Grateful Sunday – January 28, 2018

I’m grateful for my recovery program. I’ve learned that it’s not that I won’t struggle in life, but how I manage my struggles that matters. What is the story I make up? What are the tools I’m going to use when I’m feeling off? How do I allow myself to accept my emotions, work through them, and learn from them?

Jack Canfield states in his book The Success Principles:

E + R = O

(Event + Response) = Outcome

The basic idea is that the very outcome you experience in life (whether it is success or failure, wealth or poverty, health or illness, intimacy or estrangement, joy or frustration) is the result of how you have responded to an earlier event or events in your life.

He’s reminded me, that if I don’t like the outcomes I’m currently getting in my life, I have two choices.

1. I can blame the event (E) for my lack of results (O).
2. I can instead change my response (R) to the events (E) – the way things are – until I get the outcome (O) I want.

This is where I am grateful for recovery. Without recovery, I wouldn’t have been fully able to accept that I still point my finger and blame. Without recovery, I wouldn’t be willing to continue to look inward and do the work I need to do so I can heal. Without recovery, I wouldn’t be able to accept that I’m not perfect and end up shaming myself for doing the same things over again. Without recovery, I wouldn’t have learned how to be gentle on myself while nurturing my inner child.

Today I’m grateful that I can accept all of me as I am, complete with all my imperfections, and love who I see. I will continue to rise from the ashes daily.