Some memes

i am correct, i need to ask myself: is this a battle that must be fought, or can i make peace and be part of a solution? respect has always been a tricky thing for me. i have lived through periods of my recovery where i commanded and demanded respect, while i was bullying others to see my point of view. i have also live through periods where i was deserving of respect and i earned it through my deeds and words. at my very worst, i believed my clean time was worthy of respect, regardless of how i was behaving or hid in the corners filled with shame and remorse, believing that with this much clean time i should know better. the good news is, however, most of the time, these days, i live under the rule that if i want respect, i need to be respectful of others, with no expectation of return.
after a bit of a diversion looking for tokens of clean time for one of the men i sponsor, i am back at this whole notion of communicating respect. my source material suggests that this sort of communication relies more on me paying attention to how others are responding to me, rather than me trying to figure out whether or not i am being disrespected. i have a peer, who has been “around” the rooms for most of my clean time. he seems to live in a world where he trusts no one, everyone is out to get him and he is never respected. it is no wonder that getting clean time of any significant length is a difficult task for him. i understand living under that cloud and for me, it was a herculean task to remove all that fear, uncertainty and doubt. i came to the conclusion that if i wanted to be respected, perhaps i needed to surrender just a little bit and see what came of that. that was truly one of the best decisions i ever made and even though there were no instantaneous changes in the world around me, the world within me stared to realign to spiritual principles.
today, i will walk forward with the certainty that i can do the next right thing and be respectful of the world around me, as i do so. life in my skin is not all that difficult these days, even when nit feels that it might be. it is time for me to get out into the streets and decide whether or not to follow the advice of my fitness tracker or not. i am leaning towards doing a real workout and taking its advice tomorrow, as i know tomorrow i have to drive down to Denver and will not have the opportunity to do the workout it may suggest. that is respecting myself and knowing that AI is not always correct, just for today.

∞ DT ∞