DISCIPLINE MONTH: DAY 11: “It’s been said that there are only two pains in life, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret, and that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”― Anthony Robbins
I got here with a deep ton or two of regret. It was brutal. And it was all I needed to own my shit and get on with a new way of being. Completely new.
There have been moments of this new life where I questioned the “recovery” way of doing things, versus my old way of doing things. Even had some times when I did what was familiar, rather than what was right. And I paid prices with those tons of regret again. That is why we cannot stop this process. It is always going to inform us with how we grow and change in each situation. What used to be uncomfortable, unusual, and new is now the way I live and think and breathe. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. I am most surprised when I do the honest and right thing. It seems funny somehow.
Yet I have become hardwired to that instead of the lying and cheating I once employed as my only go-to skills. I love this quote. It was new to me this year, so I am enjoying playing with the ideas it brings up for me to expound upon.
I seldom feel that weight of regret on my back these days. Thank God for that! It has been removed, due to not doing the things that are objectionable any longer. It never really mattered whether or not you, or the church, or the society I lived within found my actions and attitudes unacceptable, but I did. And I did not know until I met you folks that the pain I felt was about MY behavior and actions and attitudes. I really thought it was all about you f—–g up my life. I swear I did. And when YOU did something I did not like, I used that excuse to do 1000 things that were wrong, wrong in my heart. And that is where the pain started and stayed.
My heart is free today. And when it comes up in a Step 10 that I have been wrong, that burden is so much easier to unload, because I have learned how to do that here.
Dolphin Hug 