secrets and spin

This past week I had the unnerving and exhilarating  experience of informing my parents of my alcoholism and recounting the past year in recovery.  Talk about something powerful and profound.  It's hard to comprehend the emotional energy that crackles between parents and child.

I noticed, even as I was speaking with them, an almost involuntary instinct to hide, to conceal, to deflect.  Something in me rails at the idea of exposing myself as anything less than a perfect, good little boy.   

Maybe that's why I have such a knack for advertising.  I'm hard-wired to highlight the most attractive, enticing, desirable features of any given 'product' and downplay any potential defects with some flashy sleight-of-hand.

How amazing (and frankly frightening) that I work so hard to polish my humanness to a slick one-dimensional sheen.  Perhaps I believe I should be one of those smiling, laughing, perfectly coiffed and buffed people in commercials who have only one problem to which the solution is the product being sold.

My next area of growth then it seems is rigorous honesty.  What am I actually feeling?  What do I truly like and dislike?  Is my answer anticipating what I think you or someone else wants it to be?  Am I feeling or liking the 'right' things, the 'cool' things, the things 'good, smart, savvy' people like and feel.

In some bottle of gin or carafe of wine along the way, I lost the authority of my own experience.  I learned to mistrust my feelings, doubt my delights, and second-guess my instincts.

I'm not talking about ego here.  This is not about having my way, or getting what I want, it's about authentically experiencing life as opposed to running every waking moment through a content editor for evaluation.

Disappointments, difficulties, and mistakes are as much a part of my life as they are of any human existance.  I must learn to stop scolding myself for being human.  It's time to stop pretending. 

I was telling my sponsor that part of me still suffers from the illusion that one day I'll 'get it'.  I imagine arriving at a point of stasis that is my final, permanent personality.  I'll "grow up."

If sobriety has taught me anything, it's that everything is changing all the time.  That means me too.

Accepting life on life's terms means accepting myself as I am at any given moment; constantly breaking down the illusion that I am somehow separate from what's going on.  In fact, feelings of being "not a part of", of isolation, of ultimate, existential loneliness are the very feelings I tried to find release from by drinking.

And that returns us to rigorous honesty.  Being mindful of what's going on in any situation is just the first step.  I also have to be aware of how I'm judging that situation, spinning the situation to my best advantage, tucking the discomfort of the situation into shadow.  Acceptance, compassion, and gratitude are essential.

Most important, though, is to remember all that I am is held, supported and accepted by the entire universe, or I would not exist.  If I can relinquish my self will, my defense of my own story about myself, then I can surrender to that Higher Power who has indisputable reasons for making me exactly who and what I am.

Passion, beauty, and love, folks--24 hours at a time...