Blog entry for:

without much self-acceptance, although i acted as if i accepted myself, just the way i was. so there is a long sentence, with several thoughts, at least they are not disparate thoughts, but sort of flow into a overarching idea for this little ditty this morning.
i know i have written before about the level of denial when i came to the program, and how it prevented me from seeing how little of myself i could accept, way back when. even after thirteen months of going through the motions, in that other fellowship, i was still nowhere close to accepting myself as i was. in fact, it was even worse because that first layer of sh!t had been scraped away, exposing me to myself for the first time in a quarter of a century. life in that state and that fellowship sucked for me, and if not for my lack of desire not to pay the legal consequences of a quick get high and roll, i would have been long gone.
well that was then and this is now. almost three step cycles later, i have no doubts about who i am, and amazingly have very little FEAR about going down into the sh!thole of the FOURTH STEP again. this time, hopefully there will be more treasures than trash. i am not on the FOURTH STEP, however, so all of that is no different than planning what i will do when i win POWERBALL, fun but quite pointless, as i very rarely buy any tickets.
so fast forward to today, and where am i sitting now, on the self-acceptance spectrum. i am hardly fully-realized and accepting of myself, just the way i am, but i am much closer to that ideal. each and every time i return to the steps, i get a bit closer to discovering the real me. i know there are traditions that say once enough it is the TEN through TWELVE cycle that prevents any repeats of the steps. for me, that would have been such a waste, as i would have never really uncovered the stuff that happened over 40 years ago, that is destroying my life today.
i do have to get running, but at least i know what i am today and have a good clue about how to be better than i was yesterday, just stay a member of the No Matter What Club!

∞ DT ∞