Letting Go of the Rope

It is Sunday and I planned to do my week one check-in for "The Artist's Way" today but my brain is tired. I often feel this way so I decided that Monday should be my check-in and Sunday should be my mental day of rest. The only exception is that if I can, I go to a great Al Anon step meeting on Sunday morning.

(photo by Magda Zych)

I've had my ups and downs with step meetings. When I first came to Al Anon the two easiest meetings to go to were both step meetings with the same format. The Paths to Recovery book was passed around and we each took turns reading the chapter about that week's step. I usually got something out of each meeting but I quickly began to feel like I was going around and around on the steps and I hadn't worked many of them (if any). That book felt like a school book and I hated to look at it. Monday would be something like step one and Wednesday would be something far off like step 9 or 11. Soon I managed to seek out literature meetings, which were more of what I could digest at the time. I only returned to one of the old step meetings upon the recommendation of my sponsor when I first started working with her. Then, they meant more to me because I had more Al Anon experience.

During the summer my boyfriend was asked to speak at an AA meeting and I went along to investigate the Al Anon meeting upstairs. It is a GREAT step meeting. Instead of reading the book they have speakers every week and I get a lot out of that, especially since I've heard many dear program friends speak in detail about a specific step.

Today I really didn't know the speaker but I got a lot out of what she said. She spoke on step one, and I could identify with a lot of what she said because I realized that I have been practicing step one with my boyfriend a lot these days. She told this story about talking to an Al Anon friend about her frustrations. The friend said, "Let go of the rope." When the speaker was puzzled the friend explained, "It takes two people to play tug-of-war. If you drop the rope, you win." So, this opened up a great discussion about "surrendering to win". Now I have a great visual image in my head thanks to this woman. If things get to difficult with someone else I can just "drop the rope" and relinquish my "power" to gain my sanity.