Ocean Waves

The ebb and flow of change is sometimes hard to cope with. When the story doesn’t go as you imagined and it doesnt seem to be in your favor. It sure is hard to see the light sometimes, collecting our blessings and lessons gathered from realizations of experiences with positive or negative outcomes.

If you are currently unhappy or upset about a thought, feeling, or consequence

Change it.

Easier said then done. Although, different perspectives can drastically shift the emotion attached to particular thoughts. For instance, a lover’s quarrel seems miniscule in comparison to a friend being diagnosed with cancer. Sometimes all it takes is a change of scenery to secure a different outlook on your current situation. Sometimes I look at pictures of puppies and kitties for sale on craigslist – it always seems to make me smile. Perhaps I will sit down and watch a comedy or a documentary or a guided meditation. Today I decided to try something new….

It was both terrifying and magical to walk through the tropical forest at The Butterfly Pavilion. So scared I may step on one, yet watching them flutter around and zip past my head was breathtaking. They freaked me out when they came zooming for my head, of course it always resulted in a soft giggle to myself for being frightened of something so silly.

One of these delicate creatures landed on my journal this afternoon, while staring up at me with its glossy eyes, it smiled and reminded me to see the bigger picture. Change can be complicated, terrifying, magical, breathtaking, humbling, fast, silly, and simple all at the same time.

Butterflies are not afraid of the unknown and whimsically dance through the forecast of fear to fully live in the now. There is an innate beauty in the finishing of a process, a completion of a step, and the excitement of the unknown future. To go boldly, genuinely, and with love is the greatest gift one can give. Always keeping in mind “Everything is going to be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.

Sponsorship

I went to an AA meeting last night and the topic was sponsorship…. I still have yet to get a sponsor and start practicing the steps. NA and AA aren’t my major routes of maintaining a clean, productive life. I instead take a different path – as my lawyer once told a judge, she marches to the beat of a different drum.

I instead emerge myself in activities that I love, that I find joy in. I continually make goals for myself to achieve. I expand my network of people in sobriety as often as I can. Community is important. When you are walking this path, it is a necessity to have people to reach out to. Life is busy. When one doesn’t answer, you go to the next name on the list. Persistence pays off, once persistent to catch a high – now to avoid it.

74470d8057fb4e601afd5fd7aef42d7cI like the idea of having a sponsor – I think it would be more beneficial to have 5 though. ha 🙂 I think one of the coolest things about being in the scene is the level of brutal honesty that comes with it. The best kind of friends do not tell you what you want to hear – they tell you what you need to hear, similar to a sponsor I would imagine.

It is a beautiful feeling to have experienced everything I have and to be where I am today. To get to a point of gratitude and acceptance for the all the bad decisions I ever made, all of the terrible things that have happened, and the amount of change that evokes within.

You never know when a story you tell can be the perfect seed to help the garden sprout. Do not hold yourself back from telling yours, every chance you get. I believe everyone marches to their own drumbeat, picking up ideas from every avenue and putting them in practice, until one finds what works for them.