My recovery is a wildly unpopular choice, extremely agitating to those who need to be feel in control, play God, the judge, the jury, the punisher, the rewarder. I am also reminded daily that recovery is the ONLY way– and it divides me further and permanently from those feeling displeased(harmed) by it. They are not yet ready and will literally do anything to get in the way of recovery life. Annneeething! I carry on with fervor, not ease, but fervor.
Sometimes we have to sacrifice what we want now, which is war, to get what we ultimately want, which is peace. And not everyone defines peace the same way. For some people can only find peace in winning, which requires a war and a loser. Well people do not make sick people well, but unwell people can make well people sick. I seek wellness, illumination, peace. Progress not perfection. One Day at a time.
There is always a right way to say what we need to say and a wrong way to say it. There is a way that will invite more light and reconciliation and a way that will invite more darkness and polarization. The latter is often the result of mental unwellness and cycles and dynamics of addiction plaguing a community or family system, usually through generations. Break the cycle, I say!
And, sometimes doing what we really want to do, if it’s going to add more anger, isn’t the right thing to do. Even if it feels good at the time. Recovery has offered me the tool of pausing and acting rather than reacting. I am emotionally triggered in under a nano-second, this I cannot help. Recovery taught me to pause long enough to decide what I can do to acknowledge the feeling and then to practice self care and self preservation without harming another. In sick systems, there is no distinction between being displeasing or making a mistake AND being harmful. Recovery teaches me that –it is not my job to please and it is not mean or a crime to displease or make mistakes. I do not choose any systems that have reliance on people pleasing OR paying the price.
a little bit soap box and ranty–oh well–
