I turn 40 in a couple of weeks & to celebrate am traveling to Spain at the end of June. I’m not one of those people who dislikes getting older. I found sobriety at 31 & ever since then, my life gets better & better. I was a pretty unhappy lady in my 20’s (which I spent a fair amount of time in rehab), so there’s no wishing to go back for me, only forward. I do however stroke into a big cringe upon remembering what it was like sometimes. As it says in the “promises” portion of the Big Big on page 83:
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
I’m not there yet. I’m good with the door to my past staying cemented shut UNLESS it will help someone else. Maybe I’ll get to a better place with the cringe worthiness of what happened, but for now I will be consoled that at least if I share in a meeting or with a newcomer the mess I was compared to what I am now, it will give them hope.
I did steps 3 & 4 this past month. Our sponsorship group had to compress them because none of us could meet last month. I had never realized before how well the two steps intertwine. If I manage to trust my HP fully I will turn all of my resentments over faster. If I turn them over faster with more willingness my pain decreases leaps & bounds. Step 4 is all about the work for me, the writing out of grievances. I dislike the thinking about doing it, but I start to feel relief & am delivered of resentments right when I start writing about them. It is both an Ahhhh & Duh moment.
I’ll meet with my sponsor next month to tell her all about my resentments, big & small. When you do the work in the steps in AA life only gets better. When we meet we’ll talk strategy about resentment patterns (most of them don’t change at least with me). She’ll thankfully offer solutions that I’d never think of. My HP will work through her. I’m excited because I’m doing a little extra work on a subject I really have a hard time with. I feel ready. Well to be honest, I actually feel scared, stubborn, AND ready about it. So we’ll see where it actually goes. It takes what it takes. I heard someone say in a meeting, time takes time. I thought I’d heard all the sayings but I had never really heard that one before. Works for spiritual growth so well.
We went to the Gilbert House in Salem a couple months ago, pics below. We have to get very creative with stuff to do with all of this rain! This rain lover is so ready for a big block of sunshine.
My newest set of gentle yoga classes that I recently started teaching are going really well. A year ago if someone would have asked me to sub a gentle class I would have either said no or panicked. It feels really good to have done the hard work of sequencing, trial & error, asking for help (from teachers & students), & just showing up. Now I am experiencing an ease with teaching the class although I’m not 100% comfortable. Today I taught a free mini class & noticed that many of the people seemed more of the gentle variety & it felt pretty damn good to give them what they needed instead of only teaching whats in my comfort zone.
H & I are in a good spot, I feel comfortable turning 40, I’m looking forward to bright sunshine & Spain, yoga teaching is going really well, I’m in a really good place. Oh yeah & I celebrated 9 years sober. I can’t believe I remembered to mention this until the end of the post, but for me sobriety is a miracle each day although I do love to gather a couple of chips & speak at some meetings. I’m just really, really grateful today for my whole life. I don’t think I could say the same if I would have kept drinking for the last 9 years.
Wishing all of you & the world a sense of ease & forgiveness with your own pasts no matter how old you all are.
~Namaste.
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