🚶 to practice 🚷
Posted: Mon, May 19, 2025 06:50:53 AM
selflessness requires that i first have a sense of self, i need to take responsibility for my own well-being, before i can care for the well-being of anyone else. boy does that sound cold and callous, but in my experience it has revealed to be the truth. more than once i have put far more into the recovery of one of my peers or the men who call me their sponsor. when they “fail” to live up to my expectations, i take on the blame of not doing enough and get deeper involved in their lives. learning how to live without that entanglement has allowed me the freedom to be of help, provide guidance, and be a dumping ground for their garbage, without having to work their program for them.
this latest set of steps has been opening my eyes to who i am and what i find less than satisfactory in my life. one of the things i keep stumbling over is my “need” to right and how that applies to the men i sponsor. i certainly would love to have all the men i sponsor move into a place where they learn to incorporate the spiritual principles of this program into their daily lives in an active manner. i also know that my journey to doing so, was neither short nor straight and is still ongoing. as much as i think i have arrived in that spot, the more i see how much further i can go. it is not that i believe i will become some sort of recovery guru or saint, but i can certainly be more saintlike in my daily living.
the one lesson i keep taking away from my experience in attempting to win friends and influence people, is that if i am not wholly who i am, i rarely can find deep and lasting relationships. when i was using, being who i needed to be in any situation was a survival skill that i honed to near perfection. living a program of active recovery, to the best of my ability, just for today, allows me the freedom to just be myself and more importantly take care of that person, putting myself ahead of all others, when it comes to taking care of someone. if i fail to care for myself, the care i may feign for others, will drive me to remorse, regret and resentment. those three horses of my recovery apocalypse are not whose thundering hooves i want to hear. if i choose to take care of my spiritual, physical and emotional self, i know i will be better able to care for the well-being of those who are part of my life, just for today.
this latest set of steps has been opening my eyes to who i am and what i find less than satisfactory in my life. one of the things i keep stumbling over is my “need” to right and how that applies to the men i sponsor. i certainly would love to have all the men i sponsor move into a place where they learn to incorporate the spiritual principles of this program into their daily lives in an active manner. i also know that my journey to doing so, was neither short nor straight and is still ongoing. as much as i think i have arrived in that spot, the more i see how much further i can go. it is not that i believe i will become some sort of recovery guru or saint, but i can certainly be more saintlike in my daily living.
the one lesson i keep taking away from my experience in attempting to win friends and influence people, is that if i am not wholly who i am, i rarely can find deep and lasting relationships. when i was using, being who i needed to be in any situation was a survival skill that i honed to near perfection. living a program of active recovery, to the best of my ability, just for today, allows me the freedom to just be myself and more importantly take care of that person, putting myself ahead of all others, when it comes to taking care of someone. if i fail to care for myself, the care i may feign for others, will drive me to remorse, regret and resentment. those three horses of my recovery apocalypse are not whose thundering hooves i want to hear. if i choose to take care of my spiritual, physical and emotional self, i know i will be better able to care for the well-being of those who are part of my life, just for today.
∞ DT ∞