A Week of No Complaints Completed

I extended my “week” of no complaints to more than ten days. I found that it took me at least six days just to hear myself and to see the many ways that complaining snuck up on me. And to see how often my complaints were gossip and my gossip was complaining. Yeah.

Perhaps my biggest learning was that –and I hate this—I had to slow down, slow waaaaay down, to hear myself complain. I found that I had to move a lot slower—and I like moving fast—to be aware of where my mind and mouth were headed. If I moved and spoke slower there was a better chance that I’d catch a complaint or a criticism before it fully emerged.

But the other big lesson was that I needed even more quiet and even more slowing down in order to discern what was a necessary truth versus what was a complaint. At work, and sometimes at home, there were things that just were not right or not OK with me that I needed to address. I didn’t want to avoid those because of the “no complaining” rule, but similarly I had to really get quiet to sort out what was just me being cranky about stuff not going my way.

Discernment requires quiet and quiet follows slowing down. Well—there’s the next challenge: A week with more quiet.

Joy Not Happiness

In Sunday's New York Times I read this wonderful essay about quiet and stillness by Pico Iyer. Perfect for everyone you know especially friends in recovery. It reminded me of my friend Bridgid's saying, "Feelings can't hit a moving target."

Sit still; go for stillness and not action; do less not more; seek joy not happiness.

Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html

Prayer by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage
I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here
among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.
The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?
My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.
Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.



                                                     ----Marie Howe, from “The Kingdom of Ordinary Time”

Wisdom

“When the mind and body are still and quiet wisdom effortlessly reveals itself”.



                                                                                --Stephen Cope, Kriplau.




P.S. Don’t Forget the 12 Step Haiku Contest:

The guidelines: Write a haiku about one of AA’s 12 steps. You can do one step or all 12. The description of a haiku is this: Seventeen (17) syllables in three, non-rhyming lines. It typically is like this: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. But we are recovering alcoholics and addicts so for our purposes we’ll be flexible: poetic license not perfection.

What is the essence of each step for you? Is there a key word or two? Challenge your friends and post your favorites here. You can use the Comments link below or email your 12-step haiku to me and I’ll post them in the blog.

There will be prizes!

God's Voice

I wrote this in my journal in 1995. I heard this from the woman who was my spiritual director at the time. She said: “God’s voice is very subtle. Each day in prayer look for the one thing in the day before that struck you as an impulse, a thought, an image or an idea. Train yourself to see and hear and feel the subtle.”

To do this, she said, you have to get quiet. Get a more quiet life.

Be Still and Know

A few years ago on a retreat for women in recovery a spiritual director gave me this meditation practice to use to quiet my ever spinning mind. When I remember to do it my heart and head do settle. I find this also works to quiet my fears in difficult meetings at work.

Sit quietly and say each line yourself:


Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.