PERSISTENCE

April 22, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“Recovery takes patience and persistence. We are naturally impatient to reach the end without delay and skip the hard work of the program.” BRB p. xxx

“Whenever we think we should be doing more in recovery, doing better, or going faster, it could be our disease talking to us. We might think we’re behind, we’ll never be good enough, or we’ll never get through the Steps. Such thinking can lead us to overexertion, or by contrast make us feel like giving up instead of keeping a balanced, steady approach to working our program with actions corning from love.

There’s a great slogan in 12 Step programs: “Just show up.” This means simply to be present, here and now only, and do the next right thing in front of us. It means to be at peace with our actions instead of pushing, forcing, expecting, or “futurizing.” It gives us permission to be human, be relaxed, and just show up for ourselves. This is how we develop perseverance and balance, one day at a time.

On this day I give myself permission to suit-up and just show up for myself to the best of my ability.”

My Experience:

Showing up for yourself, it is that simple.  I would beat myself up when I felt like I didn’t have anything to share in the meeting.  I thought I needed to show perfection and have all the right things to say.  I felt bad because of the time it took me to find a sponsor and/or work the steps.  I even felt bad because I thought my story was not as horrific as others so I did not belong in the room of recovery.  But I just continued to show up.  Listening to others, accepting me as one of their own, patiently allowing me my process in order to get to the point of being able to share and acknowledging my shares as touching and caring.  My persistence and perseverance is paying off in that I can feel the recovery and others can see the recovery.  I will continue to just show up.

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