Creating Patterns of Feeling that the Carpet was Being Pulled Out From Under Me:
We all pattern ourselves, especially in a lot of recovery, into that feeling of the carpet’s going to be pulled out from under me. I never realized until I started looking further and further into the depths of my life. Relationships were like having the carpet pulled out from under me, every time I was in a relationship, I had to look at that. As you look deeper and deeper into the layers of your life, and that carpet being pulled out from under you feeling, it permeates everywhere. It’s like I drive my car and all of a sudden I wonder, “oh my god, it is going to break down?” You’re in a relationship, things are going really good, and it’s a feeling of the carpet being pulled out from underneath me, “is she going to do this, or is he going to do that, and send me back into that feeling, and we’re going to be in break-up mode again, or in dissention again.” You go to work and all of a sudden, something goes wrong, a performance wasn’t done, it’s like, “oh, man I was feeling so good at work, and now I’ve got this black mark where the carpet’s been pulled out from under me.”
So, when you build a pattern like that, on such a deep level, consistently over and over again throughout your day, something’s going the wrong way, or you get into expectations of the way you want it to go, and it doesn’t go that way; or you almost start to feel good about it, and you call yourself a fool because now you don’t feel good about work, or that relationship, or something else in your life. You think you’re a fool because you went for it, and you gave your heart to it, gave it an emotional attachment, and you were burned again. What a feeling when you start to realize that feeling can permeate every area of your life. You can get that feeling driving down traffic in your typical drive pattern in a certain time of day, “it’s usually fast here, now it’s crowded, uh-oh I’m going to have a bad day.” It’s always the carpet’s getting pulled out from under me. We look for signs in our lives that indicate whether our day is going to go good or bad, instead of just always recognizing that’s what a way of life is, it allows you to live so that everything in life is transformed into an asset, even if it’s unpleasant. You ultimately learn that you can grow from it, therefore there is no more wrong, and there is no more bad when you realize that everything can be transcended into an asset; transformed because that’s what’s got to happen anyway. Like when people die in your life, and you think I’ll never get over that, then the day comes when you’ve not forgotten about it, but you’re not in so much pain about it anymore. You know, things have changed, and it’s transformed. So, ultimately, no matter what the experience, no matter how bad it is in anyone’s life, ultimately you’re going to get to the point where it was what it was, and now what’s it going to be? Now what am I going to do with it because no longer do I have to run around and feel like that’s just the way it’s going to keep on being, every time something goes good, something’s going to come along to change it, and take it away from me.
No, with a way of life, that feeling, you have to become aware of it and treat it. You have to develop an awareness about that feeling in me when I’m walking through my life, looking for some sign to indicate that things are going to go the wrong way, and then if my mind tells me there is a sign, I start backing it with emotion, and I get flat or I get sick, or I get unhappy, or I get depressed, or I get sad and I don’t know why. It’s like Bill Wilson wrote about, it’s a false dependency on something. I’ve become falsely dependent on everything. I’ve even become, in a weird, perverted sort of way, falsely dependent on things going wrong, and that’s the ultimate twist. Think about that, when I’m more inclined to think the carpet’s being pulled out from under me, even way before it happens. I can’t handle anything good because the minute things get good, I start thinking is the carpet going to get pulled out from under me, and that is a hell of a spot to get to. Getting out of it is something we can do one day at a time. One application at a time, when we find ourselves looking for the carpet to get removed, say “un-uh, I can’t wait for the next great thing to happen according to the grace of God in my life. In God’s world, when you don’t think it can get any better, as long as you stay with God and trust in God, it keeps getting better all the time. Believe that anything is possible in God’s world, and that you can transcend everything with God; as the way it’s supposed to be, otherwise it wouldn’t have gone that way. So, no more of the carpet being pulled out from under us.
Much love,
KC