I hope that wherever you are, you know Recovery is with you right where you are.
When we do not complete the work of the first half of Recovery and we are not healing, we may go back and try to do it again. When this happens, there can be a tendency to overdo it. This pattern may come from not being connected to our hearts, not having healthy connections with others, not having a skilled therapist to help us work through trauma, or not being willing to take medication to address depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions.
These can become our blind spots and hinder our Recovery. When we are willing to make real and sometimes costly changes in our lives, we can begin to let go of the emotional pain of our past. This does not mean we forget what happened. Instead, we become free from the emotional hold it once had on us.
Some of us may become overly religious, highly moralistic, or caught in an all-or-nothing way of thinking. In time, we may become overly focused on thinking instead of feeling. We may try to make up for something we did not receive or never fully developed. We long to discover our authentic selves and restore our hearts after a difficult first half of Recovery. Yet, without deeper healing, these efforts seldom work for us in the long term.
I am deeply blessed by how far I have gone in coming to terms with the first half of my Recovery. I did not do it alone. My wife and my therapist were instrumental in helping me face my pain and begin to heal. There was darkness, and I felt lost. It was tremendously painful—more painful than any physical suffering I had experienced in my life.
For several years, I wandered in the desert. Yet I persevered. I remained committed to healing because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Slowly, Recovery began to lead me toward the light.
In the first half of Recovery, we seek connection that is safe, secure, and greater than ourselves. We also seek a place where we can belong. We may join a support group and receive the peer connection and energy we did not receive in the earlier stages of our Recovery.
The second half of Recovery invites us to become more willing to take healthy risks. We begin to open our hearts calmly and confidently. As we participate more fully in our Recovery, we discover our identity and purpose.
Recovery does not ask us to forget where we have been. It invites us to bring our past into the light, heal what has wounded us, and become the person God created us to be.
Remember, Recovery is happening right now, in this moment.