THE LANGUAGE OF LETTING GO - OCTOBER

[MajestyJo]

Monday, October 13, 2014

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Substance over Form

I'm learning that for a variety of reasons, I've spent much of my life focusing on form rather than substance. My focus has been on having my hair done perfectly, wearing the right clothes, having my makeup applied perfectly, living in the right place, furnishing it with the right furniture, working at the right job, and having the right man. Form, rather than substance, has controlled my behavior in many areas of my life. Now, I'm finally getting to the truth. It's substance that counts.
—Anonymous

There is nothing wrong in wanting to look our best. Whether we are striving to create a self, a relationship, or a life, we need to have some solid ideas about what we want that to look like.

Form gives us a place to begin. But for many of us, form has been a substitute for substance. We may have focused on form to compensate for feeling afraid or feeling inferior. We may have focused on form because we didn't know how to focus on substance.

Form is the outline; substance is what fills it in. We fill in the outline of ourselves by being authentic; we fill in the outline of our life by showing up for life and participating to the best of our ability.

Now, in recovery, we're learning to pay attention to how things work and feel, not just to what they look like.

Today, I will focus on substance in my life. I will fill in the lines of myself with a real person - me. I will concentrate on the substance of my relationships, rather than what they look like. I will focus on the real working of my life, instead of the trappings.

Really like this, had many years of search for who I was. I was always who everyone wanted me to be. Even my son told me that I should go blonde. It ended up, he was closer than any one else. I was a red head, auburn hair and at one time with a dark forest green streak. I was born a brunette. Black hair with brown and dark red highlight who always wanted blue black ones, and as they said, the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence. As one guy in my group said, "Jo, do you think that if you change your hair colour and style, we won't recognize you, you will always be you." That was a good awakening for me. I eventually did have a form, as a result of my sponsor saying, "If you have recovery, show it." It was blue or black jeans, black turtle neck t-shirt, long sleeved in winter, corduroy blazer or jacket, later hoodie, boots, gloves, and hat. I wore so much black when I was younger my sisters called me Mennonite Meg. It was much the same when I was working, everything was very formal, no play clothes. Later came the fun stuff and the personality and allowed the fun side of me to show. In today, now that I quit smoking and the nicotine doesn't turn my hair weird shades of blonde and my hair is all grown out, it is naturally white, with a few streaks of gray.

I hid for years, then it was okay to come out, and then I had to find out, which one was me and I found out there was a little bit of me in each one and I had been very fragmented, and through the program, I became whole.