SERVICE
Nov 16, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“Between the familiar dysfunctional attitudes and thinking and emotional sobriety there can be a period of waiting in the spiritual hallway. Even here, there is an opportunity to grow in patience, tolerance, and self-acceptance.
As we wait for clarity, other ACAs encourage us to “keep coming back.” We make forward movement, discovering a Higher Power that supports our healing. Thankfully, the pain lessens with time, and the relief comes more quickly than we imagined.
While parts of our work may remain undone, the satisfaction of having achieved some level of emotional sobriety, and of having grieved parts of ourselves and survived the process gives us strength to carry on with unfinished work. We know we can face other areas with the firm knowledge that the spiritual awakening we seek awaits us. With hope and love in our hearts, we encourage others in their passage. This is the highest form of service: speaking from experience about the strength and hope we have achieved.”
My experience:
“Spiritual Hallway,” what a descriptive term. As I reflect on this term, I define my spiritual hallway as a safe haven. Although damaging, staying or going back to your dysfunctional behavior is comforting because it is familiar. Breaking away from those behaviors is and continues to be very scary, even as I experience healing. However, instead of falling all the way back into the dysfunctional behavior that I developed in order to survive, I now retreat into the hallway. Stepping outside of the hallway allows me to feel the feelings, see the light, hear the song, taste the air and smell the aromas. If what I was experiencing got to overwhelming, i.e., to many feelings to process were revealed, etc., I could retreat into the hallway and ensure that what I saw, felt, tasted, heard, and smelled, was real. In essence it allowed me to take baby steps.
During this time of taking baby steps, service work kept me afloat. Service comes in many forms, setting up and cleaning up after the meetings, sharing, being an officer of the meeting, like the person in charge of making coffee. My service work came in the form of clean up after the meeting, sharing, and being the literature person for the meeting. These things kept me coming back as I wrestled with the internal demons from my past and dealt with the sometimes overwhelming pain that I experienced as a result of realizing my survival tactics no longer served me well if I wanted to live a better life.
Over time my retreat to the hallway has become less and less frequent, and I am better equipped to take on the full brunt of the senses as I continue on my healing journey. As I am able to step out of the hallway for longer periods of time, the healing becomes deeper and more solidified. I can take on more and reach depths of pain that I have never even imagined were there and heal them. I am better equipped to understand that although the pain will come, healing is just around the corner. I continue to serve to help me through.