Here Come Those Cherokees Again

 The Cherokees offer this up . . .  

"Sometimes it takes another person standing on the outside of our emotional problem to do for us what we can't seem to do for ourselves."      

Or in A.A. speak: "He has commenced to accomplish for us those things that we could never do for ourselves."   

See how healthy spirituality crosses all lines?  BTW, the word "ourselves" appears in the A.A. literature 176 times.  That should be our hint that we need to stop working on other people and concentrate on our own personal asses.

"It isn't the Cherokee's natural bent to discuss a problem openly with anyone.  Silence is not only golden, it is safer and does nothing to make a problem grow as he believes talking will.  But he knows the time, the place, and the right person will avail themselves to him, and then he can talk.  We know the power of the word to make matters worse if we talk in a negative way about our needs."

I've always enjoyed the allegory about the two wolves who live within us, in continual battle: one good, one not so good.  Which one will win?  

The one you feed.  Think negative thoughts and they'll gain in power.

"The past is to be respected for its rich store of experience - mistakes and all.  In it are all the trials and wisdom of our elders, the timeless suffering and seasoning that came to us with a brave front.  We do not relate it to our fellows word for word - where or why we did something, wise or unwise.  It is better to take what we have learned and build on it.  We tend to see ourselves as far more shrewd and able than we are."

When I was first in A.A. - a 30 year old child with no adult skills - I enjoyed hanging around men who were a lot older than me because the advice, the counsel, they gave me was without judgment or preconditions.  They told me things that I knew already, things that my parents would tell me, and I'd listen to them.  When figures in authority told me stuff I didn't want to hear I pushed back, even when I knew I was only harming myself.  I hope that today I can stand in as a father figure to some of the younger people trickling in.  Or an insane unkle, maybe.

"Words are important in love and forgiveness - and courage.  It's good to hear them - better to speak them.  Forgiveness is not just to make someone else feel better about us but to help us think better of ourselves.  When we forgive someone we stop resenting them."

And in A.A. parlance: "Often it was while working on this Step with our Sponsors or spiritual advisers (Step Six is being referenced here) that we first felt truly to forgive others, no matter how deeply we felt they had wronged us."