WEEKLY MEDITATION
“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
-Lewis Caroll
Never are we the same person that we were yesterday; at least incrementally we are always changing—emotionally and physically. Physically, most of the cells in our body imperceptibly die and replace themselves continuously throughout our lives. Emotionally, too, we are prone to telling ourselves the same stagnant stories over and over again without noticing. We expect that we are the same person from day-to-day and that the same events will likely make us happy or miserable, as the case may be. But of course we are constantly changed by the myriad experiences we inevitably encounter as we move through our lives. In the arduous transition from addiction to recovery it becomes imperative that we become aware of these stories and determine to challenge them. We must somehow become conscious of what we consider “true” about ourselves and about life and wrest a more flexible story about ourselves—one that includes the possibility of living a changed and recovered life. When we make changes in the outer structure of our lives—as is common in early recovery—we are given an opportunity to live differently. But these outer changes must be met with the willingness to perceive ourselves differently for us to actually change and grow. Soon, with practice, we can let go of the story that narrated our addicted lives and open ourselves to the newer more conscious version, one that can be different than the version of even yesterday.
