Blog entry for:

have to experience anything alone, unless i CHOOSE to do so. life really is about choices, and whether or not i have free-will or am choosing based on the programming put upon me by nature, society, culture and family, really does not matter. i make choices and decisions and there are consequences for each and every one of those “forks in the road.” the nice part of me deciding to stay in the program and grown my life in a fellowship of recovering addicts, is that i have a ready made audience that is willing to help me celebrate the consequences i find pleasant and commiserate the consequences that are not to my liking. since i have stopped trying to judge experiences i have as “positive” or ”negative” there is a certain balance and ease of living in even the most stressful and FVCKED-up day.
my problem, is the insanity of BIGGER, BADDER , BETTER. many times i will be tore up from the floor up and not share my burden with anyone at all. in fact i will do my best to keep that stuff on the very down-low. the voice of culture rings in my head about never letting “the bastards, see me sweat.” as a result, i suffer deeper and for much longer than i need to, just because i want to look good. of course the opposite is true when it comes to the “good stuff,” then i want to tell the world how great everything is for me. as i decide to move into STEP THREE, i see more and more that how i see myself and how i want the world to see me, is certainly becoming the theme of this set of steps. what would my life be like, if i just accepted the body of evidence before me and gave up on protecting BIGGER, BADDER, BETTER? that seems to be the place i keep coming back to, the cognitive dissonance of being okay with what i have and the story that it is not nearly enough.
looking at my place in the fellowship that provides me the opportunity to a part of, was the focus of my last set of steps. ironically, while that was happening i came to a spiritual path that finally fit me. most of my peers have a spiritual path that is very similar to the one they were brought into as children. they have found the means to use that path to their advantage. when i speak of trying to “fit” my vision of spirituality to match theirs, i am not talking about how and what GOD looks like. for me, i attempted to take the best of what i was once given and use it in my recovery. i spent years trying to get that mantel to fit me and in the end, discarding what i thought my spiritual path may need to look like and adopting one that i has been sampling, was certainly the best way for me to go. as i move into one of those dang “GOD” steps, i need to be cognizant of what i have and open-minded to how that may be able to grow. if i get stuck, i will need to find the courage to reach out to others and aks them for the insight i lack to move forward, even if it is just naming a FEAR and deciding if that FEAR is rational or not. just for today, i am okay being who i am and having to head off to work. it is a good day to be clean.

∞ DT ∞