Some Compassion

Now that my blood father's visit is less than two weeks out, I have finally found some compassion for him with an exercise I came up with while reading Survival to Recovery.

I pictured my father as a 7 or 8-year-old boy whose father died from dust pneumonia during the dust bowl of the Depression. I was the same age when my father left the family not to return.

Then I pictured him as a 14-year-old boy whose alcoholic step-father kicked him out of the house for good. When I was 14, my mother told me I could go live with my father right before she pushed me out onto the front porch on a below zero night in January in the country in Montana. Soon after that, I was adopted by my step-father.

Then I pictured my blood father as a young man in a loveless marriage feeling trapped with children. I have a picture of him next to my mother who is happy holding me as a baby, but he looks detached and is standing several inches from my mother.

After that is where our lives differ. Although I felt trapped as a young wife and mother, I stayed and got help for my attitude. I've worked on that attitude ever since and I think, finally, am making a major breakthrough - through my original anger to a place of real forgiveness.

I like compassion - it gives me the freedom to see someone else's humanity without condoning their behavior. It helps me understand what happened to someone else without letting them interfere with my serenity. It helps me keep an emotional distance to take care of me first.

This truly is detaching with love - for me and for others.

HOPE FOR TODAY'S page, March 18

Many of the amends I need to make center around letting go of the past. It's time to give myself and others a second chance.

In Al-Anon, I learned to take care of myself even around people with whom I have a long and painful history.

If disagreement occurs, I can use my program to help me make decisions I won't regret.

I know I can ask my Higher Power for help with this letting go process.

Today I choose to be gentle with myself and to love unconditionlly while detaching with the past.

Enough said, just for today. I cannot add to the quotes above from today's page in Al-Anon's daily reader, HOPE FOR TODAY, written by and for adult children of alcoholics.

Spiraling UP...

Right now, Just for Today, I feel like I'm in the exact same place I was when I started this blog several years ago. I'm still dealing with unresolved issues with my blood father whom I haven't seen in a decade. Yet, I'm not spiritually in the same place. I've made a lot of progress. For example, this morning when I woke up earlier than usual, feeling down, I decided to change my mood through serious step work.

Because I am feeling powerless over this particular relationship, I worked on Step One. I found the perfect reading in Al-Anon's newest book, Discovering Choices - the introduction to the chapter on detachment. It became clear to me that I was still attempting to control another person, to fix him and the relationship. Even though I haven't done anything outwardly, I spend too much thinking it about it, thinking that I should do something to fix it.

I had to ask God to help me let go of my wanting to control, to surrender, which I thought I had done but apparently not 100%. Will I ever be able to do it 100%? I don't know, but I can continue to ask and continue to release it. I don't have to let it bring me down. I don't need to spiral downward like I have so many other times. Instead, I can spiral upwards towards my goal of serenity. I can invest my time in things I can do and things I want to do.

Just for Today.