“All of my problems come from trying to fix situations.”
I make myself miserable. Every single day of my life. For so long, I couldn’t figure it out. Why am I so unhappy?
Even after I joined OA and began my recovery life, I was still struggling. I still struggle to this day. But recently I have started noticing a pattern.
When I am feeling miserable, it is usually because I am trying to control or change a situation.
When someone is saying something I don’t like, I get mad because they are the way they are. I don’t want them to be that way. I want them to be the way I want them to be. If I have do something I don’t want to do, I get mad. It’s unfair that I have to do that thing. I feel miserable because I want to change the situation.
I spend all of my emotional energy worrying about that person I can’t change or the situation I am unhappy with. I’ll stress about it all day. Go over it again and again in my head. Until I am exhausted and depleted. And I have no more fight in me. A lot of days I am tapped out by noon.
“I always think that changing things will change my elevation.”
I get so mad because I am trying to control someone or something that I have no control over. It is complete insanity. An impossible situation. I torture myself continually, thinking eventually I will get what I want. But usually I don’t and that leads to resentment.
There is an answer to this problem. And I found in the AA Acceptance prayer. It goes like this:
“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”
That’s the answer. Acceptance. All I have to do is accept the other person for who they are or accept the situation I’m in. I don’t have to change anybody or anything. Matter of fact, I can’t. I can only change myself and my attitudes toward other people or hard situations. That is something I can DO.
I can ask God to remove my fear. To give me strength and to help me accept the situation I’m in. I can give it to Him and truly let go. Do you know how amazing that is?! I can be free. I don’t have to be miserable every day.
I’ve been trying so hard to change everybody else when all I had to do was work on me. That is something I can work with. And that gives me hope.
“Acceptance is the key to my ongoing freedom.”
Acceptance is the third principle in my 12 core principles that offer freedom from depression and anxiety. I am releasing a new single every month this year that features one of the 12 core principles. On March 1st, 2019, I will be releasing my new single “Acceptance.” It is based on the AA Acceptance prayer and I hope you will find freedom in this song!
