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Sample Stories From the Fall 2008 Issue of The S-Anews©
Higher Power and Serenity in the Midst of the
Hullabaloo of Life
My recent experience of how powerful serenity and Higher
Power are reminds me not to be bored with my Higher Power or
my hard won recovery!
My lovely, beloved 120 pound Labrador mix dog, and my 45 pound Scottish
Terrier mix treed a junior opossum in the back yard two nights ago in one
of my three dwarf cherry trees. I found myself racing out into the back
yard at top speed at 1 a.m. with a flashlight (and looking not too
glamorous). The dogs were barking and baying and carrying on at a level
never heard before!
So, I’m out there waving the flashlight around and I see a junior
opossum clinging to the top of one of the dwarf cherry trees. He looks
like he is meditating as the dogs slather and baroo and leap up the tree
to beat the band. The opossum, on the other hand, quietly swayed in the
top of the tree and maintained contact with his Higher Power.
I hauled everyone, the dogs and me, inside and went to bed with the
knowledge that every neighbor for two blocks around was now wide awake. I
let go of that (“How important is it?”) and wished the opossum a
dignified, serene climb down the tree.
My Higher Power’s Step Eleven teaching for my life this week is to
achieve the serenity of that opossum. If a teenage opossum can meditate
and rest while all heck is breaking loose, then certainly my Higher Power
wants at least the same level of serenity, patience, and peace for me no
matter what is going on in my day.
I am so grateful for S-Anon’s Steps, Tools, and Slogans that allow me a
new way of life!
Finding My Voice Before I became involved with the
sexaholic in my life, my husband, I was a strong and independent woman. I
was not aggressive, but neither did I hesitate to stand up for myself or
for what I firmly believed in.
It seemed that I suspended everything I believed in when I got involved
with a sexaholic. I somehow concluded that since what I did in the past
with male friends never proceeded down the romantic avenue, there was
something wrong with how I was approaching men. I decided to enter a
relationship that was opposite to what I had been looking for up to then.
I stopped asserting myself strongly and questioned whether the beliefs I
held were even healthy and “normal.” I entered the unchartered territory
of an unhealthy relationship when I changed my approach. I left my
compass on the shore of my own accord.
Through the years I felt myself slip away and conform to something my
husband wanted me to be. I stood my ground on a few issues, but overall
gave in to the manipulating tactics the sexaholic employed to trigger me
to feel guilty and responsible for his emotional state and other areas of
his life. I sank deeper into living my life for others and denying my own
sense of reality when I started having children.
Eventually I reached a breaking point in this pattern and began the
road of my own personal recovery apart from the sexaholic. One day, my
spouse went into a rage in front of our three small children about how I
was not emotionally supporting him properly, to the extent of threatening
to hurt himself. For some reason, on this occasion I recognized that I
didn’t have to “play my part” in this scene and agree with him and
apologize and placate him. To save the slender piece of sanity I somehow
still held, I detached as much as possible. I saw that it was my choice
to play the victim of the sexaholic’s disease, and I was free to choose
not to be a victim anymore! I made a vow to seek help in order to remove
myself from this insanity, began therapy and shortly thereafter joined the
S-Anon program.
I learned to assert myself in my relationship with the sexaholic and
stand firm with my own boundaries. I saw that the values I had pushed
aside throughout the relationship were true to me and represented who I
wanted to be. I made it my mission to relocate the voice I had lost in
subjugating my needs to those of the sexaholic. I found the support and
encouragement I needed to facilitate the process of finding my voice in my
S-Anon group and the S-Anon literature. My strengths and wants were valid
and I slowly found my voice once again. I am my own strongest advocate
and I can never lose sight of that again.
S-Anews Archives for 2008
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