Amendment To My Constitution.

Part of Step 9 for me has been making amends to myself. I wrote a letter to me, and I'm putting it up here to finish it:

Dear Me,

I want to make amends with you for my reckless behavior. I have been thoughtless, careless, and lacked concern for your safety and well being. I have neglected your needs, putting the needs of anyone and everyone else in my life before yours.

I was hurting for many years, and instead of dealing with that hurt I acted out against your best interests in my misguided attempts to process my pain. I put you in dangerous, complicated situations, did destructive things to your body, and ignored your need to feed your spirit.

I sincerely want to change my behavior towards you from now on. I want to take better care of you in the future. I want to nurture you, help you to grow and thrive. You are my best thing, and I hope to keep that idea in the forefront of my mind for the rest of my life.

Love, love, love,

Me.

I Don't Want To.

The pose pictured here, ardha chadrasana, or "half-moon pose," is the worst yoga pose ever in the history of yoga. It makes vomit and bile and rage rise up in my throat, and it makes my ankle shake and I hold my breath and I start thinking that doing yoga isn't that great and maybe I'll never come back to another class ever again, and I think that my teacher doesn't know anything and I hate the Yoga Sutra, every yogi who ever lived, and the entire country of India, in fact the entire Eastern hemisphere for developing a tradition that would make my ankles shake and my stomach boil and my breath totally disappear in such a wretched, horrible, impossible way.

I was explaining to a yoga teacher about how very much I hate this posture and trying to find out if I might be allergic to it and be able to sit out on it forever forward, and she pointed out that the poses we hate most to do are generally the ones we need most.

Sigh.

So now I keep finding myself reaching for the (fucking) floor and trying to open my (fucking) heart to the (fucking) ceiling while shaking on my (fucking) standing ankle and trying to lift my (fucking) other leg higher and higher. Because this (fucking) pose is unloosing something in me that I'm holding on to, or strengthening some part of me that is weak, or opening some choke hold that is keeping me from growing.

Similarly, I find myself on the verge of beginning Step 8. I've been looking at Step 8 out of the side of my face from the first time I came to Nar-Anon.

Fuck Step 8, yo.

I think I'm allergic. I don't have anybody to make amends with. I'm perfect and I've never wronged anyone! I'll just sit out while my step group does Step 8. I'll watch from the sidelines, towel myself off, and drink water. Maybe I could go back and work on step 4 some more? I'll be powerless! I'll list character defects! I'll do push-ups! Hell, I'll stand in my shaky ardha chadrasana, but please don't make me have to make amends with folks!

It's awful, too, because after Step 8 is done, then there's Step 9! I'm pretty sure that everyone I might have injured (which is no one, obviously, if you read the paragraph above) would fall into the category of "except when to do so would injure them or others," so again, when my group moves on to Step 9, I'll just stand on the side and towel myself off and drink water. I've got some appointments that day or something.