Being Right

Recovery is not about being right; it's about allowing ourselves to be who we are and accepting others as they are.

That concept can be difficult for many of us if we have lived in systems that functioned on the "right/wrong" justice scale. The person who was right was okay; the person who was wrong was shamed. All value and worth may have depended on being right; to be wrong meant annihilation of self and self-esteem.

In recovery, we are learning how to strive for love in our relationships, not superiority. Yes, we may need to make decisions about people's behavior from time to time. If someone is hurting us, we need to stand up for ourselves. We have a responsibility to set boundaries and take care of ourselves. But we do not need to justify taking care of ourselves by condemning someone else. We can avoid the trap of focusing on others instead of ourselves.

In recovery, we are learning that what we do needs to be right only for us. What others do is their business and needs to be right only for them. It's tempting to rest in the superiority of being right and in analyzing other people's motives and actions, but it's more rewarding to look deeper.

Today, I will remember that I don't have to hide behind being right. I don't have to justify what I want and need with saying something is "right" or "wrong." I can let myself be who I am

 This is something I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. When I first heard the slogan "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" my first reaction was two fold. First I thought, "You mean I can't be both?" Then, I thought, "Doesn't being one immediately mean I'm the other?"  When it came to arguments in my family, the Romano's from EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND comes to mind: there were no successful arguments. There were no successful argument techniques. Whoever won was king of the mountain. Whoever lost cowered at the mercy of the winner--they suffered under gloating, humiliation, shaming, whatever. 
 I think this morning with Mom is a good example. Mom wanted "to talk" and right there I knew I'd need to put my recovery techniques into use pronto. She wanted to know, 1) why I had to have AAA pull my car out of a snow bank.  She felt it her duty to lecture that, living in Chi-town, whenever someone's car is snowed in, they just don't use it. They take a bus, hail a cab, but let their car be.  I responded to mom that we don't have these resources here in Dayton that they do in Chi town--city of 6 mill vs 200,000.... She then asked why I hadn't tried to dig myself out, use sand/gravel/cat litter....finally I said "you know mom, it's discouraging to me that I talk to my parents and they think they're talking to an 8 year old vs a 24 year old. I tried all these things before I called AAA and it bothers me that you think you have to lecture me on what I have to do to be considered credible in your eyes."  She didn't respond. She DID, however, lecture how I should spend my upcoming birthday with my father--as in, bring some take out from a restaurant and sit with him at the house.  I told her that my father is a grown man, responsible for his own happiness and I had plans to spend my evening with the girls. I didn't tell her I was gonna be preforming in THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES the night of my birthday with fellow rape, abuse, incest survivors to raise money for the rape center on campus. Let her stew in her misery.
 This is where I run into the many paradoxes of our program. "Let go, let god:" let god take care of them, the situation and everything I cannot control.  "Live and let live": am I living in the solution, or the problem? Am I creating solutions, or more problems? What is my role? Who am I in this situation--a recovering person, or a relapsing person?
 These kinds of situations make me feel so frustrated. But yet also so hopeful. that I was able to keep my program with me made me feel so at peace. That I hung up the phone and didn't feel so completely wiped out, so energy sucked, like I always do, that gave me hope--like YEA! It's working! It's working! All my hard work is working and paying off! Yea!  But like all my new behaviors, it also feels like "OMG...this is scary, man. This is really scary....."  I'm still kinda anxious about how other people--namely my parents--will respond.
 It's weird, you know? The more I like me doing the new behaviors, living the program, the lesser other people do. And I get scared, because it's like, OMG, I'm losing everything I've ever known, even though it wasn't good to begin with.  My family of origin was about as safe as a nuclear wastedump. And I'm scared about losing them. Go figure, man.