It’s Time to Stop Running from Ourselves and from Life

Addictive acting out is all about one thing: Running from ourselves, from the selves that we refuse to accept as being “good enough.”

We can change our behaviors. We can choose and eventually learn to be kinder to ourselves. We can choose to stop beating ourselves up with hateful thoughts. We can choose to set boundaries, to express how we really feel about life. We can choose to be honest and tell other people what behaviors are acceptable to us, and what behaviors are not acceptable. We can also be honest enough to tell people who we really are, without feeling guilt or shame about our own opinions, likes/dislikes, beliefs and personal needs.

The flip side of this Serenity coin is that we must also accept the unchangeable about ourselves, others and life. We cannot change another person— PERIOD! We cannot rescue them, save them or recreate them to be what we want them to be. The same is true for ourselves. We can change our behaviors, but we can’t change our heritage, the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our natural level of intelligence (our ability to learn) our natural personalities, etc. So we must accep the unchangeable, if we truly want to begin to love ourselves and to be “reasonably” happy in this life.

Now, this is an important point to remember: We can’t change our true personalities, but we can grow into our true personalities through Recovery. For example, many of us have been turned-in on ourselves for years. We refused to open up like a flower and show our true selves to the rest of the world. Through acceptance of the things we can’t change about ourselves, we can begin to open up and blossom into being our real BEAUTIFUL selves. In this way we can change for the better, by opening up inside, without changing our true personalities. We aren’t changing them, we’re simply becoming true to our selves.

Another important step in Recovery is removing ourselves from the unacceptable. Many people in our lives have been toxic for us. Once we set boundaries with them, they have a choice. They can freely choose to accept and honor our boundaries, improving the relationship, or they can reject the boundaries and continue to treat us badly. If they refuse to accept our boundaries, we must draw the biggest boundary possible: We must detach from them with love.

Detaching with love means we realize they have the problem, not us, so we are able to have empathy for them, and we are still able to love them. But we also realize that we can never have a healthy relationship with them, unless they choose to change. So we remove ourselves from the unacceptable relationship that we have had with them.

These are important steps, all based in the Serenity Prayer. Anytime we have difficulty following these steps, we can rely on our Higher Power and those we trust to help us.