Help: God of my understanding? - Al-Anon Family Group

dotandthekangaroo · Newbie

Help: God of my understanding?

neshema2 · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi Dot

I had to just be in and work the program and kinda found my , (I call it creator or higher power within me) God just reading others., absorbing the love in the program, working the steps w/a good sponsor...

for a long time the program was my higher power , its something that just kinda grows on a person as they work on themselves...the steps 1-3 are the spiritual part, being powerless...believe we are never alone....and giving our "can't do's" over to that energy we know is there and is more powerful than us and we just surrender to its love...it has to be love b/c thats all i see in the program.....and it just kinda grew for me from there

12 years ago, i was a god hating agnostic and you could never talk the god thing to me before.....my abuser used the word "god" so i have problems wtih that, but creator, no probs....you can label your power most high any label you want...

like i said, program was my power most high for a long time b/c that is where i found love, support, es&h on my ??s when i posted...

i would suggest you just ease up and don't fight it, but just work your program anyway, steps on the forfront b/c the steps are our "find ourselves" steps....get a good sponsor who is open about the spiritual end, work the slogans and read, meditate on the literature and get to as many meets face 2 face or online as you can

if i can find my "best with in me" which I do call Creator and or Jesus....you can....and i am not talking about the "J" the churches try to shove on folks, I am talking about what I see, what i have experienced.....my higher power is of love and acceptance of others and peace...

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi, Dot. Because my understanding of my own HP is always evolving, I can't really share with you how I came to perceive my HP. Too many different experiences. If its any help to you, it might be helpful for you to invite a power greater than you to make itself known to you in a way you can recognize and feel safe with for now? Another way is to think about the people in your life who have loved you in ways that work - maybe a grandmother or an aunt or a very, very good friend and let those memories of how safe and loved you felt with them help you to begin the steps? Some folks let their Alanon group be there HP for awhile, too. Working steps with a sponsor can help you discover a HP for yourself, too.

These are all just suggestions that have worked for me and for others. Please take what you like - if anything - and leave the rest. I appreciate your willingness to ask the question. Please keep coming back, too.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi dotandthekangaroo (love you name)

Good Question. When I arrived at the doors of alanon I was very angry and tired of "The God" of my childhood.

When alanon suggested that I needed to believe in a Higher Power of my understanding-- I searched within and found that I believed that the Universe was formed by the intelligence of a Perfect Mind. This Perfect Mind, was also filled with Perfect Wisdom, Perfect Understanding, Perfect Love, Perfect Beauty, Perfect Knowledge . I could trust this perfection with my life and believe that this perfection would guide my life.

This worked for me and although my idea of a Higher Power has taken a more traditional form I still believe that this" Perfection" represents my HP.

Pray, listen to your inner voice and You will find the God of your understanding

neshema2 · ~*Service Worker*~

WOW...G and Betty, those shares were AWESUM....I learned some more about good ole HP, thanks, Ladies smile smile

DavidG · ~*Service Worker*~

smile I see god as being everything and everywhere... I see god in other people. Slowly over time I also began to see god in myself.

mm830 · Senior Member

I actually think neshema posted something that resonated with me when I first started reading here about HP. An HP that was loving and wanting good for us, worded so much better than that though but that was the point I took from it. I always thought of HP differently, more that I was a sinful person and a lot of deeper guilt and shame issues for me, but it really made me stop and think. Now I am finding a loving HP who knows my heart is in the right place and loves me and this has been so healing.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

I liked Bettys share a lot.

For me, there has to be a creator I feel the creator is very organized, fair and loving. He has a purpose for all he does, and a reason. I can depend on that.

So for me, I can let go and let my Hp, as the one that knows so much more than I do, and cares more about me than anyone.

