Learning To Love You

[MajestyJo]

How can I give the gift of love to others if I don't love myself? Acceptance is the key. When I can accept myself for who I am, I can start to love myself again.

Alateen-ADAT, page 270

I not only didn't love myself, didn't like myself very much either.

The people in the rooms loved me back to good health.

Going through the process was that looking back on it was quite funny. The dangling earrings, the different hair colours and styles, working the Steps so the inside felt like the outside. This was a time I applied the slogan, "Fake it until you make it."

Learning that my God loved and forgave me, even after all the things I had done in my past, helped me to love and forgive myself. The forgiveness was the hardest and took much longer.

Through His love and the Spirit of the Fellowship, I was able to get back my sense of self, which was no longer the lowest of the low, but someone worthy of recovery, who deserved good things happening to her.

Boundaries and detachment helped with others, but what I had to do was take the blocks from the high brick wall and stop detaching from others, quit isolating and allow myself to become vulnerable. It was one of the scariest times in recovery and through my Higher Power, we got me through it.