My greatest shame today is losing my temper. I don't do it very often. When I do, it often feels as though I have been goaded into it. However, I have been sober long enough to know that I cannot use that as an excuse. It is my temper to lose and my behavior to control.
It is especially difficult when I lose my temper with someone I sponsor in my 12 step program. I am supposed to be the leader. Showing that kind of frailty is embarrassing and humiliating and quite frankly, no matter how you season it, crow tastes like crap.
I have to eat some crow tonight. I lost my temper with a woman I sponsor. As a result, I have to do two things I do not like: I have to apologize and I have to end a sponsor/sponsee relationship.
The person is not a bad woman. I want to be very clear with my reader(s) and with myself. This is truly not about her. It is about me, about how I cannot get through to her and I cannot seem to hear her. She wants something from me I am not prepared to give and which I would never in a million years request from my sponsor.
The relationship between sponsor/sponsee can be very intimate but I have never considered my sponsor my friend until they were no longer my sponsor. I seek out time with the woman who sponsors me, not the other way around. I do not expect her to hold my hand at meetings or gossip with me afterwards as though she were my girlfriend. Instead, I watch her and I imitate her. I would hope my sponsees would do the same - though I would heartily discourage them from imitating my behavior on Tuesday night. I wanted to choke this woman, she was so maddening.
So, tonight if she calls (she may not. If she doesn't I will simply take her name off my list) I have to apologize for being a bad sponsor for her and suggest she find someone else. Of course I am afraid. I am afraid that she will bad mouth me around the fellowship, talk dirt about me to others, that my reputation as Leslie K., Central Valley Sobriety Princess will suffer.
In other words - PRIDE PRIDE PRIDE.
Interestingly enough, I picked up my copy of the book The Catholic Briefcase, tools for integrating Faith and Work, by Randy Hain. I started reading the next chapter and guess what it is about?
Surrender to Christ - Surrender to God - TRUST.
I will be doing the Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena this year again. It begins on Good Friday and ends on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday. My intentions will be towards all those my pride has harmed, that God may reveal them to me so I can make my amends and that He heal them from the wounds I may have afflicted in my ignorance, my willful behavior, my pride.
Jesus, I trust in YOU.
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