Step 7 Progress Continued

My feelings of humility have drastically changed since I began recovery.  Completely changed.  Humility before to me was just another way to be righteous and in a way I thought putting myself down would make me humble.  But it was pride, really, because it was all about how I looked to other people or got attention.  Really I was putting on a facade like so many people do when they don't know who they are.

Now I think of being humble as really seeing who I am and how much I depend on the Savior, and seeing others the same way.  I love who I am.  I love my creativity, my compassion, my beauty, my kind and caring demeanor, my loyalty and the way I highly value what is good and right.  But I also have dastardly messes that I have to rely on my Savior to help me overcome and clean up because I am not perfect.  I have a bad temper, with a scary violent side I despise.  I can be too prone to rescuing others which is actually not helpful at all.  I can get too lost inside my thoughts, and I sometimes can be closed minded in my intent to be open minded.  :)  If that makes any sense at all.

So I need the Savior.   That is real humility, acknowledgement of my need and reliance on my Savior.

In the working part of Step 7 it has a scripture that gives guidance on what to do.

If I...
*Believe in God and His mighty power and wisdom
*Repent and forsake sin
* Humble myself
*Ask His forgiveness
*Remember the greatness of God (His goodness/long-suffering) and my own nothingness
Then He will...
*Grant me greater knowledge of His glory (just and true)
*Give me constant reasons to rejoice
*Fill me with His love

What great blessings that I truly do desire to have as a constant.

Another scripture in Step 7 is quoted from 2 Nephi 25:25 and it asks what it means that the law is dead to us.  I really had to think about that one a lot.  If you know better then me, please comment because I really thought hard about this.

I was thinking it was referring to the law of Moses and how that has changed because of Jesus adding to that law, but then that doesn't make the law dead...So then I was thinking maybe when the law is broken it becomes dead.  Because all men are imperfect, we break the law and so it is dead to us.  But we (and the law) are made alive again through Christ.  Showing faith by turning to Him and repenting makes us alive again and in Him.  He never did break the law, so the law is alive in Him and if we let Him, the law can then be alive in us again through Him.  In order to keep it alive after that, we must not break it again.

Keeping the commandments from here out expresses my love to God because it is the only gift I can truly give to Him that is not His already.  My will is mine and so when I surrender that to Him, it is a true gift.  Keeping the commandments also means I won't hurt my Savior more then I already have.  This is also an expression of love.  I do feel like my capacity to feel God's love for me and for others has grown as I have worked the steps and started into recovery.  I feel like the greatest act of love is part of step 7 because is HIS greatest act of love to take away my shortcomings through His merciful atonement and sacrifice.

One blessing I've gotten from realizing my addiction(s)?  Now the way I react to my husband is so different, and so much better.  The other night he confessed to me that he hasn't been doing as well as I thought he had been doing with his own addiction.  Instead of feeling hurt and playing victim (inside) and struggling to keep my cool and be supportive, I just...was!  I was supportive in the way I would support anyone struggling.

Because I have been working on my own stuff I was able to simply call him on his justifications and encourage him to do what was right and take the steps needed to move forward.  It was so great that I was able to keep a clear head through it and that I didn't have any underlying emotions of hurt bubbling up from underneath.  I genuinely cared about his progress while keeping it about him.  His addictions have nothing to do with me.  It feels good to see that clearly the way I should.

The whole conversation began with me spilling over about how horrible I feel because of my own addictions.  I started stating that I felt like my addictions impacted my life more then his did to him.  My problem began at an age I can't even remember...something like two or three maybe?  He was twelve.  But making comparisons never help anyone, and he reminded me that he struggles too.  Although, I do feel like my identity has been tainted more then his.  I was looking at myself and wondering who I really am.  After I strip away all the negative behavioral patterns, weaknesses, and problems, what's left?  Who am I?  My husband didn't help much with that.  Maybe it would have been better for him to remind me of my good qualities at the time, but he was too caught up in how I had belittled his own struggles.  I don't blame him for that.

