COURAGE MONTH: DAY 17: “The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are — without apology, without excuses, without masks to cover the truth of who you are.”― Debbie Ford
We get here, to this recovery life, with so many coverups, lies, and hidden agendas. We are people-pleasers because it keeps people from looking too closely at what we are really up to.
That may or may not change as these steps go on, for many it takes years to unlearn all the toxic ideas we get here with. Most of us have had some history of trauma, abuse, neglect, etc. and have developed deeply ingrained patterns of behavior that are filled with survival, but not life, skills.
We have become so insanely dishonest with self and others that we cannot figure out who the hell we are, much less walk through the world honestly. That is what these steps are specifically designed to work on. There is so much grace in getting and remaining clean and sober that we are there before we even know it, but the rest of our lives has to be dedicated to deepening our relationship with that Power.
That Power is IN us, so if we are still full of toxic ideas and ways of behaving and believing, we cannot go into spiritual relationship with anything. Cannot happen. We are just filled with Ego.
The steps are the way we get to the point where we can drop the shells of personality development, or lack thereof, that have sheltered us in the past. We have to let go of surviving and learn how to live, really live, this life as it unfolds, one day at a time, every day…until the end.
That is the real purpose here, to show ourselves as we were created to be…in every aspect…our beauty belongs to Universal Power who created us and is awaiting our arrival with open arms. We just have the task of working through the crap that stands in the way of our coming home to God.
Dolphin Hug 