COURAGE MONTH: DAY 16: “There is no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bear witness that a man has the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”- Frankl
From a man who knew tremendous pain and tremendous suffering, this is a powerful quote. We shut down with alcohol and drugs, no doubt. The spiritual principle of Step 8 invites us to re-learn our emotional expression and to feel what we are doing as we process through that list of those we have harmed.
It isn’t enough to acknowledge the wrongs I have done. I must feel the pain I may have caused others in order for me to heal. Our humanity creates our ability to sit with feelings of sorrow, shame, remorse or the understanding that we have done things which we are not proud to recognize. That is okay. If remorse could resolve those things, we would have no need for recovery in this arena. But we need to walk through those feelings, nor around or in an evasive attempt to control or deny them.
I am reminded of a friend with whom I used to work and his ability to recognize my feeble attempts at apologizing and saying it was making amends. Not the same thing at all. But I will save that for the next step, because Step 8 is about recognizing those whom I have harmed.
Funny, I have not cried much in my life. I learned to turn that function off when I was very young. I have been able to cry with others, but not my own tears. This leaves me with an inability to express my sorrow deeply, as I would like to quite often. And I must remember that they are evidence of my suffering, as suggested above. So I may still suffer, but crying has not been part of my life very often, except when watching movies or things that move me.
I am grateful for the tears when they come, as infrequent as that may be. Cleansing my spirit and my heart and my eyes is a great thing.
One of the reasons I must have courage when working this step is that there are likely to be people who will NEVER get over the pain and harm I have caused them. I know we are supposed to put out of our minds all things related with what we are going to be doing with this list, but that is not what really happens for most of us…we know what’s coming!
And I am quite aware that there are things I did that will not be forgotten and may not be made alright by my making amends. Some of my friends have killed someone while drunk or loaded. This certainly cannot be amended in any way. But we must add those people to our lists.
My making this list and preparing the way for willingness to approach these people has absolutely NOTHING to do with them forgiving me for those transgressions. Whatever I did, I am only putting them on the list so that I may RECOGNIZE that I did harm to them. I am planning to get willing to ACKNOWLEDGE the harm I did them. I cannot expect or look for their response! No one is under any obligation just because I am working a step and refraining from drinking. These are things I really need to wrap my head around.
Another piece of this that requires willingness, as well as courage is that I have two people left on my list with whom amends have not been made. The reason is that I have not been able to find these people. I had three, but when I was 25 years sober, I found one of those people. Social media gives us some great tools for finding people. So I may sit with this list for a while.
I also had not included people that I later ran into and had to clean up what I had done. The way that went was to ask them what I could do to amend the situation and give them a better sense of the person I was striving to become and how I could “right my wrongs”. They told me in most cases, so I did not apologize, but did what they asked.
I have to say that the 8th Step has given me more opportunity for feeling the things I had buried than any other step. The courage to feel those things I had covered up with drinking and drugs was something I was not entirely prepared to have. I am glad it has been a process of gradually “uncovering, discovering, and discarding” as Chuck C. so beautifully put it!
Dolphin Hug 