January 12
The Unopened Envelope
An envelope stays on the table because we already know it contains something unwelcome. We tell ourselves that worry serves no purpose and that we are turning the matter over. Meanwhile, the envelope remains unopened. It is possible to use a sound spiritual idea to protect an avoidance we would recognize immediately in someone else.
Acceptance may begin with finding out what is actually there. We need not solve the whole problem in the moment we face it. Perhaps we will need advice, time, or an honest conversation about what we cannot manage. Those possibilities become available when we stop treating uncertainty as protection. Turning our lives over includes bringing the inconvenient parts into the light. There is a gentleness in admitting that we are frightened, and a practical kindness toward ourselves in allowing help to address the facts rather than our imagined version of them.
What fact am I avoiding under the name of letting go?
Someone is willing to sit with me while I open it.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Three, pp. 39–41.