Being honest with yourself is the beginning, and honesty with oneself does not end.
Looking upwards, seeing where I wanted to be, where I had been, and where I was heading; this was the beginning of gratitude. Telling myself the truth about my deepest core feelings. Was I truly grateful or was I angry?
Figuratively, at the cliffs edge, the end was in sight; two choices lay before me; continue in my self destruction, and complete the circle, or change, and try to go on. My history had come before me, the history of one side of my heritage, and the history of the other side of my heritage. Aspects of both histories have now come to pass; I have had my mother and father’s history now become my history , because of the similar choices we made more than a half century apart.
My moms history was much different than my fathers, and I am now within 2 years in age, of the age she was when, she died; the right choice was taken, but too late. Those decisions came with no celebration, in my case as I suspect it was similar in theirs, no hallelujah, no joy. To accept gratitude, to release anger with myself, my circumstances, my family; to change.
I could not imagine that things would ever get better. Being at the bottom is lonely, often with little hope that things will get better. Mentally I was in the pit of my own designed disgrace, there was no good, no love of God, no love of self, no beauty; there was only me. I had successfully dismantled everything I held dear in life, this was to be the beginning or the end, the choice was only mine.
For me, hitting the bottom did not happen overnight, it was a decades long progression; I was, for many years, metaphorically skipping happily past what would ultimately be recognized as the graveyard. In my experience, recovery is similar; it is a progression with many steps, challenges, and, emotions along the way. It is painful, sobering, and humiliating, requiring courage, commitment, and humility to rise again. We tend to see the worst and disregard the efforts towards good. Many that have watched us descend into darkness, are rightly skeptical about our ascension, and do not often share our excitement when we see what we perceive as progress towards our better selves. A truth to me that is not a truth to all is that God is in the self, that if I believe God lives in me, then God is within the self, however, this is no longer my belief.
Having taken these several months to observe, to study, and to evaluate, I have found my prior beliefs of God to be incorrect. It is now my belief that the existence of god cannot be proven, not to say there is no god but to say, if there is a god, it is not what I had come to believe through my former perspective. A truth to me is changing in nature, an unknowing, a general fluidity, an unbelieving of a now former truth is being uncovered.
Being honest with yourself is the beginning, and honesty with oneself does not end. This will require ongoing observation, of past and present, to analyze if the story that has been developed in the mind is truly factual. Navigating the mind is filled with tricky terrain. Do not accept that your thoughts are on your side. Awareness of the moment includes awareness of thought. However give enough respect to your thoughts to know that they are yours to hear out, discover the narratives, and accept or reject. Let your mind be at peace with itself, the world has enough war, keep your mind at peace.
In my recovery experience I have found that as you face yourself, you begin to know yourself, and forgive yourself, healing begins to naturally occur. Steps to recovery dynamically happen, effort begins to become habit, directionless shifts to determination. Have the courage to accept yourself, your mistakes, and make a decision to strive for your better self. Don’t let the instability of mind, anxiety, and the fragility of beginning recovery stop you. Greatness can occur again, each step in the journey brings you closer, keep thinking, keep observing, keep advancing.
The only way to is through!
