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.
The focus of today's reading is the slogan "Live And Let Live". The writer admits not being completely comfortable with the phrase, until an Alanon speaker compared it to working his own plot of land (his 'emotional acre') and not trying to tend other people's. This metaphor helped me too. At first, when I heard Live And Let Live it sounded to me like an anthem of the hippies from the 1960s. Everything is beautiful and you stay out of other people's way. Oh! This is a slogan which reminds us: everything is beautiful and you stay out of other people's way! haha. It helps me to remember if I am spending too much time worrying over other people's acres, I am certainly not spending time on my own land, where the work is needed most. Overall I am a pretty calm person but I know when I am getting into other people's business when I start to feel anxious and on edge. That's a signal for me to look in the mirror and pick up where I left off--tending to myself! I also realize I need to take some of my own advice--I am a music teacher of young children who love to 'tell' on each other. When this happens in class I gently remind them to mind only their own business: student:"Ms. D Ryan is not sitting where he is supposed to"; me:" Are YOU sitting where you are supposed to?"; student: "yes" Me: "then we're all set! You only have one person to worry about! Yourself"
I like the quote at the end of the page which I will paraphrase--'we have the right to our own views of things but no right to impose those views on others'. My sponsor once told me she will check herself by asking 'is this business mine? God's? or someone else's?' and that helps her decide if she should be minding it.
Today I am going to focus on myself, work on my emotional acre and live and let live. I am going to try and practice what I preach and worry about the one person I should:ME!
Thanks for this, great reading. I had this one marked. I love that you take your program into your job, spreading that wisdom about in a loving way. I am also prone to thinking i could tend the other farmers fields better than them. I would get them a better harvest.lol. ego, such a short little word with big trouble attached to it. I have a lot of work to do. Sometimes, i can be walking past people and i think oh, i wonder where they are going or i wonder what their lifes like, i bet it is ....... im finding it easier to stop this and get back in my own head, what is going on with me, why do i need to look out? What am i hiding from? Get back in there.
Dear Mary and LC, thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on today's reading in Hope for Today.
When I first attempted to allow other people to live their lives without interference, I found it most difficult to focus on my own life and live.
I had spent so much time helping others live their life, that I really did not know how to live my own life without interfering in others. It took a little work on my part each day to keep the focus on myself, make a gratitude and asset list and listen for inner guidance so that I could REDISCOVER who I was, and what I liked. Using the wonderful tool of detachment, helped me tremendously in this endeavor..
Learning how to live was and is quite an adventure. In fact, there is a reading in the ODAT that speaks about this exact problem. When asked about what other people were doing and how they were thinking and what they believed we could readily answer that question when asked what we believe in what we thought we struggled. That was me.
Today I know my opinion on many issues and what I like and dislike. What a gift that truly is.
Thanks for your service.
