In the last two weeks I’ve felt a substantial change in my experience of sobriety and recovery: I am experiencing healthy surrender in my life. I am creating this thread to share about that; to have a place to get my thoughts out of my head. Welcome to my journey folks! Buckle up.
First note: I am scared. I am scared scared scared. Here’s a list of the things - just some of the things! - I’m scared of:
- going broke and having to sell my house to repay the loans I took out to start my business
- not finding the staff I need to do the jobs I’ve booked in our schedule
- being a failure and therefore being alone, being abandoned because I’m another disorganized and inattentive and scattered man: by far the biggest and deepest fear I have (it’s rooted in the experiences of my father and his father, both of whom had rocky paths for those reasons)
Am I a failure? No of course I’m not. Am I disorganized and inattentive and scattered? Those are pretty broad things to say - I’m a lot of other things too - but even if I am those things at times, I have unique value I bring (in the same way a rose is a rose and a worm is a worm: the rose can’t be a worm and the worm can’t be a rose, but you need both of them to have a garden).
Recently I attended an SA retreat in my province, and hearing the other attendees share about surrender helped me understand what that means for me.
What am I surrendering? The paralysis - the “safe” place of “doing nothing is safer than doing something and making a mistake” - that comes from fear. Fear and worry are appropriate at times but if they’re keeping me paralyzed (as they have for years, masked in my addiction), then they’re attachments, they’re like anchors holding me in place, and I need to cut the chains and set sail; I need to set myself free.
To the greater web of life, the powers greater than me, the patterns of the universe, which are always infinitely more directing things than I am: I surrender to you. I am confident the path I will follow, the natural growth, will be what I need. I surrender to that. I accept the unknown and I surrender my attachment to the known. I trust I will get what I need.
More to come folks