Letting Go--Throw the Ball

Letting Go is a topic I can never hear about enough. I love it when it’s the topic at meetings, and I really love it when people talk about how they let go—what exactly they do that helps them. 

Letting go is probably the answer to 99% of my questions. (What should I do in my relationship? Let go. What should I do about that cranky relative? Let go. What about the future I am worried about? Yes, let go of that too.)

But still, and often, just as in my newcomer days, I can sigh and say, “But how?” and I try to keep the whiney tone out of my voice.

So, I love the advice on letting go from the amazing Melody Beatty. Beatty is a recovering woman, recovery writer, and a recovery role model. I highly recommend her books especially the day meditation book called, “The Language of Letting Go.” My first sponsor gave me that book in 1983 and I still read from that dog-eared, underlined, tear-stained copy every day. 

So here is her advice on how to let go:

*If you are holding onto a worry or a problem or a person—think of that as holding onto a baseball.

* If you have tried to solve a problem three times (and worry doesn’t count) then stop yourself. Let go. Throw the ball.

*If someone asks you for advice, you give them the advice one time. Then throw the ball to them. Let go. Say nothing more.

*If a person has not asked for your advice, or if you offered some advice and the answer was “No thanks,” there is nothing to throw. Let go. The ball is not in your hands.

It might be helpful—if you are really struggling with an issue or a person—to get a small ball to hold, name, and then toss. Let that ball go off the cliff, into the river, let it roll down the road or anywhere away from you.

That’s what letting go looks like. Let it go.

Do You Remember to Surrender?

I bet that you, like me, have had one of those experiences where you worry and sweat and fuss over some situation (or person) in your life and then you go to a meeting or talk to a sponsor or a recovery friend and you remember that you could have surrendered sooner. It’s that old, “I could have had a V-8!” experience.

So how do you remember to turn things over? And how can you remember that you have a Higher Power: God, Goodness, Grace, or the Group that you can rely on. I often think that having a 12-step bumper sticker on the back of the car is a terrific service to others. The driver behind you gets a jolt of remembering his/her commitment to recovery—but what about you?

Yes, in early recovery you may have (I did) piled your desk with recovery slogans and pamphlets, and little recovery mottos etc. But maybe you’d like to be a little bit more discreet now? That’s smart actually—we are maturing and no longer broadcasting our membershipJ

I love a great reminder tool a good friend taught me. I noticed that she had frog figurines and some frog

pictures in her car, desk calendar, kitchen etc. I thought it was just one of those “collector” things until she explained that her frogs were her reminders to Fully Rely On God. Yeah, F.R.O.G.

Cute? Yeah. Corny? Maybe. Discreet? Definitely. And does it work? Oh yes it does. So I have learned to keep a few frogs where I can see them. And yes—it works even if your HP is not a “God”—you still get the good reminder to take a breath, surrender and turn things over.

Recently I was buying some kid’s toys and I saw a bright green, plush Beanie Baby frog. My first reaction was “that’s cute but a bit cornball” but when I put him on my desk he immediately dropped (flopped) into a yoga pose so I knew this frog would be a perfect reminder to fully rely on my higher power, and to “move a muscle change a thought.”

And yes, he is also very playful and that’s another good reminder for my usual busy, important, serious girl self.

Hope is...

I have always loved words like Joy and Peace but recently the word Hope has come to me again and again.

“Hope is a waking dream.,” wrote Aristotle, and maybe from that I assumed hope was a weak word, something that could alight like a bird but then equally take flight like a bird. Too iffy for me.

But I have always loved this quote from the former Czech president and playwright, Vaclav Havel:

“Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

That, it turns out, is close to what Thomas Aquinas meant when he wrote about Hope. Aquinas studied all of the virtues, Faith, Hope, Charity…etc. and when he described hope he said “Hope is located in the will.” Which means that he believed that hope is a choice; that we make a decision to have hope. Having hope is within our will, within our choice.

Because of his belief about hope, Aquinas also said that there are two sins against hope. They are despair—having no hope—or making the choice to not hope, and interestingly, he said that the other sin against hope is presumption—the stance that, “I can do this myself.”

Isn’t that fascinating? Doesn’t it resonate with “Made a decision…” and “Our will and our life.” It’s a choice. Not dependent on mood or emotion or circumstances. Hmmmmm. And it is also giving up ego, “I can do this myself.”

So here is what I am doing with hope this week: I am practicing gratitude as much of the day as I can. I am teaching my will. It seems that a life of gratitude is oriented toward hope. Practicing gratitude is a way to teach the will to choose hope.