WEEKLY MEDITATION
Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before
-Jacob A. Riis
Changing established emotional patterns requires diligence, consistency, and follow-through. There is no single path to finding recovery, and we may need to try different approaches before we consider ourselves successful. It is of vital importance, then, to embrace the recovery process as one of trial and error, being ever diligent with trial and compassionate with error. Sometimes recovery takes years of pursuit with little obvious traction before the right components come together and the desired results emerge. Addictions are not created overnight, they grow with great dedication and diligence, themselves. So when it comes time to address them, we must do so with the fortitude and patience of the stone cutter, carefully working with the goal in mind, even in the face of seemingly slow progress. But as long as we are still breathing, we can still keep swinging away, and even during times of seeming despair, know that there always lies the potential for success.
