This morning, I am playing my spiritual music list and right now the Bellamy Brothers' song, Let Your Love Flow, is on. It’s been a dark few days here mood-wise and that is challenging. I weighed myself this morning and I am losing and regaining the same five pounds! Since New Year, I’ve done it twice and I have been bouncing around the same numbers since the end of July. My sense is I am in some sort of holding pattern there so I am praying for insight on what I need to accept / acknowledge / understand / surrender to move forward. So that’s for my two-way writing prayer meditation this week.
It occurred to me that my erstwhile sponsee is showing me this pattern but in big capital letters and broad strokes. She will email me that she wants to start working her program again and then she doesn’t actually start. Or if she starts, it’s a day at the most and then she stops. A few weeks, maybe a month pass. And I keep the channel open but I don't chase her. I cannot work anyone else's program for them. And as a sponsor, all I have is my experience, strength, and hope to offer. Seeing her struggle is a reminder of how painful my life is when I struggle.
Last week she emailed me a quick note yet again, thanking me for staying in touch periodically and that this was an ‘interim’ email saying she has her head around her again. She shared that she’ll work her plan and let me know how it goes later that night. And then radio silence! So she is struggling with moving forward and consistent effort.
I reflect on this from my sponsee as I consider my bouncing stagnant physical recovery as a symptom of the health of my spiritual program more generally. I acknowledge to myself and to God that I am maintaining about a 75 lb weight loss for which I am very grateful. However, abstinence is working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight. While I am healthier, I am not a healthy body weight yet.
Bouncing around, losing the same five pounds, is a stop and start physical recovery. This is hard on my body. It is also hard on my emotional recovery - a symptom of spiritual unease. There's some block there to moving ahead, trusting God I have the strength to do the work necessary to move toward a healthy body weight. Trusting God that I can safely face the uncertainty that comes with feeling smaller in my body.
And this brings me to a version of the Step 8 prayer I read recently:
God, in my illness, I have harmed myself. Grant me compassion, tolerance, and patience. Save me from negativity now as I move toward healing.
Blessed be.
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