STEP TWO: CAME TO BELIEVE THAT A POWER GREATER THAN OURSELVES COULD RESTORE US TO SANITY.
Well this step is a big concept for me. I do believe in God, although over the years and especially right before I began the 12 steps, I had started to doubt God. I had started to feel that He had abandoned me in this chaos I called a life. I was angry at Him, I was lonely because I felt I was walking through life on my own. After I started the steps, began reading the literature, and consulted with my pastor, I began to realize different. I wasn’t alone, He hadn’t abandoned me. I had abandoned Him...I did not pray, I did not ask for guidance and strength, I did not do as He has planned. I was taking everything on myself, just as I learned to do throughout my childhood. This was the way I coped. This was how I survived. My attitude was and has been " I can do this all on my own, I am independent, I am strong, I can take care of myself, I can live my life the way I want and need to live it, I, I, I, I" In fact, I remember when I was about 15, my mom had handed me the red "alateen" one day at a time book to help me cope, and I threw it back at her and said...I don’t need your book...I will be just fine on my own".
As I was working through step one I began to realize how powerless I really was. I began to realize that I never had control of my life. My life had truly become unmanageable...and now I can see that. I enjoy not having power. But now I think I need to work on putting that trust in God. I think I have done ok with realizing that God ultimately has the power and control in life...what I think will be hard for me as I work through step two is BELIEVING that God can RESTORE ME TO SANITY. I am ready and willing to turn it over...I no longer want to feel responsible for anyone but myself. I am ready and willing to allow God back into my life and to help me and give me the strength to restore sanity. Is this where "let go and let god" comes into play??? Maybe restoration of sanity is just a natural consequence of allowing God to take the burden. Maybe restoration of sanity is my letting go of all the chaos and allowing life to happen as He plans it instead of how I planned.
I think right now I might have two powers greater than myself that can restore me to sanity. I know God is one of them, but I also think Alanon/ACOA and working the steps is a power greater than myself. I do not think I would be able to continue putting the trust in God without the support of others who understand. I think I would wander away from God again and return to my comfortable and previous habits. I have spent my whole life being angry with God for what I thought were numerous unanswered prayers and problems, and it would be too easy to fall back into that habit and blame Him instead of putting responsibility on myself or the A’s in my life(where it belongs). I think I need the support of my face to face meetings and my online ACOA support in order to continue with my recovery and to continue turning what I need to turn over to God.
Love in recovery, Kiana
LucyM said
Nov 22, 2006
The coming to believe in a Higher Power part of this step has not been to difficult. I have always concentrated my working of this step on the second half: the "could restore me to sanity" part.
There have always been two components to working this step for me. One continual refining and deepening and developing my definition for me of the goal of "sanity" as a point down the road from the various "insanities" I get caught up in as a consequence of my childhood. This is particularly challenging for me in an extended family that includes among its members a number of people in the mental health profession (my codenpendent mother in early stages of dementia included), as well as others who have more interest in taking others' inventories than their own. Diagnoses of others' insanities abound
Just in the past year I have been diagnosed by my brother as psychotic, by one of my sisters as narcissist, and my mother as paranoid. Fortunately I have an excellent therapist who can provide me with accurate feedback regarding my mental health. My "insanity" sometimes within my family is thinking I can change various family members' distorted ways of thinking and their projections onto me if I just hang out calmly in conversation with them long enough. "Sanity" is turning my unrecovered family members over to God (my Higher Power I call God) for him to do the healing that is way beyond me to do, and "Sanity" is concentrating on the serenity prayer in each and every situation where I am interacting with a family member, and setting boundaries, and ending conversations. "Sanity" is maintaining my "family of choice" as my primary source of social interaction and celebration of HOlidays, birthdays, major milestones in my life.
The other part of working this step for me is concentrating on the "could restore me" part. How exactly is God going to do that, what are the possibilities? To work this means to be aware of and open to the ways my Higher Power might restore me to sanity in each given situation. For example, I need to recognize if He sends me a friend with more hopefulness than I have, or more energy, or more strength, and that friend gives me realistic guidance as to how to approach a conversation with a family member about something such as extending or accepting invitations for Thanksgiving weekend visits and meals. I need to trust in my Higher Power working through my friend, listen to the friend rather than listening to one of my own innver voices suggesting a "geographical fix" or not answering the phone or some other giving up in discouragement. The third part of the serenity prayer helps here - God can restore me to sanity by giving me the wisdom to know what I can and cannot change in each family circumstance I find myself in.
Lucy
SheilaC said
Dec 18, 2006
I believe that God can restore me to sanity. Every effort I am making in my relationship and in other areas of my life has led me to IN-sanity. Anxiety, control, obsession, abandonment, fear, failure. I am willing for Him to show me how I can find peace, focusing on me and what I need to do to have a peaceful and spiritually ordered life. I'm willing and try to remain so each minute of every day to see what is His plan for me. I want to go along for the ride with Him as the driver.
With or without my boyfriend in my life, I have to know that I am okay. Alot of fears of never finding love in this life are with me. I feel loved by this man, but there is fear on his part to embrace recovery and all of the changes it's creating with coping and living life, and there is fear of forming a solid relationship.
