You do not have to spend too much time in recovery before the Good Things come. Refugees from a foreign land, they arrive slowly. Just one tiny, quiet Good Thing at first. Then, because word gets out that you are accepting Good Things, others follow. Faster. Bigger.
Good Things are visible – new relationships, new jobs, new opportunities.
Good Things are invisible – established relationships reveal new rooms and spaces; our faith in ourselves returns; our thoughts and internal dialogue shift toward compassion and softness.
Still. It can get a little overwhelming. It can get to be a bit much. There is work to be done.
The Good Things are fragile. There is an intake process. First you must acknowledge them – that is meant for me. Then you must accept them – I am good enough. Finally, you must provide permanent lodging to them – I am allowing you total immersion into my life.
Good Things require an outtake process, too. They cannot co-exist with crippling self-doubt, humorless perfection or heartless judgement. Those things must now be exiled – a daily process that requires patience and rest and faith.
Good Things are a dangerous gamble. There is a reason we shied away from them before.
You ask yourself:
What if these new things require too much of me?
What if I require too much of them?
What if I fail at them – publicly, privately, shatter-my-heart fail. Again.
There is no doubt that it is easier to throw up the gates. Put up a wall. Keep out the Good Things. Who needs another gamble in life? Somedays, just lifting your head up off the pillow is enough of a risk. It is much better, we could say to ourselves, that we keep to what we know. Yes, it is shitty, but it is our shit. Safe, understood, comfortable.
But, no. Not anymore.
Patience, Rest, Faith. Good Things are worth the risk. They lead to Great Things.
“I used to hate myself,” a fellow recovery warrior recently told me. “Now I’m one of the greatest things I know.”
I would love to hear from you. Do you struggle to take in the Good Things? How important are Patience, Rest, Faith. in your recovery? What other tools are you using to embrace Good Things?
Erin W. lives in Virginia where she has been working on and blogging about recovery since 2013. After years of trying to do recovery alone, she discovered the beauty of connection and friendship through She Recovers in 2017.
Erin is the new managing editor and primary contributor for the She Recovers blog.
This message of letting in the ‘Good Things’ like compassion, but first making room for them by letting out the bad -the judgement/perfectionist critic- is speaking to me loud and clear this morning. Deep breath, exhale… Let it out, let God in. Thank you, Erin, for this.
I think you might be at She Recovers Mexico -at the beach- about now. Missing you and all the girls.
Thank you, Marci. Much love to you.