It’s Not Time That Heals

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
—Andy Warhol

It’s often said that time heals all and answers come with time. But it’s not just the passing of time that gives us the answers and healing; it’s what we do during that time that brings us what we need.

When we need healing we do the things that we know to do to get that whether it’s spiritual or physical healing that’s needed. If we want the answer to something we must ask the question and wait, but while we wait we take action.

For spiritual healing we pray, meditate, go to a meeting or church, forgive, let go, whatever it is we need to do. For physical healing we take our medicine, visit a doctor, pray, meditate, rest, whatever is needed for our particular ailment.

It’s true that it takes time to heal, but time is not the healer. The healer is the action taken and the answers to prayers. We change, grow and heal over time when we do the things necessary to nurture our bodies, spirits, and minds.

Healing comes with time if we do the work.

Live and Let Live

“To live and let live, without clamour for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine love; to write truth first on the tablet of one’s own heart — this is the sanity and perfection of living.”
—Mary Baker Eddy

To live and let live is one of the most freeing things we can do. It’s letting go of our attempts to control others and our judgment of how other people live their lives.

Life becomes easier when we grow into this way of living. Thoughts may pop up from time to time about another person when we wonder why they are doing something a certain way or not doing it the way we would. We can just think to ourselves, “It’s not my deal,” and go on about our business.

For those who have never had control issues surrounding other people, this concept may seem foreign. And it will probably seem foreign to those who have not had this awakening. But once we have it, we know that it is the way to be. And if we haven’t we can strive to get it.

We know we cannot control what other people do. We cannot control our children, coworkers, siblings, parents, friends, or neighbors. When we really grasp this concept and set forth to live, really live our own lives and let them live theirs, we will find a peace that we have not had before.

When we learn to live this way we have more peace and we are better able to love others without trying to fix them to fit what we think they need to do.

When we let others live we free them and ourselves.

Be Yourself

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
 —Judy Garland

There’s never anything wrong with being exactly who we are, even if we have problems and issues that we would rather the world not know about. What we ought to do is be honest about who we are with those we are close to.

If we are in pain and need the support of friends or family, telling them we are “fine” when they ask will be dishonest and will not get us the help we need. Every person in this world experiences up and down times. And everybody needs support from time to time. If we have friends we can turn to them. Or perhaps there’s a family member who we feel will listen without judgment. If we don’t have either of these we can seek help from a therapist, group or member of the clergy.

Pretending to be “fine” when we really aren’t is pretending to be someone other than who we are. This does not mean we have to go around and tell every person we encounter how miserable we may be or trust every person with issues about ourselves that the world doesn’t need to know, what it means is that we have people we trust and we are honest with them.

None of us can be everything to everybody, but we can be who we are. Pretending to be other than that will keep us from truly sharing our lives with others. Not being who we are and trying to be what we think others want us to be will cause our self esteem to suffer too.

Be honest about both the good and bad in your life.

Love is Our Purpose

“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke

Loving others seems like an easy task, but it isn’t always easy. It’s not difficult to love some people, especially those who love us and are kind and gentle with us. But how about loving those who are not nice, who don’t treat us well?

We begin with self love. If we love ourself we can love others and we allow others to love us. Many of us have struggled with self-love and thus love of others our whole lives. There are reasons we are in recovery for the various issues you read about here. Addictions, low self esteem, codependency, adult child issues, all of these can be benefited by learning to love ourselves and others.

Those who are Christians will know that the one message from Jesus was to love others. Loving those we see as unlovable is a difficult task. We can begin by praying for them. And as we learn to love ourselves it becomes easier to see good in those around us, even the dirty beggar on the street is loved by Jesus. And whether or not a person believes in the Bible or Jesus, many lessons can be learned by his teachings.

We are all fallible. Many of us in recovery have hit bottom so we know that no matter where we are in life, we really are no better than those we look down upon who aren’t living life as well as we are. We also know that we could be in that spot too. And most likely we had someone love us while we were down and out to help us along our journey to today.

Love for those we don’t wish to love holds many rewards.

Allowing Ourselves to be Human

“In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.”
—Hannah Arendt

Allowing ourselves to be human lightens us and allows us to do the same for others. We seek perfection, but we aren’t so blind as to think we actually ever get there. We need to remember that we won’t ever reach perfection and neither will anyone else. This keeps us humble and able to relax.

Some of us get so worked up in trying to do everything and be everything, that we expect that from others and lose our inner peace. By freeing ourselves and others of the mode of perfectionism, we learn to love ourselves and others, and others are able to love us. It is in our imperfection that we are able to embrace one another. When we truly understand that striving to be our best is good enough, we understand that expecting perfection just causes us trouble within ourselves and how we interact and view others.

Letting go of perfectionism allows us to not only love others, but to forgive them when we feel they have wronged us. If we don’t allow others to be human we won’t have many people in our lives.

Set yourself and others free by getting rid of perfectionism thinking.

It’s All in the Follow Through

“It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.”
—Zig Ziglar

In many sports, including golf, tennis, and basketball, the follow-through of the swing, serve or shot is taught as part of the move and just as important as any other part. As with sports, the follow through on what we say we will do is just as important as the idea.

Making a decision to do something and actually doing it are worlds apart. Starting and not finishing and never starting are both problems. And if we tell someone we will do something, it’s important that we do it, lest they lose confidence in our word.

If we say we’ll do something once and we can’t “follow through,” but we usually do, then it’s forgivable, but if it keeps happening over and over people will soon just never make plans with us or expect much from us.