I do still argue with myself about managing my husband's recovery, however.  I am constantly asking myself if it's ok for me to go ahead and schedule his appointment with the bishop for him because he still hasn't done it.  But then I tell myself it is not my place to do it.  If I continue to do that every time he will never do it for himself.  And if he never makes his own appointments with the bishop, those appointments will always be someone elses idea and therefore not his own personal progress.  I really am feeling impatience for him though because I know.  Being in recovery myself makes me realize how much easier it can get if he will just submit to the Lord and really work those steps.  He is reading the steps, and writing about them because I told him he needs to.  But he doesn't enjoy reading and writing.  You'd think that would mean he would do the rest more.  But no, he just reads it, writes about it, and thinks he's done and moves on.  I don't know how much he's really applying the steps but I really hope he's applying them more then I can see. In just this week he's gone through steps one and two and is on step three now.  It seems fast, but then I guess I could look back at how fast I took those steps.  I think I might have done the same.  AND there are no comparisons!  Everyone works at their own pace anyway.

I guess I'm just having a hard time because I'm feeling kind of stagnant about many things in my life right now.  I don't know how long I will have to just sit like a floating leaf on still water, waiting for another ripple to come take me on my way, but for now I'm just going to have to wait.  I need to try my best to take advantage of the time to work on preparing myself for harder times, and getting the rest I need for whatever is to come in my life.  I just need to focus on TODAY better and so I can just submit to the Lord's will for me.

I really need to attend the temple again soon.

Step 7: Humility

 
Humbly ask Heavenly Father to remove your shortcomings.

Step 7 Reading

Notice it doesn't say "all" your shortcomings.  I have a tendency to try to do everything all at once, but this is impossible.  These are the baby steps to the atonement.  They have to be taken like baby steps, again and again, and we are never finished.  Last night someone at recovery meeting related herself to an onion (kind of like Shrek) and the steps are helping her to peal back the layers of that onion so it takes time.  I also added to myself that sometimes we try to put the layers back on our onions because we feel vulnerable and expose removing all the layers, but then the Lord asks us to again remove those layers to get to our core again.  And there are lots of layers!  Going once through the steps won't remove them all, and that's ok.  So don't try to do the steps perfectly.  Just do them.

Last night we talked a lot about perfectionism too, because we were reading about step 4, and it talks about trying to be too perfect when writing our inventories.  Lately, I've really been compelled to be more patient with myself.  I'm just waiting, trusting, hoping, anticipating...because I know God is helping me.

Now that I'm getting in a better state by stopping my bad behavior, I also need to humble myself even more to change my very NATURE.  This is what step 7 is about: changing my nature through turning to the Lord.  I find it interesting in the reading, there's a verse quoted from Mosiah, "They did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."  I hadn't ever previously considered submission to the Lord being a "cheerful" thing.  But as I rely on the Lord to become complete in Him, I have to give Him all of myself.

Last night as I drove to the Addiction Recovery Meeting, I realized that there are still pieces of me that withhold myself from questioning whether my addiction is really a problem.  I asked myself if I really needed to attend meetings.  By the time got to the meeting, I decided it is really what I need to do so I can get the support I need.  Because even if my addiction to self-gratification/masturbation is under control, I have behavioral patterns that stem from this addiction.  These behavioral patterns are still impacting my life at all sides.

That's where step 7 comes in.  I don't need help in only stopping my destructive behaviors, but in changing my NATURE.  I need to change my desires, my instinctual reactions, my coping mechanisms, my very core reality.

But I don't like this word "changing".

When we turn to the Savior to "change" I don't think we are "changing" who we really are, but returning to who we really are, and maybe even improving what we used to be.  Turning to the Savior is recalling ourselves from before birth, and then growing from there to get that much closer to our potential.

"We finally abandoned the idea that we could become perfect by ourselves, and we accepted the truth that God desires us to conquer our weaknesses in this life by coming to Christ and being perfected in Him."

Step 7 has a lot of prayer involved in it, and I can't necessarily blog all about it.  But as we continue to work toward this recollection of ourselves, we need to remember that perfection is only in Christ, and we will not be made perfect until after this life.  So we must be patient with ourselves.

Step 6 Continued, ReCommitting

 
My past attitude about self gratification was that it wasn't any big deal.  I was mistakenly trying to make my marriage better.  But before then, even, when I struggled during my single life, it was because I couldn't give up the pleasurable feelings and I didn't see how it was impeding me.  I never knew better, though, because I never went without it.  It was a constant since my tiny childhood years.  My feelings were unrepentant because I denied how detrimental my behavior was.

I feel that now I have given it up completely, but I still have rationalized my media addiction.  It's a little harder to differentiate and pinpoint when there is a problem, because the problem is only present when I'm getting a high from the use of media.  If I'm escaping reality or numbing myself through that immersion into another world.  The biggest clue is if I lose the spirit's companionship.

