I hear about this a lot. About how difficult it is to recover and about how impossible this all seems. I get that. I know how the mountain can feel like it is only getting bigger with each step forward you take. But I also wonder if we don’t create some of these “impossibilities” because of how we approach getting well. Think of it this way, if you tell yourself over and over again that you can’t do something, how will you ever have the confidence or the courage to believe that you can? All of the space that could have been used to focus on what you can do has been taken up with what you can’t.
Sometimes we want to know all about these “impossibilities” so that we feel prepared and can know in advance what we are trying to do but I can’t help but wonder how much more successful we would be if we started with what IS possible first.
It is so easy to drown in our overwhelm when we focus so hard on the big things instead of the small. We focus on how in recovery we are “supposed” to be able to eat 3 square meals a day instead of focusing on the one thing we can do today that will help move us forward. We want to know how the game ends before we decide whether or not we want to even play. I wonder what it would be like to focus on what it is we need to do to be prepared to play should we enter the game.
What we really need to do is ask ourselves every morning when we wake up: What is one thing I can do today to help me be well today? It is okay if it is as small as taking a moment to really enjoy your cup of tea or as big as sitting down and eating your first breakfast in the past 6 years.
Everybody has one thing they can do, one thing that is possible. So I challenge you to get rid of the “impossibilities.” You don’t need to focus on them because they don’t help you anyways. Instead make today, and tomorrow and every day after that, a Possible Day.
Write in the comments below the one thing you are going to do today to make today possible…you never know who will see it and whose day you will make possible as a result!
