What I Learned at the 62nd OA Birthday Party

Attending the 62nd OA Birthday Party felt like a spiritual supercharge, a re-vitalizing way to start off the new year. The meetings were held via Zoom for safety reasons, of course. Admittedly, zooming the entire weekend for a total of 25 hours was exhausting, but it was doable with breaks and in the end was totally worth it. [Aside: I had the fortunate pleasure of attending my first OA Birthday party in 2020, in person, oblivious to how much the world would change just 2 months later.]

Step Two

Step Two- “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” 

Recently I was asked to share on Step Two. Not my favorite step, it’s the one I sprint by on the way to Step Three, the really exciting one. So I had to take another look at it. 

Perseverance: The Principle of Step 10

I link the number of each month to a Step. Then that’s the Step I focus on for the whole month. So, this month, October, is my Step 10 month. I read the Step in both the AA and OA 12 & 12 and ponder the relevant principle. 

It's Not About the Food

The wisdom that resonates with me today is, "It's not about the food." As I have heard in these virtual rooms, "It's about the build up of human emotion." Last week I found myself doing something I hadn't done in months-- thinking obsessively about and craving recreational sugar. When I finally told my sponsor about it, she helped me cut through the mire I was tangled up in. She said "It's not about the food" and told me to write about what was going on in my life.

What Have I Learned In the Program

 
Here's another selection from one of our beloved, late program members:

Rickicism No. 13

Since the most prevalent symptom of my disease is to forget what I must do each day, it becomes critical to my personal sense of well-being to start out on the right foot. Consider this contrast in approaches: A person wakes in the morning, goes over to the bedroom window, looks up at the sky and says, "Good morning, Lord!" Alternatively, but using essentially the same words, another person awakes in the morning, goes over to the bedroom window, looks up at the sky and says, "Good Lord, morning!" 

It therefore becomes vital that I start out each day with a reasonably clear objective in mind in terms of my program. Mainly, it is to do some stretching and exercise, eat an abstinent breakfast, and get to a meeting at some point during the day, although frankly, mornings are best for setting the tone for my daily activities. 

So I inquire, what have I gained or lost from the program? For starters, a decent weight loss to date and a sense of serenity that seems to go with the territory; secondly, a lack of concern about the future. After all, today is the tomorrow I worried about yesterday, and to my amazement, I find I am still here!

Letting Go Absolutely of Old Ideas

I had a victory today that I wanted to share. I was dreading a doctor appointment because the last time I was there, I did not feel heard. My old self would have gone home and binged after my appointment to make myself feel better. This behavior would spill into the next day, and the next, and the next to the point where I did not even realize what I was doing. It would become second nature. I would wake up a month later and wonder to myself, how did I get here? How did it get so bad? And then I would try to reign it in and control my compulsive eating with various diets or fasts and it would work for a bit, but then ultimately fail. And the cycle would repeat itself again and again with the next event and the next. This cycle applied to any situation where I felt I needed to control the outcome but could not. So, it did not even have to be a doctor appointment not going my way, it could have been any situation good or bad where I believed I needed a perfect outcome. I could have been celebrating a birthday where I believed it was “my day” and I deserved to have a perfect day.

Since working the steps, I take that same anxious energy that I used to try to control outcomes of any situation; and, instead of going to the food for ease and comfort to deal with the result, I now send 10th steps to my sponsor and go into action and turn my attention to helping someone else. 

So, today, by the time the doctor appointment arrived, I was able to take my sponsor’s feedback of going into my doctor’s appointment with the new perspective of knowing I am not alone and there is a new solution. I was able to show up and be present by letting go absolutely. Absolutely, meaning my mind was quiet and open enough to allow my hp in to help guide me into letting go of my character defects that were wanting to gain control of the interaction. And the doctor appointment went well. And even if the doctor’s appointment did not go well, I would have had the same solution:  I am not alone. Letting go absolutely works.

LY

Emerging From Covid and Feeling Unanchored

"Today I know that change is constant."  Voices of Recovery p. 327

This is true whether my life is smooth or bumpy. In either case, I remind myself of our slogan "This too shall pass". Right now (today, with no prediction for tomorrow) my life is neither smooth nor bumpy and yet I feel a sense of discomfort as I (and others) come out of Covid isolation. When my confinement began there was no choice about what to do or not do. That was set for me by the very nature of quarantine. I just had to find solutions to small problems like shopping, getting to OA meetings and exercise. But now, the "out process" feels big and I feel unanchored. There are so many options to consider that are not so easily available in contrast to Zoom and conference calls. I have to go places, drive, reapportion my time, etc. This is doable but hard. Of course, I need change nothing. This is certainly an option. But if I do decide to make changes, I want to be selective about what I choose or I suspect I will soon feel overwhelmed. My sponsor reminded me that I am powerless over the whole re-entry process. So this is what I believe: some things will just unfold, other things will require new or renewed actions and some things will require waiting.