Showing posts with label honest service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label honest service. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

gratitude in the fellowship

WOW my cup runneth over!! i received an email today in response to the one i sent yesterday asking for help with the information pamphlets and wow, i mean HOLY COW. The world service offices of Narcotics Anonymous is sending out 500 Information Pamphlets, including the ones i was needing for free!! They are sending them UPS so they will be here in time for the health fair!! I almost started crying, i mean the group has a little money so i was online looking for them and counting up the cost and no way could we afford this much material!! I spent the day burning up my printer making a ton of meeting schedules apparently there is an anti gang rally on Saturday morning and the group wants to be there and pass out meeting schedules to the community and they are going to take a sign up sheet and ask people if they want more information so we can mail them the pamphlets!! These guys rock!!.
OK gotta go it is quite time here. gonna spend it with my sweetie!!

Monday, August 17, 2009

facing the person inside of me

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated
act without the benefit of experience."
-Henry Miller

funny I should start my post with the thought from the last post.
A leap in the dark, is what i did this weekend. it feels very lonely
to try something spontaneous especially without the benefit of experience.
the weekend was spent in service for my fellowship, we meet every three months
to conduct business on behalf of the areas. this is where i learned so much about computers,
i am the current newsletter editor and it gives me great satisfaction
to be a part of this fellowship. i chose this quarter to bring something to the new business agenda on the regional floor but i did not know how to do it so i asked someone else to present this. my idea was to discuss introducing a service "resume/application" to the RSC floor.
there are times when we ask questions of candidates stepping into service positions, and then other times it is like we use the "Buddie system". at the last RSC this type of inconsistency created a horrible "us and them" mentality around the region and i took it very personally. i stopped going to meetings at certain groups in town out of fear of reprisal for what had happened there. i have been isolating and dwelling on some members behavior and instead of coming to the meeting wanting to yell at people for acting out on character defects, i chose to try to find a solution, and try to discuss implementing a tool that would help level the playing field during elections. something everyone would be required to do so nobody got singled out. in no way was this intended to limit the questions our members could ask it was more of a spring board to raise the discussion. but alas my fellowship is one of addicts, and while i showed this to several members on saturday who had positive things to say about it, there were many more who just saw this as a "knee jerk" reaction to a bad situation and the questions scared a lot of members. unfortunately it was brought in the form of a "motion" which in policy sends it back to the area's and groups for a vote as is. so it will probably be voted out and thrown away if met with the same fear and animosity it was met with at the region. the way some of the RCM's ( people who are responsible for taking information back to groups and areas) responded so negatively, they will probably share their fears instead of my actual intention of the document. now i never intended to bring a motion to the floor, just some discussion on what if anything we could do with it. as my emotions were so raw on the situation, i asked a friend with more spirituality to bring it to the floor, she put it on the agenda in a motion form. so as the basic text says more will be revealed. that is my bit on service i will need to read through this to make sure it is not breaking any anonymity rules. as our regional minutes are posted online on our website, i believe this should fall just in the realm of OK. after reading what i wrote i sound very sane, on paper, but in reality i am very emotional when i am trying to speak to a large group of people and i don't usually say what i need to say, so this is why i asked a friend with a cooler head to bring it up. if i had done it would would have been done with a lot of crying and sobbing and sniffling like a butt hurt baby. and it would have been all about me. as it is i did not want members to know it was me who proposed this idea. but once my anonymity was blown out of the water, i got real hot on the back of my neck, my ears got red and i raised my hand to speak and had to apologize for some of the colorful words i used. one of the questions were "have you ever been charged with misappropriation of funds?" and people were like i will never pass this application we have all been in trouble before!! well i said, that question is in reference to NA funds stupid!!! then i cried and said i am sorry i am very passionate about this. as you can see i am way, way involved in service, it keeps me clean, it keeps me focused on a solution, it keeps me in the middle of the fellowship. anyway i started this post yesterday and if i don't get to my gratitude list it won't get posted till tomorrow.
  1. today i am grateful for my willingness to be in uncomfortable situations to try to better my fellowship.
  2. today i am grateful for my real friends and being able to let go of those who cannot separate friendship from service work.
  3. today i am grateful for my home group i wish they had more meetings a week.
  4. today i am grateful i did something for my recovery yesterday.
  5. today i am grateful for my sponsor who answered the phone.
  6. today i am grateful to be right here, where my gratitude is.
as i think about some of the rational excuses that have kept me out of meetings this morning i think about how lonely it feels to stand in your own truth. there are members who used to be my friends and now they are not. i have to learn to be OK with not everyone liking me, in the past i would conform to what ever anybody wanted me to be just so they would like me. i would listen to rap music around one friend and country around another, same with my attire, i would change it to suit who ever i was trying to please, and say something to rock the boat was not me, not at all. so i am very uncomfortable with what i am doing today, which means i am growing and soon i will be OK with what i am doing today no matter what anyone thinks. today i am trying to be a part of the solution not the problem and i guess that is ok. for todays thought; "You never find yourself until you face the truth"- Pearl Bailey