Understandably we start things that we don’t finish. Sometimes things are just not meant for us to do, but to rarely follow through will get us nowhere quick. It’s progress not perfection just like everything else we do, especially if we’ve made it a habit to promise more than we can give.

No follow through will cause us to miss our shot.

It Really is OK to Say No

“Saying no can be the ultimate self-care.”
—Claudia Black

Many of us who have spent our lives trying to please others may find saying “no” a difficult thing. We may say it when we don’t feel like going out, or we may pass on yet another volunteer opportunity, or maybe we just don’t want one more assignment at work.

Sometimes we say no because we just have too much on our plate, even when we really would like to spend the day doing something fun or giving in some way. Sometimes we just need to fill back up before we can give anything because we’ve given until there’s nothing left.

We may even say no just to see if we can. People will pressure and guilt us into things very often that for some reason they need us to do even if it really doesn’t do anything for them. It doesn’t mean that we don’t love someone when we say no to them. It just means that we love ourselves enough to do what we need to take care of ourselves in that moment.

Falling into saying yes when we want to say no can be a codependent behavior. It’s definitely a people-pleasing behavior. Many times when we first begin to use the no word with those used to us saying yes we cringe awaiting their reaction. Often we don’t get much of a reaction and they just move on to someone else. Or they say something like, “Well, it’s your loss if you don’t do ___.” Maybe it is our loss. Maybe we did miss an opportunity for something. It’s still OK that we said no.

Sometimes it is ourselves we have to say no to. We learn that as we go too. And we are gentle with ourselves along the way. We may need to be patient and kind to those we say no to if they react in a negative way. We do what we need to do to take care of ourselves.

Saying yes when we mean no can become an unhealthy habit.

Self-care is a Must

“I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.”
—Jennifer Louden

Taking care of ourselves is the key to many things in our lives. Physically taking care of ourselves can lead to better mental health and improve our spirituality.

We may not realize the importance of the simple things about truly caring for ourselves. Think of caring for a baby or child and all of the ways we care for them. We feed them when it’s time to eat and give them milk, juice or water when it’s time for that. Would a good caregiver ever withhold these necessities from a child? We should not keep the basics from ourselves either.

We have to care for ourselves before we can help others. And self-care may mean we have to pull away from others for a while to rejuvenate ourselves if we haven’t been caring for us along the way.

We need sleep. We need rest and down time to relax. We need to eat when it’s time. We may need to take a break from our routine sometimes and take a nap rather than going to the gym to workout. Maybe we need to go to the gym instead of taking a nap; too much of one and not enough of the other are both mistaken ways of living life.

Or we might need to learn how to say “no.” We don’t have to do everything we are asked to do. It’s OK, absolutely OK, to say no if we don’t want to do something. Someone else can do it or it won’t get done. Too many times we fall into the “must do” mode when involved in charity or church work.

It’s about balance. Sometimes it may feel selfish, but it’s important to be able to care for ourselves in healthy ways. It helps us to be independent, healthy, happy, and whole.

Taking care of us keeps us from falling apart.

Stop and Think First

“In the midst of great joy do not promise to give a man anything; in the midst of great anger do not answer a man’s letter”
—Chinese Proverb

It is so easy when anger is present to spout off and say things that we may not mean and certainly don’t want to vocalize if we do mean them. In those times when our temper flares and we are not able to be as calm as we would like it is always in our best interest to not say what we know we will regret once the words are out of our mouth.

It’s much easier said than done, but any time we can stop in our tracks when angered it will give us time to cool off and get ourselves in a place where we won’t say the wrong thing, or say something the wrong way.

In this gadget filled age that we live in, we sometimes have too many ways to communicate and some of those ways aren’t really the best. E-mails and text messages are two things that can be too convenient to spout off on, and to be misunderstood to boot. How many times have we had a disagreement because the tone was not properly read by the other person because it’s so difficult to read tone?

Likewise promising the moon when we really can’t give it is not a good thing to do. We may get caught up in a moment sometimes where we say we will do something before thinking it through because it we may really want to do it. However, we may have just been caught up in the moment or maybe we are just flattered to be asked and say we will do the thing out of that moment of joy. Stopping to think before saying yes can keep us from getting into something we will regret later.

Sometimes we just need to stop and think before we speak.

Forgiveness Gives Us Peace

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
—Malachy McCourt

If someone has hurt and/or angered us and we are ruminating in it, there is only one option to free us from it. That one thing is called forgiveness and it is not easy.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean we forget the sometimes terrible things others did to us. It doesn’t mean what was done to us is OK either. What forgiveness means is that we let go of it, we understand that others are human, and that holding on to it only hurts us. We allow others to be less than perfect and we move on from and heal from the issue that we are forgiving them for.

As long as we hold on to the anger we have for the other person, for the wrong done to us, we are holding ourselves back. We are unable to heal. We cannot have peace. And many times it will keep our addictions active.

And just because we forgive someone, it doesn’t mean they have to be our best friend. It is more for us than them. Sometimes those who wronged us haven’t even asked for our forgiveness anyway. They don’t have to be told we forgive them. Our energy may tell them, or they may never know. It isn’t about them as much as it is about us and our well-being.

Forgiveness simply allows us freedom and a chance to love more than we do when we hold onto our resentments. As long as we hold onto resentments, we are poisoning ourselves and wallowing in our anger and perhaps self-pity.

Forgiveness opens the door to freedom.