The Easier, Softer Way

 The ‘easier, softer way’ is a fiction - it is hoping for change while taking no action. It’s waiting for my Fairy Godmother to bippety-boppety-boo me into where I want to be. Well, sorry Princess. I have to get out of my glass slippers and put on my work boots. 

What I’ve discovered in sharing my flubs and flops with my sponsor - those actions I’ve taken which are counter to who I came to be - is that I am no longer shackled to them. They don’t need to define me. 

I didn’t want to do that. Who wants to admit, out loud, their extreme vulnerabilities? Most of us are taught early on in our lives to not air our ‘dirty laundry’. The ‘easier, softer way’ seems like by just admitting them to myself, and by doing so, to my Higher Power, that would be sufficient. Why isn’t that enough? Why do I have to so thoroughly humble myself by admitting my failures of character out loud to another human being? Because by not doing so, I continue to hide and justify my brokenness. I risk more of the same. I risk hiding in a bottle once again. And I am virtually guaranteed that I will hurt others and myself over and over again, in the same old ways.

When I look at Step 5 like that, I can see that that ‘softer way’ looks cozy and comfortable, but it is anything but. It is a bed of nails to a non-yogi. It is mistaking the same old discomfort for the norm. It is a crumbling of the façade of self-sufficiency and disguise. It helps me earn my growth and keep my sobriety.



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