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personal responsibility. so as i sit here this morning, continuing the shutdown of my family business, i am struck by how personal responsibility is playing a huge role in this whole process. i am doing my best to give my family members a soft-landing as it were, and finally they are coming to accept the reality of what may be actually gong on. i understand that i am powerless over market forces, and that resistance to change is much more painful than change itself. i also understand that i need to allow others to reach that same point themselves. even with all that knowledge, over the past few days i have lacked the wisdom to allow them to do just that, i have been forcing my vision of how things need to get done and my timeline and as a result forced others to start to get a glimpse of the uncertain future. i was not wrong in what i did, what i was, was wrong in how i did it. needless to say, there really was no damage done, other than a few bruised egos.
looking at my personal behavior and screaming my default backup lie, “but i am only an addict and powerless over my addiction, so…“ is no longer an option i choose to exercise. oh it is quite handy and it can even be true, from time to time, but the fact is, it is just a cop-out for someone, like me, who has a bit of time under his belt. the reading is quite explicit about the notion that i am powerless over my behavior, or how i react to my feelings, and my experience has shown this to be true. acting “as-if” anything else was the case, is me denying the result of my recovery journey.
i do remember, back in my days of abstinence, how comforting it felt to rely on the whole i am only an addict, WTF did you expect, gig. i could get away with all sorts of BULLSH!T, and it worked for quite a while. after my second set of steps, based on the fellowship that is my home today, i realized that was no longer a viable option, as i had enough knowledge of what and who i was, bummer dudes. the same sort of mantra was part of my repertoire up until lately, after i lied to myself and chose to believe the lie that i was still broken. when i started this set of steps, i was quite certain that i was too broken to be able to form any more deep, intimate and yes loving relationships. i was doomed to be forever outside the human experience, because i had reached my capacity to love. the ONLY way i was going to be able to allow myself to let anyone else into my life, was to “x” someone out. after all, that was the way it always had been for me. this set of steps, is in the process of returning me to the reality, that just as most of my fellow humans, i do have an infinite capacity to love and allow myself to be loved, and that realization, is among one of the deepest and most abiding spiritual awakenings of this step journey so far. i was not broken, just unwilling. my FEAR of being hurt was greater than my need to be a part of my fellowship, my family, my social circle and the world around me. just as i once thought i was too different to find recovery, so i was too different to be anything but a borderline sociopath.
things are what they are today, and no matter how much i may want to alter what i am, the fact remains, i will almost always try and find a way to be different and separate myself from the pack, the lone wolf syndrome, as it were. once again it was not the change that was causing my pain, it was my resistance to change that was holding me back. one would like to hope, that today i no longer need to fear the cahnge, after all i am a better person as a result, and can be even better still, just for today.

∞ DT ∞