"Above all else I want the freedom to remember Who I am." – A Course In Miracles.  Lately my experience of freedom has been flowing from the radical realization that I always have a choice.

To some people that may be obvious, but for me, it has been clouded from my consciousness most of the time.  My sponsor said something to me during a recent fifth step: “Wow, I didn’t realize how much of a victim you thought you were.”  To look at it as I write it, it sounds a bit harsh, but I really heard it with such love and concern that a soft voice in me responded, “Neither did I.”  That moment was like a whack upside the head.  Like trying to open the shell of a coconut.  All hard and tough on the outside.  That’s how my mind was.  I was so convinced that awful things were happening to me and were the cause of what I did.  I was happy to do a fourth step to see how afraid I was, but somewhere in the back of my mind I still believed that I was playing my part because of the part other people were playing. 

Something changed after we looked at the victim idea.  Have you ever had someone say something to you and it echoes for days and days afterwards?  I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.  It was like I had a new pair of glasses on and I was now looking at situations and people from the perspective of how I played the victim.  Of course, I had always done that.  I was an expert at it; but somehow this was different.  I can’t really explain it.  Maybe it was the exposure of it; to it.  Something different was happening.  I was becoming aware.  And that’s the first step.

So I watched.  I watched how it came up and I watched how I felt, what I thought, what I believed, and what I did.  I just watched, and my awareness grew.  And I didn’t really like what I saw.  It didn’t feel too good either.  What I saw was that I was completely justified.  When you did ____, it meant ____, I felt ____, and so I did ____.  It was automatic.  It was logical; but only in my mind.  Trying to reason it out with anyone else was absolutely hopeless; especially with the person in the first column of a fourth step.  They had no idea how I came to the conclusions I did.  At best, we agreed upon “Jennifer’s Rules for Behavior” and because that person loved me, they would try to not do the thing in the second column that upset me.  That’s how I had lived my relationships up to this point.  But it’s different with this guy. The thing is, I’ve got an endless list of things that upset me.  And the other thing is, this behavior that’s completely justified – I don’t like it!  I don’t want to be her anymore.  This cornerstone of my identity, this fundamental 2+2=4 behavior equation was being raised to question.  The coconut shell was open. 

What began happening is the miracle of this program.  Simply, amazingly, through no power of my own, my mind began to change.  The ideas and beliefs that I had held so dear were beginning to loosen their grip on me.  My victim stance was becoming quite wobbly.  There was divine intervention between the “when you do___, it means ____,     I feel ___” formula.  The same things were happening, but I wasn’t so sure they meant what I thought they meant anymore.  And so I didn’t feel the same way as I had about it before.  So I found myself responding differently; sometimes for the first time in my life. 

Lately, even a more radical thing is happening for me.  I have been taken a step further, beyond changing my actions.  I see that really my ideas are the beginning.  I see in that fourth column of that fourth step that I am doing the same thing that I accused someone else of doing.  A good fourth step is not linear for me; it’s circular.  The fourth column curves right around and points into the second column.  I come to see my part as the cause, not the effect.  WOW.  Freedom.

The Big Book says something like, “Do we not by our own fears set the ball rolling?”  

Perhaps it all starts with me.  I began to entertain, just entertain, the idea that I am doing this all to myself just by the way I think.  How I feel about myself determines how I perceive others treating me.  I say perceive because all they can really do is love me.  That’s determined by God.  All there is is love, because God is everywhere, in everything and is the Essence of everyone.  I can’t interfere with that.  But I am free to choose my experience.  If I feel afraid, I will feel that others are attacking me.  If I am feeling self absorbed, then I will use others to get my “perceived” needs met.  If I am seeing myself as separate and alone, I find that no one does or says the right thing so I can get close to them. 

The fifth step says “the exact nature of our wrongs.”  The exact nature of my wrongs is not my actions.  The exact nature of my wrongs is what set the ball rolling.  Before my actions, before the other person’s actions, before that second and third column formulates, there was me; me and my mind.  My thoughts, my beliefs, my ideas – and they were all about me.  It may look like it’s the other person, but I put it out there because it was already in here.  The good thing about it appearing out there is that now I can see it.  Now it is being shown to me.  Now I am grateful for the person that is affecting me because I can see them fulfilling their true purpose: bringing me closer to God – by showing me all the things that I’ve put in between.  Now I am aware.  This is the beginning of change.

I read something in a 12-step book that said “Awareness.  Acceptance.  Action.  These are the steps to change.”  I often try to go right from awareness to action. “I’m aware, now what can I do to fix it?”  I think to myself.  I had an instance last week where I compromised my sobriety and I really felt guilty about it.  Instead of releasing it to God for healing, I just beat myself up about it.  The next morning was one of those mornings where everything went wrong.  You know the one. Everything was hard and took longer than it should.  When I dropped my lunch and it splattered all over my new pair of pants, I went into a rage.  I lost it. And I screamed in my head, “What is going on?”  I surrendered.  I accepted.  From that rage came the revelation: I was punishing myself.  Because I felt guilty, I was actually hurting myself.  I was setting the ball rolling; and I could stop.  Action.  I asked for help.  I realized that until I forgave myself and moved on from the mistake, I was stuck; and no healing would occur – only more hurting.  THIS was freedom.  I had a choice.

I’m finding that acceptance of the problem is acceptance of the solution.  To the mind, acceptance is acceptance.  I try to stop resisting so much.  Stop trying to change what clearly IS.  Stop trying to change myself and control my own recovery.  I can’t.  That’s why I need a Higher Power.  If I could heal my own mind, I wouldn’t need the 12-Step program or a Course in Miracles.  I can’t; so I need both.
 
The best thing about cracking open a coconut is that there’s sweet, yummy stuff inside.  My life is delicious!  “The experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself.”  -ACIM.