Recently I have been listening a lot to YouTube movies from or about Jordan Peterson and I was amazed how he also mentioned the “One Day At The Time” principle, a principle I know from Twelve Step programs.
The principle says something like you can bear with anything, as long as you don’t look too far ahead, don’t look further than one day at the time. But the principle goes further, as in meetings I also heard people go back in time, in amount of time you can put up with something unbearable. It goes something like this:
iIf you can’t bear with something anyhow, you go one day at the time, you don’t look further than one day at the time, you don’t look further than today. However, sometimes can be so bad even one day is way too long to put up with it, so then you can just shorten the time, and say something like, “maybe I can bear with it half a day or so”, or if that is not enough, maybe I can bear with this for one hour.
However, sometimes even one hour can be too much, so then you can go back to one minute. And even one minute can be too much, so if that is the case you can go back to something like one second, or one breath at the time.
And amazingly, whenever I can’t put up with something, this seems to work. Often going back to “one day at the time” can be enough. But yes, sometimes, or even more often than I wanted, I had to go back to one second, one breath at the time.
As we can do one breath, can’t we? As no matter the circumstances, I learned I can cope with it, survive it, going ‘back in time’, going back to one breath at the time, if needed.
I want to thank one of my fellows in a Twelve Step Group for teaching me to go back to “One Breath At The Time” if needed. Yes, sharing your experience can help, no matter how bad the story, as her story must have been very bad, needing to go back to one breath at the time.