Today's reading reminds me that my recovery is spiritual first, and then physical recovery flows from that. I have been feeling badly about my weight and -- well more accurately, I have been feeling bad about my physical condition. I am still in pain from the car accident injuries, I tire very easily, and left to my own devices, I will sleep and eat carbohydrates.
I was reminded, however, that my size is not so different than it was four years ago, when I wore a holiday top last night I hadn't worn for a couple years. And my heart was feeling less depressed, less anxious, and less unworthy of going to a party than I did the first time I remember wearing the top.
It is always fun to see the backstory to the little quotes that start off the For Today reading. Today's quote is from Aesop, of Aesop's Fables fame. It is the proverb which ends the story titled, "The Dog and the Shadow". It reads:
It happened that a dog had found a piece of meat and was carrying it home in his mouth to eat it in peace. On his way back to his home, he occasioned to cross a wooden plank lying across a fast-running brook. As he crossed the plank, he looked down and saw his own shadow reflected in the burbling water beneath. Thinking it was another dog with another piece of meat, he made up his mind to have that piece too. So, he made a snap at the shadow in the water, but as he opened his mouth the piece of meat fell out, dropped into the water, and was promptly swept away and never again seen. Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
Don’t let slip the things you have that are real and substantive in the pursuit of the ephemeral, the prospective, or the offhandedly promised. My recovery is long term, every day, and real. I do not need to chase quick fixes, magic potions or silver bullets.
Blessed be.
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