the way to go here.

Denial is a place of protection for me when I can't deal with the reality of my life. When I don't feel I can control anything that is making me unhappy or I don't feel I have the energy to make a change. This is a reoccurring theme in my life each time to a lesser degree. I find that eventually I will get there or something will happen to force me to change. At this point I think I am talking about my life right now.

Fourth Step - Taking care of health

Things are a little crazy here and I managed to get sick. This is an old response to stress for me. I have to ask myself was it the sadness of the season or the fact that I never feel free to not think about work or both.

Since I have been in the program I rarely get sick. I learned it was ok to put myself first. Take care of my needs ahead of another. This is real maturity. In the fourth step Blue Print for Progress one of the questions is whether you go to the doctor or dentist for regular check ups. At the time I didn't do that I just kept pushing myself until I was so sick I could not function. I turns into an emergency.

My theory is that you don't really feel like you can take the time to take care of yourself. Especially when other people are counting on you. Your overbooked but you just keep pushing. Your body decides hey I need a break and takes you down.

You finally let yourself off the hook. You have no choice you have gone too far. It also evokes the sympathy of those around you and they cut you some slack. Pleasing others is a top priority for me in my business and I feel terrible if I can't do all that I promised.

I need a break more than just a day at a time. I don't really feel I can do that right now but I am getting to the point that I will have be ok no matter if I lose customers or not. I am not effective working like this and my creative juices are dried up.

Let go and let God a simple phrase that isn't so simple to follow.

Picture from Vivaboo.com

Solutions - Step Four - Layers of resentment

This picture of steps makes me think of how when you are working the steps there is a little landing to rest on before you continue.

When I find myself in yet another place of letting go or in this case of jumping off I have to stop and reflect on how I got here.

When I started the program I believed that most things were concrete and had to be endured. Life dished out bad stuff and you suffered through the best you could. You were permanently scarred by your parents and a situation outside your control and you have to learn to live with the broken person you have become.

What the program and other spiritual adventures eventually brought me to was that wasn't really true. It was only true if I believed it to be true. That statement brought up a lot of resistance in my own mind. Things did happen to me so what do you mean it is my choice to continue to give those things power over me.

I didn't want it to be in my control I wanted someone to pay, someone to say they were sorry and then I wanted to find someone that I could trust that would never ever hurt me that way again. I was living in a fantasy.

Because of my confusion and pain I was no where ready to give up my cherished bag of righteous indignation. This is where the fourth step came in the first time. I think this is why we avoid it for as long as possible because after one, two, three we feel pretty good but we know within the fourth step lies secrets. Secrets that we have hidden about ourselves, terrible stuff.

Letting go of what we fear most frees us. My first fourth step was just the story of my life as I perceived it. At that time from a child's perspective. The neglect and isolation while my mother was sick. Then how my father chose my step mother over me and ending with my ex-husband choosing another woman over me. Can anyone see a pattern here? This was all I could handle acknowledging who wronged me. Resentments.

Then the next time around it got a little more serious, who did I wrong. In my mind nobody I was clearly the victim in my life and wallowing in self-pity and wanting comfort. I still do this but at least I can see it now. I had to own up to hurting other people. I really did the hurting in an unconscious way. I was hard as nails and ignored their opinions and pretended they didn't have feelings. I had gotten rid of my feelings, so I thought, after all those disappointments I wasn't about to feel bad for you.

This kind of thinking kept me stuck for a long time especially when it came to getting over my issues with my dad. I had to find a way to see him as human. One adult to another not from the child's view. From a child's perspective I wanted more but I didn't get it so how does hating him make me a happier person.

It wasn't that simple. First I had to make him human I did this by thinking about his life as a child. There was no love there and he was responsible for rounding up this siblings for regular beatings. As an adult he became a pacifist he wanted no conflict. I had to see this first.

Years later after I lost the most important person in my own life I had to see that my step mother ended his grief over my mother and he wasn't about to let anything change that. No, he wasn't acting in my best interest, he just wanted to be happy.

The next part of the healing of the fourth step is I had to ask myself, have I ever hurt someone else when I was just trying to feel better myself? Have I ever done anything without regard to another persons feelings. In grief did I do anything out or survival. Yes, but I expected more from him because he was my father. Did other people expect more from me? Yes. Am I capable of doing to others what has been done to me. Yes, I didn't believe that until I starting listing my grievances and turning them around.

Can I really expect people to treat me better than I treat them? This is a daily thing for me to look at (step 10). You spot it you got it they say. An on going issue. I ask myself, have I ever done that? It is humbling. So I have to let go and see it is not personal. I don't get up each day and plan to treat people bad. If I do hurt someone it is because I am not fully aware. The steps keep me awake. They help me see my own limitations and accept that we all have them.

This is just a little piece of my experience with the fourth step and the way I finally let go of my biggest resentment over my dad. But this happened in layers. Each time I was in pain it gave me an opportunity let more of it go.

I discovered that my thoughts were hurting me not something that happened when I was a helpless child. I see that no matter what I can't change that time in my life but I can keep the thought of it from hurting me now.

Sometimes I don’t like where I am so I have to go some place else.

I took a break from writing for a couple of weeks because I was heavily involved in some on-line games. It started out pretty innocent and then morphed into a compulsive obsession pretty quick. I have since reached the peak of saturation and I have started to come down from the high and I now am bored with the whole thing.

Today I took a little break from my day and ate lunch in my car. I started thinking about where I am right now emotionally. The obsessive compulsive part of my personality has brought me to where I am today. This is something I have accused various people of through out my life after I was ignored and ditched for more interesting things.

This is hard for me to admit and part of my own Fourth Step. I have ignored the people I love from time to time while I was engrossed in the latest obsession. Usually the relationship is the obsession and just as I described the path of my latest obsession the relationships ended up the same way.

If my sponsor was here she would tell me not to be so hard on myself and she would be right. In ever relationship there are two people and both have to work together to maintain the relationship. I did my best and nothing can change to past.

Obsessions aren’t always bad and at times can give my psyche a well deserved break. It has been fun and I have returned refreshed and willing to move forward with some other more deserving obsessions in my life.