Boy, ya poke at the ant nest and there's so much stuff that comes out

[tavalon]

I both hate and love my job. I work in a NICU with mostly preterm and not too sick babies and their new parents, that's the love. Then there are my coworkers, who's faults are endless and tend to be the part the contributes to the not love. Not all of them, but quite a few.

I realized a few hours ago that my job is going to be such fertile ground for my recovery. See, just because the addict brought my problem into high relief in a mere 3 months, it didn't take me only three months to go batshit crazy - because I wasn't practicing my program for, uh, about 10 years, some bad habits sneaked back in. For instance, I'm just starting my inventory and I realized that I've been doing inventories for years, but on other people, like my coworkers.

I'm going to have a lot to change at work, not necessarily because anything outside of me will change, though it might, but because I'm going to have far fewer inventories to conduct. Actually, counting them up, I would say it comes to one - mine. Gossip is a favorite past time there and I haven't refrained. But I'm going to now. That's as close as I'm going to get to a New Years Resolution since those are supposed to last a year and I'm committing to today.

I'm hoping and asking my higher power to hang a little closer to me at work so she and I can take a fearless inventory of me. Besides, I feel safer and more grounded when she's nearby. I cannot for the life of me figure what might have made me think sticking her in the back closet was ever a good idea?

[NMDemDist2]

1. a little trick that changed every relationship i had when i joined recovery

there is a part of the 11th Step prayer that reads:

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted -- to understand, than to be understood -- to love, than to be loved.

When i started trying to practice those things on a daily basis in ALL my relationships, it changed my life. and quickly.

i had spent so many years trying to get YOU to understand me (why i was acting so badly, why it wasn't my fault etc etc etc) and to comfort me and to love me.....

what a difference when I started trying to understand what you needed, what you wanted, what comfort I could give.

it truly was life changing.

[tavalon]

2. Thanks,

I will keep that in mind.

[demosincebirth]

3. That's the prayer of St Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

[NMDemDist2]

4. yes it is, Bill W wasn't shy about borrowing stuff he thought he could use to good advantage

edit to add, in early recovery, the whole prayer was WAY tooooo much to remember, much less try to live by

so those three sentences i mentioned was the ticket for me.

[demosincebirth]

5. I used to carry the whole prayer in my wallet for years. It was also printed on the back

of an Al-Anon "Just for today" pamphlet. It helped me tremendously during my early sobriety and I still use it every now and then when I need guidence

[Tippy]

6. This prayer is one of my favorites...has been since elementry school

Say it and the serenity prayer several times a day....