July 21

”Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn

Working my program is, in large part, about discipline. One of the things that I lacked, was a healthy sense of discipline, during my active acting out. All too often my life was controlled by whims and desires, seeking instant gratification whenever and wherever the urge arose. There was little that resembled any self-restraint. My life was more a mix of periods of quiet interspersed with periods of chaos. Therefore one of the tasks in my early recovery was to re-establish a routine, with healthy checks and balances and early warning devices to help keep me on track. It was about taking the steps and my outer circle activities and incorporating them into my life. In order to change my problematic lifestyle, I needed to find better ways to cope with the daily challenges I faced. This was about creating new and better habits to change who I was fundamentally. If I look back now, really this was about going through the junk drawer of habits and behaviours and throwing out the ones that I had been holding onto for too long, but that were expired and not very useful. I had to do that clean-up work in order to make room for the new and improved ways of handling life events. This is all part of the process, and it can be difficult to work through, because all those old ways are comfortable and known, they come with no surprises. But the recognition that they are destructive rather than helpful assisted in my willingness to let them go.

Affirmation

Establishing discipline in my new behaviours is the foundation for allowing me to work towards new goals.

March 9

”The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them.” Steve Hall

One of the things I am learning to recognize about my behaviours are the triggers behind them. I am starting to be able to look at moments where I feel I am on the defensive and look deeper at what is behind the situation before me. One that has been in evidence lately is that of respect. When I feel like I am not being respected, or someone whom I care about is being poorly treated, it really bothers me and can set me off. In looking at my past, I can certainly see this pattern, especially when the disrespect comes from a child. I can recognize that this is a pattern from childhood, something that my parents used to repeat, that a child should always respect their elders. This was particularly enforced by my father. The punishment for disobeying was a spanking and I have a better sense of why a similar urge comes over me in situations where I am now the adult. It is a step towards putting a better response into action. It’s hard admitting and recognizing that many of my behaviours stem from things learned as a child, engrained into my personality before I could really comprehend. Even more so that what I learned at a young age appears so naturally in my role as a parent. But I know that behaviours can be changed and finding out what needs to be different is an initial step in the process to better living.

Affirmation My growing awareness will allow me to look beyond my initial reactions to the root cause of my learned behaviours and false beliefs and will be another catalyst for change.