I need to realize my dependence upon the Lord for everything and show my acceptance of this dependence by dedicating my time to prayer and strengthening my connection to Him every single day.  By doing that, I can be led by His will in my everyday choices, so I can remain free from the binds of addiction.

I have now made a list of my weaknesses with the strengths they can become written next to them.  It's interesting to look at this list and feel hopeful that one day I might be completely humble but confident, without the "better than" or "worse than" attitude that I have had.  Someday I can become completely in ownership of myself and who I am.  My likes and dislikes will become evident realities of my identity and I will no longer chameleon other people's.  It will be a time when I can no longer feel sexually inadequate, but have a healthy relationship with my husband and the Lord.  A time when I am ever present in my own life and no longer lost in another world of fantasies or dreams.  I will be the kind of person who allows others to make mistakes without trying to be their savior or rescuer.  I will serve others while also providing healthy boundaries by the guidance of the spirit in my life.

I have never lost the desire to participate in church activities.  It is what saved me in my youth and when I lost my way in college.  I always attended church anyway.  I believe my life could have gotten much harder if I hadn't.  But at the same time, I felt somehow that I did not belong.  I saw the world in a different way from how these people at church saw the world.  I felt alone.  But as I try to allow the Savior to strengthen me now and dwell within me always, I can see how everyone at church is really much like myself.  We are all striving to allow the Savior's power to heal our hearts and guide our lives.  Knowing this helps me to feel more unified with the members of my ward at church.


My recovery began in a sneaky way, with me pointing fingers at my husband and then having my hand turned to point at myself.  Over and over again.
I would say "it" (all my unhappy circumstances wrapped up with a big frowny-face bowtie) was because of one of his obnoxious qualities, and then because of his addictions, and then I would get a nice surprise.  Something about myself would get revealed to me and I would realize I was guilty.

How self righteous, how proud, how blinded I was.  I'm thankful those baby steps provided by the Addiction Recovery Program have slowly given me the chance to open my eyes and own my faults, little by little.  How far I've come.  How far I have yet to go.

It's so sad how evil tries to justify itself.  It's constantly making excuses.  Every abuser, every sinner, makes some kind of excuse to alleviate their conscience so they don't have to feel the pain of guilt.  But then it only puts them in Satan's hands when they - I - when I refuse to feel Godly Sorrow for my wrongs.  The steps help me get there.

I have learned that being perfect is impossible.  But that's ok!  I've learned that my Savior is there for this very reason.  In taking upon His name, I am made clean and whole. "Perfect" in the scriptures is defined also as "complete".  I know I can only be made complete in the Savior, if I am daily placing myself in His hands.

Recovery is ongoing.
It is never finished.
Always needed.
Always repeated.
I need to be patient with myself because the Lord is patient with me, as His child.
I need Him every single hour.  I know that my Redeemer lives.

YLDS Radio helps.  I need to play it every day.  Music brings the spirit into my heart better then anything else.  Today I've been sitting and listening to it as I have read and it has brought the sweetest spirit into my heart that I never want to let go.  It's made me recommit myself to keeping it with me, and doing what it takes to keep this feeling with me always.  I must commit to maintaining a healthy balance in my home with every form of media or technology, so that balance can keep the spirit in my home.  I want my kids to feel that difference.

 

Step 6: Change of Heart

 

Become entirely ready to have God remove all your character weaknesses.

Step 6 Reading

Unlike what it says in the first couple paragraphs of this step, for me personally, it feels as though my temptations are just as strong as before, or even stronger at times.  But the difference here is that I feel stronger because I have withstood them.  I still haven't acted out on my self-gratification addiction since before I began step one this time around.  But when it comes to my other addictions I feel I can do better.  I think that's one of the things that has held me back from that happy place I found around this time last year.

Last year before Christmas I was on a spiritual high!  But two things happened.  I got an IUD in, and I got really sick.  The IUD's hormones blocked me from being able to feel God's love for me and I started a road into depression.  And being really sick, I skipped church one day and binged on television big time!  I began my addiction to Vampire Diaries.  I think I could have kept myself from being completely addicted if I had paced myself better, but I didn't.  I watched almost two seasons in one day, I think.  It was ridiculous.  I was feeding on it and it was not good for me.  The spirit left.

And then a year went by and I'm here still grasping for it to return.  The happiness I had last year was so awesome.  I was beating my desire to "get high" on fantasies.  I hardly ever turned the television ON let alone watched it.  When I did, it was for my kids to watch a show and I told myself I had better things to do then sit there.  I was in such a happy place.

