Easy Does It

When I came into Al-Anon, I grabbed onto some of the slogans fairly easily, but mostly ignored others.

"Easy Does It" was one of the slogans I had to warm to.

It had been my habit to take on too much, power my way through, force solutions.

I didn't realize that trying harder, just made things more difficult.

So today, I try to remind myself that easy often gets it done. I ask God to set my priorities, work on those things and let go of the rest.

I don't usually have trouble with that in summer. The days feel longer and fuller, and the pace of life slows down.

Usually.

This summer, I've been unusually blessed with abundance. I have more writing assignments than I've had in years. Most of them involve travel. We are still working on the house, of course, which means we're away about half of a typical week.

The only time I have to write is when I am home. I have to juggle that with my Al-Anon commitments. And, now, with training for the Grand Canyon.

So it has become harder to find the considerable time it takes me to keep up with my blog. I have been praying and meditating on the situation, and find the answer in the slogan "Easy Does It."

I've decided to give myself a summer vacation from blogging. My intention is to return to blogging regularly in September, after the Grand Canyon trips and past the deadlines for several stories.

In the meanwhile, I hope to post from time to time, and to visit other blogs as I can.

I hope you all have a great summer. I will keep you all in my thoughts and in my prayers.

The Hyena and the Wildebeest

An article in the paper caught my eye the other day. It was about Ray Dalio, the founder of one of the world's largest hedge funds and the philosophy on which he runs his company.

The firm runs on a set of 295 principles that Mr. Dalio distributed to all his employees. He calls his philosophy hyper-realism, drawing on lessons of the natural world.

One of his most eye-catching principles is "Be the hyena. Attack the Wildebeest... Like the hyenas attacking the wildebeest, successful people might not even know if or how their pursuits of self interest helps society, but it typically does."

Another principle is "There is nothing to fear from truth.... Being truthful is essential to being an independent thinker and obtaining greater understanding of what is right."

Apparently, at Mr. Dalio's company, being truthful "also requires a bit of ruthlessness," according to the article.

One employee admitted he found the truthful policy difficult, because colleagues were encouraged to critique his ideas and drill into his weaknesses. "I would go home defeated every day," he said.

Reading the article, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to run a company on Al-Anon principles.

What if, rather than "Be a Hyena," the principle was "Live and Let Live" or "Let Go and Let God."

And I have nothing against the speaking the truth. But what if the guiding principle was "THINK." That before we opened our mouths to speak, we took a minute to think about what we were going to say and asked ourselves if it was not only True but also Honest, Intelligent, Necessary and Kind?

What if no one went home feeling defeated by his or her colleagues?

I'm not sure that company would become one of the world's largest hedge funds. Maybe to be successful on Wall Street requires a bit of the hyena. But maybe making money isn't the most important thing. If we were to run this company on Al-Anon principles, we'd ask ourselves the question, How Important Is It?

Let It Begin With Me

I have been pummeled by this slogan lately, which is usually a sign I need to pay attention. But I can be a little slow on the uptake. Fortunately for me, my God is patient and persistent, and He has a sense of humor.

Here’s a brief recap of my recent history with this slogan. It was the topic of my meeting last Monday night. The next day my sponsor blogged about it. On Wednesday, the meeting topic was slogans, all of them. Participants were invited to talk about whichever slogan spoke to them. Guess what? One of them was “Let it Begin with Me.” Then, this morning, I picked up a current meeting list to give to a sponsee. The slogan on the cover? Well, you know. I don’t need to hit you over the head with it.

But God sometimes has to hit me over the head.

You see, I’ve been praying for some time about what to do about a key relationship in my life. I’ve been wondering if this relationship is still meeting my needs. I’ve been praying about it. Asking for guidance. Then I got it.

A program friend brought up a relationship she wasn’t sure was meeting her needs or her expectations. She had relationship envy. She had been observing the same relationship among some of her other program friends and those relationships seemed better and more satisfying.

Setting aside the problem of comparing her insides with another’s outsides, I reminded her that she was the one who had withdrawn from the relationship in question. I didn’t say “Let it Begin with Me,” but I could have.

Then it hit me. I had answered my own question. Since I wasn’t listening to all of the messages He had been sending me, God put the answer in my own mouth.

I was the one who had withdrawn from the relationship in question. If I didn’t like the current state of affairs, I had to “Let it Begin with Me.”

I looked up the slogan in “How Al-Anon Works” and found it full of fresh meaning. Ironically, I had highlighted the very phrases that were appropriate to my situation. But I’m a great forgetter. Sometimes I need to be reminded.

Here are a few things the book says:

“When we are tempted to blame others for our problems or to justify our own poor behavior by pointing to the poor behavior of others, this slogan reminds us where our focus rightfully belongs…. ‘Let it begin with me’ is a way to change the things we can—especially our own attitudes—instead of waiting for everyone else to change to suit us.

This is like going hungry while waiting for someone who doesn’t cook to make dinner. ‘Let it begin with me’ might suggest that we go ahead and cook for ourselves, go out for dinner, or make plans with someone who cooks. In short, we take responsibility for getting our own needs met.”

So today, I will “Let it Begin with Me.”

Thanks to all of you who left such thoughtful comments concerning memorable posts. I hope to catch up with all of you in the next couple of days.

The Best Medicine

I had been going to Al-Anon for just a short time when someone in a meeting said the program had given him tools that he added to his tool belt. I thought, "I want tools!" I had no idea what he was talking about, though I had already begun using them. They were all around me. I just hadn't recognized them yet.

I loved the Just for Todays, but I didn't see them as tools. To me, they provided a road map for a fulfilling life. Something to aspire to, not something to apply to situations.

I also had Al-Anon literature. At my first meeting, I bought "One Day at a Time in Al-Anon," which I read as prescribed: one day at a time.

While I was waiting for a sponsor, I also read the book "How Al-Anon Works," where I first discovered that I should not be asking my daughter about whether she had attended a meeting or if she called her sponsor. I was astonished. Really? I wasn't supposed to do that? I thought I was being a good mother.

"How Al-Anon Works" also had a whole section on slogans, which I skimmed over. I thought they were corny. I couldn't see how they would help me.

Of course, all of these were tools. Even before I realized that, they began to work in my life. I'd be rushing off somewhere, and the phrase "Just for today, I will save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision" would pop into my head, and I would take a breath and slow down.

The first tool I was conscious of using was detachment. And it was the slogans that helped me understand what that meant. When I found myself wanting to fix something, I'd remember "Let Go and Let God." I clung to that slogan like a lifeline. I could never "let go" of my daughter to fall into nothingness. But I could release her to a loving God. It reminded me that my daughter had her own God, and it was not me.

Soon, "Live and Let Live" became my daily motto. That happened as I began working the steps (another tool!). I had heard this slogan for what seemed my entire life, but it began to take on new meaning. I had always thought of the heart of the slogan as "letting live." My new emphasis was on the "live" part. By then I had began to really live my own life.

It was in working the steps with a sponsor that I really began to recover. A personal story I read recently in "From Survival to Recovery" put it well, I thought:

"Now I like to think of the slogans as bandages, the steps as the cure, and God as the doctor. When I am hurt, before I can get to the doctor to cure it, I usually need to patch it up temporarily to stop the bleeding. That's what bandages are for. Then I seek out a doctor to prescribe the best remedy. Finally, I take the prescribed cure and heal."