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mistakes are often my best teachers, there is no shame in making mistakes. as the reading goes on to say, the problem comes when i choose not to learn from my mistakes, and yesterday was one of those days where i made many mistakes and actually learned from them. one of the lessons i learned was to be less quick to defend and more circumspect in my dealings.
what struck me the most from this reading was the bits about shame. it is fitting that as i approach the next phase of my seventh step, as i start to integrate my new vision for myself, and as i move into a new phase of my service work, that shame be a topic that i need to visit, however briefly. it would be nice to say that all the shame i feel has been eliminated through my various journeys through the steps and dumped along the side of the path like the garbage that it is. nice however does not equate to true. there is still some shame that i feel from time to time, mostly about events and actions that are long past, but in the context of this reading, even when i do something that i SHOULD know is going to be a mistake. i look at mistakes as things to be avoided at all costs, and often live in FEAR of feeling the shame of making a mistake or three across the course of my day. then i am frozen from trying anything new or different. then of course i feel bored and restless, so i act-out to try and relieve that felling. kind of a sick little cycle, because then i feel ashamed of acting-out, so once again i fall back into the fear and do nothing.
SICK -- SICK -- SICK
so along comes a reading, that more than suggests that it is okay to make a mistake, as long as i am trying to do something different, taking a risk so to speak. the most ironic part of my fear of risk-taking is that when i was ion active addiction i took risks all the time without feeling any sort of fear or trepidation, and now that i am clean i seemed to be riddled with nothing but fear. so what is the point, SHOULD i go back to living a drug induced fearless life or do i need to allow myself to be human, take a risk, and make a mistake or three? that answer is self-evident and i know what i need to do today -- take a risk or two and see what happens! if it turns out badly, i will store that lesson away for the future and try something new. it is all about living my life in a new and different manner today!

∞ DT ∞