Act As If...
TODAY'S MEDITATION: ACT AS IF
In recovery rooms we hear this a lot - "act as if". Weird right? Since we have felt for so long as if we were acting our whole lives.
Yet it makes a sort of sense because we crawl in with mountain sized unbeliefs about ourselves, the world and even this recovery process. Our experiential memories seem to contain more bad than good so we have little to no reference points on how to be "sober" - with all that entails. Bad is our default when we come in.
For most of us our using careers spanned 5, 10, 20, 30 years - that's a lot of practice being an addict or a drunk or an OA, SLA, GA, EA - you name it.
Meanwhile our "character defects" have had even an longer practice period - developing some time before and right alongside our "using". This is not unique to the recovery community. We see this in religious, spiritual and secular communities as well. A few crawl in and stand up and shine right away while a lot of others walk in a dust cloud, struggling with taking those first few sober, born-again, clean, namaste, steps.
There may have times in our early days when we had a look-back at the giant cargo sized net of crappy shameful guilty behaviors and feelings strapped to our backs and felt overwhelmed and hopeless. The temptation to **F***ck **E**verything **A**nd **R**un was hard to resist and we even watched as members succumbed and went back to engage with their drugs of choice at the risk of harm to themselves and those around them.
I remember a moment early on when I went into treatment, years and years ago, and the reality of what they were saying was starting sink in - no more alcohol drinking - ever. On one of my phone calls I called "home" and was talking to my father. I told him I could never drink again. I don't know why, maybe I hoped he would say "can't drink forever? Are they crazy? That's ridiculous son, pack your bags and come home!" But no, he wisely said "well forever is long, try to take it one day at a time and see how it goes..." I hung up the phone thinking maybe I could do just a day at a time.
So to make the seemingly unplatable palatable, like we do for small children when we mash up their food so they can eat it, we break it down to just one day at a time. One day. Today. That's all we have to work with. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not here yet.
***Just for today*** I will act in a sober way - the way my sponsor suggests, the way I see other sober members acting. It's uncomfortable, it feels fake. We are likely to stumble and bumble. It works though. We have a fellowship full of triple digit sober, church, temple, sangha, group going members whose using lives mirrored our own and some even worse who put one sober born-again om new me foot in front of the other enough times that walking that uncomfortable path became the natural comfortable path to walk.
We were not born knowing most of what we need to know to be in our lives. But we were born with the capacity to learn. And a day at a time we did it. We learned to talk, to walk, to think, to interact with others etc. That capacity has never left us.
So start right here. Right now. Act as if life is a blessing. Just for today I am blessed. I am alive. I am breathing. I have food to eat. I have a warm roof over my head. I have clothes to wear. I know people who like me. I know people I like. I have a phone. I have internet access. C'mon keep it going... You have your list...
Be blessed! And be a blessing!
Ago, Ase. Namaste. Amen.