COURAGE MONTH: DAY 5: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” ― Maya Angelou
With spiritual Principles instead of virtues in the quote above, it makes total sense that if I don’t have the courage to do Steps 1-12, I will not receive any of the benefits of recovery. I do not now, nor have I ever, considered myself a ‘virtuous’ woman, but I do consider myself to be ‘recovering’. Not going into the debate about ‘recovered’ or ‘recovering’, just how I see it for myself. I’m not done here, drinking and drugging were not the problem for me.
So I am working the steps consistently to maintain a balanced personality and life today. I have not had a drink or a drug in a long time, so I know they cannot have been the problem. They were markers of the problem. Just like an overhead drip isn’t the true problem, but may indicate that there is a burst pipe or a flood is happening in the roof or ceiling above you.
So I have to practice Courage all the time. It is part and parcel of me working through and navigating those things that are new in my life every day. And everything, absolutely everything, is brand new every day. I may go to the same meeting I went to last week, but there are new people and many are not there who were there last week, so it is not the same meeting. I may drive on the same highway, but today there is a new flower or sign or set of cars around me. It is always different!
Being mindful means that I am practicing courage, because I am seeing with new eyes those things that are all around me, not superimposing yesterdays’ story onto today. This is a huge concept for us to grasp! Because yesterday’s story is done. Today’s story is ruined when we try to live it like it is yesterday. And our solutions and feelings and responses must be new today…or we just keep on recreating yesterday. And that will get horribly uncomfortable in some time….and we know this is true, because we have all done it.
So I must be courageous enough to walk into today with a new set of eyes and ears and an open heart. It may look like yesterday, but it has the potential to be filled with new and wonderful miracles. It also has the potential to be our last day or someone else’s whom we love. So it is vital that we are mindful and present to all of it. We spend so much of life like sleepwalkers, doing 3 or 4 things at once and thinking of things other than what we are doing…and we miss so much this way! We miss stop signs and stop lights and all kinds of craziness!
I recently almost hit someone in a cross walk because I was talking to someone in my car…. omg! I was then, and still am, horrified! I have to practice extreme mindfulness at certain times of the evening, because my vision is not as clear as it once was. So I must act more courageously in being focused on what I am doing.
Today I pray for the courage to be mindful and present to my life. In the last 2 days, I have counted over 50 miracles that have occurred. I have even found a couple that I missed when they were taking place. It makes or breaks my recovery to be in the miraculous rather than focusing on negative things. And I want the most I can get out of this whole deal…I always did and I always will. The key is to be courageous enough to do the footwork!
Dolphin Hug 