The Lessons All Around Me

[Linda]

When I first came into the rooms, I heard and saw these AA sayings. (I assume they are in the other program rooms as well). I didn't understand why these pithy statements were so important. I would soon learn.

Learning is one significant aspect of my recovery. When I heard "listen to learn" and "learn to listen" I thought I understood. But, as the time past, and my sobriety gained strength, I began to see the beauty and brilliance in these little sayings. The two mentioned above are truly important to me. Listen and learn.

To listen and learn I need to get out of my "own way" and be here in the moment. I have learned over the years that the answers can come to me if I open myself up to hear and see. Often when I sit in a meeting and I listen to someone else share, a new understanding about myself will dawn on me.

I can be casually speaking with a stranger and out of his or her mouth may come the answer to a question I have had or a new perspective on an unrelated subject may appear. If I hadn't learned to listen and listened to learn,
I would have missed many answers that have come to me through the people that move in and out of my life, through the circumstances that I find myself, or the endless questions I pose for myself.

This skill, and it is a skill one can always improve, has helped me in relationships outside of those in recovery. When my daughter screamed at me: You are talking at me, not to me. I had to stop and take that in.

Listening carefully can give me insight to other people and their problems, and as can be the case in recovery, the knowledge to avoid those people who are "toxic".

Those little sayings that hang on some clubhouse walls, or that fellow program members say really do have lessons in them that help me live my life.

Good Orderly Direction, How important is it, One day at a time, This too shall pass, Just for today, Time takes time,
and on. Sometimes a little saying can make all the difference in how I move through a day.