Forgiveness

     I notice that when people talk about ‘forgiving someone’ they are under the illusion that forgiveness is something they do for the other person. I have heard it expressed that someone was ‘big enough’ to forgive. In my experience, forgiveness is something I do for me.

     Forgiveness = release from the burden of resentment. Resentment is a heavy weight to carry around. It’s like trying to carry around a fifty pound bag of loose sand that’s always shifting. It’s cumbersome and uncomfortable and takes all of our energy and focus. Putting that burden down is a relief.  

     Life is too short to carry around unnecessary mental crap. It just makes us negative and tired and angry and impatient. It makes us old before our time. Have you ever spent time with a bitter person? Their faces are often pinched and lined in unpleasantness, and their attitudes are very limited. They cannot see around the resentments. The resentments they are holding onto in order to punish others are taking front and centre stage in their lives and blocking out all of the good stuff. The person they are punishing is themselves.

    Forgiveness is the key to liberation. Making the decision to let go of an old, or new, hurt is freeing, and we do it so that we feel better. I often don’t even tell the person I have forgiven about my forgiveness. It’s personal, and generally the other person doesn’t even know that I was angry. It’s something I do for me.

     Sometimes, with really old stuff that we have been carrying around for a long time, it is necessary to get some help to clear away the wreckage of the past. Sometimes the debris are too piled up and confused for us to deal with on our own. Whether the person we share with is our sponsor or a therapist, we need the perspective of someone else to help us to see what is there, organize it, take responsibility for what is ours, and work through the rest of the stuff to a place of forgiveness. Sometimes, dealing with really old stuff takes time and work, but the goal is the same – liberation from the past; a lighter, freer existence, and a fifty pound bag of shifting sand off of our backs. We are free to see and enjoy this day!

Try This:

The next time you find yourself feeling angry or hurt, don’t push the feeling away. Don’t fantasize about revenge. Don’t eat or spend or watch TV – for a few moments just feel the weight of that emotion. Feel what it does to your body, the tension, the lead ball in the stomach. Then decide if you want to live with it, or put it down. Would your life be better off without it? 

You are Richer Than You Know

     What is gratitude, and how does it relate to recovery and life in general? Does gratitude depend upon outside influences and the current status of our life, or is gratitude contingent upon our attitudes? Is it a combination of inner and outer life? What does gratitude have to do with recovery anyway?

     When I was out there drinking and using it was all about ‘what’s in it for me?’ If the outer circumstances of life included ‘problems’ – which it invariable does, especially for an active addict/alcoholic – than happiness, gratitude and good will were out of the question. I am certain I experienced brief periods of happiness during my drinking career, but those times were fleeting and I would invariable seek to recapture those good feeling by attempting to rearranging the outer conditions of my life. And there was always blaming to fall back on if it didn't work out. If my life was not going right than it was always someone else’s fault.

     Being clean and sober for a few twenty-four hours has given me the time to understand that gratitude is a gift. When I share time with someone I love I leave feeling grateful for having that person in my life. When I am driving home from work and happen to see a particularly beautiful sunrise, a ‘thank you’ comes unbidden to my lips. Opportunities to share with others, to experience the beauties of the world, laughter, the wonder of a new baby, the sound of crickets on a summer night – there are too many wonderful experiences to name, but they all inspire and move me and help me to be grateful.

     Something else I have learned is that outer circumstances are never perfect. If I am waiting for my life to be perfect to enjoy it, I will waste my whole life waiting. Life is too vibrant to be static; it is the challenges that help us grow as people; the difficulties that create character and help us to develop faith.

     The time to be grateful is now, with whatever is happening in my life. If I can stop and notice the world around me, the people who I share it with, perhaps I will let a little light in. Perhaps I will open myself to the gift of gratitude.

Try This:

Stop. Look at what is around you right now, the people you have in your life, the beauty of nature, where you live, the food you eat, the car you drive, the clothes you are wearing. Stop and realize how rich you truly are. Want is greedy, but gratitude is rich. Start your own appreciation movement now, no matter how imperfect you life may be. You just might find that focusing on the positive, being grateful for what you have right now – just this small but significant switch in attitude – might just open the door to riches beyond your wildest dreams. 

A New Way of Living

     If I had known all of the behaviors that I would end up changing as a result of sobriety and recovery, I may have said ‘forget it!’ My only goal was not to drink or drug – stop. In a brief moment of sanity during my last drunk I saw with clarity that all of the problems in my life were a result of drinking. Therefore, if I could just not drink than life would be good.

     There was more to it than that. While not drinking was a major achievement – and one I had been unable to consistently meet throughout my drinking career, more was required of me than putting a ‘plug in the jug.’ In order to not fall back on drinking – my support, my fun, the drug that dulled the pain of life – in order not to pick up again I had to look at how I was living.

     ‘If nothing changes, nothing changes.’

     ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.’

     Underneath the compulsion to numb my feelings with a chemical substance was insecurity, fear, confusion, resentment, and the knowledge that I was just not worth saving. I reacted to life, rather than making choices. My knee-jerk response to discomfort was to get rid of it as soon as possible. Feelings were the enemy.

     Recovery required me to talk about what was going on. For that I needed people in the program who could understand. I needed to learn how to be honest about what I was feeling. I had to take the risk of allowing other people to ‘see’ me in a way I never had before. I had to begin to pray to a God that I was frightened of, because late at night there was only God and me. I had to develop faith in something I could not see; in a process I had not lived – and I had to learn to feel the feelings as they came up, and listen to what they were telling me.

     The way of life that stood before me was different; it was filled with both hope and doubt, but either I went forward, or back to the hell of active addiction. I already knew what was back there, and I didn’t want it. The road ahead held hope, and I only needed to take one step at a time, one day at a time – or one minute at a time if that was all I could do.

     A life of recovery is filled with new opportunities, new experiences. It holds expectation of something better than the lives we leave behind, but we can never know this unless we take the first step, and the one after that, and the next one. The good thing is we don’t have to do it alone. We have many people who walk the journey with us every day. We have meetings filled with people who understand our fears. We are offered a new life and are only ever asked to take it little by little, one step at a time.

Try this:

The next time you feel the compulsion to act up in some way, drinking or drugging, eating, gambling, smoking, shopping, isolating, sleeping, withdrawing from the vitality of life – try allowing that compulsion to just be. Feel the energy and know that you don’t have to act on it. People the world over have similar compulsions. The energy will pass, but in the meantime find a place where you can share it. There are people who understand. You are no longer alone. 

The Ego vs Humility & Peace

     There are two sides to our ego. One side needs to be noticed, praised, loved, superior, the best, right and all of the other outer recognitions that help us to feel good about ourselves. The other side of ego is insecurity, fear of being imperfect or wrong, anger and resentment at others who might point out that we are wrong, and a plethora of unhealthy, uncomfortable feelings that create walls between ourselves and the people we love, admire or even dislike because we might suspect they are better than us in some way.

     Needless to say that ego is a problem that creates more problems. It will cause us to move through our lives in a state of anger and resentment. How dare he, she or them! The need to rationalize our position will call to mind the many reasons why the other person is wrong and we are right.

     Where is the peace? Where is the happiness and joy in life? The ego, with its insatiable need to be right, the best, better than anyone else, more knowledgeable, more perfect – it has stolen our pleasure in life. It is like the plant in the movie Little Shop of Horrors – as it grows larger and larger it screams ‘FEED ME!’ But no amount of feeding is enough. No amount of feeding brings the peace and satisfaction we desire.

     The opposite of ego is humility; that essential spiritual state that does not clamber for recognition or the need to be right or MORE. Humility is soft and pliable and content. Humility says, ‘Perhaps I am wrong. What can I learn from this situation?’ Humility demands nothing and brings to us the capacity for love, generosity, kindness, goodwill, and happiness. It is an essential spiritual quality if one is attempting to live in peaceful equanimity with the rest of planet Earth. It is ultimately more fulfilling than the need to be right.

Try This:

Try connecting with that part of yourself that needs to be right. Catch the anger that is seething beneath this need, the insatiable drive to be better than. How does that feel. Does that energy bring peace, or turbulence? Try saying ‘You may be right.’ It is a step in the right direction, and one that may be difficult at first, but the energy of humility is soft, subtle and ultimately peaceful. Try it.  

A Power Greater Than Ourselves

     The life of an active addict is one of self. The self is often locked in a cycle of seeking relief in the addiction, fighting the addiction, indulging in the addiction, and then experiencing remorse or guilt after indulging. It is a cycle that does not leave much room for considering how the people around us may be affected by our behaviors. But they are. The people closest to us are always impacted by our active addictions.

     In all this ‘selfing’ and in the approach and retreat from addictive behavior, the only time we may acknowledge a power greater than ourselves is when we are in trouble: Lord, please get me out of this one and I’ll never drink (drug) again. And when the issue passes, we are our own agents once more, directing our lives and forgetting the desperation of our prayers.

     A Power Greater than Ourselves. Have we ever considered such a being, available to us in the good times and bad, co-creating in our lives? My previous acknowledgement of a God was one who was very angry with me. My childhood God was a punishing God, and I did all I could to try and hide from this Christian being who was very much like Santa Claus: ‘He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.’ What a scary concept to someone who keeps doing the same self-defeating thing over and over again and expecting different results. I did not want anything to do with that God.

     However, through the process of recovery I have been forced to develop a relationship with a Higher Power. I can use the name ‘God’ but it is neither accurate nor necessary. The all-loving, kind, beneficent, guiding influence in my life cannot be accurately captured with words. But my Higher Power is here with me each day, to share the seconds of my life, to guide and love and comfort me. This Higher Power resides both within and without and is in everyone and everything.

