“Know Thyself”

I was talking to a friend recently who’s dealing with some frustration right now. Certain things in his life are not what he expected. People have turned out to be different than who he thought they were. I listened to him talk and couldn’t help but smile and think about how I knew exactly what he meant.

More will be revealed.

The process of breaking free of our addictions, of being returned to sanity, is also one of rejoining the world. Or, as was more the case with me, joining it for the first time. I was such an isolator; I lived in my own head more than in my real life. Any time reality didn’t go the way I thought it should, or turned out to be different than I thought it was, I reacted by moving even deeper into my own self. This still happens to me every once in awhile. News that’s real hard to take can still bring out that knee-jerk denial reaction. With time, and with work, I’m learning better to overcome it.

For the most part, though, I find that I actually enjoy being wrong. Being wrong about something is one of the best reminders that I am only human and not perfect. When I have one of those ah-ha moments, where I am shown the truth of the world around me, there is gratitude. I might not feel it at first, but I usually end up in the place where I am glad to have learned the way things really are. It means I have become more in tune with my life and this reality thing I share with others. For someone who used to spend all his time hidden away from the world in fear, that is a real blessing. Being able to hear a new truth and coming to accept it are skills that I didn’t used to have.

Acceptance was not an innate ability for me; it is a skill I have learned, and one that I continue to learn better. Every time I overreact to something I don’t like or don’t want to hear, it is an opportunity for me to look at myself and understand myself better. What is it about me that I’m having such an extreme reaction to this? Why am I so upset? Where, oh where, has my serenity gone? I’m being a bit sarcastic here, but it is one of those funny-but-true things.

If you have resentments, they are yours.

Getting angry at others is something everyone can relate to. The fourth step teaches us that, if we are upset about something someone else has done, there is something inside of ourselves we have failed to address. We may have expectations which weren’t met. We may have desires that were thwarted. Perhaps we had ambitions which weren’t healthy or won’t be realized, or both. The power of the fourth step is that it gives us the chance to address those issues. It is an amazingly powerful tool which allows us to get in better touch with ourselves, to understand why we did what we did. It calls on us to look at our own actions, to examine our part in things. We can’t control other people, places and things, only ourselves. And so we look at ourselves.

Working my fourth step was a real pivot point for me in my Recovery. For the first time, I could see in black and white the patterns of behavior which had created pain and wreckage for myself and others. For the first time, I got a glimpse at how the disease had wreaked havoc on my life. I could see the truth about myself, and with that knowledge came the opportunity to do things differently. I see it now as the moment where I started moving away from the man I used to be.

Being in touch with myself gives me a chance at being in better touch with the world I live in. Reality responds in kind, revealing more to me about itself, which in turn gives me a better chance to know myself. It’s one of those amazing positive feedback loops that makes Recovery such a blessing. There is pain, of course, and difficulty too. But from the fires, that crucible which seems to create only ashes, can rise peace and serenity.