Lessons From My Recovery

• You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life. Your relationship to it reflects your reflection with yourself. How you feel about it isn’t actually about your body. It is about how you feel about you, how connected you are to the present moment so can you experience yourself in the present moment (as opposed to through the conditioned mind you have from family, culture, religion, gender, society) and how accepting you are of what IS. This will allow you to support your now body, no matter what shape or size or functionality it has. This builds trust, grace, and agency.
• Symptoms are a healing response. Suppressing them will lead to more dis-ease as they are a call to action.
• You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth". Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher. Resent it and suffer. Or accept it and grow.

• There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. "Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success." Failure is absolutely inevitable. You get to choose the meaning that has. People with core beliefs that are supportive to who they are, what they are capable of - will know this as failure is not personal. Those with imprinted core beliefs that are life limiting (like I am not good enough, I am a failure, I am not worthy, I am unloveable) will not be able to tolerate failure as it will feel threatening to self.
• A lesson is repeated until learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it: then you can go on to the next lesson. If you notice patterns, get curious. They are a lesson not yet integrated. This happens for all of us. It is not personal.
• If you don't learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention. Do not shoot the messenger. Get curious about its message. It is meant for you and is not addressed to the wrong person.
• You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing. So baby steps are ALWAYS enough.
• Avoidance gets you nowhere.
• Relationships are a mirror for our worth. You will know when your own esteem has filled your cup enough that you no longer feel others need to fill it for you and you will not tolerate others draining that cup either. Codependency is also nothing to be ashamed of. It is healed with self love. True boundaries can only come from there. Walls from protection are not boundaries. They will block the good too.
• "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here." This is a big one. Wherever we go, there we are. Same internal conflict, same lack of self love reflected in our lives.
• Others are often mirrors of you. You do not need to stay looking in that mirror, so this is not to spiritually bypass. It is to encourage you to understand your triggers and not to blame shift onto others.
• Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life, or someone else will. There’s plenty of authority figures, gurus, and other people happy to tell you what to think and who to be. This will keep you powerless and victimised. Own yourself and you will flourish, no matter how long it takes.
• Your authentic self is never damaged. It will be waiting for you to see yourself in a mirror of compassion and then you will actually see the truth of you.
• Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract; therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students. You may have been victimised and this is NEVER something to hold blame or shame over. Staying in victimisation will stunt growth, health and happiness.
• There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best and throw the rest in the fuck it bucket.
• Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the laws of nature and spirit (if you have religious/spiritual practice) are written. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. All you need to do is to look, listen, and trust. Being still enough to listen is an art we need to practice. Meditation, prayer, nature and animals teach us a lot about patience and slowing down and trusting.
• Only you can heal you. Help is often necessary yes. but ultimately you will heal you. Or more specifically you will allow the self healing power inside you to do its job uninhibited by your conditioned mind, beliefs, thoughts, behaviours that block it from going back to homeostasis like it is always wanting to.
• Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not here. We have too much past and future and not enough presence. There is only now. How you experience the now is under your influence.
• You will forget all this. Many times.
• You can remember any time you wish.

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