Blog entry for:

grateful for who i am. i have to admit it, when it comes to how i see myself and how i think others see me, grateful is not something that trips off my tongue. as i consider the irony of what happened at the meeting i was part of last night, i do get to feel a bit of gratitude for what i have been given across the course of my recovery. the irony? one of the members suggested that we each choose to limit the amount of time we share, and then chose to share for nearly ten minutes. noticing that sort of event is not out of the ordinary for me, these days, i can choose not to focus on it and move on. what really was pertinent is how i felt upon hearing that suggestion and what my final actions were.
i was pissed off and put off by the audacity of that request, as i sat there and silently seethed, attempting to manufacture a resentment out of what was really not a bad suggestion, i realized what the actual issue was, i did not enjoy being told what to do, by someone with less experience and who is less than consistent in their commitment to this meeting. i judged my peer and found him lacking and used that judgement to convict him of the crime of being totally clueless and overbearing. not that i realized all of that last night in the moment, but i was sane enough to see that i was not being rational and if i allowed what i happened to be feeling to dictate my immediate behavior, as i often did in the past, i would be using the corrective part of my 10th step before the evening ended. i have said it more than once, i hate owning the fact that i am wrong and sensing that maybe i am going down that track in real-time, short-circuiting my reactive behaviors as it were, i find i have to use that part of the 10th step, less and less. it is not that i have become less reactive, but part of the change that has been manifest in me, is that i get to CHOOSE if i will react or not, the gift of “pause.”
the jury is still out on how well i am doing on this path of recovery, but today, just for today, i CHOOSE not use tobacco or any form of nicotine. i choose to maintain an active program of fitness. i choose to live a program of recovery to the best of my ability and i choose to admit when i cannot meet the commitments i have made. life on this side of the lawn presents me the opportunities to be of service to myself and to others, it is up to me to CHOOSE to do so, my little bout with my authority complex, last night? i am even grateful for that part of me, the part that rebels against being told what i “should” do, as it provides me the opportunity to grow beyond what i once was and learn about who i am becoming. for me, that is more than enough to feel grateful for today.

∞ DT ∞