Eat around it...

The picture on Dave's blog this morning reminded me of a meeting of a Big Book study I was co-leading a few years ago.

We were talking about the 6th step and becoming willing to have these defects removed.  A sponsee of mine thought of and shared something that I use as a metaphor yet today.  He said:

"...my relationship with my character defects in my life today is like, I'm eating a 1/2 gallon of ice cream out of the carton and suddenly discover a turd - right there in the middle of my ice cream.  I am disgusted and it sickens me.  I feel violated and angry.
Then, I think about it some and I notice that it looks like it's really just one solid chunk in the middle.  I really like the ice cream and it seems like a waste to throw out the whole carton.  I'm sort of hungry.  I think 'I could probably just nibble around the edges of the carton a little...'  I wonder how close to the chunk is safe to eat. ..."

I do exactly the same thing with character defects.  I've been around long enough and done the work in the program of A.A. so that I always recognize them when they crop up.  But, after initially being repulsed by them, I will think "...maybe I'm really OK with self pity this time..."  or "...yeah, it's resentment but it's justified and I'm only human..." or "...it's true I'm being selfish but she's being more selfish..." or ...

It's really exactly the same thing as rationalizing how close I can eat without being so disgusting that I can't live with myself.

Probably not the standard I want to live down to today.

The solution is to throw the whole thing out - now!!!

"...Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." BB p. 58

'nuf said...