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πŸ™ˆ refusing to acknowledge πŸ™‰

Posted: Wed, Sep 25, 2019 07:49:57 AM

what is really going on inside of me as well as around me, is a trap i can find myself in. whether it is the pain i am causing myself by acting on my character defects or my denial about how those people in my life see me, does not matter. what does matter is that i have build a wall of denial around my feelings and my world fueled by self-righteous justifications and rationalizations. here is where i would start a tale of woe with “once upon a time,” to compare and contrast my behaviors today with the behaviors i was apt to live out, when i walked into the room. in reality, the fact is, i am better than i was and it is a pretty boring and mundane tale about the difference between now and then.
this morning what i kept hearing as i sat, was the words one of my peers uttered the other night. they stated that they were “running from relapse.” when i examine that statement in the context of my own life and recovery, i can see that i am no longer running “from” anything. even in recovery, there have been many things i have fled from in abject fear. the consequences of using in my early recovery and the fear of them, kept me clean even when i had no desire to use. one might state that back in the day i was running from the justice system and the FEAR that i felt when i was in their clutches. FEAR was what kept me coming back those first several years of my recovery, even after i was comfortably ensconced in the fellowship. FEAR was my motivation for learning to live the steps. FEAR ruled my life and my recovery and even though i was clean, when i saw that i was living a life dominated by FEAR, i was more than a little distraught.
somewhere in my third set of steps, i learned to acknowledge my FEAR and have a little bit of FAITH in the recovery program that had chosen me. i cannot pin down when exactly that happened, just as i missed that first day that the desire to use was lifted from me. i can say that when i work up and realized that my FAITH in this program of recovery was not misplaced and that IF i lived this program, i could succeed at living a life of a person i have always wanted to be, i was ecstatic. living a program based on FAITH, feels a whole lot better than living a program based on FEAR and perhaps that is why i cannot see life like a newcomer. the FEAR of that next use is no longer my driving force. that does not make me any different or “better” than my peers, it just is who i have become.
starting of my fifth FOURTH STEP, i wonder what will be revealed. i know the recurring theme in this set of steps seems to be the stories i have manufactured over the course of my life, that have appear to be the “TRUTH,” when all they really are, is the foundation of the systemic denial i devised to protect myself from my version of reality. i am not sure how this will all tie together, but i have FAITH that more will certainly be revealed.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

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Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 1

2) When gold and jade fill the hall, their possessor cannot keep them
safe. When wealth and honours lead to arrogancy, this brings its evil
on itself. When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished,
to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven.