10 Years

While scrolling our community this morning, I came across a blog post from someone I admire. It was her real self. Real life talking. Inspiring 🌈 🦄. There is our life and what we present our lives to be on IG. I hope that I can encourage and give hope whether it’s a beginning sewer or someone dealing with life on life’s terms.
So today is significant for me, I am ten years in recovery, sober, today. There is so much I would have missed. Below is a post from 2 years ago and it’s still true today. Dont let my God references turn you off. My God, is my God. You, do you.
“First picture a TB about ten weeks in from 5/10/2009
What I’ve learned:
That a drop of apprehensive hope is still hope.
That when I look inward at what about myself needs fixing, my relationships improve.
That when I am honest with myself and then with others with whom I’ve harmed, owning my part to them, My experience has been, 99% of the time they have forgiven me.
I stayed, and my father in heaven has continued to give me evidence that that was not in vain.
My dream of what it would be like having a relationship with my children when they were older was so small compared to what it looks like today.
I’ve learned not to have expectations of others but instead let go and be pleasantly surprised.
I’ve learned that every day that I stay embracing resentments or voiding relationships because of past shame and embarrassment is a day lost that I can never get back.
Show up, show up, show up because it becomes the evidence to others that they matter, they are loved and they can trust you.
Kindness is free, and I can always afford to be generous of spirit.
I have learned to smile, say hello, allow people to connect to me, though it is contrary action and makes me feel uncomfortable. The more I do it, the more comfortable I become.
I’ve learned that I’m allowed to have boundaries, that when a connection with others triggers an old narrative of “I’m not enough” I am allowed to limit how often I engage. I can take care of myself in a compassionate gracious way without a grand statement or being critical or judgmental of them.
I have learned that when I am of service to my fellow man/woman, I feel the most meaningful connection with my father in heaven.
I’ve learned that when I meditate and pray, fear passes, anxiety passes, self-loathing passes and the best version of myself emerges. When searching for answers while praying and meditating, answers always come in a still small voice, always from a place of compassion, ever much simpler and obvious than I would’ve imagined and again a version of myself that I did not even know existed.
To say I am grateful feels inadequate because I was as “the drowning man desperate for the life preserver” I was without hope and then, an act of Providence, a still small voice, a life preserver, one moment, where I made a decision ” I will do anything and everything you tell me to do, Heavenly Father. I’m just going to choose to trust in you.”
And
I stayed.