Misery Is a Sister to Wisdom

“Misery is God’s way of telling you that this isn’t the path you should follow.”

Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge

Personal misery has much to tell and teach us. Yet, even in recovery, we sometimes don’t want to listen to our misery. We are so accustomed to wallowing in it. Misery is how many of us define ourselves. We wouldn’t know how to behave without feeling miserable in some way. And so if things start changing too much for the better during recovery, we may find ourselves engaged in a game of self-sabotage.

Before recovery we didn’t understand that we were trapped in bad patterns of behavior. All of our attempts to manipulate and control others backfired and increased our misery, but we were blind to the fact that control wasn’t the solution to our problems. So we kept loading our pistols with control tactics and we kept having these tactics blow-up in our faces. Our misery intensified and yet we still weren’t willing to listen to it and ask it what it was trying to tell us. Instead of learning from our misery that our behavior was the problem, we blamed the other person(s) for all of our misery.

Since recovery, we have all learned that most of our misery is of our own creating. The root of our misery is found in our behavior and no one else’s. But there are those days when we seem to lose all consciousness in terms of recovery. It’s as if all we have learned for our betterment has been temporarily wiped from our brains. Suddenly we find ourselves making a beeline for someone who is obviously needing a caretaker. Or we find ourselves saying “Yes” to please people instead of taking care of ourselves. Or we’re off on a “Charge It!” shopping spree. Or we’re mercilessly beating ourselves up for being worthless people.

In all of these cases, we are on a fast track to misery. And no one in this life has to be miserable of their own making. Life provides enough natural misery over which we have little control. So if you’re feeling miserable, take time to discern who’s responsible for this misery. Did you create it yourself? How? What motivated you to seek self-sabotage? Were you feeling insecure in a relationship with a healthy person? Are you stuck in believing failure is your middle name? Do you still think you have to manipulate others into making you happy?

Whatever the case may be remember this: Most of your misery is caused by your choices in life and the behavior you use to carry-out those choices. Misery is here to tell us control doesn’t work. Manipulation doesn’t work, self-deprecation doesn’t work, caretaking doesn’t work, people-pleasing doesn’t work and medicating doesn’t work. Neither does playing the Blame Game work in our favor. It keeps us stuck in denial.

Accept responsibility for your own misery by owning it and learning from it. Misery is a great teacher and it has the power to tell us when we are back on the wrong path again. And it’s OK to be on the wrong path again. We don’t have to beat ourselves up for falling down in our recovery. Instead, glean all the wisdom you can from the mistakes you’ve made, ask your Higher Power to help you stand back up and start down the path to recovery smarter and more determined to succeed.