Feeling Blessed by a Good Scare

“A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.”

E.W. Howe

I had a very big scare over the past week that was like hitting bottom harder than hard. My father had heart disease, so I had a calcium scan to make sure I don’t have heart issues. The calcium numbers themselves came back great, but the scan indicated a potential mass in my chest. When those words were spoken to me over the phone, my heart sank through the floor. I never expected to hear anything like this. Then my OCD went on a tear: “Oh, my God! What does “a mass” mean? Is it huge? Is it cancer? Am I going to have to have surgery? Radiation? Lose my hair? Die before I ever even truly live my life to the fullest?

I never in my life have seriously thought about dying. I’ve always been amazingly healthy for an often wacked-out OCD codependent crazy (!), but now I was faced with the true reality of life and death. I turned to my Higher Power and said “Enough is enough. I’ve wasted too many years hating myself. I’ve hated my face, my body, my personality, my awkwardness, my sexuality, my rigidness and I’ve even hated my name. This all stops today. Right here, right now in this moment I finally see that life is too precious to spend hating myself. I choose to embrace the Little Charlie in me and the Big Charlie, too; and I embrace them with acceptance and love. I choose today to be forever kind and loving to myself.”

I went on to say “Higher Power, if I can have a second chance at life, everything will be different. I will stop all of the self-criticism. I will be happy to be me. I will begin to love my body, my personality, my everything-- and the happier I become with me, the more I will attract happiness and goodness into my life. I will stop wanting things to be different from the way they are and I will accept what I cannot have in this life. I will be happy with what I do have and I will be GRATEFUL and THANKFUL for every day of life I have left to live.”

This past Monday, I had a full chest scan and waited two anxious days for the results. The days were anxious, but not nearly as bad as I expected them to be. I was amazingly confident much of the time that everything was really OK. After the chest scan I asked my Higher Power for a sign, and not some quiet words inside my thoughts, but something more tangible. Within a few moments, a good friend texted me wanting to know how the scan went. He told me that he was confident everything was fine. So I took this as God speaking to me. And sure enough, when I saw the cardiologist, all of my tests had turned out “wonderful.”

It took this really big scare for me to get my self-loathing under control. Self-hatred is the root cause of codependency and all other addictive behaviors. I’ve known that for a long time. And although I do a much better job of liking myself than I used to do before recovery, I still have failed to truly love the person that God created me to be. But that failure has now come to an end. I chose from this day forward to be kind, compassionate, accepting and loving toward myself in every possible way. And when I am not strong enough, I will leave the rest to my Higher Power, who can do for me what I am not able to do for myself. I have my second chance to live a happy life that begins today with me being happy with myself. And I’m taking full advantage. I am thankful for this day of life and I am grateful to my Higher Power and to everyone who dances through my life with me.