Fear action list

I need to take action about my fears today. Yes, I am powerless over my fears and it is up to my HP to relieve me of them. However, I also know that like any surrender to my HP, I need to take action, that there is groundwork needed to be done in order to release my fears.

I write this blog to remind myself of all I have learnt in program. My disease is one of forgetfulness. I constantly need to re-learn my lessons around my addictive behaviour, to remember how to live a recovered life, to remember the reality of my disease of compulsive overeating. If I do not take care of myself, learn to strive for emotional well-being, I will end up back in the food. I will once again look for food to solve my problems. That's not the life I want for me, that's not my the life my HP wants for me.

In writing out my recovery process, I am building myself a list of tools to grab when the ocean-crossing that is my recovery gets very rocky. Today is such a day, I have been tracking back through my blog looking for inspiration on what to do with the fear I have around Craig's health.

I realise I know a lot more about fears and action than my blog shows, and today I need to remind myself of all the tools I have and the ground work I need to do to be ready to have my fears released. My HP has not left me alone with myself, he has left me with a long list of program tools including:

• Fear inventory - the big book and Step 4 have a lot to tell me about getting to the bottom of my fears, and seeing how they affect my life
• Prayer - ask for help, let my HP and other people know I need help
• Reaching out - I can share my fears with other members of the fellowship including my Sponsor to get some clarity around what is going on
• Hand it over - I have lots of little rituals to hand it over to my HP. I have a 'God-jar' that I pop little notes in with things I have handed over to my HP, I recite a prayer about the things I am powerless over, I write notes and then destroy them realising the ideas in them to my HP
• Reading - there is a lot of literature about fear in program - read something for inspiration
• Get the attitude of gratitude - remembering all the ways I've been looked after in this life help me feel closer to my HP, to have my belief that I will be looked after
• Fake it - I can feel the fear and do it anyway. I can pretend that I have handed it over to go, and if I pretend long enough it eventually becomes my reality
• Do something for someone else - helping others, helps me. Doing something for someone else takes my mind off my problems, gives them perspective, and often highlights a solution I haven't thought of
• Surrender - do what you need to do to really understand that you are powerless over the thing you fear. Surrender is incredibly freeing
• List the actions I need to take & then do them - live out the serenity prayer, list what I am powerless over but also list what I need the courage to change. Make a list of actions I could do to make the situation different, and then do it.

I commit to myself that I will use some of these tools today.