We Build New Muscles

I am asked by people outside of recovery why I "still go to meetings after so many years." Yeah, many people assume that once the drinking is done and the major issues are cleared up, why go back. They may be thinking of it like a medical issue. The skin is better or the cancer is gone or the surgery is over so go live your life. But recovery is about so much more--the kind of recovery I like is so much more.

I have been doing Pilates for a couple of years now. I love it, my body loves it, my posture is better, so much of my body has changed. So why go back? We wouldn't ask that question. In fact my 12 step recovery is a lot like my Pilates. This week in a Pilates class I found a new muscle. Well, I've apparently always had these really deep lower abs but I wasn't using them--the other muscles were overriding and doing all the work. But all of a sudden in one exercise (called Gyro Abs if you are into this) I felt something waaaay down there and it was a muscle group I hadn't been able to identify or isolate before. It was really hard, and now I'm aching, but it feels so good.

In the same way I continue to identify character defects, fears, nagging ideas and strengths and gifts-sometimes they are also waaaay down there, and there may be some aching at isolating them too. But later that also feels so good.

Emotional Pilates

A friend emails me and says, “I want new insides”. I tell her, “Me too.” This is one of those days that I just want relief from the fear. After all this time, years of recovery, therapy, healing and I get blindsided by fear. It happens that I am home sick today—an “experiment” my therapist calls it: Take time off and take care of yourself. So I cancel my weekend plans and I take this day. I get a massage and I read. The boyfriend calls and he says “Go to New York” and I think, “He wants me to go away.” I check my email from work and the bookkeeper says, We need more money”, and I think, “This is it, I’ll get fired.”

But I go for a walk and I wrestle with the angel of fear: Fear wants me to believe that bad things will happen. The shred of recovery that I have today says, “Hold on”. So I talk back. I pray. I think it through. There is some relief but these muscles are weak. This is like emotional Pilates. I have to strengthen my core beliefs. My habit is to succumb to the fear. But I make a tiny stride, a tiny advance this time.

Here is what I come to: I am determined NOT to be run ragged by fear even if the thing I fear actually happens (which it never does: get fired, man leaves me, friends desert me) it is still better than living in fear.