FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 8: “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”― Robert A. Heinlein
There are a few rules I break. I know the consequences of them. I have broken rules at agencies where I have worked to do greater benefit to those clients I served as I saw it. Sometimes there were consequences and I paid them. I will always fight against rules that keep people from receiving the greatest benefits possible from services they receive.
I drive far faster than the speed limit almost all the time. I acknowledge this because there are some pretty high prices to pay for this behavior. I know them and will pay if and when I am called on for an accounting.
I take full responsibility today for my actions and behaviors, choices and their outcomes. This is all a big part of recovery. To grow up and see that my attitudes, my beliefs, and ALL actions are on me. I always had such a victim story and used that to blame others for my shit. Now I have no story around that. Yes, a lot of awful things happen in the world, some of them were done to me, but I reframe all of it to be that they were done FOR me. That way, I get to keep the power and the strength I received from overcoming and surviving those stories.
Step 9 keeps me accountable. I must clean up my messes, even when I am stuck in an old story and do things from that space. Doing this keeps me on the track of recovery. I AM accountable for all of it. When I get to see how I am stuck in an old story, I get to keep moving forward toward a more healing version of myself. This is key for me. I want the ability to CHOOSE my ways of being. Understanding and working through this shit takes forever, but that is what I am here to do anyway. Thank God for these steps and how they require ME to grow the hell up and be responsible and accountable.
Dolphin Hug 