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determines, to a great extent, the quality of my very life.
so the better i treat the people i encounter, the better my life will be. an interesting concept, and of course i am reading more into this than was said. that is my nature, and this morning that is what struck me most about this particular reading.
before going down that line, i will talk about what the main idea of this reading is, namely becoming willing to amend the relationships i have damaged and destroyed in the past. many of those relationships were far beyond repair when i came to recovery. i was the type that used people for as long as i could then ’X-d’ them out of my life. so the relationships that were still intact, no matter what their current condition became very important to me, when i first approached this step. i would lie about how important they were, because being dependent on others was hardly the persona i wanted to show, nevertheless, i was desperate to retain those relationships and was more than willing during my first course of the twelve steps.
so the eighth step has always been a very important step to me, and it will be interesting what shows up when i approach this step for the third time some time in the future. however, i am not on that step now, so of course i focus on a different message...
it has been my experience, that how i treat the people i encounter on a daily basis does effect my mood, my serenity and my outlook on life. if i find fault by judging their behavior, i find myself judging myself, and i am the harshest judge of me i know. if i disrespect them and treat them as less than myself, i find myself feeling less than everyone else, after all a few days in recovery should have weeded that behavior out my my garden. on the other hand, when i treat them as equals, and accept them for who they are, i find myself feeling equal, and i find a bit of self-acceptance. so for me, practicing these principles in all my affairs, create a better sense of self and i am in a better mood, after all don’t i know who i am? an addict in recovery learning how to live with my human condition. and for me, that is a good place to end this little missive and move into my day!

∞ DT ∞