Diamond in the Rough: Renee W.’s Safe Landing Space

Well, I, you know, you said, "Well, my story is doom and gloom." Well, your, your story has a lot of hope.

That's the cool thing is yes, there, you, you've had a lot of tragedy and a lot of hurt, and, ugh, it, it's heartbreaking at times, but you've also shown people that you can start over.

Mm-hmm.

That you can come through that stuff.

And, you know, the one thing I think, I don't know if, you know, early on we can handle it in recovery, honestly, but I think so many...

I don't think we talk about emotional sobriety m- enough a- and how important it is.

You know, once we stop drinking, um, or drugging or whatever it is we're doing, um, and life starts coming at us, there's a whole nother, uh, set of issues that could hit us.

And, and, you know, I've certainly hit my share of emotional bottoms.

Um, and, uh, I married somebody in recovery, and she talks about her story and, and her story about when we first got married, she hit an emotional bottom and, you know, and I, I, I think it's so important to share that, what you shared and, and it's...

You're, you're like the comeback kid, you know?

[laughs]

You are.

I mean, a- and, you know, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's really amazing, I think.

I think, I think you're a miracle.

I mean, I think, you know, that's the cool thing.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

Um-

So, so real quick, there's something that, you know, in, in the recent years that I'd love to share with the listeners, um, and that is that, you know, I, I fou- you know, it's like e- the more I've worked the steps, the more I have come, you know, one, to get to know myself, but in, in this last couple of rounds, you know, I, I had, like step six and seven had, you know, it was like, okay, s- I, I did six and seven.

Yes, I'm entirely ready to have God remove all these character defects and, you know, shortcomings and, and, you know, and I've asked him to take my shortcomings and not really had a deep...

You know, it's like I see where the, it's worked, but not having like this deep understanding of the action around that and how import- you know, it's like it always felt like it was bigger.

And, and this last set of inventory I did, I really saw how my resentment and, and my behavior in that resentment was really about my fear, right? It was all about, you know, whatever those fears were.

And I was able to take and translate those fears to my fear inventory and really look at the, you know, like what that fear truly is and, and where it came from and, and how it, how I show up in that, you know? You know, like how it shows up, like, you know, you make me look bad and I'm gonna character assassinate you as quickly as, you know, that kind of thing.

And, and, you know, and, and like going through that process and then really starting to like, you know, ask my higher power about step six and seven and, and you know what I found is that, you know, my reaction to the fear, you know, it's like my character defects really get activated behind my fear, right? It, that, it, my character defect is how I, how I present with the fear, and the actions that I take are, are actually my shortcomings.