Whispering Wyrd

For most of my life I had a habit of waiting for things to be “just right” before I would do something good for myself like getting clean or start healing an inner wound. But as life tends to go, those perfect conditions really just never really came. So I carried the pain and anger for far too long. I carried old wounds way longer than I needed to.

It never occurred to me back then was that I might have to create the conditions I was waiting for. Anyone who has read my writing for a while knows I talk a lot about recovery and the things that continue to help heal me. But you don’t need a history of addiction to benefit from what recovery teaches. I’ve known a lot of people who never struggled with substances, but could still benefit a lot from recovery tools.

That’s just how life works. Nobody gets out unscathed. I’m not saying life is terrible, I don’t believe that at all. Life is beautiful. But we would be fooling ourselves if we pretended there is no pain, no grief, no loss, and no struggle. Beauty and hardship sometimes live side by side.

One of the most important things I learned in recovery is that you can’t sit around waiting for everything to be perfect before you start addressing the pain and/or anger inside. Sometimes you have to create the conditions yourself. And if that feels impossible in the moment, then start anyway, even in a small way. Some small change for the better.

When I finally started doing that, I was amazed at how much influence I actually had over my own inner world. That power of influence had been there all along, I just didn’t know it. We can only do so much to influence the outer world. Some things just are what they are for now, but we can absolutely take care of our inner world. We can change how we respond to things. We can get stronger, wiser, softer, and kinder. We can heal.

As I’ve written before, I’m now 60 years old, and there are a lot of times I wish I had learned these tools much earlier. But when I catch myself living in regret, I try to come back to the here and now. Because like a character played by Jet Li once said, “You will find only pain living in the past.”

I don’t know how much time I have left, none of us do. But with whatever time I do have left I want to live it fully. Not just for myself but in ways that help others too because another thing I’ve learned is that when we help others, our own lives become better. Like Danny Trejo, one of my all time favorite actors because of his real life recovery story and kindness said, “Everything good that’s ever happened to me came out of helping others.”

So if there is something in your life that has been gnawing at you whether it’s addiction related or not, and you’ve been waiting for better conditions before you face it, or heal it, or change it, why not start now anyway? Today is real and this moment is real. Conditions might never be perfect and none of us are promised tomorrow. So why not start creating the healing, peace, and happiness you’ve been waiting for today?

Amituofo
~Buck