He may give up, which I know is going to really hurt, but my peace cannot be dependent on a relationship. My peace has to begin inside of me.
STEP TWO: CAME TO BELIEVE THAT A POWER GREATER THAN OURSELVES COULD RESTORE US TO SANITY.
Well this step is a big concept for me. I do believe in God, although over the years and especially right before I began the 12 steps, I had started to doubt God. I had started to feel that He had abandoned me in this chaos I called a life. I was angry at Him, I was lonely because I felt I was walking through life on my own. After I started the steps, began reading the literature, and consulted with my pastor, I began to realize different. I wasn’t alone, He hadn’t abandoned me. I had abandoned Him...I did not pray, I did not ask for guidance and strength, I did not do as He has planned. I was taking everything on myself, just as I learned to do throughout my childhood. This was the way I coped. This was how I survived. My attitude was and has been " I can do this all on my own, I am independent, I am strong, I can take care of myself, I can live my life the way I want and need to live it, I, I, I, I" In fact, I remember when I was about 15, my mom had handed me the red "alateen" one day at a time book to help me cope, and I threw it back at her and said...I don’t need your book...I will be just fine on my own".
As I was working through step one I began to realize how powerless I really was. I began to realize that I never had control of my life. My life had truly become unmanageable...and now I can see that. I enjoy not having power. But now I think I need to work on putting that trust in God. I think I have done ok with realizing that God ultimately has the power and control in life...what I think will be hard for me as I work through step two is BELIEVING that God can RESTORE ME TO SANITY. I am ready and willing to turn it over...I no longer want to feel responsible for anyone but myself. I am ready and willing to allow God back into my life and to help me and give me the strength to restore sanity. Is this where "let go and let god" comes into play??? Maybe restoration of sanity is just a natural consequence of allowing God to take the burden. Maybe restoration of sanity is my letting go of all the chaos and allowing life to happen as He plans it instead of how I planned.
I think right now I might have two powers greater than myself that can restore me to sanity. I know God is one of them, but I also think Alanon/ACOA and working the steps is a power greater than myself. I do not think I would be able to continue putting the trust in God without the support of others who understand. I think I would wander away from God again and return to my comfortable and previous habits. I have spent my whole life being angry with God for what I thought were numerous unanswered prayers and problems, and it would be too easy to fall back into that habit and blame Him instead of putting responsibility on myself or the A’s in my life(where it belongs). I think I need the support of my face to face meetings and my online ACOA support in order to continue with my recovery and to continue turning what I need to turn over to God.
Love in recovery, Kiana
The coming to believe in a Higher Power part of this step has not been to difficult. I have always concentrated my working of this step on the second half: the "could restore me to sanity" part.
There have always been two components to working this step for me. One continual refining and deepening and developing my definition for me of the goal of "sanity" as a point down the road from the various "insanities" I get caught up in as a consequence of my childhood. This is particularly challenging for me in an extended family that includes among its members a number of people in the mental health profession (my codenpendent mother in early stages of dementia included), as well as others who have more interest in taking others' inventories than their own. Diagnoses of others' insanities abound
Just in the past year I have been diagnosed by my brother as psychotic, by one of my sisters as narcissist, and my mother as paranoid. Fortunately I have an excellent therapist who can provide me with accurate feedback regarding my mental health. My "insanity" sometimes within my family is thinking I can change various family members' distorted ways of thinking and their projections onto me if I just hang out calmly in conversation with them long enough. "Sanity" is turning my unrecovered family members over to God (my Higher Power I call God) for him to do the healing that is way beyond me to do, and "Sanity" is concentrating on the serenity prayer in each and every situation where I am interacting with a family member, and setting boundaries, and ending conversations. "Sanity" is maintaining my "family of choice" as my primary source of social interaction and celebration of HOlidays, birthdays, major milestones in my life.
The other part of working this step for me is concentrating on the "could restore me" part. How exactly is God going to do that, what are the possibilities? To work this means to be aware of and open to the ways my Higher Power might restore me to sanity in each given situation. For example, I need to recognize if He sends me a friend with more hopefulness than I have, or more energy, or more strength, and that friend gives me realistic guidance as to how to approach a conversation with a family member about something such as extending or accepting invitations for Thanksgiving weekend visits and meals. I need to trust in my Higher Power working through my friend, listen to the friend rather than listening to one of my own innver voices suggesting a "geographical fix" or not answering the phone or some other giving up in discouragement. The third part of the serenity prayer helps here - God can restore me to sanity by giving me the wisdom to know what I can and cannot change in each family circumstance I find myself in.
Lucy
With or without my boyfriend in my life, I have to know that I am okay. Alot of fears of never finding love in this life are with me. I feel loved by this man, but there is fear on his part to embrace recovery and all of the changes it's creating with coping and living life, and there is fear of forming a solid relationship.
He may give up, which I know is going to really hurt, but my peace cannot be dependent on a relationship. My peace has to begin inside of me.
-- Edited by SheilaC at 06:50, 2006-12-18