SURVIVAL TRAITS

August 20, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“The safe harbor we find in ACA meetings is the starting point for transforming our survival traits.” BRB p.112

“The dysfunction we grew up with grabbed hold of many of us with such powerful claws that we learned to perform to suit the needs of others.   We took on behaviors that helped us survive the best way we knew how.

Some of our survival traits were so integrated into our psyche that we felt like two people inside: the person we learned to be and the one who was “emotionally dying” to break free.

But even as adults, we had no clue about what to change and how to change it. We just knew that we had to find a way out if we were ever to have a chance at experiencing a “normal” life.

ACA is that way out! It is a proven path that leads to new ways of thinking and being.  But it’s not easy. Transformation takes time and energy. It also takes self-acceptance and self-forgiveness because we will inevitably slip and slide. That’s why we need to know that we don’t have to be on this journey alone.

On this day, if I find myself slipping, I will take a deep breath and pick up the phone. I am no longer alone.”

My Experience:

Wow! I was multiple people. I learned to be one person, but secretly craved to be another. That inner person was dying a slow death. I tried to get this person out from time to time only to be rebuffed and that person was scared back in. Now that I have others on the journey with me, they encourage me to be who I am, to do what I do. Now, this does not mean that I do things to intentionally hurt anyone else. I truly take a look at my behavior, my intentions and my needs and if they are not genuine and pure then I don’t take on the behavior. But I get to be me, I get to have fun, I get to laugh, I get to experience a number of emotions. I even get to cry. I no longer have to survive, I can live now! 

My Experience:

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