Be Kind and Merciful

“For gracious and merciful is he,

Slow in anger, rich in kindness,

And relenting in punishment.”

Book of Joel, Chapter 2

Many of us, as codependents, enter recovery bitter and angry. We feel like we have been used and abused by so many people, and these negative feelings make it hard for us to fathom working Step 4 of the 12 Steps. So we are sometimes inclined to practice self-righteousness instead of practicing mercy.

When we enter this self-righteous mode we are quick to point out how everyone else in our lives sinned against us, abused us and abandoned us, and we subconsciously use are self-righteousness to hide our own sins and character defects. We become blind to them all. I know I did. The first time I looked at Step 4, I thought to myself “what did I ever do wrong? I’m not the abuser. I’m the abused.” At that point in recovery, it didn’t occur to me that I had been secretive, manipulative and controlling. Nor did it occur to me that I had lied, spied and done whatever I had to do to get what I wanted from the very people I was now so angry with.

Owning our own “sins,” failures and character defects is a necessary step toward inner-healing, as well as toward the healing of our fractured relationships. We need to own our failures graciously, however. We need to be merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness and relenting in punishment toward ourselves.

If we are able to treat ourselves with mercy and kindness as we examine our mistakes, it will give us a new perspective on the mistakes other in our lives have made. We may be angry with someone because we know they have lied to us. If so, we need to examine the situation through the eyes of mercy and understanding.

First, we need to ask ourselves “have we made assumptions about the lie and about why they lied to us?” (Many times our bitterness and anger are based in assumptions and not in facts.) Or have we given the other person the ability to fully explain why they lied to us? Second, have we examined what role we may have played in “the lie?” Could they have lied to us out of fear? Has our anger been a problem? Were they afraid if they told us the truth that we would explode all over them? Have we exasperated their fear of abandonment by withholding affection as a punishment for them? Could they have told us the lie because they were afraid we’d simply walk away and leave them behind?

The third thing we need to ask ourselves is “have I ever lied to them? If so, am I not just as guilty as they are?” The better able we are at compassionately owning our own mistakes, the better we will be at forgiving the same mistakes that others have made against us.

Every day we have a choice to come from a self-righteous place or a merciful one. Coming from a merciful place will help us to mend our fractured relationships with ourselves and with others. Coming from a self-righteous place will keep us trapped in denial and in addictive acting-out. Today let’s choose to treat ourselves and others with mercy and kindness.