Chapter Six

Exhausted, I sit here pondering, what should I do next? Sitting beside me is all my mess. Do I attempt to tidy it up? Do I put things back the way they were? Will that really work any longer? What I now know is, I just have to get on with … gett’n on down the road.

As I do, I notice my step is lighter. Not totally lightened by a long shot, but lighter than it was. Better stop and meditate on what I just did. What it means to me, and what is next!

I see others on the path and they don’t have any baggage at all. They actually seem full of life and happy. I begin to wish my If Only wish. If only my burdens were gone too, then I could be just like them.

As I begin my journey into self-pity I hear The Voice again and it says to me "So you wish your weight was lifted from you, do you?”

I respond out loud, “Yes!”

The Voice For Certainty says, “Look at yourself, look at how you hold on to your mess … you do as if it were gold … something to be treasured."

There I was caught in the act of being my old, scared self. Hanging on for dear life to what I imagined I thought I was.

I now know that if I am to move-on in my recovery, I have to let go of “My Stuff: My Hurt, My Shame and My Pain.” I notice, perhaps for the first time, that I hold this mess of mine with a death grip.

The Inner Voice of Sanity tells me that no two people do this releasing thing in the same fashion. Some let go all at once and others do it a bit at a time. And some do it slowly and laboriously, sometimes stretched over entire lifetimes. And of course, some never do it. It is all up to me, to get on with my business of me finding me. “If I can imagine,” This Voice tells me, “that is the first real action I can take in having ‘something called different’ ”.

I visualize myself letting go of all the trash. The stuff I carry to identify me to me. As I take the risk to do this act of release I feel filled with life and love. I am relaxed. I am ready.