Sitting Still

I read the same meditation books over and over.  I think I may be on the third year of reading the two I'm on now.  I was thinking about changing them out, or at least one of them out on January 1, but I read something this morning that has changed my mind.  It's a weird thing that happens - and I hear this from other people in the program all the time - when I read the same thing over and over:  I find stuff that seems to have just been put in the book.  I couldn't possibly have read it before.  But I must have.  Since I saw something brand new this morning, I may just stay with these two books for another year.

The gist of it was that many of us have a hard time "sitting still" for recovery because our lives have been full of "fight or flight."  Those are the two things we know how to do and neither one of them helps in recovery at all.  It's hard to get in a fight in the program - although it is definitely possible.  Mostly, though, people are working hard to learn NOT to fight.  Depending on how far their recovery has come, they might just smile at you and hug you and tell you to keep coming back if you try to start a fight.  Certainly people run away from the program all the time.  There's a saying, "If you don't like the program, we will cheerfully refund your misery."  So, people leave - running from truth, hard work, self-examination, ego-puncturing, etc.  Lots and lots of us come back when we have hurt bad enough.

That "sitting still" explanation is very helpful to me.  I've certainly been in that "flight or flight" mode for most of my life, and it still is hard for me to sit still.   The people I work with have big trouble sitting still and working out solutions to problems.  I'm thinking that they might be like me and just very used to either fighting or running.  But problem solving requires sitting still and thinking and taking responsibility instead of running away or picking a fight -both of which make the cause of the problem other people!