Staying in the Moment
Hello ladies, with today being my belly-button birthday, I truly have to practice staying in the moment. Having a birthday was one of the worst days ever in my past since I knew it was a day that my mother regretted and has expressed this to me several times. On a daily basis, I have to use the tools of the program to keep me out of the bad neighborhood that exists between my ears.
I can sit and recall all the things that happened in my past and start to wonder why I am here. Then I can take that and start running the other way with it and start projecting into my future and start playing all these bad tapes through in my head as to how my life is going to take a drastic turn for the worse. I used to want to send a sympathy card to my mother each year for my birthday, but never did. I have been working on a project doing consulting work in Central NY where I grew up and it has taken quite an emotional toll on me and has tested me to stay in the moment.
This past Wednesday was my 13th anniversary of sobriety which is so much more important to me now. So as I sit here on the patio and just have a quiet time with me and God, I am trying to stay in the moment. I look around and see the birds, the sun in the sky, my wonderful husband that I adore with all my heart, our beautiful home, I am getting texts from my real family from AA saying happy birthday.
I received a call on Thursday that my project in NY is ending this coming Friday, and I will be out of work temporarily, but I am more relieved than upset, and then I can beat myself up for that, haha!! The sick mind of an alcoholic, so glad those call-out boxes or clouds do not exist above my head to show people what goes through my mind, really is a bad neighborhood up there at times.
I believe that any obstacle we go through is God trying to teach us a lesson and, rather than get down about it, I try to stay positive and focus on the lesson. I have a new family now in AA and I get the love and support that I have never had before… I heard before that God gives us friends to apologize for our families, and He truly does know what he is doing. I can’t think about what happened yesterday or focus on what’s going to happen next week… if I do that, then I am going to waste the precious time that I have right now, TODAY!
So I am asking you ladies to share with us how you stay in the moment? What tools do you use to accomplish this?