A closed mind
“A new idea cannot be grafted onto a closed mind…. Open-mindedness leads us to
the very insights that have eluded us during our lives.”
Basic Text, p. 93
We arrived in NA at the lowest point in our lives. We’d just about run out of ideas.
What we needed most when we got here were new ideas, new ways of living, shared
from the experience of people who’d seen those ideas work. Yet our closed minds
prevented us from taking in the very ideas we needed to live.
Denial keeps us from appreciating just how badly we need new ideas and new
direction. By admitting our powerlessness and recognizing how truly unmanageable
our lives have become, we allow ourselves to see how much we need what NA has to
offer.
Self-dependence and self-will can keep us from admitting even the possibility of the
existence of a Power greater than ourselves. However, when we admit the sorry
state self-will has gotten us into, we open our eyes and our minds to new
possibilities. When others tell us of a Power that has brought sanity to their lives, we
begin to believe that such a Power may do the same for us.
A tree stripped of its branches will die unless new branches can be grafted onto its
trunk. In the same way, addiction stripped us of whatever direction we had. To grow
or even to survive, we must open our minds and allow new ideas to be grafted onto
our lives.
Just for today: I will ask my Higher Power to open my mind to the new ideas of
recovery.