hope this helps, hugz, debilyn oh and I ask what is the most loving way to handle this, and almost always I will feel the answer in me.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Dot good post and reachout. HP for me has been an evolving mystery some what like grateful shared. I was given God as a child and God was administered thru the church and the schools...priests and nuns. Some of it was difficult and painful and some I didn't understand and then there was the consequences of unmet expectations of my mother who herself wanted an angel and later a priest out of me and would physically punish me when I didn't measure up most times painfully and sometimes in church. I tried that route being an altar boy, choir singer, and later on studied theology and while I got smart on things religion I didn't feel closer to a God of "their" understanding. I was born also into the disease and there came a time when alcohol became God. There was a very definite measureable action and reaction and so "their" God took second place to the god and that went on till I got married in the church and made the promises before God and the church and renewed my participation and then my first wife went into her addiction...religious fanaticism and another religion got into my family and tore it apart just as chemical addiction would. My church couldn't help me and didn't know how other than to ask me to keep coming back which I didn't and the god of the bottle tried to build the relationship again and it didnt work till I found Al-Anon. My first HP was a door knob since I couldn't grasp Higher Power, God of any understanding. I tried to an couldn't get it and so door knob was suggested at first because "without one I could not open new doors of understanding"...simple and effective for a while. Then I came to the understanding of Father of all after conversation with a "God" which began to communicate with me and still does and who shared events with me which I thought I could or would only handle with fear. Sponsees and others in the program where I lived shared and witnesses some miraculous events we all agreed could not have happened without God...HP...Father/Ceator. Then I came back home to Hawaii and reunited with the culture I was born and raised along side and the name of my Creator/Father became Akua...the God of all Gods who has shown me that it has also another name "Love" Which I believe rides on Davids experiences as he see it in others and also himself. Love the thread. ((((hugs)))) smile

deacon · Senior Member

Dot I have found that my understanding of a HP has changed a lot in the last twenty years. I used to believe in the God of the Bible but....got so I could not sit in church and hear the flock condemn anyone who did not believe as they did. Never have done well with hypocrits and that church was rife with them. So I started to read a lot. To be honest have problems also with people who profess anything to sell a book but I mulled through what they had to say and found that really, they were all saying the same thing. That the HP is the pure energy from which we came and the energy to which we desperately want to return. That each one of us had a HP within if we choose to listen. And that we all know what is right and that is written in the golden rule. So now I no longer attend church but I do look for signs of a HP everywhere and in everyone. Call it a conscience or a soul or whatever, I now take time to listen in the stillness. For now, that is enough for me.

abbyal · ~*Service Worker*~

the beauty of this program for me is we don't discuss religion in our meetings , nor are we asked to difine a Higher Power , for me this is private and as it says ( as we understood ) . what helped me come to terms with this topic was the line from the bible someone sharred with me . *Be still and know that I am here.* today I have a HP in my life that I still don't understand but he / she seems to understand me perfectly. works for me . Louise

MeTwo2 · ~*Service Worker*~

The beautiful thing about recovery is there is no one hp fits all. Who or what each of us chooses is ok. For me the god of my understanding is god, god, but I fully respect others beliefs .. have enough recovery to know today that if anyone anywhere including myself ever had a problem with another's belief, the true problem wouldn't be the belief anywy, but the perception about the belief based on a different experience ...grew up with a punishing criticising strict authoritarian image of higher power ..the reason being I know today is I projected the behaviors of those around me on to god as if he were some sort of an alcoholic thinker slash drinker. have the same god today but what's changing is my understanding .. my hp has never approached me in a condemning angry way .. Can only know what we experience as human beings .. today I find the beginning of getting to know god and myself, but this time it's not because of what someone told me or feared into me but because of the experience itself of working the steps. good luck in this .. sometimes just working the steps with sponsor. Hp shows him her itself.

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-- Edited by MeTwo2 on Thursday 16th of January 2014 05:41:08 PM

dotandthekangaroo · Newbie

Thank you so much to everyone who shared. I appreciate your kindness and generosity of spirit.

likemyheart · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello Dot - please allow me to chime in with my 2 cents even though its been a few days since you asked. Growing up, religion was pounded into my head but what they tried to teach me never rang true - if God was my father and loved me unconditionally, why was so much emphasis put on sin and suffering, and, why was it that I felt constantly weighed, measured and found wanting, if He loved me no matter what? Parenthood and maturity brought with it an understanding of what unconditional love was - yeah, my kids could do wrong but nothing they did would make me stop loving them as their mom. Seeing God as that kind of loving father made a whole lot of things fall into place. And, as a mom, I certainly don't hash and rehash everything the kids do wrong, constantly berating them and making them fear suffering for their sins forever.

But you don't have to embrace any God specifically to get the benefits of the Al-Anon program - I like how its been expressed often, letting the experiences of those who have walked the path before you be your higher power if need be.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.