What higher power means to me

I don't consider myself religious in any traditional sense of the word. In fact, prayer and the word God in my S-Anon 12-step book was an obstacle to me as I began to read recovery literature.

"I might not belong in a group of people who start every meeting with a prayer to God," I thought immediately.

But I stuck it out anyway, figuring that something was better than nothing in terms of dealing with Husband's sex addiction.

I'm glad I stayed. Today I do have a useful relationship with a Higher Power. I don't tie that Higher Power to any specific religion, although for the sake of simplicity I sometimes refer to that Higher Power as God. (For me there really is no one word that accurately describes what I understand Higher Power to be, and that's find for me.)

This post from a Jesuit priest really captures the kind of relationship I work on cultivating with Higher Power.

I'm reading Marianne Williamson's A Return to Love right now. She writes, "I had never realized that depending on God meant depending on love," and quotes A Course in Miracles, "God is the love within us."

Williamson also writes, "...a miracle is just a shift in perception."

So I take the perspective that when I read just the right post from a Jesuit priest at just the time I needed to hear it, that's my Higher Power providing what I need.

Does A Higher Power really exist?

I have no idea.

Do I believe in God?

I can't say.

But what I do know is that when I...

....take the perspective that I am not in control of everything (how people will feel, how they will respond, what they will or will not think, do, say...need I go on?)...

...and that I am connected to other human beings in the way a wave is connected to the ocean (a wave is distinct from ocean yet is never separate from ocean)...

...and at the same time do what I can do and turn the rest over to Higher Power (or whatever I need to call it to feel comfortable)...

...I am able to relax enough to find peace and feel good in my skin again. And that creates an openness that seems to allow what I need to come to me more readily. (I've also seen that what I think I want and what I need can look and/or be very different from each other.)

It's an on going process - a practice, not a destination - so, as with exercise, I have to do it again and again to get the desired result.

I don't know why I'm writing about this now.