Blog entry for:

when i remember that 1 am doing the very best i can. and someday i, too, will need forgiveness.
well i really cannot wrap my mind around this topic, today. i am still spinning from the conversation i had last night with my sponsor, concerning my ongoing sixth step and a whole bunch of other things. i have yet to finish processing what we spoke about, so i am unwilling to write about it here, at least this morning, so i will do my level best to work on the resentments vs forgiveness topic that was handed to me this morning.
i do not know why i am having such trouble pondering this topic, of course as a human being and an addict in recovery, i need forgiveness, sometimes on a daily basis. i also have the ability to get angry and feel hurt when ‘someone steps on my toes!’ the reading speaks about that kind of situation, and how if i dwell on such events, the process of forming a resentment kicks off in full force. a short break to refocus and come back to what i was saying. yes forming a resentment, in my opinion, is a process not an event. it is triggered in this addict by an event that i find somehow unacceptable, and as the reading speaks directly to, that process can be stopped at any point, even when it has already run its course and i have a full blown resentment created and ready to polish with the emery cloth of further actions by the party that allowed me the opportunity to get this started. after all, if they hurt me once, i like to gather evidence about how justified i was in building the resentment, and how justified i am in keeping it nice and shiny and brand new.
so forgiveness is the key to short-circuiting this process and letting go of the finished product, i can of coiurse carry these around until the next time i work a fourth and fifth step. regardless of how pretty i make a resentment, it is still poison to my spiritual being. i am perverse enough, as my past has shown, to like pretty poison, however i am also healthy enough to realize that the manner of living that i still carry out, is undergoing a change and all i have to do is to step out of the way and let it manifest those changes, automagically!
in in the end, what i walk away from this morning is that i have a choice -- either practice the spiritual principle of forgiveness in all areas of my life or poison myself with the weight and vileness of yet another resentment. that path is up to me, just for today.

∞ DT ∞