When I was new to recovery, I had trouble getting honest because I used people, places and things for so many years to stuff my feelings and to hide my true self because I feared you would not love, like, accept, and be my friend. I feared rejection, abandonment, disapproval and I looked to you for validation because I could not find it within myself.
I didn't know what I was feeling, I couldn't put labels on thing and people would say, "How do you feel?" I didn't know. It was only by going to meeting, hearing others share that I could identify my feelings and behaviours, positive and negative so that I could get honest about them and deal with them. As long as I compared, I stayed sick. I wasn't that bad. I didn't do that. Well I didn't drink or drug, so I am better than they are. Not knowing that my codependency and care taking lead to the same soul sickness and that I was often more sick than the alcoholics that were in my life.
I used cigarettes and food, work and service to stuff and to hide form my feelings and even in recovery, I stayed sick until I could find true honesty. I had cash register honesty. I could be kind and carrying and yet there were times I would tell white lies so I wouldn't hurt you but then my motive and intent was generally because I didn't want you to not like me if I was truly honest with you. I learned that it wasn't so much what you said, but how you said it that mattered.
The truth had to come out. I had to find the true me. In order to find my truth I had to get honest, have a close relationship with my Higher Power and allow His unconditional Love transform me into a loving person who was able to let go of bitterness, resentment, an unforgiving heart, anger, guilt, shame, etc.
It was a process. It didn't happen over night. I didn't get sick over night, so I didn't find self-honesty all wrapped up in a package that I could just grap and hold onto.
As the blinders came off, the heart and mind opened, the ear became willing to listen, and I took down the barriers and eliminated the blocks that I had put up in self-defence, I was finally able to allow myself to become vulnerable and open for healing. I had to let go of the darkness and bring it to the Light so it could be healed. I had to shape-shift the old reality and create a new based on my truth and my self-honesty.
I also found that my truth may not be someone else's and even though some one may not agree with me, I had a right to stand up for what I believed in if it came from my God. What I had to do was get honest and decide whether it was my self-will or my conscious self that was making the decision and whether I was being empowered or whether I thought I was the power.
Like so many other things in this program, it took practice, practice, practice. God is as He reveals Himself to me in today.
Quote:
Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns!
~Allison Gappa Bottke
If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree.
~Jim Rohn
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