Even siblings who have grown up together can have very different gifts. One may have a love of animals while another gets a gift for storytelling or music. Another may develop her gift of providing loving service to those in need, while yet another develops the ability to make sense of complexity and convey important insights in a gentle, inviting, and comprehensible manner…
The Big Book of AA, like the Bhagavad Gita, contains the instructions for `good living´, i.e., a life lived in alignment with our highest calling. In addition to finding out which activities really light up body and soul, therefore, another part of the process of recovery is to `remember´ who I really am. This is what Arjuna succeeds in grasping as the teachings of the Gita unfold. A further, modern, modality which teaches us the same lessons, in as far as we are open to receiving them, is the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness Programme…
We cannot think our way across the divide. It takes practice, practice, and more practice, which will gradually lead to mental fitness and inner strength. To achieve Mental Fitness through PQ, we need to train three mental muscles throughout each day. The first is the Saboteur Interceptor….
Basically, when I am upset, my demands,- often camouflaged as kindly requests, – have not been met. Essentially, I have relapsed into the attitude of `Playing God´. Those demands can be seen as a design for how the world should operate, – according to Patrick, that is…
I had taken up a stance of resistance to life because things had not been working out as originally envisaged. It seemed that every move of mine was being counter-acted by an invisible opponent who was simply trying to make things as difficult as possible. That, of course, was my Victim Saboteur…
My version of denial sounded like this: Alcoholics are people who drink half a bottle of vodka before getting up in the morning and sleep under bridges and, since I never drank vodka before getting up and only sometimes slept under bridges, where’s the problem?
The second verse (There’s a killer on the road….), when interpreted as a description of the addictive dynamic (`suicide by instalments’), sends shivers down my spine. The killer is killing himself and he knows this. The brain is squirming like a toad (this is a great metaphor for `stinking thinking´)…
Most of what blocks us from the Spirit is unconscious. A key role of the sponsor is to help me, the candidate, to discover my blind spots – my shadow – so that it can be integrated over time. This can only succeed if the sponsor is prepared to be vulnerable in the sense that she is willing to share her own ongoing shadow work…
Some Saboteurs are stealthier than others. It is a characteristic of our human condition to overlook some things in our field of vision. I certainly had. There are always blind spots. This happens due to our innate imperfection. This is neither good nor bad. It is simply the way it is…
To succeed, any transformation process must comprise roughly 20% insights and 80% practice. For this reason, the thrust of the PQ Programme is practice. Full commitment from the outset is required. Wisely accommodating ourselves (surrendering) to what is beyond our control, is the prerequisite for progress. Perseverance is the fuel that keeps us going. Resilience, – ever faster recovery from setbacks, – is the reward. Happiness, in the sense of the fulfilment of our full potential in alignment with our purpose, our passions, and deeply held values, is the outcome…
As long as we are constantly hijacked by our Saboteurs, fear rules our lives and the lives of those around us. This takes place sometimes very obviously, sometimes more subtly. Fear’s toolbox contains a very powerful device that, if not addressed and relinquished, will ensure that the old order will forever rule the day. This device is denial. For many years I stewed in the juice of denial. Sara Bareilles describes the dynamic eloquently in her sublime song “Orpheus“:
Missing the world
The one you knew
The one where everything made sense because you
didn’t know the truth…..
Indeed, many of us didn’t know the truth for long stretches of our lives. Denial has an important role to play in our survival…
My general observations lead me to conclude that we are either in autopilot and react in line with the coping mechanisms and survival strategies we developed before our fourth birthday (approximately) or, having developed sufficient awareness, mindfulness, and mental fitness, we learn to pause before responding to whatever stimuli cross our paths in a conscious, loving manner – beneficial to the healing, growth, and joy of all concerned. The term “autopilot” may be considered charitable. Some would call it “sleepwalking through life” (Dr Allen Berger) or even refer to a “Zombie” existence. And of course, this is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon…
So, it was really telling when, in a recent yoga lesson, we went though balance exercises which included the Vrikshasana (The Tree Pose, where standing on one foot we bring the other to the inside of our upper thigh), that the terror of childhood – as a felt state – returned. My heart began to race; I began to sweat and couldn’t maintain my balance for longer that twenty seconds. Of even more interest was the fact that my breathing froze. Despite all the insights and, indeed, practice in so many other modalities and situations, here we had the default patterns re-asserting themselves immediately, and with a vengeance…
© 2022 SoberOasis | Patrick Little
