Most of us begin recovery after losing all hope of ever finding a solution on our own. It takes a lot of pain, a great amount of courage, and a huge amount of desperation to go to someone and say, "My life is out of control and I don't know what to do. Please help me." This is the general idea; usually, it's not so neatly packaged. Our journeys into recovery often involve police contact or time in locked wards. Rarely does one wake up and say, "I think I'll check out a recovery meeting today," or "Perhaps I'll make an appointment with a psychiatrist to help me overcome these suicidal ideations." Usually, it's the drama our unmanageability creates that pushes us toward those that can help.
After some time in recovery, we realize we were trying to fix what was broken (our brains) with what was broken. We gain hope when we see others who were in the same boat as us leading their lives without the interference of their disease. We gain even more hope when we begin living in the solution handed to us by our peers.
And then we find the greatest hope generator of them all - we share our experience, strength, and hope with others whose lives are spinning out of control. This is certainly a huge blessing, because we need to do things to maintain recovery, at least for those of us who don't pop back to 'normal' once our disease(s) is arrested. We work with others, we speak, we write, we put our recovery out there for others to see. This strengthens our hope of continued recovery.
However, (there's always 'however'), something can happen in the course of our sharing that might diminish our hope - the intended receiver of our gift doesn't receive it in the way we think they should. This can take many forms - a person gets hope for their own recovery, but chooses to use a different vehicle (recovery support group) than you, or they choose to try to recover on their own. Sometimes they die.
"We will never give up hope" is one of the guiding principles of NAMI support groups. I have experienced some dark moments in recovery - moments in which my hope for myself or for someone else (and sometimes for the whole planet) has been diminished, always due to my perception that some situation is hopeless. And what I'm really saying when I say something is hopeless is that I can't see the solution. I often, perhaps daily, remember back to the start of my recovery. Now that was hopelessness! I couldn't see my way out of a paper bag, and that actually turned out to be a good thing - it meant that I became willing to accept the vision, the hope of others. And through following the vision of others, I began to see results - I began to feel and act differently, and new opportunities opened up for me. Where I am today is miraculous compared to where I was a little over 2 years ago.
So, in order to sustain and even grow my own hope, I hold the vision of hope for others who may not have much hope, or even none at all. We do not have to die from our mental illness. We do not have to die from our addiction. We can not only survive, we can thrive.
Underneath the situations, underneath the circumstances, underneath the illness is a human being, a human being created with the same stuff that created the Universe. So we look past the circumstances and we see the human, meet and greet the human, and make a connection. We say, "No matter what diagnosis you have, no matter what roads you have traveled, you are here now, and I recognize both the human and the Divine in you. I see you. And we are connected." And when we can spot the human and the Divine and acknowledge it and begin to focus on it, healing begins, and hope is renewed. To be a part of someone else's healing is perhaps one of the greatest blessings of being alive.
To you who might be reading this, if you feel your hope waning, give away what little you seem to have. Pass it on to the next person, and you will receive twice back (at least) what you just gave.
Namaste,
Ken
"We will never give up hope" is one of the guiding principles of NAMI support groups. I have experienced some dark moments in recovery - moments in which my hope for myself or for someone else (and sometimes for the whole planet) has been diminished, always due to my perception that some situation is hopeless. And what I'm really saying when I say something is hopeless is that I can't see the solution. I often, perhaps daily, remember back to the start of my recovery. Now that was hopelessness! I couldn't see my way out of a paper bag, and that actually turned out to be a good thing - it meant that I became willing to accept the vision, the hope of others. And through following the vision of others, I began to see results - I began to feel and act differently, and new opportunities opened up for me. Where I am today is miraculous compared to where I was a little over 2 years ago.
So, in order to sustain and even grow my own hope, I hold the vision of hope for others who may not have much hope, or even none at all. We do not have to die from our mental illness. We do not have to die from our addiction. We can not only survive, we can thrive.
Underneath the situations, underneath the circumstances, underneath the illness is a human being, a human being created with the same stuff that created the Universe. So we look past the circumstances and we see the human, meet and greet the human, and make a connection. We say, "No matter what diagnosis you have, no matter what roads you have traveled, you are here now, and I recognize both the human and the Divine in you. I see you. And we are connected." And when we can spot the human and the Divine and acknowledge it and begin to focus on it, healing begins, and hope is renewed. To be a part of someone else's healing is perhaps one of the greatest blessings of being alive.
To you who might be reading this, if you feel your hope waning, give away what little you seem to have. Pass it on to the next person, and you will receive twice back (at least) what you just gave.
Namaste,
Ken
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