Blog entry for:

are certainly two good words to describe my life in self-centered obsession, in active addiction and mere abstinence. on almost a daily basis i am confronted with reminders of that behavior, by the behavior of others. i recognize that behavior, because i have come to own it as part of who i was and who i can be, when i “slip” from my routine of active recovery. i cannot even began to count the number of times that someone brought up an instance of my “bad” behavior and i dismissed their concerns by saying something along the lines of i must have been really fVcked-up wasted at the time. it is true that a life of mere abstinence removed that excuse from my repertoire, but hardly prevented me from going down that path, time and again. learning how to live in active recovery has reduced those incidents to practically nil, but i am still far from perfect. i know that when i justify, blame events or others or attempt to minimize, i am falling back into an unpalatable behavior once again. telling someone they are still too heavy or look older than i do, even as a joke, falls squarely into that whole notion of making others suffer because i am unwilling to address the real issues facing me.
today, as i prepare to finish my daily number of steps with another walk, i am struck with how much what i once resisted has become part of my daily routine, including taking a look of where i was less than stellar over the course of living another day on this side of the lawn. i have to admit that i am my own worst critic and prone to more than a bit of self-depreciation. my pendulum is swinging back towards a more balanced look at who i am and how i behaved over the course of my waking hours. i am finding that treating myself with a bit of kindness and forgiveness, is certainly a more better way to live. that does not mean i get to dismiss what i find, but i do get to put it into perspective. there are no more scales of justice in my head where i weigh the “good and the bad,” but i can see what i need to improve upon and make the changes needed to foster that growth.
FEAR is not my constant companion and because of that i get to find the ways and means to make my life less fearful and certainly more to my liking, which is a gift of my ongoing recovery. those who live in their self-centered delusions of being powerful? well i have to let them figure that out for themselves, as they are more than likely not going to listen to any critiques from me, as i founds out a few weeks ago when i set a boundary with a consequence that will be enforced with extreme prejudice. if i am not ready to hear the truth, i will do everything in my power to dismiss it. if that is how i behave, why should i think anyone else would behave any differently. just for today, i believe i am willing to hear the worst and implement the changes i need to make, to remove it from my new pattern of living.

∞ DT ∞