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secret not a secret? when only i think it may still be a secret! well not really, but when i am keeping stuff on the down-low, the feelings i may be trying to deal with, come out sideways. for example i explode all over a customer service rep, because they called me sir. these days, there is not too much i keep under the cover of darkness. i have a line of communication with my sponsor, my spouse and men in recovery, whom i have come to trust. through any one or more of those conduits, the secret “shame” i may be feeling can be drained away and put back into proper perspective.
last night i had to “jokingly” tell someone that their unsolicited advice may not be desired by me and that i would take whatever means necessary to keep our relationship cordial, even if they decided that i may need their “help.” what it brought me back to, is my desire to provide unsolicited advice and feedback to my peers in recovery. knowing how i feel, these days anyhow, about someone telling me what i ought to do. makes me a bit more sensitive to telling someone else what they ought to do, unless i am asked directly to provide that sort of interaction. my secret shame here, is that i “think” i know something, and perhaps i do, BUT more than likely i do not have the knowledge to expound upon the advice i am attempting to provide. as i grow in my program of recovery, i see that the less that i think i may know, the better off i am, as i become willing to learn something new, or even better, a new twist on something i may have already learned. in this mode, it is possible to teach this old dawg a new trick or three.
i am excited about returning to a service commitment that has been on hold since the start of the pandemic. in the past, i have always felt a bit more whole and certainly a bit more genuine after giving of myself in this manner. i may or may not have jumped through all the hoops to get back in and we will see when i arrive this evening, to be a part of something more than i am. as i walk through this day and especially this evening, i need to remember to honestly be who i am and allow that which may cause me shame, to lose its power over me, by releasing it into the wilds. it is a good day to live a life “above boards.”

∞ DT ∞