Learn the Power of Respect

[MajestyJo]

Learn the Power of Respect

I watched as my journey unfolded this spring. Each place I visited gave me a lesson. People would show up at the right time and place with exactly the words I needed to hear. Sometimes the lesson would be announced loudly, clearly. Sometimes an awareness would surface softly when I least expected it, when I was beginning to wonder if any lesson or purpose was there at all. Everything I saw and experienced ultimately reinforced my trust in God, the universe, and the power of my heart to lead me on. After all, I had taken this trip on just a moment's notice with no itinerary, and a magical adventure had unfolded. By the time the journey ended and I pulled into the driveway at home, I had learned more than just to trust the process, I had learned to respect it.

Do more than trust the process, the journey you're on. Become so awestruck by it that you respect it,too. Respect your feelings and the timely manner in which they surface, heal, and lead you into new discoveries. Respect your experiences, the places you've been, the scenarios you've been through. Respect the way you've gained gold and jewels, the treasures of the soul, from each one.

Respect the darker moments, the more difficult times when you're uncertain and don't know what to do next. Respect the timing as your life and journey unfolds. Don't murmur about why such and such has to be the way it is. Don't limit how your growth can happen.

Learn to respect the path of others. Learn to respect your own.

- Journey to the Heart

2 Timothy 2:23-24
Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.

[MajestyJo]

One thing I have learned on my recovery journey, is that it has to begin with me. If I want respect, I have to respect myself. It is important also to respect myself for who I am. I am not my disease.

The selfish, self-centeredness of my disease tells me it is all about me. Yet this program say, I have to give it away in order to keep it. I had to change the old ways of thinking and attitude to in order to give to someone else, I had to find it within myself in order to give it away.

Respect things as they are not as I would have them be. There is positive and negative in all situations. Focusing on one and ignoring the other, doesn't allow for the healing process to begin.

Respect yourself. Know that you are worthy of recovery.



I have to respect others for where they are in their recovery. This isn't a race ro run. It is not something that has to be done in order, although it is best to work the Steps in order, there is no order to our defects and the process of putting our life back in order.

I got really angry when I found out that two sisters from my group read Codependent No More and didn't tell me about it. I didn't find the book until I was 5 years sober. I came to realize that I was probably not ready then and if it was meant to be, it would have happened. When I finally did find it, I ran to the nearest Al-Anon meeting. I hadn't been for a while.

I also have to respect the word of those who went before me. I may not always agree with it. I sure am grateful for it though.

Isaiah 41:13
For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.