ACCEPTANCE MONTH: DAY 22: “It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.”― Aaron Lauritsen
As we go about this process of recovery, it is important that we remember where we have been. Have we moved on without cleaning up some wreckage we may have left behind?
As a person who has moved A LOT and had lots of different jobs in different places, I have to check in with myself when I make a change. I work hard to leave behind the best possible sense of myself I can with those I depart from and the situations I have been in with them.
It is not necessary that they particularly like me, since I know that is often not the case in this world. But I do want them to know that I was honest, integral, and worked to the best of my ability to have been a good example of this program and its 12 spiritual principles.
I once had a sponsor who called me “Saint Kelly” because I refused to retaliate with a particularly nasty boss I was working with, nor would I quit the job before I had another in place. While that seems to be a common understanding, it was a challenge because of the horrid nature of what this woman did in the workplace to humiliate me. It was in her best interests to push me to quit, since she had no basis for firing me and we had a personality conflict that was uncomfortable, to say the least. But she knew I was a member of a 12-step program and I wanted her to always know that I was acting with as much “adult” as I could muster. I eventually left under good terms with her boss, and felt that I was doing the right thing, even when I wanted to punch her on several occasions.
That is who we strive to be, not every day, and there are other times when I have in ways that were other than I might have, if only to avoid the cleaning up of those messes down the road. I don’t want to burn bridges or make messes that I do not clean up. We have the steps to do these things, and I am an advocate of using them, no matter what.
I want to be that example for people who may never know what the BB says or what these steps are all about. But, just in case, I want to be a good example, because my life is so much richer, and my self-respect is so much greater when I do. This quote reminds me again of what I strive for in this world of recovery.
Dolphin Hug 