I know this will come to a shock to most of you who either have been or may even be new to following along with me and hopefully finding a little Light and a little Power in your life a Day at a Time - (actually I hope it is a "Lot", but even a little goes a long way) - but if you have not already noticed I do something often - I think!  At least I like to think I do, but sometimes it's not always a concerted effort, lost in fervent prayer, meditation, and sappy guru words of infinite wisdom.  Sometime when I think, which I often do, there is no effort whatsover to figure out what I am thinking about.  This isn't really new as far as "technique" goes, I have been having random thoughts, obsessive thinking, uncontrollable worry, self-doubts, and ongoing FEARS rambling around in my ACOA mind all of my life.  Most of these thoughts, that were seldom in my best interests and founded in FEAR and self-doubt, seemed to pop into my head at random and just like the beginning of a call for a horse race the announcer in my head is saying loud and clear:  "And we're off" ....and the races began!!  Today, most of the time, when I think often and write the technique is similar but the origin has changed.  I have learned to speak from my heart and soul, and not off the top of my head with the first "thing" that pops into my mind.  And I say this with extreme caution and forthrightness because the "headlines" for today did not originate from "Deep Thoughts" (including Saturday Night Live types of Deep Thoughts), they came from the old days, blasts from the pasts that "popped" into my head out of nowhere for which I have been thinking about which I often do.  Ouch, I just bit my tongue, perhaps I will take it out of my cheek for a bit, or not! They just showed up out of nowhere this past week.  For me, one is a "momism" and the other is a "dadism".  I wrote in my first book in the Power of Surrender Series, "The Power of Surrender", about "boiling potatoes" when I would wonder when dinner was going to be ready as a kid half-starving to death and my mom's response being that as soon as the potatoes were done boiling.  How I was too young to understand the gas burner was not turned on yet, and how for me boiling potatoes at times seemed like a potential myth never coming to fruition.  What I did not understand then was that before the potatoes would become completely boiled she had to finish her appetizer of a "few beers" first.  I also wrote about a pack of "Juicy Fruit" gum, my "gift" from my dad when he returned home on Friday nights after being gone all week to show his love for me.  How I have now come to understand all I really wanted was a hug and to be told he loved me.  If you would like more detail you can either wait for the "film at eleven" which like a watched pot never boiling doesn't exist, OR....you can buy the book for a $1.99....:).  However, as I often do, I completely forgot and omitted from the book two "catch-phrases" from my childhood from my parents like boiling potatoes and juicy fruit that I have never forgotten.  And just this past week, either Super Hero "Winter Girl" above, or some other Power greater than myself "popped" them into my head.  When I tried to stand on my tiptoes and see if the potatoes were boiling yet when I had not figured out the gas was not on, my mom would sternly remind me that "A watched pot never boils".  A reminder to back off, she wasn't ready to serve dinner yet as it was still happy hour.  That was the "momism".  Not to be denied, my Dad had a few too that fit in well with juicy fruit and just last night this one popped into my head out of nowhere as well.  I was driving to a meeting with the people who have what I want and still do, and someone changed lanes on the freeway right in front of me and in a flash my dad was in my head saying:  "Wake up and die right" to the unwary driver in front of me.  This was a frequent response of my dad's, one of his "isms" when he felt he had been wronged or something was not seen his way.  I guess in his mind that person was "dead" to him if they got in his way and they needed to wake up to his point of view or get out of his way.  I felt dead to him and in his way often.  So without "thinking" much as I entered my meeting I had a couple of "isms" on the top of my head and was wondering why.  As I entered the room a few minutes late....which I often do as my friends in Kansas know....I was asked to speak on The Eleventh Step which is about improving my conscious contact with the God of my understanding through prayer and meditation to understand God's will for my life and find the Power to carry it out, which I often do and did last night.  This morning after my meeting last night it got me to thinking of why these two "isms" popped into my head and I have a clearer understanding of why they were on my mind and so I'm writing how it works for me when I work it....which I often do when I have been thinking....

It gets me to thinking that I have not introduced "Winter Girl" to you yet.  Winter Girl is my second beautiful granddaughter, who is six years old and lives in the Land of Oz and is a creation of her and her equally beautiful mother's combined imagination's when tasked with a first grade project of being the Super Hero of her class for a week.  If you knew this imaginative, warm, bubbly little girl you would understand this is a very appropriate use of her many assets.  If you were down and/or cold from the weather or just the winter blahs, she can light up your life with her energy and for sure share a funny "deep thought" or two as she has done for me and her family many times.  I'm sure her soul is fully capable of providing enough fire to boil potatoes, and keep you awake enough that you would not fear or wonder if you were going to die right or not.  My hope for her is that she never loses her childlike enthusiasm for living, and most of all she retain the most important Super Power of all that she is and always has been enough just the way she is, and is loved unconditionally from another Power much greater than hers and in doing so as I have learned she will die right when it is her time.  Hopefully after many, many, wonderful winters!!  This would be that needed warmth found in her soul for which we are all born with, that remains burning, even when surrounded with "isms", found in not fearing to be who she is instead of who others may want her to be.  And I hope additonally, that one of her Super Powers is to break the chain of any "isms" that may cause her to feel less than Super that may have been passed onto her by me through her father.  Sometimes, oftentimes, I not only think - I know this requires a Power much greater than all of us including Winter Girl because along with the "isms" and the family disease comes a host of villians most of which cannot be seen much less acknowledged and perhaps one of the most cunning, baffling, and lingering of all is the "F" word:  FEAR!!  I have learned that FEAR comes in many forms, and the one for me that loomed the largest had nothing to do with anything looming outside my door.  My biggest fear, for which I was a prisoner and felt powerless, was my fear in believing in myself and that I was lovable and capable just as I am without "conditions." Last night as I shared part of my story around this 11th Step and the changes within myself as I remembered the powerlessness I found with the God of my former understanding to which I surrendered, and to how it compares today with the God of my current understanding, when I was done I listened to others and in doing so I understood clearer about how a potato boils or does not and if "I" don't wake up not only will I not die right, I risk those I love "dying" right as well.   Which gets me to thinking....which I often do.

