HONESTY MONTH: DAY 19: “Never do anything that you can’t admit doing, because if you are that ashamed of whatever it is, it’s probably wrong.” ― Ashly Lorenzana
This would be a great way to live, but I doubt it is possible for anyone. If it were, none would embrace religious dogma that embraces “forgiveness”, “redemption”, being “saved”, “confession”, etc.
We get to clean up our past with the Steps. If we don’t, we are doomed to living with the shame and remorse and resentment that come from either not admitting our wrongs or blaming them on others. It is uncomfortable to live without drugs and alcohol and a lot of bad feelings about who we are and what we have done.
I know people who have been around recovery for many, many years and never talk about the things that they did or what happened to them in the past. Not that we have to be graphic about these things; but keeping them secret really keeps us stuck in ugly patterns of belief and behavior.
That is the part of being as “sick as our secrets.” I agree with that. There are skeletons in everyone’s closet. I don’t trust people who judge other people. My experience is that those who judge are often the keepers of the worst secrets themselves. Just how it seems to unfold.
I have amazing relationships with some pretty amazing people. If they have judgments, they have learned to keep them in their mouths. I don’t want to hear them. I also don’t care to know that they are believing they are too virtuous to grasp the nature of their own wrongs.
We must be careful with this stuff. Admit it all freely. It costs nothing to walk away from all the old ideas and behaviors. Except letting go of your beliefs in what is right and wrong. There is no such measuring stick in this Universe. If you believe there is, it is because a human being told you so. They don’t know. If they did, they would not give you that information anyway.
We are all here, stumbling about on this marble, sometimes bumping into each other. It is vital and necessary that we learn to let go of judgments and superior (or inferior) attitudes and just learn to BE. We don’t have to get good here. We have to let go and learn to co-exist with 7 billion other folks or so. That is a tall order.
Most of all, we must learn to let go and learn to co-exist with the Universe and this entity we are here to be. We have something to do. It is to recover, or we would not be given the opportunity in the first place. I don’t believe in whimsical, temperamental, give-and-take arbitrariness of the Universal Power. It does not give a gift to snatch it back. We are given this gift to grab hold of and use with all the energy we would put into finding booze and drugs when we ran out.
We are given this gift of an amazing new life just as we were completely bottoming out on the one we were given initially. At the time when we had destroyed everything good and fine we were given, we had a second chance, sometimes a third, fourth and fifth.
It is so simple. And yes, I believe it is easy. I know for sure it is never hard. That battle only really happens in our friggin’ heads! So, sit down and do the work. Talk with a sponsor, get their guidance on this thing….and then do it 10,000 times again if you must, but let go of the crap…it is killing you in some pretty ugly ways. That is all…
Dolphin Hug 