The hardest part about losing that desire is that at first when I give it up, I miss it.  I miss that high terribly.  I know the Lord has helped me before because I have been able to watch movies without getting the high.  I don't lose myself in them.  I'm still sitting there with my family, and the movie is just a story.

This is much more healthy, but in a way I really miss that immersion into the story - the high - because it was my escape.  But what then?  The movie ends and I'm plunged back into life and it's low.  Not better.  Not at all.  So I must lose that desire to go there.

I think one of the reasons why I have obsessed over fixing other people's problems is because I hadn't figured out how to fix my own.  Releasing this has helped to free me from my codependency issues too.  Now that I am honestly acknowledging my issues and am actively working on them, my desire to fix other people is not so obsessive.  I still feel I could offer other people help, but I don't feel like it's something I hunger for like I did before.  I guess that hunger was really to help myself!

I want to be accountable now.  Completely accountable for myself.  I'm going to grow into a new me, from inside out.  I will be the kind of person that is compassionate but not overbearing.  I will first look to change myself before passing any information on, and when I do I will wait until moved by the spirit, NOT by my heavy addicted urges.

When I think of someone I could perhaps share this program with, instead of rushing to do in right now, I need to be thoughtful and prayerful about it and ask the Lord to help me to approach the subject in the right way.  I must believe the Lord will help reveal it to me when I should speak and when I shouldn't.  The key is shutting my mouth when I feel the heaviness in my chest that says, "Just stop."  Too often I have spoken right through it when that has happened.  I need to stop it.

Sheesh.  I feel like finally reading my inventory has opened the flood gates.  Here we go! :)

I Am Not My Addiction

 
You know, whoever coined the phrase "I am an addict" really did us all a huge disservice!  Because I am not my addiction.  Labeling myself only makes it seem that much more impossible to overcome because it's WHO I AM.  But it's not who I am.  The correct thing to say would be "I have addictions."  Because these things do not define me.

It feels so good to begin step 6!  I'm also so happy to have a new sponsor from the addiction recovery group for females.  As much as I love my support in recovery group ladies, I really felt like I needed to join a group where women could really understand where I stood.

After reading out my step 5 aloud, I'll have to say I feel so much less alone!  I didn't realize how alone I felt before, but I did!  I felt like I was completely alone in how I felt.  Even after two years attending meetings, I felt different and apart from everyone else.  But reading and spilling out my step 5 helped me see that my sponsor and many of these other women are really just like me!  Of course, we have our differences, but we think the same way because of our similarities, rationalizations, and trying to stay on top of our addictions every single day!

It was so refreshing to sit and talk to someone who understood completely!  Especially about media addiction.  Most people shrug it off, saying "Awe, it's just a tv show." But they don't understand how detrimental "just" a tv show can be to me, when I'm not just watching it, I'm getting a high that I have to come back down off.  I get so attached to the characters that I painstakingly fantasize over them, wish with all my heart that my world could collide with theirs, and I begin to value this fantasy world over my own life!  Yeah...there's something wrong with that!  It felt so good to have someone sit next to me and say, yes, it's the same for me.

Another thing that reading my inventory out loud did for me was that now I have more courage to speak out about my addiction if I am moved upon by the spirit.  I feel I will open myself up to the women in my support group meeting this week and let them know that I can identify with their addicted loved ones at a different level.  I think opening up may help someone because there is bound to be someone else like me coming to our meetings since the only ones available are a drive away from here.  There may be women who are addicts and not allowing their conscious mind to see it (like I used to be!).

My new sponsor also helped me to correlate more of my weaknesses with my addictions.  I hadn't realized that my tendencies to chameleon other people's likes is actually not an uncommon trait among those who struggle in addiction.  Because addiction can blur with who a person is, making it hard to identify ourselves outside the addictions.  Time isn't spent on thinking about these other good things we like, like favorite music, hobbies, even my favorite color was hard to choose.  Our bad habits become our hobbies and we can't share them with anyone so we are left in isolation.  It's a sad way to live.

It reminded me of the movie with Julia Roberts, Runaway Bride.  I always identified so deeply with her character's inability to choose a favorite kind of eggs, among other things, and how it was destroying her life.   I couldn't understand why both of us did that, so I felt like it was some romantic mystery.  I remember watching the movie and feeling so connected because I was just like that.  Now I think it's because she was addicted to something too.  Addiction handicapped my ability to define myself.  It's so freeing to separate myself from my addictions because now I am free to see the opportunities for all the many things I can like and be.  I can stop doing things because someone else likes to do them, and do them because I like it.

