Ego

Free of Regret

/ Tim / 2 Comments

It’s not easy to live life without regrets. It’s much easier to wonder sometimes about the “what ifs” and “if onlys”. Regret is a sadness or disappointment over what happened or didn’t happen in the past. “What might have been?” I can ask myself. “I could have been a better son, friend, husband, father and coworker. I might have made so much more with my life.” If we don’t stop the internal conversation it can lead to the vicious spiral of depression, more regret and relapse.

“The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time to plant one is today.”

The gift of the Serenity Prayer is acceptance of what we cannot change. One of those things is the past. I know that my life would be very different today had I taken another road in the past. I was in a relationship that wasn’t working and hadn’t been working for a lot of years. I knew it, but I lacked the courage and strength to leave. In the end, I was the one who was left behind. I can’t take back those years. I can’t go back in time and change them. So what do I do so as not to live in regret?

I have to accept what happened. I accept that my Higher Power was looking after me during that time and continues to do so. I accept that I had challenges to overcome and some lessons to learn. It’s not easy to learn to forgive oneself for roads not taken but I must. Steps four through nine help us to work through regret. So yes, things did or didn’t happen in the past and today I don’t have to regret those things. Rather I can use them as teaching tools for the present. I prefer to look at all that happened in the past was needed to bring me to who I am today. And I know that what happens today will lead me on to who I am to be tomorrow. I’m learning to trust the process of the program and my Higher Power. Today can I plant that tree I didn’t in the past without guilt, without remorse and without regret.

It’s important for me to remember that: “We will not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it,” is a Ninth Step promise. I have to work all the steps that come before. There aren’t short cuts. Living the steps isn’t all that difficult but it does take persistence. I don’t get a vacation from being in recovery. I live in recovery 24 hours a day. So today I will plant a tree. It may be a while before it bears fruit, but an unplanted tree never will. Trust the process. It works when you work it!

Seeking Approval

/ Tim / 7 Comments

I spent the better part of my whole life seeking the approval others. I liked the praise of others for the things that I had done. From an early age I wanted others to like me and so I did what I could to keep everyone happy. I did well in school and that pleased my parents and my teachers. It didn’t always win the approval of classmates but they weren’t that important in my life, they weren’t people of influence.

So I learned very early on how to people please. I also learned to be very good at certain things so that they would turn out a certain way and others would like the results and I became a perfectionist. In high school, university, work life and relationships I sought, I craved approval.

I basically stayed that way until I came into recovery. With the help of the Steps of my program I was able to dissect my perfectionist attitude and see that at its root was pleasing people: seeking approval because deep down I didn’t think I was likable enough. I had low self esteem. I didn’t feel that I was, of myself, worthy of regard, like or love. I felt I had to earn it by doing things that others wanted me to do.

As a result, I didn’t try a lot of things because someone else might not approve. If I didn’t think I could pull it off ‘perfectly’, I wouldn’t even start. I placed impossibly high standards upon myself and my abilities: anything less than perfection was a failure. I had dreams of writing the next best selling novel, but I knew that was so doubtful that I gave up before I began. I wasn’t going to be the next Faulkner or Hemingway or Steinbeck, then why bother? I damned myself before I began.

My program has taught me that life is a process. It starts with me being me. It starts with me accepting myself as I am and learning to love that self. I am learning that I am enough. I don’t need the approval of others, I only need to love me. I have nothing to prove, nothing to earn. Whether you like me or not is really none of my concern. I have to be who I am.

I’m still working on it. I still want others to like me and what I do, but it’s not so important to me. I try to impress the ‘right’ people, but now I catch myself and know that I am enough. If it pleases you, that’s very nice, but it’s not as vital to me as it used to be. I am learning to say yes to things that I wouldn’t have done in the past because it is an opportunity for personal growth and understanding regardless of how well I do it. I guess I’m learning what it means to be leave my adolescence behind and become a human adult. One step at a time, and one day at a time.

Oh, Woe is Me!

/ Tim / 2 Comments

I was pretty good at looking at my life as a sad case when I was still living in my disease.  There was always a good reason why I needed to continue to drink or use. No one knew how bad my life was. You couldn’t understand me. Everyone was against me. My problems were so deep and personal no one could help me. I had so many reasons to keep on using and very few to stop.

By the time I got to recovery I, like many others, thought that my life was over. I knew I couldn’t go on the way I was going. Somehow I was able to fast forward and see what my life would soon be like and I knew that I had to stop.  I thought the fun was over in life. All was downhill from here on in: no more celebrations and parties, no more reasons to laugh. I figured that I would live a pretty sad life compared to the rest of my friends. But the writing was on the wall: either find a way to quit or follow that road to an early grave. Poor me. Poor me! Pour me another!

Self pity kept me in my disease for many years. Every once in a while I can slip back into it. The why mes. The if onlys. The you don’t knows.  I suffer from the disease of ‘terminal uniqueness’, a shortcoming that never lacks a reason to chuck it all and go back to active addiction.

I am grateful for a sponsor who called me on my stupidity. “You’re on an Ego Trip!” I couldn’t believe him at first, but I’ve come to realize that he was right. My ego telling me I am the worst of the worst and things can’t get better is really the same as my ego telling me I am better than everyone else and things have to go my way. The result is the same: a false identity and an incomplete picture of who I really am. What I need to do is put my Ego aside and try to look at things as they really are.

I’m learning that humility isn’t lowering one’s self. It is being, owning, embracing  myself as I am, not better than or worse than anyone else. I have my strengths and my weaknesses. And I need them all to make up the person that I am today. It doesn’t make me worse or better than the next guy.  I’m just another guy.

I’d like to say that I’m over feeling sorry for myself but I’m still working on it. I am grateful that it doesn’t reveal itself as often as it used to. And I’m grateful that I have learned to apply some of the things I’ve learning in recovery: a gratitude list, a change in my focus, service work and meditation. These help to keep balance in my life and allow me to see that my life can be happy, joyous and free when I work for it.