Special

What is it that makes me think I'm "better" than or "less" than someone else? Why do I think I'm so "special"? My arrogance can be so strong sometimes it's suffocating. I've learned that my arrogance (my ego/disease) is so strong that when I'm in fear or feel threatened it comes out with guns blazing. But here's the thing, I don't feel fear or that I'm being threatened. It's an unconscious feeling for me most of the time. It takes a lot of work for me to pierce the barrier between my arrogance to get to my true feelings. I've been in recovery for a very long time and it's still a struggle to really know what my true feelings are and identify my defects. You see being arrogant isn't loving. It isn't kind. It isn't patient. It isn't accepting. It isn't tolerant. Arrogance is isolating. When I'm being arrogant I'm separating myself from you. Arrogance protects me from getting hurt. Feeling pain, sadness, loneliness, fear, weakness is so difficult that I push those feelings away by whatever means necessary. And arrogance is my shield against any painful feeling. It's also a prison because it keeps me from truly being a part of the world. It prevents me from being myself and getting to know you. It's safe and it's lonely.

Knowing this about myself and knowing that arrogance is a defect isn't enough to stop being arrogant. I don't know when I started using arrogance as a protection. It really doesn't matter. I can blame and "figure" it out but that won't help me stop being arrogant. Recovery, 12 steps, is the answer. It's my solution. And it takes a long time.

I am softening. I am asking my Higher Power for help. I am surrendering. It doesn't happen in a flash some days it doesn't happen at all but I keep working at it and I keep choosing recovery. I keep coming back and practice being kind to myself and forgive myself when I fall back into old patterns of behavior. It is not easy.

It's hard practicing behaviors that feel strange. It's hard to change and not tell everyone about it. It's hard to trust myself that it's ok to change and try new behaviors without letting others know what I'm doing. I don't need your approval. I don't need your "buy in" I don't need you to tell me it's ok to change. I can trust myself.

I can do hard things.