Many members of our community get caught up in doing recovery right. Some get REALLY caught up in that, becoming highly entangled in reading, watching videos, listening to podcasts, and asking questions about the correct way to recover. This can lead to choppy waters in recovery when the drive to do it right starts to overshadow the principles of recovery and the reason you’re doing the work to begin with.
Sometimes I will say that we do not recover so we can live. We live so that we can recover.
I stand by this statement and will repeat it from time to time.
In life, sometimes we get things wrong. We make mistakes. We misread cues and make less than optimal choices. We get lazy or unmotivated sometimes. We get confused. This is all part of being alive. All humans make mistakes and get things - even important things - wrong sometimes. Recovery is no different.
In fact, I might argue strongly that an ugly, imperfect recovery can be more valuable in the long run than somehow reading all the books, understanding every word, then executing a flawless recovery plan and racing back to “feeling better”. I mean, everyone wants to feel better and I would love it if you felt better, but the magic in recovery is not in figuring out how to feel better. The magic is in learning how to DO better.
We live so that we can recover. This means that we start doing life to the best of our abilities so that life can reveal our competencies and our strengths for us. Part of being competent and strong is learning how to fix mistakes, change direction when needed, and navigate through errors or mis-steps. “Helicopter parents” catch heat for robbing their children of the lessons of resiliency and flexibility. If we try to engineer error-free perfect lives for our children, how will they learn to rise to meet a challenge or pick themselves up when they fall down. The same applies in recovery. Are you “helicopter parenting” your way through your recovery, or are you willing to accept that part of this process is sometimes getting the process wrong?
Especially for our friends driven by overachiever, perfectionist, or hyper-responsible self image issues, getting it wrong can feel really uncomfortable sometimes. Reading, then doing without confirming the correctness of said doing seems irresponsible and like throwing caution to the wind or inviting disaster. But I promise, it is not. Doing recovery this way, by working to understand and apply the principles without demanding specific foolproof techniques or instructions is hard. It means that you will make mistakes sometimes, but it is far more productive and in the end far more rewarding.
How can you allow yourself to get it wrong sometimes? Try something without asking for verification first. When you want to seek specific instruction or technique, ask yourself what principle of recovery applies to your situation at the moment then try to build your own instructions from there. When you fee like you must confirm that recovery is possible or that someone has solved the problem you’re trying to solve act first even in the face of this uncertainty and state of not knowing. Expect and accept the discomfort this brings and practice moving through that discomfort.
I’ll leave you with a common example.
“Am I supposed to literally sit with my fear, or should I try to get on with what I was doing and let it tag along?”
My answer to this common question is … “sometimes”. This means that you’ll just have to try it both ways and see what happens. You’ll also have to learn when one method applies and when the other applies. You’ll have to work out when that might flip depending on context, then flip back.
You might get it “wrong” sometimes, so strap in. But really, as long as you learn something from the experience, there is almost no “wrong” anyway.
I’m currently just getting started on “Reclaiming Conversation” by Sherry Turkle. I found this one when it was referenced in Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism” so I was encouraged to give it a try. It’s a more academic read, but I have a real interest in the impact of digital media on how we related to each other so I’m enjoying it.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
132. Getting It Wrong Sometimes