Are We Intentionally Living Our Recovery?


In my recovery process I have learned that mending my brokenness requires the intention and the effort to do so. Understanding the 12 Steps and other recovery tools provides us with motivation to repair our lives. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life to be in early CODA meetings and to experience light-bulbs flashing in my head.

Every meeting I gained wisdom for moving forward by listening to other CODA members share their stories. They placed words and definitions on experiences and feelings I had never known how to explain: "Fear of abandonment," "people-pleasing," "caretaker," "manipulation," "shame," "feeling not good enough," and even "self-love."

Self-love was a foreign concept to me. I grew up in a very Catholic family and attended Catholic schools. Both at home and in school I was taught that self-love was bad, selfish, evil. Loving yourself was also conceited, reserved for narcissists, and opposed to the law of God. And I believed these lies. Recovery has taught me that self-love is essential to loving others and our Higher Power. It's also essential to our efforts to reclaim our lives from others and to live happily.

We all learn wonderful lessons when we continually attend recovery meetings. The real challenge is being able to take what we have learned and intentionally apply it to our everyday lives. It's one thing to know what to do to make our lives better. It's another thing to have the motivation to change our patterns of behavior for the better.

I was giving a recovery talk one evening when a man in the crowd raised his hand and said "That all sounds great. I've heard it before. It doesn't work." I responded with "It doesn't work, or you haven't worked it?" He was speechless. I knew I had hit a recovery nail on the head.

It not only woke him up, but it woke me up too. It made me realize that although I had been working the program, I was not putting my best "intentional" dedication into making my life the best it could be.

We need to cherish what we learn in recovery from books and meetings. But what we learn is worthless if we don't incorporate it into our lives EVERY DAY. And we know when we are not intentionally living our recovery to the fullest because we lapse back into self-medicating behaviors instead of facing the truth offered by our uncomfortable feelings. Discomfort and the resistance to change motivate us to over eat, shop, drink, gamble, people-please, etc. as a quick means of quieting the discomfort we're feeling. 

Let's face the discomfort, walk through it, learn from it and never look back as we discard our old false behaviors and false selves. Let's ignite our inner-light and share it with the world. The right people will love it and us.

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