This is how I change my thinking and the behavior that goes with it. When I change my thinking, my behavior begins to change. I learn from the learners. Those who come to meetings regularly share what is going on in their lives and illustrate how the 12 Steps are creating healthy changes in the Way they live out their daily lives. They shared how life was before they participated in the DA meetings and how life is today. They have continued to learn from the learners.
I am a learner. I learned how people who once were depressed now come forward and show how their lives have been changed positively by this fellowship. WE become positive learners and begin to share our life with others.
Our friend, Dr. Dorothy Rowe, illustrates this “learning from learners” and points out how vital sharing is for each of us who have learned how to use some life-saving tools for our recovery. These are learned by reading DA literature and especially by the sharing that is expressed at our meetings.
Sharing means being prepared to reveal your own weaknesses. Listening means accepting the other person’s pain. Don’t push it away, saying, ‘No, it’s not like that or ‘don’t worry about it. It’s not as bad as you think. Everything will be all right. You’ll soon be better.’ Don’t run away from the other person’s pain by belittling or denying that it exists. Accept the pain, stay with it, and offer, not advice but a comforting hand or a shoulder to cry on.
Have the courage to face the pain and the courage to accept change. Have the courage not to be afraid of one another. Have the courage to take the world as it is, and one another as you are, in all your strengths and weaknesses. For we must love our loved ones for all their sins as well as their virtues, for their weaknesses as well as for their strengths. We must love them as they are, and not as we want them to be. And we must hold them in the same Way as we hold a rose – gently-for if you hold a rose tightly, the thorns pierce you and the petals are crushed.
Hugh, for the fellowship
RESOURCES
Copyright(c) Rowe, Dorothy. Depression. The Way out of your prison. Second Edition. Routledge. London (1986). P.165.
Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous. Third Edition. (1986) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.