I just have to figure out now what I like most.

Me:
I like red and purple.
I like indie music that is uplifting and upbeat.
I like singing and playing piano.
I like writing.
I like spirituality.
I like being artistic and creative.

We have a start.

Another Trusted Person

 

In step 5 it reads:

"We also selected another trusted person to whom we could disclose the exact nature of our wrongs.  We tried to select someone who had gone through steps 4 and 5 and who was well-grounded in the gospel.  We began the meeting with prayer to invite the Spirit, and then we read our inventories aloud.  The individuals who listened to our inventories often helped us see lingering areas of self-deception.  They helped us put our lives into perspective and avoid exaggerating or minimizing our accountability...We started to understand our tendencies..."

I have done it.

Over this past week, I had a conflict planned for the usual time I attend PASG meetings.  Because of this, I decided it was an opportunity for me to attend the woman's group for addicts.  I usually attend the support group for loved ones of the addict, but I knew I needed to attend a group for actual addicts at some point because of my specific situation.  However, it was a little drive to get to the meetings.  There aren't as many of these available.

So I did.  I went to the meeting the day before my usual time, and although it was a little different and I felt sort of out of place, I know it was what I needed to do and where I needed to be.  I plan to attend this meeting on occasion, because it offers up a different perspective that I really need.

At this meeting, I met a new Facilitator who I felt I could share my inventory with.  By this weekend, I had set up a time and on Saturday I was able to meet with her and lay it all out.  It took a little over three hours.  But it felt so good to just let out everything I wished I could say out loud to somebody and have them listen reflectively.  I could have tried to do this with my husband but I'm sure at some point his eyes might have glazed over.

I feel so much better after having this experience.  Now I feel like I truly have been able to be completely honest about everything.  I was able to also pin-point how my addictions to media or fantasy are also correlated with my addiction to self gratification and I hadn't made that connection yet.  I also have a new sense of determination to tackle my media addiction...right now I'm completely overcome by watching Vampire Diaries.  At least it's only once a week, but I know that when I watch it, I get a high and have to come back to reality...and that's where the problem really is in that.

So here I am, willing and able to move forward to Step 6.  Finally!

When I See a "Trigger Warning"...and Choosing Someone

Here's a quick tip: If something says "Trigger Warning" don't read it and don't go to it.  Just move on.

I recently got caught up in reading a webpage that had a "Trigger Warning" on it.  It wasn't pornographic by definition, and was actually meant to be a supportive awareness-type page.  It had pictures of victims of sexual abuse holding a hand-written sign in front of them with the phrases their abusers used against them.  Many of the phrases were demeaning or manipulative, some were excuses.  It was supposed to be a way to free these victims from the abuse they had experienced by speaking up about what they had gone through.  But for me, I guess it was a trigger.

I couldn't stop reading.  I couldn't stop going to the next photo to see what the next abuser had said.  I don't know why it became so hard for me to stop.  It got me in a bad place, and I felt Satan's angels around me tempting me to self-gratify.

I didn't.

But I wasn't happy because of the spirit that it had brought into my heart.  My husband got home from work while I was on my phone and he was annoyed because he thought I was on Facebook again (one of my other addictions) and so the rest of the evening went horribly.

I know it was because I hadn't stopped to begin with.  I hadn't realized that "Trigger Warning" was for me.  I didn't realize that I had a trigger like that.  But the fantasies that overcome me sometimes are caused by things like this and I need to realize it, acknowledge it, and so now I can avoid it.

Progress?  Well, I still haven't read my Step 5 to anyone.  But I think I need to continue because this stagnant stage I have gotten myself into is not helping me one bit!  But I am going to continue on to Step 6 keeping in mind that at any moment I will return to Step 5 to read my inventory aloud to someone because I know I need to do it.  I just don't know when or who, and I feel that it is a decision I need to make very carefully.

Which is odd, because I naturally have always been the type of person that spilled my soul out to whoever was passing by just because I never felt the need to keep my own secrets.  But I think finally I've worked the steps deep enough to get to those shameful nitty-gritty details that I just can't confide to just anybody.

Maybe I need to choose my old friend and confidant...she hadn't come to mind until just now because I don't think she has worked the steps or gone through the program.  But she is a social worker now, with a Masters.  Perhaps she is my best choice.  Time and distance have created a sort of rift between us lately.  Maybe I'll bridge the gap by being incredibly personal all of a sudden.  I'll pray about it.  Wish me luck.