Here's something else I heard from someone recently that I have found helpful:

IT'S OKAY TO MESS UP!

In general, in life, it's okay to mess up.  That drive for perfection, that expecting to get everything right, is a major source of frustration.

In Pesach cleaning I have some sort of vision that one year I got it all perfect and organized.  So, every other year I keep wondering, "What did I do!  How am I supposed to do it now!"

This year, I got this very frustrated feeling--"I'm not doing it right!"

Then, I realized, IT DOESN'T MATTER! 

It might not be perfect, and it might not be the most efficient, and I might even be wasting my time all along the way, but THAT'S OKAY!

And, whatever I am doing is useful, and moving us closer to being ready for Pesach.  It might not be the BEST way to do it, but I'm doing it somehow and that's okay.

--Eye.

Thanks Eye.
Your posts help me a lot.

thanks, Eye. you post such beautiful and helpful ideas.

R' A.J. Twerski in his Haggadah says something very similar on 've'es halachatz zu ha'dchak', that Paraoh pressured the yidden to be at peak performance and do things perfectly. this attitude is wrong, as you explained so beautifully.

I blew up (didn't act out, but I blew up).  I've been way off schedule for way too long.  Too many damn things are too messed up right now.  I can't stand this anymore.

--Eye.

I think you might find the above post from Eye.nonymous helpful.

sturggle wrote on 17 Apr 2011 15:33:


But is there no limit?

to the above posts?
or blowing up?
or how many things are so messed up?

Okay, I spoke to a couple of people from the forum and feel somewhat better about things.

It's a tough balance, between accepting life on G-d's terms--rolling with the punches of G-d's graces in disguise, and between having goals and aspirations and trying to be responsible as far as I understand.  For example, I've got a short-term free-lance job which I was aiming to complete by Purim, and it looks like I won't be done for yet another few months.  Things keep going on, mostly medical issues with the kids and now with my wife, so I'm doing a lot more than my usual share of house work and child rearing.  As far as work is concerned, I think my average is about 3 hours a week, which I think is absurd, and I don't think I'm only saying that because I'm a self-centered self-seeking addict.  I think there is a touch of objective truth to this absurdity.  So, I basically had a tantrum yesterday to try and get a few hours to myself.  Besides that, we pushed off Mikvah night a couple of nights because my wife is sick, and even though my wife managed to get to the mikvah, she's not able to be intimate right now.  Besides that, her cycle has been really short lately, so I sort of have this feeling that we're just going to end up skipping this month.  She's not feeling well and I can understand, but to be honest it's still disappointing and is also adding to my frustration.

So, one thing that someone said that was helpful is that I should just pass the question on to my wife.  "I've been working just a few hours a week and this isn't really a good situation; is there any way you can think of to improve this situation?"  Just talk it out with her, and even leave it up to her to come up with an answer.  I didn't actually do this (I had already had my tantrum instead), but I see how it would have been a better way to deal with the situation, and I see how I could do this in the future. 

I see that I should have been more honest with myself all along that, although day to day I was able to come to terms with the situation, overall I was really getting scared and angry with the situation AND IF THERE WAS ANYTHING I COULD DO OR SAY TO AT LEAST ATTEMPT TO RESTORE SOME SORT OF ORDER IN A CIVIL AND MATURE MANNER, THEN I SHOULD HAVE DONE IT.  I might not have had any results, but at least I would have made some sort of effort.

Another thing that was helpful that someone told me was that we, as addicts, take our unbearable situation from today and assume this is going to be our situation forever and ever.  BUT, not so.  Tommorow is a new day, and it can be a different day.

Have a Chag Sameach,

--Eye. 

shkoyach

sturggle wrote on 18 Apr 2011 08:14:

Thanks.

how was your yom yov EYE
how is your wife
did you manage to pull through the first days with a smile
dont forget Eye you are my pully i am following you (2 days behind)

Baruch Hashem, Yom Tov has been going well.

We've been managing to keep some semblance of order.

Besides that, I've taken a couple of outings with my kids.  I took the older kids to the Old City of Jerusalem.  I thought to do something special for them besides see the wall (which I think is kinda' hard for kids to really appreciate) we'd go into one of the museums.  We went into the Wohl Archeologial site (for anyone who doesn't know, it's basically an archeological dig turned into a museum.  They found the remains of an elaborate home from the 2nd Temple period).  When we first got there, they said "there's a performance for kids just starting!"  So we rushed through and got to this performance, which was near the end of the museum.  I was thinking, "There's really nothing here in this museum."  After the performance, we walked back through the museum, and I couldn't believe how many things we had totally missed.  They have all sorts of displays of things they dug up, and a model of what they think the place looked like before it was destroyed.  The kids really enjoyed it.

I took some mussar from that.  When you're rushing through, only thinking of getting to your destination, you miss all the nice things along the way.  When you take your time and enjoy the trip, too--the process--life can be a lot more enjoyable.

--Eye.

beautiful vort eye and beautiful avodah! keep growing one day at a time!

and thanks for the addict assumes-it-will-be-like-this-forever idea, that is so true and very helpful!

Honestly, I am confused.

You can imagine a BT yeshiva, where people come in and are all proud to be BT.  I think the ideal is eventually to get used to Yiddishkeit already and mainstream as best as you can.  If someone, 20 years later, is still boasting that he started keeping Shabbos and stopped eating fried squid brains, I think the guy is stagnating and it's a shame.

I have recently gotten some heavy exposure to some chassidic sforim, and I'm getting a lot of chizzuk from it.  Do you know those shalom bayis books like a person spends his whole time criticizing his wife because he thinks that's his job and then he read, "shut up and listen, because that's how marriage works," and from this wonderful insight about something he never new before he enjoys wonderful shalom bayis for the rest of his life.

Well, the feeling I'm sort of getting from these chassidic sfarim is that they're sort of like a shalom-bayis book for understanding God and spirituality.  There's some really lofty things in the world, if only we could try to open our eyes to it.  I feel I can gain a stronger awareness of Hashem, and really start to take pleasure in ruchnius, which, derech agav, would also be beneficial for recovery.

I frequently turn to the 12-step principles and, frankly, I see that this chassidish stuff really augments a lot of it.  A big part of the 12-steps, if I understand correctly, involves having a greater awareness of Hashem in our lives.  Frankly, I don't get much in this respect from the 12-step program but maybe I'm missing something.  Also, I know recovery is the most important thing in the world, but I feel that daily meetings, along with all the other commotion of life right now, is really dehabilitating.  I'm gaining, but I'm losing, too.

I guess I'm confused.  Is the only way to recovery to attend meetings and make phone calls to 12-step sponsors for the rest of my life.  Or, can a person pick up the principles, use them in life, keep in touch to some degree with other addicts, but move on to other things.

Or, perhaps there's no contradiction.  12-steps and these lofty chassidic ideas aren't mutually exclusive.  You can take from both, and not have to choose one over the other.

But, I have heard some people say that 12-steps have nothing to do with being holy or anything, it's just about being normal.  It sounds like, then, as an addict, the best we can ever hope to be is spend our lives happy to be normal for one more day.  Do we every get past this?

--Eye.

Eye.nonymous wrote on 09 May 2011 06:39:


Isn't that what derech eretz is?