June 21

HUMILITY MONTH: DAY 21: “To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” ― Criss Jami

Somewhere, in the long history of my crazy thinking, is the notion that; if I make myself vulnerable to you, you have the ability to hurt me in some way.

This is a really, really old idea. And wisdom has come to teach me this is not the case, after all. I cannot be hurt by you. Literally. You do not have the ability to cause me harm, other than to steal from me or shoot me.

Even then, I cannot imagine that I am that important to you, for you to cause me those kinds of harm. And life has taught me that I am NOT that important to you anyway.

Life has also taught me that your opinion of me is none of my business. This is the greatest freedom in the world for a people-pleaser like me.

Another piece of this old idea is the notion that I must die trying to get everyone to like me. Even those with whom I don’t particularly care to interact. This took some time to process through.

My ego feeds insecurity and fear. It has stories around this stuff. I have been actively disliked in my life. It did not kill me. And I found that I did not really have any impact in my day-to-day existence, once I got past my ego.

Okay. So, I am not here to run for prom queen. I can be as fragile a human being as I want, and it does not matter what you believe about that. It may fuel some gossip…damn! As, a group, we are really bad about that!

So, what? I truly would rather be spoken of by others than ignored completely…hahaha…my ego truly loves that!

There is nothing that you can do to harm me. I don’t take your actions personally. They are NOT a picture of who I am, they are a picture of who you are.

I am very uncomfortable around gossip. I don’t like it. I would love to say that I never participate, but that would be a lie. I just know I participate less and less often.

And I am able to, these days, say something when others want to do it in my presence. I don’t have to be all self-righteous about it, but I do say: “I don’t know about that. It feels like it is someone else’s business.”

And then I steer the conversation back to the person who is speaking. It is not a judgment or anything. But recovery members can be vicious and brutal. With the advent of social media, we are all in the middle of other people’s business too much anyway. It all makes me uncomfortable.

My time and energy are precious. I have learned that I can lay myself out for exposure. I am very open about aspects of my life (especially here!) that are less than wonderful. I can freely admit who I am and what I do. Recovery has given me that; and I call it true freedom.

I am flawed and perfect at the same time. That makes me smile in my heart. We are all flawed and perfect at the same time. I hope that makes you smile in your heart too.

What I know about that is that I cannot judge you without destroying my day. So, being selfish as I am; and knowing it due to the many, many inventories I have done, I will keep my eyes on me and not ruin any part of MY day. This will give us both the freedom to be flawed and perfect at the same time! Peace!