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keep what i have by giving it away. an interesting thought crossed my mind as i completed sitting this morning and as i went about my morning routine, the notion continued to grow. that notion: when does giving it away cross over into something sick and twisted such as codependency or rescuing the “lost?” not that i am going to be able to answer that question in the space of a few hundred words, but i might get a bit closer to what i feel about the whole topic. i know why this has come up, after all, it has been less than week since i last said: ␄no, fVck no, and just stop asking, that well has run dry.” the message i NEEDED to convey was exactly that, the manner in which i did it, well that is more than a little suspect, and i do have to say there was a certain satisfaction in abruptly ending a conversation by hanging up on somebody. something inside, sick or not, was fed by that small act of rude indifference and defiance. if that particular person ever calls back i do need to own that i wrong about how i ended that conversation, not the conversation itself.
moving on to the topic at hand, last night, in the meeting, i shared that i liked being seen as a “knight in shining armor, riding a huge white horse to save the weak and down-trodden masses.” i meant it as a joke, and it went over like a lead balloon.in the context of the reading this morning and the events of the past week, i see the ironical nature of what i said, and in reality, that view of myself has generally faded over time, with the exception of a few people in my life. some of the relationships i have developed, that are over a decade old, are based mostly on this “in-distress” paradigm. they have a need to be saved and i have a need to save them. when i am in the middle of this tango, the results are never good, they get what they think they need, and once again i feel that i have cheated myself out of the self-esteem and self-respect that i deserve. i have “caved” to my weakness to be the stronger partner in a relationship and all sense of equality and common goals has been swept under the carpet. now i have power, whether or not the other party cares to acknowledge that notion, or at least that is what i thin k. in reality, it is them that has all the power and i am here to do their bidding to protect my fantasy of power, until the next time i wake up and see how sick i am. the sad truth is that giving away the spiritual gifts i have received is not the same thing as rescuing someone from their idiocy and self-will. no matter how good i think it may make me look, in the long run, i am the loser and feel defeated and not worth anything.
whew, quite a thought there. today i do have gifts to give away. i have a strong program of recovery that i do my best to live. i have the ability to perform stealth acts of kindness and i choose to carry the message in the service efforts i have committed to do. i do my best to live in the here and now, and carry the principles of the program into my daily life and most days, i do a good enough job, not perfect, and certainly much better than a decade ago, when i was forming a few of my sickest relationships. the good part, is most of them have gone away and the few that remain, are morphing under the POWER that fuels my recovery. my need to rescue is being replaced by a desire to help. the unfortunate part, is that the other party in these relationships may see me as being cruel, cold and unkind, because they can no longer get what they have always counted on getting, anything they asked for!
today, i can walk with my head high and when the opportunity arises to give away what i have been given, i hope i am awake enough to do so, after all if i live my life in a spiritual coma, i will not get the chance to be anything more.

∞ DT ∞