"Embracing My Entirety"

“Embracing My Entirety”

           

This time five-years ago I was waking up on the detox unit of a rehab facility.  I was fully clothed, deeply hung over and full of the most intense shame I believe I had ever felt and certainly ever hope to.

If I am honest, I was disappointed that I had woken up at all.  I could not fully mentally and emotionally process where I was or what I had done to be back in rehab for the second time.  It was as if my mind could not allow me to go there just yet for fear I might break into a million tiny pieces.  I would eventually get there, but it was a gradual process through the steps; a slow letting go of my ego.

The person I was then and the person I am today are vastly different yet essentially the same.  I am still me at my core but so much about how I view myself and therefore the world around me has changed.  The inflexibility of my thought processes and my judgement has shifted from black-and-white to living in a shifting state of grey.  Few things in my life are concrete, few things are set in stone.  I know I have love in my heart, I know I am grateful and I know I want to live as congruent a life as I possibly can and those things I don’t shift on.  Everything else is on a continuum.  I am always learning.  I live in a constant state of understanding I don’t have all the answers but that no longer frustrates or embarrasses me.  If I ever start to feel as though I have it all figured out again I will be in trouble. 

Over the past five years I have not just found sobriety, I have found recovery and there is a difference.  Stopping drinking is one thing.  Being blessed to live your life as much as you can in what the Big Book calls the “sunlight of the spirit” is an entirely different experience.  I am grateful that I found the group of people I did.  They took me through the steps in a particular way.  I have no doubt that the process saved my life.

Through the steps I was given a new way of thinking that in turn changed my vision.  I was able to look at myself for the first time in the way that I imagine God sees me.  I believe that an all-powerful being, a higher power, an essence, an energy or, God if you like, embraces us all in our entirety.  God takes in our good and our bad and loves us despite ourselves.  Through my step-work I was able to meet myself for the first time – warts and all.  I was able to fully accept myself in my early 40s.  I don’t just like myself today, I love myself.  To go from wishing I had not woken up five years ago to loving myself completely today is a miracle.  I wish everyone could see themselves with love and tolerance.  I wish it even for people I don’t like; perhaps I wish it for them even more.

There have been other things gained in five years.  I have a relationship with my children I could not have imagined.  This time five years ago, I thought they would be better off without me.  Now I know differently and I am able to be a loving and healthy part of their lives today.  Though my marriage did not last, my relationship with Frank is a good one.  We co-parent really well and we are true friends.  We laugh and when we have conflicts we work it out.  We have what Wren calls a “friendship divorce” and I will take that gladly.

I have repaired relationships with old friends.  I have made amends with people.  I have learned to forgive.  I look the world in the eye and stand tall.  I talk openly and honestly about who I am and what my struggles are because I accept the darker side of myself along with the light because to hide from one side over the other no longer feels congruent.  I don’t feel nearly as much shame, though I still sometimes struggle with its legacy.  I am perfectly flawed and beautifully human.

A friend of mine from my home group mentioned the other day that he takes the time to thank God when things go wrong.  I remember him saying this and I think my head cocked to the side like a dog.  I at first could not grasp the concept.  Why would you thank God when things were going wrong, you are supposed to thank him when things are going well?  He clarified that he does both.  He doesn’t just want to thank God when things are easy but he wants to remember to thank God when things are hard.

It seemed such a foreign concept to me, but it was something that kept coming back to me over the course of the next week.  I began to feel myself starting to do this when little things were not going my way, then when bigger things went wrong.  It started to become easier and it started to really make an impact on my thinking.  It is like the opposite of a fox-hole prayer for me.  I feel my anger rising about something and I take a moment to thank God and it instantly puts things into perspective for me and I am grateful.

This is the kind of thinking that I am receptive to now.  This is the kind of thought process I can have now that allows me to turn things around and look at all facets of a situation and be thankful rather than resentful.  It changes everything and makes me calm in situations that used to send me right over the edge into fear and self-pity which are my Achilles heels.

So I am not saying that I am a saint and I am certainly not perfect five years later.  I have growing to do still and much left to learn, but I am open to doing so now and so very grateful that I can. 

Today I am no longer disappointed that I woke up.