WEEKLY MEDITATION
Accept the fact that you are accepted, despite the fact that you are unacceptable.
-Paul Tillich
Recovery is a process that must ultimately encompass many types of personal growth. And of these, self-acceptance is one of the most important. Remember that at its core, enjoyable recovery from addiction depends upon creating a sense of comfort within everyday life. Without developing a true sense of self-acceptance, this is impossible. We can’t be perfect and to aspire to being so is an addiction in itself. To truly accept oneself, we will need to learn to allow ourselves to be imperfect, to befriend our imperfections and idiosyncrasies even as we try to work through them. Regardless of the method used, it is vital that we enter into a process through which we learn to accept ourselves as we are, take an honest inventory of our problem areas, and ultimately learn to take responsibility for them while neither ignoring them nor harboring feelings of self-loathing as we work through them. Yes, we may feel that we are unacceptable. But this is a premise that will not foster the kind of growth that will successfully support recovery. Through the development of self-acceptance we will find a much deeper comfort within our place in the world.
