The Solution Points Inward, Not Outward

May 03. Its officially very early monday morning, for all returning to the work force today I hope this is the start of a wonderful week for you all. I don't want to talk too much about my weekend because the topic I have is very important to me. I do however need to share my brief thoughts on the past two days. I had quite the busy & eventful weekend, not all of it that I was present to witness but in some people's lives close to me things were all over. For my part of the weekend however things were not terrible. Not only did I survive the weekend without taking a drink or drug, I worked my business & once again succeeded at putting "treaures" into people's hands that they wanted. I also was able to help a friend by employing him to work for me as an assistant in training to my business. With that said I came home saturday & crashed from exhaustion & sunday I went out with some friends after working & enjoyed company as well as comradery. There was a bit of a opinionated & emotional display between a triangle of people on saturday, one myself, but I kept my side of the street clean during it all & left when enough was enough.

With the weekends being so demanding I don't have time to write as much as I would like sometimes, but tonight I have some time & have a topic that has changed my whole life & perspective on the world around me. It is one of the 'hinges' that my Sobriety swings on & I have to remember to keep it "well oiled" for Serenity & Spritual Fitness to be attainable. My topic tonight revolves around this simple yet difficult phrase, "The Solution Points Inward, Not Outward" . This is something that I discovered over a very diffucult & long addiction, but the realization of its truth happened nearly over night. As I explain it, it should also be said that this is something I have to continually work at because my thinking reverts to old & outward pointing ways. What exactly it means is this, when we are in devestation or despair, when we have any sort of gripes, pain, hatred, anger, jealousy, or people aren't living up to what we are expecting of them in our life.. this is all our perception & our problem. We are the ones feeling that way, our reasons may very well be something that we want to point outward at another person in blame, but the truth is that its our Spiritual being that is feeling that way not them.

An example, A friend misses another who lately has not been making any time for their friendship. The friend who is missing the distracted person is the one who has the solution & there are different ones that can work in some cases its not just one solution. Perhaps the friend calls & speaks on their feelings, or they invite the other over for a movie or games, even an option of addressing their care for the friend & chalking them off as "not so close" in their life anymore. The bottom line is although we may feel some way & it seems we are being victimized the other party is not at fault. They truly did nothing immoral to us by being distracted or possilby turned off towards friendship by something we may be doing, saying, or our own moral & life choices.

When we start to take other people's inventories we forget our own. We look at either what they are doing or not doing & we forget to think about what we are doing or not doing in return. If we are in fact keeping in touch with this friend regularly are we visiting them to deserve a visit in return? Are we providing an environment or middle ground for them to be comfortable & be themselves? If we long for them so much & they won't come to us, are we WILLING to look inside ourselves for the solution & go to them? The questions run so much deeper than this, the number of factors in any given relationship between two people cannot be measured numerically only spiritually. That line is important I want to say it again just for myself. The questions run so much deeer than this (am I doing?), the number of factors in any given relationship between two people cannot be measured numerically ONLY SPIRITUALLY!

The solution to relationships no matter if love, friendship, family, or business always points INWARD at ourselves, not OUTWARD at the other party. We need to evaluate if we are doing all that is necessary to have a relationship with that person, even if that means changing parts of us or the environment or even possibly holding back our opinions long enough to enjoy them before we turn them off to us or end up keeping them away from us completely. Afterall it is always our option to Let Go & Let God (or whatever you may call your higher power), and by doing that we are letting them step away from us if thats what they chose to do. This is the reality of spirituality, moments when this begins to become unreal is when we do things to bankrupt our spirituality. For me that was drugs & drinking alcohol, there are other ways like lying, cheating, stealing.. an endless list of immoral situations can apply here.

I challenge anyone who is having a problem with a relationship in their life, no matter the type, to just take their own inventory for a moment. Take a good, long, deep look into ourselves & find what may be keeping a person away or distant.. it may just be the simple lack of an invitation on our part, or it could be many things deeper than that. Whatever it is, the solution points in at me, not out at others. That is if I want a solution, there was a time in my life when I would rather be right than be the one to fix what was broken. There were also times in my life where I would rather make an excuse or lie so that it appeared nothing was broken too. Today my perspective is much clearer & I chose to find solutions in myself rather then work on broken pieces in others that I cannot fix, or perhaps I can through self improvement, I wouldn't know if I didn't try. Thanks for blogging in.. Good Night, Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy