To the bold, brave Women of WoN...you have my profound respect and admiration.
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. " -- W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan ExpeditionA WoN member writes in 2005:"I can't change the fact that a storm ripped through my life, and that applies to a lot more than today's rainstorm. I can't foresee tomorrow. I don't know how things will all turn out. Today, I just need to bail water. When you think about what you need to do just for today to solve the problem right in front of you, you usually figure out something. Sometimes it's a big thing and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just seeing a sink full of dishes and doing them. Nonetheless, you did something to change your situation in that moment and your mind wasn't wandering to yesterday or tomorrow. You changed what you could, for today.
"I don't always use the wisdom that knows the difference between what I can change and what I can't, but I know I have it, because if I didn't, I wouldn't ever be able to change anything, I wouldn't be able to solve a single problem. Yet I can. We all can. I think every time we do, we figure out the secret to serenity. We can find out what we need to do for ourselves today to solve today's problem. I know it can all feel so overwhelming at times, but even the smallest steps remind us, we are capable and we can change things, and we can survive. We do have the wisdom to know the difference."
"Look around you. What's right in front of you today that you can change?"
Posted by PracticalJude Dear all,
Last night I was watching the weather channel, attempting to track Hurricane Ophelia's course, when the alerts appeared on the screen and the winds damn near blew the apartment down. Outside my window was a tree, half standing and half on the ground. It had fallen toward the street rather than come through my window. This morning there are tens of thousands of homes without electricity here, and all I could think of is the families without homes on the gulf coast and how vulnerable we all are. It seems that every day there's another challenge...testing our ability to cope with the hand we have been dealt.
I have to say that I attempted to "change what I could not change" for so long, so very, very long before there was the peaceful surrender and acceptance that I was on the wrong "changing" course...that I was dragging my heels to change the most obvious and let go of what would never change. It's so easy to see our part when it comes to natural disasters...so much more difficult to see our part in "personal disasters." I spent many a day attempting to change the course of the inevitable tornado...here is a poem I wrote while I was twirling...
Twisted Truth
It starts like a twister in the desert
Joyfully romping and carefree
Oblivious to the potential danger
Unaware of its magnificent strength
A natural course it is assuming
While forces layer upon themselves
Protected by its quest to survive
Forging through the familiar path
Faster, stronger; darting and plunging
Merging as one the ground rose to meet
The energy creating a vacuum between you
Twirling memories remaining discrete
Twisted around her you become stronger
As you romped the intensity rose
But once quieted the silence lingered
Spinning the truth of each others soul.
I want to thank everyone for the beautiful reminder that we can only change our path.
Love, Jude
Posted by AnonymousThis message today is a grand assessment of all the problems I've encountered the last two months. There were so many, they piled up on top of one another until I was absolutely dizzy nearly screaming at the Powers that Be, why is this happening over and over.
I wondered what my part had been in each one, what could I have done differently to effect a different outcome until my brain frazzled over at too much thought. I wondered what I could have foreseen to change decisions I had made that caused some more problems. The more I wondered, the behinder I got. LOL!
The answers to those things I will never, ever know. But I did know what was right in front of me, a bunch of problems that needed immediate action, correction, fixing, and that was all I could do.
One by one, I worked on each of them. Some I made more mistakes but that's okay, for at least I was attempting a workable solution. My Mom always said, "Just do something - do not just sit there and worry." She further said, "If you make a mistake, which you surely might, you can fix that, too one way or the other."
Oh, she was so right. When we look at these problems that threaten to send us off on the emotional richter scale, we have but two choices. Climb the scale to an unmanageable breaking point, or find our serenity in accepting what is in front of us, without blaming ourselves, God, or the Universe, and get into action.
Thank you for writing this, though. A friend asked me the other day, "How in the world do you stay so calm when everything is falling apart around you?" I thought about that - was I calm? No, not really, but I was accepting of my need to not lose my emotional strength that was very much needed in problem solving.
Think we've become flood proof, yet? Somedays it seems that way, other days it seems we've accepted life brings us many joys, and many problems too, and the sooner we stop fighting that, the more balanced we'll be on the emotional richter scale.
Because now I think I understand. That is the point to all of it. Balance.
Love to all......
Anon
Posted by Dirtgirl65Hello all,
I have said this to CZBZ and I will say it again. The WoN forum and you lovely souls who make up the WoN board, SAVED MY LIFE.
saved.
my.
life.
Truly. Not that I would've offed myself over the N but I sure was not enjoying life and not, therefore, living, but DYING in my day to day, when he lived here.
So, the Serenity Prayer. Obviously it's an AA staple.
We start of saying the word God. Then the group repeats, "God" and then the whole prayer is spoken.
Beginning with the word God is great because it establishes a world out there, above the flooded waters of the basement. Above the house. Above the N. Above ME. God is any kind of higher power or simply the God you choose for you. But it is not you--and reminds you that you are powerless over some things. Like Ns and basement floodings.
The goal is to get outside of ME, not in a distraction kind of a way but in a "something else is in charge and it is not me" kind of way.
The rest of the first line starting with, "grant me" is nice. Because it isn't "GIVE ME NOW" but "please oh please I am pausing here for help". And they, "Oh Higher Power, would love it if you could grant me the serenity (peace plus wisdom) to accept something here".
Accept. Stop here. This simply means we recognize that THIS IS HOW IT IS.
This is how it is means it is not going to be another way. The N is who he is. The basement is flooded. The N is not going to be normal and the basment is not going to be dry and MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE SITUATION CANNOT CHANGE THIS REALITY. (Sometimes reality sucks also, as you know).
(Now where were we)?
So, we are accepting the things we cannot change. Awesome. Yes. Watery basement. There it is. Dumbass N, there he is. Both are a bummer.
Next line.
The courage. Now this part is cool. It does not say "DO THIS NOW AND ALL WILL BE EXCELLENT AND GOOD AND JUST THE WAY YOU LIKE IT". Instead it says just have the courage--which is the willingness really. Courage is not an action it is a state leading to the action. Just be willing to try the brocolli. You don't have to like it.
So we move to, "okay, let's try something else--something new".
And that is, to change the things we can. Here is the action. But we do not have to act on it. The simple mental switch of being willing to try the brocolli. Or to try NO CONTACT or to walk over to the closet where the waders are kept and to call the guy who brings over he pump is the action.
To sit and curse and stare and cry is the opposite of the serenity prayer.
If you reverse the serenity prayer...its meaning is something like this:
Goddammit, the basement is f**ing flooded, I need a drink.
Being serene (accepting) about something is so much more pleasant.
Hoorah!
Love you all. Thanks for encouraging me to post.
Love&Light, dg
Posted by CZBZ "Look around you. What's right in front of you today that you can change?"
I changed something. While doing so, I thought about each of us as we take care of real needs facing us each morning when we'd rather ignore reality and go back to bed. I've been trying to sell my house and get another one purchased so we can move out of state to a more reasonable and affordable lifestyle.
Since my nephew has lived with me for nearly nine years, selling our home has ended up giving him panic attacks; he has no clue where we'll go next and fears the worst since the worst has always happened to this kid. I've s-l-o-w-l-y accepted the truth that a decision HAD to be made about where and when we were moving. But I couldn't bring myself to make that decision.
Ever since I was 19, I have been with the X-husbaNd while he took charge of those kinds of things and I made the best of our circumstances. Being in the business world, contracts didn't force him to even bat an eyelash while I would be standing out on the real estate agent's porch crying my eyes out. Or else, sleeping fitfully for weeks about making a huge financial decision 'that might be a MISTAKE.' O yes. I dared say it: A MISTAKE.
MISTAKE
MISTAKE
MISTAKE
Fearing a mistake can lead us into making a mistake.
So I thought about all the forum members dealing with more unknowns and uncontrollables than they ever imagined they'd have to; and I told myself, "Self. Get a friggin' grip. A house is just a house and if you don't like it, somebody else will...they can buy it if you put it up for sale."
I've been looking at potential homes for a year now, always missing the purchase by a day or two when somebody else stepped up to the plate and I was still waffling in my shaky boots. But yesterday, I bucked up and called the agent and bought a house right over the Internet.
No. I have never seen it.
Now lest you think my time on message boards has rendered me completely out of touch with reality, my other sister lives in the next neighborhood to this potential 'home', and she went to see it for me. She said, "Well...this is great and that is great but it sure isn't perfect since this is not that great and that is even worse."
I said, "Is is GOOD ENOUGH?"
And she replied, "Well, yes. But it's not perfect!"
"Great!" I shouted, "We'll take it!"
Yesterday, I looked at the house I have already left behind and realized it was time for me to take the next step and change my circumstances by myself. Nobody was going to do it for me. Not the N. Not my sis. Not my daughter, and certainly not my nephew. I had to do this hard thing alone.
But I wasn't really alone because I had each of you standing beside me when I called the agent and said, "I found a house on the net I'd like to buy. Can you get an offer prepared for me?"
"BUT!" the fella laughed, "You haven't even see it!"
"Yea. So? Is that a problem for ya?"
I suppose it's not too often someone hands over their life savings for a home they've only seen on video shots. But then again, I don't suppose it's all that often a woman picks her azz up off the floor and spits in her x's face for thinking she'd never get up again. I changed the 'frozen' circumstances of my life yesterday and pray with all my heart that the basement hasn't been flooded.
Love,
CZBZ
Posted by Ellie50301Well, to all you spirited ladies looking at your world today and making the changes that make a difference.
GOOD ON YA'!
CZ -- WOW!!!!! Hurray!!! Whooppeeee! I literally had exactly the same thought as you about "Well, looks like I'm going to have to get off my seat and get to work on changing this, cause nobody else is going to change it for me."
I've been stalling getting in touch with my contacts re looking for freelance work. Don't ask me why -- lol -- but if you can smell my fear from where you are, you'll be pretty close to the answer.
What do I fear?
Well, let's see. They might say -- What? Are you stupid. We'd never hire you as a freelancer. You did great work for us before why would we think you'd do great work again? LOL -- so I called -- got three meetings set up.
Doesn't matter if you've been with an NPd 19 years or 2 months -- fear of taking the initiative, of moving forward sometimes holds you back from making the difference you need to make in your life today. I have learned that I must be the change I want to have happen for me, cause everyone else is too busy fearing the changes happening to them to be worried about what's changing for me! LOL -- just like I have to give up control of making the changes I think other's should make, I have to give up expecting someone else to take control of the changes I need to make!
In love,
Ellie
Final words from DirtGirl65:The thing I LOVE about the Serenity Prayer is it does not ask us to do anything. It says, "please give me the courage" to change the things I can.
Courage. A little ol' Liony Courage. For me that simply means--"the courage to try" another way.
This is also pretty behavioral psyche stuff. One foot in front of the other or simply one bit of faith spread out before an attempt to fly.
As a recovering person I always coupled the Serenity Prayer with the third step...which synthesized is "take an action and turn over the result".
I don't act to change things.
Oh no, I am lecturing here...I do not mean to! So I will end here. I think you are all wonderful and I send my love.
DG
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