    The process of developing an awareness of our Higher Power is a daily process; awareness created slowly over time; reliance resulting in new freedom and the joy of knowing that we are never alone. What a comfort.

     Begin this journey for yourself. Ask today for the openness and trust to allow your Higher Power to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Then do it again tomorrow. Talk to your God, Buddha, Mohammed, Allah, Abba, Krishna, Ramma or the Soul of the Universe. Begin the conversation with disbelief and watch your relationship grow under an ongoing ‘conscious contact’ with the Love of ALL Beings made manifests in your life.

Try This:

Sit quietly with yourself, seeking only to connect with what is deepest inside of you. The light of God is within, and, in the Quaker tradition, it ‘grows’ as we pay attention to it. Sit with your Light for a few minutes in the morning attempting to feel your heart centre which is your connection with All That Is. Don’t seek results; just seek connection, and you will be amazed at what happens over time. The Life Within, which has always been there with, or without, your awareness suddenly stirs and awakens, budding, flowering, blooming within, warming your soul and filling your life with meaning. ‘Be still and know that I am God.’

The Places We Hide

Alcohol and drugs are just two of the many places where we can hide out from life, with all of its emotions, complications and challenges. There is also food, gambling, relationships, sleeping, raging, spending, people-pleasing, codependency – essentially any substance or activity that attempts to insulate us from life, and ultimately keeps us stuck. These behaviors might appear as solutions, but they are places where we hide from both the terrible and wonderful of life.

     It is only when a behavior turns on us that we are forced to look at its impact on our life. If there was no impact to drinking or drugging, I would not be clean and sober today. These destructive places that I used for hiding from the raw edges of life turned on me; they became problems rather than solutions; they cut me off from life, both the difficult and the joyful moments. They no longer worked.

     I remember the waxing and waning of my addictions. I remember running to alcohol when I was feeling happy, sad, angry, worried, anxious, in love, bored – I ran to alcohol to add to my experience and to muffle my experience. Life, on its own, with all its vibrancy and joy and mundane moments, was never enough. I always sought to make a good experience bigger and brighter and MORE, just as I always sought to escape from the more challenging issues of life.

     Learning to live life one moment at a time, riding the rollercoaster of emotions, facing the challenges as they arise with faith and the support of people in the fellowship – this is what I do today and it is ultimately more fulfilling. Of course, my mind still finds a few places to hide today – carbohydrates and sugars still invite me with murmurs and promises of comfort, and at times I listen. But today I am conscious enough to understand that no hiding place ever delivers on what it offers. Rage just makes us more angry; drugs and alcohol destroy us and our relationships; gambling  and spending results in financial loss; sugar results in extra body weight, and relationships that are formed from need rather than love rarely bring us the love we seek.

     Where are our hiding places? What behaviors are keeping us stuck today?

Prayer for the Day:

I pray honestly for the gift of sight; to see the behaviors and activities that I run to, rather than dealing squarely with the ups and downs of life. Lord, give me the courage to face life today. 

Acceptance

     My single most challenge in life is to accept fully the present moment and all of its truths – and allow this moment, right here and right now, to be precisely what it is.

     I always want to change things; rewrite the story; jump into the future; set a goal that will take me out of my current circumstance or worry about what might happen – never mind that it almost never does. None of this is being here, now, fully alive in my life.

     Acceptance is a key requirement of recovery, and ‘being in the moment’ teaches us about life. There is no situation or circumstance that I can change if I do not first accept that it is a fact in my life. My powerlessness over alcohol is a reality that I did not accept for many, many years. It was the elephant in the living room that I tried to ignore and hide. It never went away, but got bigger and bigger until I could no longer ignore it. Thank God the light of sanity was turned on during my last drunk so that I could see the reality of my life, because without the ability to ‘see’ what was there, and the ability to accept it, I could never make the decision to seek help. I would not be sober today, and probably wouldn’t be alive.

     Acceptance of what is, this is not defeat. It is liberation. It is truth. It is the pathway of recovery. True acceptance of what is allows me to deal head-on with issues as they arise so that I can live in some semblance of peace and equanimity. Acceptance is strength; it is not passive, but filled with the energy of right-living.

     Only through acceptance can I look at life squarely, face my demons, ask for and receive help and support, and put a plan in place to deal with them. It is impossible to get dragged down by the difficulties in life if I take the time to be quiet, sit in silence with my Higher Power, listen and accept what is – all the while seeking direction in an attitude of humility.

Prayer for the Day:

I pray that I might sit quietly today, and in the peace of this moment face the truths of my life. What are the current obstacles keeping my stuck? Just the truth of what is; the simple truth of freedom bathed in the light of sanity. Lord, help me to see and to accept what is.