LOVE MONTH: DAY 25: “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Truly, I believe this is what hell is. When I meet unhappy people, their tale of woe is often that things in life have been disappointing and unfair for them. They can only see what is wrong with life, they have no love for others or for life in their hearts.
Today I see them as great teachers. There is one of these teachers whom I have known all my life, and there is no end to this lesson. Because I have learned so well, I lived in this fashion for many years myself; and have been given the great gift of appreciation as expressed through gratitude.
As I work through these 12 steps and their accompanying principles, my spirit increases. I grow to be a bigger version of myself, a version that is more focused on others and the love in the world than on the misery and pain I perceived it to contain for so long.
I focus more frequently on the gifts of life and recovery that are not available at any price, other than to lay down my anger and pain and grab hold of that love and grace that I used to swear I did not need or want.
I focus more freely on the beauty and wonder of the world around me than on the material aspects of life that drove me into insanity for the first half of life.
I focus more often on what I can do to show YOU how wonderful this world and recovery are and what you can do to receive what I have received.
My vision turns away from hell into heaven, just like that. I may not have all that I thought I wanted; but I have found that what I have is so far superior to anything I could have asked for that I quit asking. That is such grace that I cannot fathom a way to put it into words.
And I find that most my time is spent in reaching for the illusive conversation with that Power to say Thank You in ways that feel deeper and richer than I have ever before been able to speak.
And I see that I am able to love, deeply and well, because my old heart was broken open in so many places. I did not know, before, the necessity of those breakings, except to expand its capacity for awe and wonder and greater love.
Then I have stepped out of hell and into the most amazing thing that has ever been known by me. And all I want is for you, and you, and you, and you, and you to join me in the most incredible journey I could ever have imagined…Love and Peace!
Dolphin Hug 