It gets me to thinking that I wish I could have shared last night that I did not truly wake up until I actually did die right.  Literally.  There was not enough time, but it certainly has been filled with wonderful Light and I have found additional Power, and I still believe I am only here because it is God's Will for my life to share His Light and His Power no matter what is your understanding of God.  One of the things I did share last night, was how I had come to understand that this God of my understanding does love me unconditionally just as I am and it is unconditional.  With this knowledge, depth, and feeling of being loved and accepted when I finally completely surrendered to it I lost all fear.  Okay....I don't much care for spider, snakes, and I am not going to fight alligators in the near future (like EVER!), but I no longer fear myself, nor do I fear that I am not enough for anyone.  I can turn on the burner to the right temperature to boil the potatoes myself (I would let Winter Girl help though), and I know when my final time comes to die and once again visit the Light Beyond the Light, it will be more than right it will be eternal bliss.  But first I had to learn something, I had to Surrender my will so I could learn to see myself as my Higher Power sees me and when I did I found the Power to face my biggest FEAR.  If I let others down, I was nothing, and no one would love ME.  I falsely believed I had this power and it not only hindered me, sometimes paralyzingly so, but I imposed my FEAR and my WILL onto those I loved and I enabled them never be in a position to  find their own Power and Surrender to their own fear i.e. find their bottom like I had found mine.  No one wins.  I could not find God's will for my life, they could not find theirs.  I likened this "unconditional love" to the simplest example I have found that works for me.  I likened this unconditional love to the same thing we feel as humans towards a newborn child.  They are powerless, yet they are innocent and alive, and in their eyes we see their soul and feel their love and ours for them.  This is unconditional love that only changes with the challenges of our human experience, yet is our spiritual nature.  When I accepted that this God of my understanding to which I Surrendered my false perceptions of who and what I was to accept and love myself as unconditionally as He or She does....I got the Power I was born with back.  Through prayer and meditation I can overcome both those negative "thoughts" that pop into my head, I can also boil potatoes without help and wake up and feel no FEAR that I am going to die right.  I put this all together, assuming I am making sense, when two others shared last night both women.  One shared as a mom, one shared as a daughter of an alcoholic father, and when they did I was both sad and hopeful that they keep coming back because this is what they shared and this is what I hope....which gets me to thinking which I often do.

The mom has two sons who both suffer from addiction and have for many years.  She spoke briefly and what she shared was that she could not let go as she just didn't believe anyone but her could help hers sons and that it was her obligation out of love and as their mom to be who can change her sons choices.  For me, as I related to when I felt this way, what I heard was fear.  Fear to Surrender her will and accept that some things we just don't have Power over.  Sometimes we are not tall enough to reach the gas to turn up the water so the potatoes will boil to where they become they way we want them to be.  Sometimes imposing our will on someone else is not only harmful to them, it is more painful for us when they do not meet our expectations  This is fearful.  The second woman who also spoke briefly grew up like I did with an alcoholic father, perhaps she at times was not awake and felt dead to him as well.  It sounded like it.  It sounded familiar.  But what she said saddened me too.  She said she couldn't accept the concept of unconditional love, her father had too many conditions, was to powerful and she could not Surrender to the fact that it is now okay to not make her father her Higher Power.  She still sees herself as her father did and does, not as a Power greater than herself does.  Hopefully she will keep coming back and come to understand no one person has power over us and the only way to get this Power back that has been taken is in Surrendering.  The room gets Lighter, and in time we find some peace, some serenity, and accept that although it was all "kind of scary" there is help out there like "Winter Girl", and those of us who did and do keep coming back, and in return we come to understand that we can be Grateful in the most curious of ways as our Gratitude is becomes truly complete and today I know that "Had I Never Feared" I would be missing out on a gift much tastier than juicy fruit....and at the moment the only thing I am thinking about as I finish this up?  I never did ask my dad what it means or what it is like to "die right" - oh well it really doesn't matter I found out for myself and all I can say is....WOW!!...what a wakeup call!!  Turn the page to find The Power of Surrender