Seven things I'm grateful to have learned in recovery

I have been memed by one of my favorites, The Junky's Wife, and the game directly overlaps what I've been thinking about as Thanksgiving approaches.

I've been having a hard time finding time to write, and I've also been struggling with a little funk. It's a combination of my friend finding a "perfect" guy, her thinking about having more kids (which we've been trying to do,) and seeing some (bad) movies that had me thinking about the unpredictability of life's tragedies.

But here I am right now, with both the time and the spirit to finish this post, so here goes.

Here are the rules for the meme:

Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
Post these rules on your blog.
List seven things you're grateful to have learned in recovery.
Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Seven things I'm grateful to have learned in recovery are:

1. I'm grateful to see that my "illness" is my need to fix and solve things for others, often at the expense of actually listening to or hearing them; that I don't have to do that; and that if I don't do that, I can have a better experience of myself and better relationships with others.

2. I'm grateful to have learned that a healthy adult has defined boundaries with everybody, even with people they love and trust, and with people who love them and treat them with love.

3. I'm grateful to have learned that I don't need to agonize about or be hurt by things that don't have anything to do with me.

4. I'm grateful to have learned to reach out to others.

5. I'm grateful to have been given the insight that my husband is human, and not the perfect person I'd unintentionally held him to be. This awareness frees us both from certain pressures and expectations that inevitably create problems.

6. I'm grateful to have learned that when Husband is angry it doesn't mean Husband hates me and will certainly have less respect for me, that I've completely failed, that I'm a bad person, and that I alone have to fix whatever the problem is. And I'm grateful to learn that Husband is responsible for his own feelings.(I'm also grateful to have learned what an absolutist I am and how that impacts me and my relationships.)

7. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to see how truly unknown the future is, regardless of how knowable it feels, and to have the chance to face the unknowableness of life and the accompanying fear and not turn away from it, and to try to learn from what I experience by not turning away.

There is so much more I've learned. I wish I could learn all the good lessons I'm learning without the accompanying pain and fear - I certainly wouldn't say I'd gladly do this all again. But there is no question that I've experienced profound personal and spiritual growth that I am deeply thankful for.

I have only two people to tag at the moment (a lesson on reaching out more!):
Fiona at Ionafiona
Chris at Grateful Recovering Sex Addict