I hope wherever you are, you know Recovery is with you right where you are.
What will it take for us to experience a Recovery of Love?
One important part is creating positive energy. Healing takes root in our hearts and becomes part of who we are. Without a network of peers, much of our journey can be filled with overreacting, protecting our identity, and living without the support of Recovery.
Eric Fromm, in his classic book The Art of Loving, says that some of the healthiest people he has known, and those who seem to grow up naturally, experienced both unconditional and conditional love, demanding love from their caregivers and early authority figures.
The 12 Steps, along with their rules and limits, give us another way to experience this kind of healing. Recovery traditions teach us about both conditional and unconditional love. And the beautiful promise is that unconditional love will have the last word.
We need a wall to bump up against. Those limits help us build a healthy sense of self and a strong identity. They teach us how to take in deeper values, understand our feelings, and let go of our self-centeredness.
Bumping up against limits can teach us a great deal. We would not fully understand Recovery without the 12 Steps. When we constantly complain about our suffering, we can become focused only on ourselves. In the early days of mental health care, it was sometimes easy to build an identity around our wounds. We could begin to see ourselves mainly as victims, using our pain to receive sympathy or avoid the work of Recovery.
Recovery calls us to something more. We are invited to surrender our wounds and discover freedom from our suffering.
Early in my Recovery, I avoided following the 12 Steps because I felt they got in the way of living my life. I thought I knew better. I remember feeling unsure and even judged.
Thankfully, I now have peers in my life who point me toward healing. My peers have shown me the benefits of practicing the 12 Steps, especially when I hit a wall and felt ready to give up.
Today, I embrace the Steps with their limits, boundaries, freedom, and unconditional love.
As we see in our Recovery circles, many people turn their wounds into sacred wounds. In doing so, their pain can become a source of healing and freedom for themselves and others.
If we want to see an example of someone who has helped bring hope, healing, and health to others, we can look to Oprah. Her story reminds us that healing is not only about surviving our wounds. It is about allowing those wounds to become part of a life filled with purpose, love, and hope.
Perhaps this is what a Recovery of Love looks like: learning to live within healthy limits while opening our hearts to a love that never gives up on us.
Remember, Recovery is happening right now, in this moment.