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i am amazed at the simplicity of their answer. okay, i know the reading was about balance in my life, expressly the balance between recovery and my so-called real life. the amazing part of this reading, is once again, it speaks as if, all of that needs to be separated into different compartments ts and than quantized into discrete units such as a grain of sand. that notion, is exactly opposite of what i am discovering works in my life. looking at my time as a whole and fitting my activities, be they recovery-related, family-related, socially-related or work-related, is the task at hand, not necessarily balancing all of them one task at a time. balance, at least for me, and perhaps i am getting into that “old-timer” category, is not something i work at, i just take direction form the POWER that fuels my recovery and allow my life to flow accordingly. for someone that needs to have control over his life, just the notion that balance is not a conscious decision of what and what not to do, is a spooky proposition. it is nearly as scary as telling someone, the time has come to get off their a$$ and start working steps again, because what they think they are presenting to the world does not match what the world is seeing.
that is however a digression, going back to the whole life principle, i see why i struggle so much with balancing recovery with the rest of my life. it is because i was taught to view it as exactly that two disparate pieces, that appear to be mutually exclusive. it is exactly the same principle that seems to pervades the thinking of many of my peers, that each and every one of the manifestations of addiction in their life, somehow needs to be singled out for special attention. recovery, work, social activities and family are all part of my life, trying to separate each and every one out and “balance” the scales, seems to be counter-productive and a waste of the precious time i am allotted each day. somehow, the less i worry and fret about balancing my life, the more balanced it is. quite a concept, and it probably has its root back in STEPS 1 through 3. the amazing thing that i see happening in my life, at least as far as recovery goes, is when i stop and listen, i hear the bullsh!t, i once believed being spouted all over the place. i hear the desperate cries for help and see the clutching and grabbing behaviors that are me, and i feel envious and angry. envious, because i can no longer tolerate myself when i behave in that manner, and angry, because i believe that somehow, they are polluting the purity of what we are all about, and i want to root out that desecration by the short hairs and pitch into a lake of eternally burning bitumen.
fortunately for me, and for those around me, i have STEPS 10 through 12, as part of my life. i recognize that envy is a feeling arising from character defect of inadequate self-esteem. i could perform like a trained circus monkey to garner the feigned respect and admiration of my peers, and have to deal with that every single night in my inventory. OR i can recognize what is happening, to me, and allow myself the freedom and yes the balance to say, just for today, that needs not be me. just for today, i can be genuine and whole, and the balance that once eluded me in my recovery, will be manifest with no effort on my part. so as i move into this cold and snowy Mother's day, and have to deal with my siblings, as well as my peers, i will remember that i can be as distressed as i want to be, but like sh!tting in my pants, no one but me feels the discomfort or has to deal with the mess. it is a great day to be clean and certainly being clean is what i am all about today.

∞ DT ∞