Recover : Finding you
Recovery is a process from unawareness to awareness about self. It is about finding your true self, what you are meant to be, understanding who you are.
These are from Russell Brand's book, ' Recovery: Freedom from Addiction'.
This book will take you on a journey towards deeper parts of you. It will help you understand yourself, your behavior, your thoughts and emotions. It is like standing in front of a mirror that shows beyond your physical body.
Oddly, counterintuitively, in our culture of individualism and self-centered valour, it is by surrendering that we can begin to succeed. It is by admitting that we have no power that we can begin the process of accessing all the power we will ever need.
Pain is a signal, it's some aspect of us that's beyond our somewhat narrow conception of self, communicating. A pain in the leg means 'dont put pressure on this leg' ; a pain in the mind means 'change the way you live'.
We fill out void, with a sense of something missing, the uneasiness inside, with external resources like food, Icecream ,work, relationship, sex.
We are, after all, an organic entity,like a tree, with a code stored in our embryonic form that is set to grow to completion. A tree doesn't face the kind of obstacles a highly socialized mammal does, it might get chopped down, or aggressively pruned but no one is going to say it's too fat or that it'll never amount to anything. But in your life you've faced obstacles, inner and outer, that have prevented you from becoming the person you were 'meant to be' or 'are capable of being' and that is what we are going to recover.
What is my conception of a Power greater than me?
I believe that the mystery of creation and the laws of the universe hold greater power in them. I believe that the innate love that human beings have for one another is a power. I believe people's willingness to suffer for a cause is a power. I believe the healing of an injury is a power.
To be acknowledged as a person who was in pain and fighting to survive in my own muddled-up and misguided way made me feel optimistic and understood.
In the world I'm from, no one suggested that anything other than material means could provide me with solution: Get a job! Do some exercise! You need a nice girlfriend! A hobby! More friends! A palm-held device! An upgrade! Lose a few pounds! No one said, let go of all this, look within, there is no real power in the world of things, only distraction and pleasure.
Joining the 12-step program liberated me from a cult. The cult that told me that I'm not enough, that I need to be famous to be of value, that I need to have money to live a worthwhile life, that I should affiliate, associate and identify on the basis of colour and class, that my role in life is to consume, that I was to live in a darkness only occasionally lit up by billboards and screens.We are in a cult by default.
What is a belief really? A thought, in your mind, that you like having. If you like having it, it must be of benefit, it either improves your life or helps you to rationalize how bad your life is. Step 3 is a chance to review your beliefs.
Step 3 is more about accepting that your previous way has let you down and accepting help. It is about having faith in some power above you that will help you.That power can be your understanding.
This is the summarization of first three steps of the 12 step recovery program. To get the background on the 12 steps program , I am talking about , read about it here.
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