After Shannon's story, Jan invited those who wanted to give it a try to come forward and share their stories in 5 sentences as a way to introduce themselves to the whole group. It was also a way to bring many voices into the room, not just those of the presenters.
I was astonished by the courage of those who shared. One of the goals of the afternoon was
to learn a new way to talk about our stories – instead of saying, “Hi, I’m
Lauren, I’m a co-dependent/addict/alcoholic,” we were taught to say, “Hi, I’m Lauren, and I’ve
been in recovery from co-dependence for 4 ½ years, and what this means for me
is …” Earlier in the morning Becca Stevens had talked about how our stories need to be stories of good news. Hearing so many stories of recovery was seriously good news to me. We often hear about how hard it is to recover, and yet it happens all the time.
Try it. What would your 5 sentence recovery
story be? Don’t opt out – we all
need recovery from something.
Here’s mine:
1. After a lifetime of exhausting myself striving to please
others, I have been in recovery from co-dependence for 4 ½ years.
2. I now work part-time as a recovery priest with a non-profit
in Williamsburg, Virginia and part-time as a college chaplain.
3. Sometimes it seems like I will never be able to let go of
all my co-dependent behaviors, but I remind myself that I am a work in
progress.
4. I am grateful for the health and happiness that I have found
on my recovery journey.
5. Most of
all I am grateful to God for bringing me the help I needed and for putting me
in places where I can be of help to others.
Your turn.
No comments:
Post a Comment