Becoming a Member of the AAA Club
Courage To Change — April 1, 2019
Not the American Auto Association. The “Three A’s” – Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. I’m not so good at the second two. Today’s reading deals with missing the Acceptance stage.
Quick and Simple Disclaimer: The readings in this post are literally taken wholesale out of the book entitled Courage to Change. You can find it at Amazon, Here. The portion entitled Alleged Insight, well that mess is all me.
If you’re an introvert, go buy the book, if you’re a broke introvert, the text from many good books can be found HERE , if you’re in dire straits however, go find an Al-Anon Meeting, it saved me.
So onward to Today’s Reading
I’ve heard acceptance mentioned at meetings as one part of the “Three A’s” – Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. However, I am inclined to try to jump from awareness to action without even pausing for acceptance. My thinking goes like this: “Something’s wrong! Quick, let me fix it before I have to feel any discomfort.”
The problem is that until I accept the situation, defect, or memory that has come to my awareness, I can rarely take effective action or live serenely with the consequences. The action doesn’t’ work or it makes things worse, and I feel helpless and hopeless. Even if it does work, I am usually too full of self-doubt to realize it. Most of the time, I still have to go back, sit still, feel the feelings, and come to some acceptance. It helps to be reminded that my Higher Power already accepts me and my situation – and loves me on the bad days as well as the good.
Today’s reminder
Moving from awareness to acceptance to action takes time, but the benefits are worth the wait. As I learn to accept my defects, circumstances, and feelings, I learn that I am a worthwhile human-being just as I am. With that kind of self-acceptance, I begin to see my options, and slowly I can begin to take action, to change.
“…someone suggested I stop concentrating on changing myself and think first about accepting myself. That gave me the boost I needed.”
Alateen – A Day at a Time
Alleged Insight:
Oh boy, where to start? Let’s go with the concept of ‘effective action’ or maybe the ‘accepting myself’ aspect. I am a mess, an over-cafienated hyper-reactive mess. Heck, I’ve spent the last eighteen hours worrying about and trying to fix something that I don’t even know is broken. Turns out that I misread a situation entirely, and spend the better part of a full 24 hours making myself miserable. What was the effective action to take in that circumstance? I didn’t accept anything. In a totally anticipated move, I went from a completely spurious and created in my head awareness, (meaning it wasn’t even a real thing) all the way to trying to take action on that thing, without being able to do anything. I spent an entire day paralyzed trying to do anything.
I accomplished absolutely nothing. I hadn’t accepted any part of any real situation, I now need to step back into that moment and pick apart why I went from A to C without stopping at B, and even A was incorrect.
Closing thoughts:
Awareness of self is just as important as awareness of situations. In my messed up view of reality, it’s not rose-coloured glasses that make it all seem soft and happy, it’s scarlet colored lenses that make everything seem like a crisis, when in fact so many things are not my problem, and it’s not my place to fix them.
Remember to aim for awareness, and true understanding of a situation before you try to figure out what to do about it, if anything.
Duke.