I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
Do you know that no one is responsible for your recovery, but you? As long as you believe that other people can make you feel certain things, or others can make your life go a certain way you are throwing away your power.
Your feelings are your feelings. No one else is responsible for how you feel. Wow, how can that be? You might ask that question because we have a culture that has been telling you that you can make others feel good or bad, or they can make you feel good or bad. And, if that happens they should fix it! Right? That, dear ones in recovery, is one of satan’s biggest weapons of destruction that faces those of us who are/were addicts. Why? Let’s talk about payoffs . . .
Payoff: Learning to take your personal inventory on a daily basis will help you find how you may be setting yourself up to get a payoff in believing others have control of your feelings/life. How can that work? If you believe others have more control over your feelings/life than you it becomes an easy excuse to do such things as:
- Give up and not function
- Run away from treatment or transitional living
- Stop going to recovery support meetings; quit your sponsor(s)
- Stop training or cleaning up; quit working or looking for a job; get divorced
- Going back to your addictions
- Returning to drinking, drugging, gambling, risky behavior
And more . . . as you learn to take honest inventories you will consistently discover ways you undermine your recovery. If you take an honest inventory you will discover such things as: living in your car, or living in the woods is not healthy nor normal. It is not what God intended for your life.
Taking back your power means practicing getting it that your actions are the most important in gaining freedom in recovery.
Every hour of the day you make choices for life, or death. Choosing life takes you step-by-step towards your true identity, a loved, empowered son or daughter of The King.
When you choose death, you fall back into the abyss of satan’s domain in which you will reap the whirlwind of hell: killing, stealing, destroying.
As you increase your skill at taking your personal daily, hourly honest inventory, you will learn how to choose those habits that give life, creating productive habits of behavior. When you practice life-giving habits you move with life, in the river of life, and good things come your way.
Recovery support/meetings are critical to your making these changes because around those tables, in those groups, you hear others share their experience, strength, and hope in their discoveries of their life-giving habits and how their stories change from loss to gain. It is always that way, loss changes to gain.
So, when you are tempted to say, “You make me feel . . .,” stop yourself, take a deep breath. They can’t make you feel anything! Your feelings are your feelings. If you hurt, get help, learn how to gain the emotional capacity to feel and not lose yourself. What does Capacity mean? That’s a good question and will be the next thing I write about.
Jan 23, add-on . . . To have healthy recovery you need models who have already learned what you need to know. Our brains literally synchronize with others in close proximity, that's partly why AA, and other support meetings are important. Choose a sponsor with years of recovery who has changed their lives, who lives the 12 steps of AA and/or understands how addiction & recovery works. Each time you choose the right thing, you are renewing your mind. You will learn the habits of choosing life.