Growth Spruts.

What a lovely day and how grateful I am to have been a part of it. One thing that recovery allows me or empowers me to do is to be able to be truly emotionally invested in another person and to feel their success as they happen and of course the mishaps. My friend Frankie is closing in on her first year after many years of trying to get the "One day at a time" thing down. Jamie and her Daughter celebrated Mardi Gras and wore these hats that were so colorful my eyes tickled. There are so many people, people I know by name that are trying so hard to live and love differently that I am inspired to try another day.
The more I talk and get to know addicts the more I am leveled by the facts that we are all terrified to make mistakes and "failing", and we are so hard on ourselves when it comes to accepting love.

My sponsor was the first person who told me "We love you just the way you are" in a way that I really heard it and believed him. I was complaining about someone sharing at a meeting that came off to me like a low low end televangelist earlier tonight. The fact is a lot of people vibe to him. Regardless of what I think of him I would never say he wasn't welcome in a meeting and I wouldn't try to get my little group to run him out. Besides the miracle of addicts living without using, the other miracle is the program was set up in a way the "principles before personality" saves us from ourselves. No one person can be so "right" that we run someone else out.

And what that really means to me is , I can go in and be myself and they can't make me leave if they don't like me. lol  For someone with social anxiety like mine, that social cushion of having a spot regardless regardless of group opinion of me makes me feel safe. I have to feel safe in order to grow. I wasn't safe growing up and I shut down to protect myself.  I try my hardest to make new people feel safe when they come in. I try to do for them what I needed and need today.
  All my life I just wanted to feel F E E L cared for. I get it today for a dollar a meeting and a little service on the side.lol