Things Are Getting Better Every Day!

At my Al-Anon meeting Friday there seemed to be a lot going on with everyone...as everyone was speaking, I thought, wow, we're all in some sort of crisis here. The meetings are generally very positive and there usually isn't this much talk about crisis as on this particular day--my own contribution included. It seemed like everyone was a victim of something or the behavior of someone.

One member really said something that hit me. He said, I could talk about my parents who were alcoholics and what they did. I could talk about my spouse who is an alcoholic and everything she did but, you've all heard and lived those stories so I don't need to talk about that. I could talk about...blah blah blah...but it's no different than any of the previous "could have talked abouts"...the one constant in all of these stories is ME. I am the one common factor in all of these stories. The common denominator is me and how I will react. Al-Anon is a selfish program in that aspect. We do not have control over "them" and what they do, but we DO have control over ourselves and how we react (or chose not to react).

There are no victims--
What this man said really spoke to me. There are always going to be people with issues in our lives. We have no control over them. What we DO have control over is ourselves and whether or not we let them affect our lives. Personally, I've lived enough drama with the alcoholic and after leaving the alcoholic to last me a lifetime. My goal is and has been to figure out how to NOT let someone else's sickness affect me. This is easy for me with people who's lives are not directly affecting me. Where I struggle is when their "stuff" is affecting MY life.

All of this ties into something I was reading in ASK AND IT IS GIVEN (http://www.abrahamhicks.com) today. As a result, my perceptions have changed into the following: I now need to look at situations affecting me and ask myself, "Do I feel powerful in this situation or powerless?" If we can bring our minds to a place of empowerment (feeling powerful) we can remain positive in a situation that might have otherwise created negativity within us.

This is the key to NOT letting the drama affect me. Thank you God!!!