Nothing Changes in Our Lives Until We Do

 
 
Nothing changes in our lives until we do. Recovery is the choice we have made in an effort to change our lives for the better. But it is an EFFORT. And it's easy to find ourselves balking at investing in that effort during the recovery process.

We can say to ourselves "Why me? My friends don't have to work the 12 Steps. They don't have to go to meetings. They don't have to spend time with a sponsor. They don't have to see a therapist." Sometimes we continue with thoughts like "This isn't my fault that I'm an addict. I didn't ask for it. This is my parents' fault. Why should I have to suffer and work the 12 Steps?"

When we find ourselves falling backwards into this mind set, we need to be very careful. We have the right to grieve the fact that we are addicts and that we learned the behavior as children. True we didn't know any better when we started mimicking the behaviors of our parents. It may be their fault, but we can't spend our whole lives blaming them. This leads to resentment and resentment keeps us stuck in old patterns of behavior.

So, yes, we can grieve that we are not having an easier time with life like our friends (supposedly) are, but we still need to remain responsible for our lives and our own happiness. 

Our lives will only improve by working the program. We will only become "reasonably happy" people when we take responsibility for our lives and choose to move forward in the new directions recovery offers us. We will only succeed by working the 12 Steps, attending meetings and being open and honest with our feelings.

So if you are stuck in "Why me?" this is your kick in the pants to get out of it. Nothing in your life will change for the better until you do. The world doesn't need to change. Mom and Dad don't need to change. Friends don't need to change. We do.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more