Blog entry for:

so the morning has not gone as planned, as i ended up working from home today. what i heard, what was several hours ago, was that as my sponsee reminded me last night, i DO have some power over how i see my past today.
finally i am back at this. what i first heard was that the steps were the panacea for dealing with my past. that was before i sat down and allowed myself to listen. after my 11th step practice, what i felt was that the past is how i got here. there will always be parts of my past that haunt me, and no matter how “well” i get, the guilt will be there. what the process of the steps has given me, however, is the power to be more than just a collection of guilt over what i once did.
once upon a time, guilt equaled shame. i would take all of my feelings of guilt,. internalize them and beat myself up, demonstrating how unworthy ni was of being forgiven, hence a real piece of sh!t. as i started to say, at the top, the steps have removed the power that my past has over me. i now see that i did things that were not good. i now see that i once caused damage. i now, however see, that those events were a part of of an unbreakable chain, BECAUSE i was in active addiction, not because i lacked anything, save the ability to be a bit less selfish and self-centered.
as i grow up in the program and towards the man i want to be, i can accept that in active addiction, i acted out of self-centered self-interest. today, i have the choice, whether or not to disregard the world around me, and act like a real sh!t. the best part? well the best part is that today i have a choice, in action as well as in how i look at my past. i can CHOOSE to carry the shame and beat myself up, or i can CHOOSE to see that as what once was, and let it go. today, i have FAITH that if i live an active program of recovery, the POWER that fuels my recovery, will give me what i need to forgive myself for all those past transgressions as well as preventing them from happening in the here and now.
it is time however to put this to bed and move into being present for my employer and lunch time.
just for today, i can live in the present tense!

∞ DT ∞