I have been trying to keep this front of mind in the context of a friend going through serious financial problems. My best thinking in the past has been to try to rescue a friend in similar circumstances. That didn't go very well. I got badly hurt. The friend ended up in hospital (she may have ended up there anyway, I don't know). Our friendship ended because she felt my helping betrayed our friendship.
Now with this current friend, my instinct is to rescue but I can't. The problem is too big, the financial burden too high. And with all I have learned in doing the Steps, listening and talking to other members, and praying for guidance, I have determined it does not help to get between an addict and their bottom. They have to get to a place of abject failure and defeat - for them - and where that is and what it looks like is theirs alone. Only then are they at ground zero and can start to rebuilt their troubled lives.
For me, I wonder if I've recently hit my own bottom in feeling distraught over trying to help and then realizing my 'helping' others has meant I have ignored my own needs, my own recovery. Yes, I have been going to meetings. I've even started a new step study. But is my heart in it? Or is my heart too broken, preoccupied on what isn't than what I can do?
So the reading today that reminds me my recovery comes first. And that means I have to leave room for the Divine to work in my life and in the lives of those I love.
"For today I will remember to let an infinite Higher Power enrich my life and broaden my horizons with His will, rather than shortchanging myself with the finite limits of my own human vision."Blessed be.
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