The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
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level.
Well, the A is going to rehab in Florida next Thursday. He thanked me for my help and said that " he hoped he could take it from here." He also said that he wasn't ready before, but that he was ready now. I wished him the best. I am working hard at detaching. My therapist sorta yelled at me yesterday- pretty much that the A is poison for me and that I have choices- to stop looking for his approval- to stop caring, etc. So I am now to do thought stopping- rubber band around wrist when his thought comes up and no mention of his name- one day at a time. So.....I don't know if that means I shouldn't discuss him on here or not- or if that still keeps me thinking about him. Thoughts????
Obsession is the hardest part of recovery for me , when we are so obsessed with another person that we don't talk about anything else or they are constantly in our heads , we have no life of our own . Letting go is not easy as u well know . the elastic idea could hurt I made up my mind to watch the news for 5 min 3 times a day so I went and bought a egg timmer and set it for 5 min and if HE popped into m y head in that five min I shut it off and started again . It took me 6 weeks , 3 times a day to get 5min of focus on something else . Then I found this wonderful line in our forum magazine along time ago . it was the definetion of serenity and it caught my eye . SERENITY IS HAVING YOUR MIND AND YOUR BODY IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME . when I first saw it I thought how stupid is that > til I tried it . thus the ittle exercise with the egg timmer . Today I live in the Now thanks to that little egg timmer , when out for lunch or at work my mind is in the same place as my body I am there .... no one pops into m y head . good luck Louise
That is such a helpful definition of serenity -- thank you. This obsessiveness is driving me crazy. Occasionally I find the thinking produces something useful, but often it keeps me stuck. I sometimes think that part of the reason I got involved with someone so difficult in the first place was that I couldn't keep my mind in one place for any length of time, and he was a useful distraction. Now he's a painful distraction. That exercise with the timer is great, but I think I could make it maybe about 15 seconds so far...
