I know and remember a time when that love wish would make me sick and I'd want to leave the room and then in the same memory I would also remember finding the Al-Anon Family Groups and the promise of peace of mind and serenity.

I learned about choices especially the choices to choose the Opposites.  While I was addicted to and mired in natural negatives at all times I had, as my sponsor taught, the opportunity to choose any feeling I wanted to feel and of course...I thought he was nuts.  I was at that time stuck on "Feelings just are" and he had arrived at "Feelings are choices".  I stuck around and listened while he shared his ESH with me.  He had come to understand that knowing he had choices allowed him to have a whole list of alternative emotions to feel at will. (I never met his sponsor and I was getting the consequences of that relationship) I was skeptical and when I quietly thought about his awarenesses I also arrived at what he knew and practiced.  "If what you are feeling is causing you pain...feel the opposite and get the opposite".  I moved away of the "supposed to" cage that had held me for my whole life until I got this lesson...when something happens you are supposed to have appropriate emotions to it...not true, its the language in the trap; the cage...and so I started working my sponsors emotions program and wow!! rocket science.  When the goings on in my family or in my relationship with my alcoholic/addict wife wanted to drive me into hell...I wanted to be driven into peacefulness and happiness and serenity and so I choose the feelings that would get me to where I wanted rather than where I use to be.  I learned to find the positives in all situations in my life to support me in finding the "good" feelings and while many people around me thought I was crazy (nothing new regardless of choice) and my feelings at times inappropriate I kept practicing and then sharing how I got there and what I did to get there.  "Look for the good" is a key motivation for me...no matter how difficult or long the search...search for the good.  "Nothing or no one is absolutely bad...that is a truth and one of my teachers taught me that even murderers love and those who steal are also generous"...so I got away from the absolutes and moved into the reality that alternatives exist and I could practice the opposites and be serene and peaceful...mind, body, spirit and emotions.  Today I am thankful for many many things; one of them being that I am a recovering enabler and alcoholic and because of that I have found both Al-Anon and AA where I have met God and God's instruments to my recovery and that I have had now the ability and opportunity to pass on freely to others what has freely been given to me. 

If you are into the remorses and regrets and complaints and hate that...choose the opposite...gratitudes.  Choose one and then the other and choose again until you arrive at which one is most acceptable to your spirit.

Of course Happy Thanksgiving.  My spouse will do the turkey and stuffing (hmmmmm) and the footballs games.  I will do anything else she desires...she doesn't have a whip and for that I am grateful.  LOL    (((((hugs)))))  love you all.