The only thing certain in life is the uncertainty. That is something that I remind myself of often because it can be easy to forget. Uncertainty scared me off for the longest time because I would always just chalk it up to thinking of the worst case scenario, and that on its own would have me thinking I was doing myself a favor. The honest truth about that is even when things did work out there was just as much uncertainty going into that than there was into all of those opportunities I walked away from. My mindset was one to pick and choose, and the ones I picked were generally things I was already familiar with, and ones that wouldn’t take me too far out of my comfort zone. I carried a lot of feelings prior to being in active and addiction as well as in active addiction about being inadequate, about not being deserving of anything good in my life and those thoughts impacted my decisions when it came to trying something new, or going out of my comfort to accomplish something. So much of it comes back to our way of thinking and what we think we can and cannot do. The way I spoke to myself wasn’t the way I truly felt, in my eyes it was an easy out, it was a way to stay where I was, remain comfortable and familiar and in those moments that was always enough for me because that’s what I had myself believing.
There have been plenty of moments in recovery where I’ve questioned whether or not I am deserving of certain things or certain people. The biggest difference now is that I have developed healthy ways to battle them, healthy ways to work through them and have learned to tell myself that “I deserve this” in moments where doubt is trying to find its way into my current situation. Prior to accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior I lacked that belief in myself, I lacked that sense of direction because I was trying to do it all myself, I was trying to be perfect, I was trying to navigate and even dictate certain situations as often as I could. I eventually learned how that was never going to work, so surrender was something I committed to and it has completely changed the direction of my life. The uncertainty of life is still there, but I’ve been able to look at it through a “what could go right” lens opposed to a “what could go wrong” one and that has given me a completely new perspective on how to live.
God bless,
Brian 👐🏻
Whatever It Takes 