Did I really almost hold myself hostage again?!?

 

There is a certain point in sobriety where you really have to take a hard look at yourself. I thought I already had done all of that, but right now I am experiencing a different level of  delightfully grueling self examination. It comes as a result of a recent shift in my own reality, one that has left me feeling whole, complete, integrated, and not lacking in any way. (See previous blog, Atonement, about that amazing experience…)

After returning from Indonesia with this self unifying and connective experience under my belt, I was suddenly able to identify certain ways of being that are no longer aligned with who I am. For example, after a recent family crisis involving one of my kids, I found that I wasn’t shaken up or frantic. I had not hit a panic button, or lost my shit, which under the circumstances was not only warranted, but expected. The few people I communicated this crisis to were very sweet, and asked, with a great deal of concern, “But how are you? Are you okay?” I was nonplussed. I felt that I was supposed to say I was devastated, to comment on how hard it is, but I wasn’t devastated. I was fine. The situation had not compromised my serenity in any way, and now I almost felt bad about it.
It was a great opportunity for me to pause and look at why I would feel bad about maintaining a state of serenity in calamity. At the moment my caring friends asked me how I was, I felt how their sympathy offered my recently laid to rest martyr/victim space to unfurl. It was compelling to say, “Its hard, yeah,” and take their consoling words and basically wallow in them, feeding the ‘bad wolf’ of my ego in the most insidious of ways. To even have to own that this is what I have done for years was an ugly truth to face, and its little consolation that I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. I unwittingly disempowered my own self with the kindness of others.

Now there is the feeling bad about being fine- what’s up with that? There is the old ego again, worrying about how I look to others. Will they think I am not concerned enough about my daughter? Will they think me too cavalier, or perhaps even disconnected from reality? Why oh why do I care?
I care because I am a human, subject to all the frailties that crave approval. Its the human condition, and being an alcoholic is the human condition on steroids. I could feel that urge to play into the assigned role and cave in for all the wrong reasons, but the difference now is that instead of acting on it, I watched it and casually bypassed the whole mess by saying, “Thank you much for asking. I am really good. I am sincerely okay.”

Did I possibly see a shadow cross their faces, as if I perhaps was wildly inappropriate to be fine at a time like this? Who knows. I thought I saw it, but its this kind of thing that is one of the greatest tools of my ego, and my disease. Maybe it was there, and maybe it wasn’t. But the nice thing is this- once I watched this whole subtle and yet intense scenario play out, I realized it truly doesn’t matter what people think. It doesn’t matter if they approve, or if they disapprove. I know where I stand, at long last, and I don’t need to justify it or shrink to fit or do anything but just be exactly what I am committed to. This may mean some people fade out of my life; some are there because I played the game with them, the mutual cosigning and commiserating. Those relationships won’t have enough air to breath. And some relationships will become stronger. And better yet, new ones will form that will be built on honesty and lack of emotional manipulation and self gratification.

We get to stop holding ourselves hostage by identifying with conditioned responses. And we get to stop holding others hostage as well. We get to live authentically in each moment, responding with our truth, relaxed in knowing that everything is happening exactly the way it is supposed to. When we resolve our inner conflicts, we get to love ourselves unconditionally, and then we no longer need anyone else to. People in our lives are then free to be exactly who and what they are, and we are able to embrace them unconditionally with love and respect as well.
What does this have to do with sobriety?   Everything.