Placing Principles Before Personalities - A Tradition Talk

May 05. Happy CincoDeMayo everyone, I hope I spelled that correctly! My day was almost uneventful. I woke up feeling like I was coming down with something, headache, sore, & even a little stuffy. The possibility of a hay fever or newly developed alergy is possible, but in any case this evening I feel much better. So maybe the extra rest I got today was much needed & I was just overdone & needed to relax like I did. I took a commitment for the Month of May at a group I like to attend on wednesdays. So I headed down early to meet the chairperson & set up. We had a nice chat & made the coffee/set up the meeting material etc. During the meeting a great topic came up that I will later mention, but first I want to say something else. It's no coincidence that I volunteered to help out this month & was "obligated" to come out & help others today, this all happening at a time of loss & during a 'messy' few days in my sobriety. After the meeting I helped clean up & then left, calling a friend to set up a meeting to help another friend I am concerned about.

I got home to a beautiful starlit sky, finishing the conversation I took advantage of the alone time in the dark to pray while stargazing. It was a great moment for me to connect to my higher power & reflect on my day. I am becoming more connected with my higher power these past few days & despite my woes I have never felt better in a spiritual sense. Reverting back to the topic at the meeting, although it was not formerly said that this was the topic, "Placing Principles Before Personalities" was the actual theme. I had shared my take on a few situations & the one that started the whole discussion, but I would rather share in general with you all about whats important about this concept.

In the world we so often encounter all sorts of personalities, with these comes drama, laughter, sadness, anger, peace of mind.. all sorts of things are activated in us spiritually as we encounter each person during our day. The concept of placing principles before personalities is rather simple, but in contrast difficult to follow. In my basic interpretation of it, a person must always keep their spiritual princicples in the foreground of their mind, regaurdless of the personality they are interacting with. This means if we perhaps are in love with someone, our spiritual principles must be first not our emotions for the personality we love. If someone makes us angry, we have to place our principles before our outlet of anger if we don't we can spiritual damage ourselves in rection to that emotion. Maybe a group of people has a huge drama-tic situation occuring, when really according to our spiritual principles its no big deal & we need to worry about ourselves.. that would mean getting involved is placing those personalities before our principles, something we can't do to be spiritually healthy.

The bottom line is that we must never place a personality, even if its our own, before our spiritual princicples or we will end up failing our spiritual goals for that second, minute, year, or however long doing so subsequently affects us. Little things we think are just okay to let past our principles can come back to affect us later & sometimes we are unable to identify this. I am not the best at upholding this tradition, I sometimes place personalities before my principles. Most times when I do this either immediately or soon after I notice something bothering me, hurting me, making me angry, or somehow otherwise affecting me emotionally which damages me spiritually if I don't then deal with it in a healthy manner. The reality is that if I had placed my principles first I would not have ended up having to deal with whatever effect was brought over me. So here's to placing whats important first! For me its my sobriety & my relationship with my higher power, its the principles that make that relationship possible & as seamless as I can manage to make it. Whatever the came, put your principles first & you will come out a winner like so many have won before us. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy