May 9

INTEGRITY MONTH: DAY 9: “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” – Buddha

YES! I have recently been in the process of battling a personal set of circumstances that went on for many years. The effects of these events have been with me for a lifetime.

I have never been able to resolve so much of this situation, until the Universe brought it into my life and set it down in front of me in such a way that I KNEW I was being given a big gold key…and I am happy to say that a big part of the process was fulfilled for me yesterday. There is more to do and more to walk through, but the tide turned for the first time in over 40 years!

And I felt the shift. It has opened up SO much space in my heart and in my spirit in the last 9 months of the work I was given to do. I embraced it all, because of the experiences I have had since very early on of healing the boogey men and putting them behind me.

This victory is not only mine, but the Universe that gifted me with the outcomes of the experience, the experience itself, and all the lessons that were part and parcel of the process, from beginning to end, of what I got to do and the people who were part of all of it.

Some of those people may be seen as monsters, but I am most grateful to them for who I am NOW. I get the whole picture. They were here to teach me some stuff that no other kind of lessons could have taught. Wow!

There is no way this kind of deep and powerful healing is happening for everyone who comes into this recovery thing. I see that, but I sure as hell am grateful it is happening for me. There are so many deeply wounded souls out there, sitting in meetings and waiting for the Joy to happen for them. This is not a path for all of us.

However, it is the path I have walked and I am so grateful for that! It will inform me for the rest of my life. The journey continues with this piece, but I know it does not matter where it goes from here. I have fulfilled a promise I made to myself and someone I dearly loved. The rest is window dressing, at least to me.

At any point in time, we can choose to walk away from dealing with the depth of woundedness and the consequences it has had on our souls. I surely believed I wanted to. I just knew when the opportunity came to me that I could NOT pretend it wasn’t my time to heal.

I have made that contract (Step 3) with the Universal Power that I will do whatever shows up in my life to do. And that is how I open each door.

I look inside and ask my heart if this is for me. Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. There are times when I jump into things because my ego is baited. Boy, does that ever blow up in my face! It is a great day in my spirit today.

And that is because this does not affect anyone but me. There are no medals here, just the kind of warrior spirit I want to continue to have when life feels terrifying and the Universe tells me that it is time to walk through that shit and see the truth. And I have only conquered myself for this moment. There is always more to know and learn.

But I will take this one and savor it for the next time, because that is what Experience, Strength and Hope is all about.