ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 16: “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
It may be a stretch to use this quote about nonviolence. However, I believe that we are people who live with a great deal of violence in our hearts.
It begins with the belief that we are different from others. Then we begin to magnify those differences in our hearts and minds. This isolates us from the world around us. We are dying from loneliness, but it is truly of our own making.
Such is borne the fear of others, then it turns to anger and hatred; always made manifest in violence and rage.
Sadly, most addicts live with this in their lives for many years, even after they gain freedom from addiction. Chuck C. spoke about that kind of separation and how we die from those beliefs on a spiritual as well as physical level because we are cutoff from connection to God when we are cut off from our fellow human beings.
This is the crisis that culminates in our need for drugs and alcohol and all other addictions. The incessant longing we have for connection and the ego belief that it is impossible. We have all had the experience, and we are dying from it.
When we begin to accept love for ourselves, we begin to open our hearts to the acceptance of our commonality with others. This is the process that allows us to let go of these beliefs and move into acceptance of ME and toward acceptance of YOU.
I cannot harm you when you are my friend, my brother, my teacher, the person who guided me toward a life that feels infinitely richer than the one I once inhabited. I must thank you and love you, even when I may disagree or dislike you for some reason.
Thus, is our fellowship formed and maintained. I see it being played out in rooms all over the world, and it has been since 1935.
What began with those two men who met and accepted the ugliest things about each other, the deepest secrets and shame; today occurs for any addict who wishes to live “in the sunlight of the spirit”. And it does not end with only those whose addictions bring to our lives.
We begin to see our humanity in others all around us. We begin to expand that spiritual experience into the world we inhabit and grow it to embrace those who surround us on all sides.
We may not be able to do this at first, but as time goes on; it happens to us, often without our even being aware it is happening.
We begin to accept others and their journeys through life, just as we can see our own journeys. We begin to love them for the similarities we find, rather than fear them for their differences. We truly begin to see others and the world around us through new eyes and love them with our opened hearts. These things, I know, are nothing short of miraculous. Peace!
Dolphin Hug 