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HOPE i need to heal, takes me in all sorts of different directions. the one that pops off the stack, time and again this morning, is that this is a program of behaving my way into better thinking. moving forward on the HOPE that if i do the appropriate footwork to the best of my ability, i may find resolution to seemingly intractable problems, has always struck me as smoke and mirrors for dealing with my feelings of hopelessness, fear and despair. as i was working with one of the men who call me their sponsor last night, i heard those words coming out of my mouth, as i was getting him ready to start his FIFTH STEP. for seemingly the first time, i finally “got” the difference between acting “as-if” and fronting what i was not. that realization weighed b=heavily on my mind and influenced my sleep and dream cycle last night. perhaps it is time to explore that difference a little bit more.
i understand fronting my recovery, as that was what the first two decades of my clean-time was all about, looking as if i had this recovery gig all together. in many ways, i did have it down pat, i attended meetings, worked steps, allowed myself to be mostly seen and was sort of vulnerable. i still held a closely guarded secret that colored my world with shame, which i successfully hid from myself and everyone else in the world. living that lie was what i did, as whenever my denial started to break down, i would relive the feelings of that day and do whatever i needed to do, to repress them once again. the isolation of the pandemic and a very painful FOURTH STEP led to me being able to articulate what happened to my sponse and a few of those in my life who love me and i trust. releasing the pressure of nearly six decades of shame was a tremendous relief and started me on the path of finding a way out of the pit of despair i found myself in.
today, i feel hope and when i lost my job a year ago, i did the footwork to become more of an asset to my employer, rather than liability. today i really am barely concerned with what others see in me, and the freedom just to be, rather than perform, is amazing. these days, i am constantly training in my down-time, i keep up with what is going on with my co-workers and for once i allow them to see me as i am, for the most part. it is true, even though i carry my recovery values into work, they do not need to know my entire backstory, that does not mean i am hiding it from them. my hope with this position is that i get to keep it for a few years and work my way into being a subject matter expert of some sort, that will take a bit of pounding out code and sharpening my coding skills.
as the sun crosses the horizon on this very warm April morning, i get to work on fixing some of the stuff that kept me in hiding, once i felt “worthy” exercising my way to a better body, just became what i did. it is true that i stared this process long before i felt worthy of doing so, it was all about the bucks. even so, there was the HOPE that if i started a fitness program, i would feel worthy of looking better and feeling better physically and emotionally. as i released the hate and shame from my secret past, i found that as the layers of fat melted i felt good about how i looked right now and no longer needed to feel less than anyone else. i may not yet be “whole” but i am certainly a whole lot more genuine and have lost my overarching need to get approval from outside sources. i am okay today and do not care much what others may think of me, just for today.

∞ DT ∞