๐ค the freedom ๐
Posted: Tue, Oct 14, 2025 11:43:26 AM
**to do** is also the freedom **not to do.** restraint, hmm, quite a topic for someone who has been living in a state of self-will for several weeks now. as i sat the past three days, i found a moment to let go of my obsessions and my self-will behaviors, even if it was only for twenty minutes. in that quiet, i found the ways and means to move forward this morning, in a mode that is more equivalent to “not to do,” than obsessing about getting something perfectly right. i am going to play a bit this morning, but i am also going to spend my afternoon being productive elsewhere, perhaps <GASP> even writing out my THIRD STEP.
thinking about how i choose to do or not to do, is an interesting rabbit hole to go down. there was a time when i showed no restraint at all, if i thought i needed to do or say something i just did it, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead sort of living. it was a life that was rife with chaos and confusion and i believed that was the “good life.” the fact that all my relationships were short term and highly transactional, did not bother me at all, as i felt i was FREE. the problem was i had nothing to compare that life to, it was how it was and i did not even know there was anything different. even in early recovery as the chaos and my confusion started to be reduced to levels i never thought i had ever experienced before, restraint did not feel like an option for me. i was several years clean before my filters started to kick in and i began to realize that there was a new manner in which to live.
these days, i am much better as my filters are baked in and for the most part and i do not create a whole lot of chaos and confusion in my life and the lives of those around me. i may still cop a judgement or ninety seven i any given day, but those stay between my ears. the harm they cause is to me and that is what i am focused on in my current step work. when i consider my life today and the FREEDOM i have been given as a result of living a program of recovery in contrast to how i was living way back when, i do not see how i ever survived active addiction, or even early recovery for that matter. i may not see restraint as a spiritual principle, but whether or not it is, it is a good thing for me to practice, just for today.
thinking about how i choose to do or not to do, is an interesting rabbit hole to go down. there was a time when i showed no restraint at all, if i thought i needed to do or say something i just did it, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead sort of living. it was a life that was rife with chaos and confusion and i believed that was the “good life.” the fact that all my relationships were short term and highly transactional, did not bother me at all, as i felt i was FREE. the problem was i had nothing to compare that life to, it was how it was and i did not even know there was anything different. even in early recovery as the chaos and my confusion started to be reduced to levels i never thought i had ever experienced before, restraint did not feel like an option for me. i was several years clean before my filters started to kick in and i began to realize that there was a new manner in which to live.
these days, i am much better as my filters are baked in and for the most part and i do not create a whole lot of chaos and confusion in my life and the lives of those around me. i may still cop a judgement or ninety seven i any given day, but those stay between my ears. the harm they cause is to me and that is what i am focused on in my current step work. when i consider my life today and the FREEDOM i have been given as a result of living a program of recovery in contrast to how i was living way back when, i do not see how i ever survived active addiction, or even early recovery for that matter. i may not see restraint as a spiritual principle, but whether or not it is, it is a good thing for me to practice, just for today.
∞ DT ∞