Quote:
June 4
Build, Don't Destroy
"Our negative sense of self has been replaced by a positive concern for others."
Basic Text, p. 16
Spreading gossip feeds a dark hunger in us. Sometimes we think the only way we can feel good about ourselves is to make someone else look bad by comparison. But the kind of self-esteem that can be purchased at another's expense is hollow and not worth the price.
How, then, do we deal with our negative sense of self? Simple. We replace it with a positive concern for others. Rather than dwell on our low self-esteem, we turn to those around us and seek to be of service to them. This may seem to be a way of avoiding the issue, but it's not. There's nothing we can do by dwelling on our low sense of self except work ourselves into a stew of self-pity. But by replacing our self-pity with active, loving concern for others, we become the kind of people we can respect.
The way to build our self-esteem is not to tear others down, but to build them up through love and positive concern. To help us with this, we can ask ourselves if we are contributing to the problem or to the solution. Today, we can choose to build instead of destroy.
Just for today: Though I may be feeling low, I don't need to tear someone down to build myself up. Today, I will replace my negative sense of self with a positive concern for others. I will build, not destroy.
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Almost left the fellowship(s), because of gossip. As my sponsor use to say, "Jealousy and envy are deadly things." You have put a lot of work into your recovery, they can't have what you have unless they work for it." I didn't see it as work, it was about being willing to live and not die. Most didn't want to do 90 in 90, and I went to two meetings a day for two years, and at 10 years sober, until my health changed, I was doing 7-10 meetings a day because of service.
When I look at how often I come here and share, I am still going to lots of meetings. I laughed, I talked to my Al-Anon sponsor the other day. I said, "I probably talk and think recovery more than anyone going to a meeting a day."
I was told if you don't have a relationship, best I get involved in service. Service gave purpose to my life, whether people talked about me, shunned me, or talked behind my back. I wasn't there for them. It was what I needed to do for my recovery. I thought it was rather ironic, I didn't want a man in my life and wasn't looking for one and they found me. I had a lot of male friends, because I went to meetings all over the city. I wasn't looking for romance, after all I had been married twice and had been in several abusive relationships, why would I want to do that again. I would get friends with someone and behaviours reminded me of old ones that I had lived through before, and I would end it.
Don't feed the gossip, it will die down without fuel. Talk to the source, don't listen to hear say. Even in today, I don't go down to the common room or sit out on the benches out front of my building, it is all gossip. I don't have time for that.