โ taking action first step style โ
Posted: Sun, Jan 29, 2006 09:26:03 AM
well here i sit many days into the path of recovery, having read this entry more than once (more likely eight times before) and all of a sudden it triggers a response in me that resonates in my current life. as many of you are aware, i am in the process of joining my life with the woman i love. not anything too horrific, just starting to cohabitate, nevertheless i have been telling all of you about my feelings of fear and doubt. i have hinted at the cause, the ghost of my ex-wife, but never actually did any work to exorcize her presence from my mind. that ghost has colored my relationship with Kathy, since we first started dating, even though i never even mention acknowledge her existence out loud. that stuff is Kathy‘s stuff and i cannot fix that, my past is my past.
i met with my sponsor on thursday evening and we spoke about what was really happening in my life, and he asked a simple question that floored me, ‘what happens when you are walking forward while looking backwards?’
the only answer i could come up with is you trip and usually land flat on your face as you watch yourself go down. and that is exactly what will happen if i continue to look to my past for clues how to live in the now. i am not that person who nineteen years ago who needed to be married before he was thirty. i am not the man who needed to seduce a woman away from a friend to prove how worthwhile i am. and most of all i do not base relationships on the same things i did when i was using, namely how can you fill my need today and fuck off until i the next time i have that itch to scratch.
my sponsor‘s simple suggestion is that i do a bit of second and third step work around my current relationship and put aside my fourth for right now, you know look forward with HOPE and ACCEPTENCE. so in order to do that bit of work i need to take the action of the first step and admit that i am powerless over my past relationships and the feelings and emotions that they evoke and my life is unmanageable because of them! i surrender to the fact that this ghost will always be a part of my life until i let her go. i HOPE that GOD can relieve me of the insanity this ghost evokes in me, and i can let her rest in peace in the grave i dug for her all those years ago. after all i am worth having a loving, intimate relationship in the here and now!
so is that enough? who knows, but it is a start and a path to travel towards the work i need to do today!
i met with my sponsor on thursday evening and we spoke about what was really happening in my life, and he asked a simple question that floored me, ‘what happens when you are walking forward while looking backwards?’
the only answer i could come up with is you trip and usually land flat on your face as you watch yourself go down. and that is exactly what will happen if i continue to look to my past for clues how to live in the now. i am not that person who nineteen years ago who needed to be married before he was thirty. i am not the man who needed to seduce a woman away from a friend to prove how worthwhile i am. and most of all i do not base relationships on the same things i did when i was using, namely how can you fill my need today and fuck off until i the next time i have that itch to scratch.
my sponsor‘s simple suggestion is that i do a bit of second and third step work around my current relationship and put aside my fourth for right now, you know look forward with HOPE and ACCEPTENCE. so in order to do that bit of work i need to take the action of the first step and admit that i am powerless over my past relationships and the feelings and emotions that they evoke and my life is unmanageable because of them! i surrender to the fact that this ghost will always be a part of my life until i let her go. i HOPE that GOD can relieve me of the insanity this ghost evokes in me, and i can let her rest in peace in the grave i dug for her all those years ago. after all i am worth having a loving, intimate relationship in the here and now!
so is that enough? who knows, but it is a start and a path to travel towards the work i need to do today!
∞ DT ∞