Getting High on Recovery

Liking yourself can be difficult. You have to be honest with yourself and that is not always pretty.

Abuse, addiction, mental illness, self-judgment, perfectionism reinforce our shame. Shame uses your own words and your own voice so it becomes very believable. Shame says that you are not worthy, you are not worthwhile, you are not worth it.

I have spent much of my life going to war against my shame monster. At various times, I have tried to fix myself, fixate on my behavior, or flee from my emotions. I have tried to out-think it with positive thinking. I have tried to exercise it away. I have engaged in unhealthy eating as a way to numb it. All of these are in essence attempts to avoid, numb or escape from under my shame.

You can learn to accept rather than fight or hate yourself. I know, because this is the journey I am on. I am learning to be gentle with myself, like myself and even love myself. I have said it before, but recovery is not about the booze, the drugs, the depression or the anxiety. It is about who you are apart from the booze, the drugs, the depression or the anxiety.

Feeling that you are worthy means that we take a risk and invest ourselves. It takes vulnerability. It means finding what makes you feel more alive, more connected with other people and with yourself. To me, that is what recovery means.

At this stage in my life and my recovery, I don’t want to wast one more minute worrying about what other people think, trying to manage my image, worrying about how fat or thin or smart or sexy I look, trying to impress people, trying to figure out what people want from me, trying to be “good,” and trying to earn love. Spending my time and energy fighting, avoiding, resisting, and trying to fix myself, these are are empty. These things are not worth my energy or my attention. They are not worth living for.

I won’t lie, but sometimes it is tempting to lose myself under a numbing blanket of anxiety and depression: Losing days and weeks eating, sleeping, watching TV, and watching life go by. Getting lost in dark moods is a powerful way to distract from the hard work of real life – opening up to life, investing myself in relationships and caring for myself enough to invest energy in my important values.

Life can get you down and it can be difficult to be in the moment, to enjoy your life. But really all that you have is this moment. So how are you spending your time, right now? What makes you feel more alive?

“Likes” don’t make for a life that is meaningful. For me, bringing joy, experiencing joy, making things, observing, feeling, holding, touching, and enriching. These are the things that are worth living for.

I still have days when I don’t feel the love. I don’t like who I see in the mirror. But those days are fewer and less potent than they used to be. When I feel like this, I am learning to accept without trying to fix myself, fixate or flee.

For me, this is recovery. And it is worth it.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Marianne Williamson

If you enjoyed this article, you will want to check out some of my other writing:

There is More to Your Life than What You are Experiencing Today

Do You Know How to Let Go of the Hard Things That Other People Say?

Why is Having Love All Figured Out is a Bad Thing?

I write articles that talk about the kind of changes I am trying to make in my own life. I hope that my writing also helps you. My topics include addiction and mental health recovery, relationships, and personal growth. I work as an Addiction Therapist, an Editor for the Good Men Project and freelance writer, and Adjunct Professor at City University, Edmonton. But what is most important is that I have a family and I am in recovery from depression and anxiety. My mental health experiences are part of my personal University degree, but they do not define me.

I hope to inspire you, to inform you and on occasion to entertain you. But most of all, I want to connect with you. Sign up for my blog if you want to receive the latest and best of my writing. If you like what I have to say, please share my work with your friends.

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Keep it Real

Photo by Ian D. Keating and Sean MacEntee