From Hopeless to Hopeful in 12 (Not So Easy) Steps

… I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never be completely free of my codependent tendencies… 

In the context that I made that statement last week, it fit and made sense, but it still bothered me.  As true as it may be, it sounds hopeless.  Communicating hopelessness completely contradicts my purpose.  I’d like to spend some time this week talking about how – despite that belief – I’ve been able to go from hopeless to hopeful and why I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Excellence vs. Perfection

                The Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary defines Excellence as “extremely high quality.” High quality doesn’t not equal unflawed.  When I was training (new truck drivers) I would tell them, “Every good truck driver starts out as a crappy truck driver.”  I’ve heard the same said about writers.  When I think back to 1975 when I got my first bicycle, I didn’t start out with mad skills, I assure you.  In time, I mastered each one, but don’t think that I’ve grown beyond the ability to get distracted, forget what I know and lose my balance… even if only for a moment. 

The same goes for my recovery skills.  What is “mastery” anyway?  While for the most part I do well, there are still times when I’m tired, or hungry or hurting that I forget my skills and revert to old behaviors.  If I get it right 9 times out of 10, I call that success.

Pursuing perfection is self-defeating.  I don’t believe I can ever achieve perfection this side of heaven… so why bother?  To expect perfection from myself is asking for trouble.  Setting a goal I know I cannot reach leads me right back to the self-loathing habits I spoke of last week.  I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’m useless, why bother, no one likes me, etc, etc, etc.  I’ve spent way too many years doing that.

Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you will still land among the stars. – Les Brown

                This quote reminds me of another that I used to hear a lot in sales.  “A little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothing.”  I don’t know who said that.  The point is, a little bit of progress is better than no progress.  If you want to lose 40 lbs. by bathing suit season and you only lose 30 lbs, are you going to beat yourself to death over the 10 lbs. you didn’t lose?  Probably not. 

We can’t lay one brick and call it a skyscraper.  Skyscrapers are built, one brick at a time, brick upon brick upon brick upon brick until it reaches the sky.  My recovery is the same way.  I get a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better.  One day at a time.

Every time I acknowledge that I’m doing a little bit better than I used to, it gives me hope.  The only time I ever cried in counseling was the day my counselor asked me what my biggest fear was.  I cried as I confessed that my biggest fear was that my life was never going to get any better than it is today and there was nothing I could do about it.  That was 10 years ago.  Thankfully I wasn’t right.  My life is so much better than it was then that sometimes I find it hard to believe it’s the same life.

Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right. – Henry Ford

                The Fixed mindset says “there is nothing I can do about X.”  The Growth mindset says “I can change X.”  Time after time, I’ve heard drivers state that they would love to get out of a truck, but they can’t do anything else to support themselves and their families.  I even tried to speak to one about a freelance writing career and she immediately shut me down.  “I can’t do that,” she told me.  If you say so.

Except when I’m struggling with a bout of depression, I’ve got a growth mindset.  I’m naturally inquisitive, so I’m almost always looking for what I’m going to learn next.  Books are my favorite things and I probably have more money invested in them than anything else.  Every time I buy a new book, I tell myself, “I’m creating my personal library.”  When I look around at the books I have in my apartment, I know I’ve read at least part of most of them.  I look forward to the chapter in my life where I have time to sit down and read them all.

The next year is going to pass whether I change or stay the same.  Staying the same is a waste of my time and talents.  It’s also an insult to my purpose.  I didn’t come out of the box possessing the skills I needed to communicate my message or even navigate the technology.  I must work to develop and improve them so I can do what I was put here to do.

In 12 (not so easy) steps…

                Overall, I’ve never really doubted my ability to master a new skill.  From riding a bicycle, to learning to read, swim, cook, do laundry, change a tire, build a brick wall, drive a truck, scuba dive, ride a motorcycle, and even create a blog; my philosophy was that if I stayed teachable and was reasonably intelligent, I could learn to do anything. 

                Sheer will power says “I’m going to do this if it kills me.”  Admittedly, mine almost has, more than once.  My brain is not big enough to accommodate reasonable intelligence and sheer will power at the same time.  It’s one or the other.

                I don’t know where I got the idea that I could overcome codependency and depression by sheer will power, but when I couldn’t do just that, I considered myself a failure.  I sunk into a pit of hopelessness. 

                I was 36 when I’d finally had enough of the struggle.  I knew there had to be a better way, I just needed to find it.  I had to go outside myself to get the information I needed to master every skill I’d mastered over the course of my life.  This wasn’t going to be any different.

                The idea of a 12-step program was first suggested to me in Codependent No More by Melody Beattie.  I immediately dismissed the idea, telling myself I didn’t need a 12-step program.  I could just follow the other suggestions and be just fine.  By the second time a 12-step program was recommended, I’d exhausted all my own resources and still not been successful.  I was now willing to give this 12-step idea another look. 

                Recovery resources were very limited in Casper, WY.  There was no chapter of CoDa, but a Celebrate Recovery group had just launched in town.  What’s that?  Celebrate Recovery is a Christian 12-step program.

                What I found in Celebrate Recovery was the teachers I’d been unable to admit I needed.  Just as with the other skills I’d mastered, I needed people who had gone before me… proving that the skills could be mastered to give me hope and show me how it was done. 

                I had only a superficial understanding of the 12 steps before beginning my own program.  I’m not going to go deep into them today.  I will do a series about them in the future, but for today, I just want to give you a brief overview.

                A 12 step program is a process for working through addictions and other compulsive behaviors by beginning with acknowledging there is a problem, admitting we cannot overcome it by ourselves, facing the truths about what we’ve done and what’s been done to hurt us, reconciling relationships where ever possible, asking our higher power to heal us and then sharing the hope we’ve found with others.

                To be able to go to Celebrate Recovery the first time, I had to muster up a pinch of hope.  I had to convince myself that maybe -just maybe- this could work for me.  Maybe it would.  Maybe it wouldn’t.  But I had to go find out.  I’m guessing you completely understand this feeling if you’ve gotten this far down the post.  All I brought into my recovery was my problems, the willingness to learn how to deal with them and a pinch of hope.  What I received was love, acceptance, guidance and above all else… a bunch of hope.    The journey from hopeless to hopeful was long and hard and worth every moment.