This can be summed up with one simple and inspired anecdote, told by the sponsee of a friend of mine.
“When I tell my therapist about something that pisses me off, he says, ‘Yes I can understand why that would make you angry.’ When I tell my sponsor about something that pisses me off, he says, ‘What was your wrong in the situation? Don’t focus on others, focus on yourself.'”
Beautiful. Clearly God was speaking through this guy, though I’m sure it was lost on everybody else in the meeting.
God, please teach us not to ask others for answers but to find them ourselves, to focus not on others but rather ourselves, and to blame not others but rather ourselves…
“When I tell my therapist about something that pisses me off, he says, 'Yes I can understand why that would make you angry.' When I tell my sponsor about something that pisses me off, he says, 'What was your wrong in the situation? Don't focus on others, focus on yourself.'
Love this.
It's great, isn't it? Now that's a guy who gets it. 😉 Thanks, Erin.
Charlie I told you I ordered your book a few days ago and I received it yesterday. It only took a couple of hours to read and I'm just so happy for you and your recovery and especially happy that you shared your brutally honest story. That's what I like about you most…your honesty. Thank you for continuing to write here too. I'm learning so much.
You are the best. I'm so grateful you read my story and so glad you got something out of it. As far as honesty goes, it was brutal honesty that got me better (and the lack of it that was killing me), so I figure brutal honesty is the way to go when trying to educate or work with others. Thank you so much. Really.
This made me laugh! I have never understood why a therapist would ask me how that made me feel – what a stupid thing to ask.
Hope you are doing well Charlie! 🙂
I know, it pretty much completely defeats the purpose of therapy. Doing great, Tori, and I wish the same for you, along with endless peace, strength and comfort 😉
By the way, I followed up on enabling after reading your wonderful post about the gift of desperation – one of the few sensible and useful slogans amidst a sea of nonsense.
Well I feel honored you read my post! It was very powerful for me anyway. It clicked with me and when I get extremely sad or anxious I pray and remember those three words. They were very profound for me.
Well it was my pleasure. Desperation is truly a gift, one that is far more valuable than it may appear on the surface. I've written before how I felt as though God was laughing as I got worse, knowing that as I sunk deeper, I was getting closer and closer to coming home to Him. So I read your post and couldn't help myself 😉
http://www.privilegedaddictwriter.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-gift-of-desperation.html