Recovery

This I adapted for OA from an NA Just for Today reading that landed in my in-box tonight:

Few of us have any interest in “recovering” what we had before we started using.  Many of us suffered severely from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.  Getting high and staying high seemed like the only possible way to cope with such abuse.  Others suffered in less noticeable but equally painful ways before addiction took hold.  We lacked direction and purpose.  We were spiritually empty.  We felt isolated, unable to empathize with others.  We had none of the things that give life its sense and value.  We [binged] in a vain attempt to fill the emptiness inside ourselves.  Most of us wouldn't want to “recover” what we used to have. 

Ultimately, the recovery we find in OA is something different: a chance at a new life.  We'’ve been given tools to clear the wreckage from our lives.  We’'ve been given support in courageously setting forth on a new path.  And we’'ve been given the gift of conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, providing us with the inner strength and direction we so sorely lacked in the past.

Recovering?  Yes, in every way.  We’'re recovering a whole new life, better than anything we ever dreamed possible.  We are grateful.

I think the part that really resonates with me today is I don't want to recover what I used to have.  I want to recover my health and spiritual wellbeing -- which I did not have before.

Blessed be.

Acceptance

It's a cold, bright-grey, snow is coming kind of morning.  The readings for today don't really inspire me.  Yes, they are true, yes, they are helpful, but they aren't particularly profound.  And the irony is, one of them is about acceptance.  So I accept them for what they are.

It reads, in part:

Acceptance is the simple act of going through what is presently facing me, be it pain, anger, despair, hopelessness or their opposites.  When life as it really is because a fact that I accept as naturally as I breathe, events lose their power to throw me off balance or disturb the basic rhythm of my life. 

So this. 

Blessed be.

Living my Program: Into Action

He does not believe that does not live by his belief.  - Thomas Fuller*

This morning's reading is a reminder that my recovery is a program of action, not just writing and thinking.  So far, I have an active plan of eating, a consistent reading/writing program, and a nightly AEIOU inventory with my OA buddy.  I also have service to my home group and intergroup.  Where can my program be stronger?  I am not making much progress toward a healthy body weight.  That is my increased focus by tracking my food and activities so I have a mindful awareness of what my actions are contributing toward physical recovery.

The reading in For Today says:

Do the principles I believe in have any relation to my daily life?  I may think the twelve-step program is great, but how can I say it works if I merely admire it rather than live by it?  When I arrived in OA, what I heard rang true because it came out experience, not theory.

Anyone can "learn" the program, but to achieve recovery it promises takes more than intellectual understanding; it takes sustained effort to apply its spiritual principles in every area of my life.  Only then -- when I am practicing what I say I believe in -- can I give it away to another compulsive overeater.

For today, I discipline myself by not 'talking program' unless I am trying to work it.  If I believe that ours is a program of recovery, I will live by that belief.

Blessed be.

*Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661, English churchman and historian.  He also wrote, "One who would have the fruit must climb the tree."

Enough

To be alive is Power / Existence in itself / Without further function / Omnipotence enough. - Emily Dickinson

It is early, dark and cold.  I am getting started with my day.  And the reading is about enoughness:

I am alive.  I can make of that fact anything I want.  I need no terms or conditions to exercise the power of life.  All I have to do is live now.  It is enough.  There may be life in the future, and there was certainly life in the past, but my footing is in the present.  Today is where the past has its meaning, and where the future is shaped.  looking far forward, mapping out my life in the future, I waste the power of the present.  And lingering in the past, twisting its circumstances and falsifying its memory is an injustice to both past and present.  I am thankful that my past has brought me to this present, where I am learning to use all my energy and spirit to live. 

For today, I revel in the power of being alive and I thank God I am not afraid to exercise it to the fullest today.

This.  I am learning to use all my energy and spirit to live.  Before, I was using all my energy and spirit not to die.  There is a big difference.  I want to feel whole, at ease, beautiful, loving and energized in the present moment and in all I choose to do today.

Blessed be.

Strong Hope

How ironic that Friedrich Nietzche, reviled when I was in university as a nihilist is this morning's quote author:

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.

I am choosing to live in a way that best supports my desired feelings -- it seems this is a better way than to live and then deal with my feelings that arise.  So I want to feel whole, energized, loving, beautiful and at ease.  I am hopeful that these feelings will grow in my life as I direct my energy toward them, toward life.

Blessed be.

The Road between Here and There

I had significant weight loss in 2014 - 80 or so pounds.  And I felt worse.  So gradually, I gained it all back.  Now, I am trying to regain a healthy body weight in a way that doesn't make me feel more unsafe, more vulnerable, more uncertain, more afraid.

The reading today in Voices of Recovery is, as usual, helpful.  It reads:

My old way of thinking was that I was either an utter failure as a human being, or I was a saint.  I saw myself as an utter failure:  my attempts at controlling my weight and my eating only strengthened my view of myself.  I dreamt of a glorious change in me:  a totally compassionate, intelligent, and, of course, thin person.  The trouble was that there was no road between me, the miserable failure, and me, the thin saint.  So I retreated to eating and daydreaming.  I used to envision a sudden flip into a different me -- as if by magic I would be transformed.  But OA has taught me that recovery requires patient and persistent commitment to a glorious, but hard, journey.  OA has taught me how to acknowledge my shortcomings and how, by working the Steps to change, I can drop the self-hate and humbly rely on my Higher Power.  I am journeying to recovery with OA's 12 Steps.

I remember seeing an internist who specialized in obesity.  I expressed my fears of being thin, feeling more vulnerable, being unwilling to risk it.  And she said, "you know, if you lose the weight and you don't like it, you can just gain it all back.  I'll even deliver you a dozen chocolate chip cookies every day to help."  I left her care because I couldn't do lose the weight then.  When I had some willingness to try, I did lose the weight and I didn't like it and I did gain it all back.  I bought my own cookies. 

So the quest now is how to be at peace in my own mind and work towards a healthier body weight at the same time.  I am not sure I know how to find peace around the change.  I know I can lose the weight if I work really hard.  But the mental, the emotional element is still something I don't understand.  I am praying and working to understand it.  It has something to do with feeling broken or damaged.  And so I am working towards feeling whole.  Then, I pray, I can be whole and a more healthy size.  For the truth is, I am not whole at a large size.

Blessed be.

Neither End Nor Beginning but a Continuation

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. -- Hal Borland*

Resolutions at New Year's Eve are attempts to control, to change.  I can change without trying to force my path.  I choose, every day.  And so I continue on as I have, refining my path as I go, praying for guidance, for willingness, for hope.

Blessed be this New Year's Day.

*Hal Borland, 1900-1978, American writer and naturalist, conservationist.