As I spoke to a room full of recovering addicts recently at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, they were facing the harsh fact that SEPARATION goes hand in hand with addiction.
In recovery circles we call booze and drugs “The great removers”.
Eventually they take everything, SEPARATING us from love and then eventually life itself!
However SEPARATION from our old destructive habits, co-dependent relationships and the noise of daily life, can be one of the most healing choices we can make.
Forget what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you.
If arguments, conflict, worry, disappointment and fear have been visiting our lives we can take heart as we are still on track. A match needs friction to ignite, a boat sails better with wind blowing against its sails and a baby chicken needs to break through the shell that once kept it safe to be free and live.
So when there is friction, inconvenience, SEPARATION and grief let us try to remember these are all necessary and normal parts of life.
After a bush-fire when all the dead wood has been burnt off it may be a little baron for a while, but eventually there is always wonderful and miraculous new growth. Where there is birth there is pain and destruction must precede construction.
SEPARATION is a necessary component for human growth for it gifts us with the discovery of what we can do for ourselves, by ourselves.
It takes emotional muscle not to judge ourselves or others harshly with right and wrong, but try to keep a balanced perspective where SEPARATION has occurred. I t simply means it’s time to stand alone for a while, remember who we are and who we are not, and back ourselves and our truth.
Emotional co-dependence sometimes occurs within a relationship gradually. Before we know it our worth, self-respect and peace of mind can become totally entwined in the acceptance and approval of the other. When we lose our sense of self and the ability to individuate, disagree without disrespect and enjoy solitude within the relationship without guilt, joy starts to disappear from our lives. A SEPARATION is often the unwelcome reboot our heart needs to remember our value and unique gifts and talents.
So if skies seem grey and full of yet more rain clouds for others or us because of a painful SEPARATION, let’s remember that we only ever see beautiful rainbows after the rain!
Lotsa love Cynthia xxx
© Copyright 2016 Cynthia J. Morton Emotional Fitness™
This Word Vitamin is an excerpt from my latest bookset “The Four Seasons of the Heart”. If you would like to order your own full set of Daily Word Vitamins one for each day of the year, in book form for yourself or as a gift just click on the SHOP tab and place your order.
