Recover we

We think we know our way, that we’ve set the course ourselves, that we are paving our own path. We believe we know the lay of the land. We see a straight route. We have ideas about what we want to do, who we want to be, what it means to pursue LIFE.

What we may not have recognized is that the starting lines and the laying of the land were things far beyond our control. For some those elements help to fulfill their vision of themselves. For others, the roots that causes some to thrive, are snares that trip them up or bind them in place, making it difficult (but not impossible) to achieve their goals, through no fault of their own.

Imagine for a moment, every single human being (yourself included) at the moment they were born. Each of us emerge precoded with all our physical features. Our mental aptitude, emotional leanings, flavor preferences and even the propensity towards illnesses in our old age are embedded in us at birth.

That’s the starting line. There we all were. Every single one in need of the same things to thrive as a human. In the first five years the assurance of the primary needs of food, shelter and safety allow a child to survive. Their potential to thrive in the future develops simultaneously, as their understanding of the world and their place in it are laid as a foundation by whatever family system they are born into.

The child grows up in their community observing, learning, following the leads of the trusted adults around them. Too quickly the child becomes a teenager exercising untested autonomy, believing they know what they want and how to get it. The baby who took their first steps following someones lead, said their first words as a result of what they heard, who developed opinions and ideals by observing over the years, is marching out into a world with partial facts, unknown rules and conflicting ideas of what winning means. Few know what to do when things don’t go as planned.

I was thinking about this experiment that’s been circulating for some time. It illustrates the point perfectly.

• Take two steps forward if your parents are still married to each other.
• Take two steps forward if you grew up with a father figure in the home.
• Take two steps forward if you had access to a private education.
• Take two steps forward if you had access to a free tutor growing up.
• Take two steps forward if you never had to worry about your cell phone being shut off.
• Take two steps forward if you never had to help mom or dad with the bills.
• Take two steps forward if, outside of an athletic scholarship, you did not have to pay for college.
• Take two steps forward if you never worried where your next meal was coming from.

In recovery, it’s important to recognize with honesty where we came from and how that impacted us, for better or worse. For those with advantages they took for granted – it is humbling. For those without – it can allow grace for them to understand why it has been a struggle. It goes beyond a blaming of parents or pointing fingers. It’s about grace. All of it. We all need it at some point. Having grown up believing the whole world is like the little corner that we started in. At some point we learn otherwise, for some the reality is disastrous.

Consider the short video below. The facilitator asks a group of inmates a series of questions posed through the Adverse Childhood Experience Exam (ACE). The inmates are drawn closer and closer into the circle with each acknowledged childhood trauma. I’ve posted the questions under the video. I encourage you to consider the questions.

A.C.E. Exam

1. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt? 

2. Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured? 

3. Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever… Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Attempt or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you? 

4. Did you often or very often feel that … No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other? 

5. Did you often or very often feel that … You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it? 

6. Were your parents ever separated or divorced? 

7. Was your mother or stepmother: Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife? 

8. Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic or who used street drugs? 

9. Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide? 

10. Did a household member go to prison? 

Some years ago I discovered I had a score of 8 on the exam. I was shocked. I retook it. I wasn’t dramatizing or playing the victim. These questions revealed the main puzzle pieces of my life, the collection of which I had never considered altogether. It explained so much. The image was becoming clearer. These details that had been buried, these pieces that I’d minimized, allowed me to breathe out a lifetime of shame for my seeming lack of achievements. It allowed me to go back and take responsibility to grow myself up in the ways I hadn’t been taught.

There’s no need to keep going back to the starting line. Consider it like a team watching the past game reels. They get to observe where they needed to tighten up, train better, learn some new plays.

Every day is another chance to improve our game. We can grow and go from where we are now.

Knowing now what we didn’t know then, we get to try again.

It’s all still a risk.

It’s still rigged.

But we have treasures to work with that were born inside us, that were there at the starting line, regardless of wherever the lay of the land planted us. Precoded purpose. Irrevocable gifts. Like Harold with just his Purple Crayon, we can create our world with lines and circles and squiggles that spark from those unknown places. The path of life that led us through and around. Sometimes it seems like we are going in circles. Things look shamefully familiar.

My spiritual mentor taught me years ago to not see it as landing in the same place. She said she likes to see it as “A spiral going upward.”

Vertical progression, not simply going around in circles on the same sphere.

It is not starting over. It’s continuing with a new perspective.

It is seeing things more from an elevated view with a new paradigm, which may shift at a future vantage point. The further we go, our vision becomes ever clearer, requiring a tightening up and fresh training once we’ve reviewed the game footage.

So you see, where we are is urgently important to understand. Knowing ourselves and how we came to be who we are today is like maintaining an ongoing owner’s manual. It allows us to make adjustments based on what we’ve learned and continue the journey, with a little more wisdom and grace. What we gain in understanding then allows / requires us to lose the shackles and weights we have carried this far, unknowingly and unnecessarily.

Without judgement, we leave those things behind now. Like a memorial stone from the Old Testament, a marker in time is left in recognition of God’s loving kindness towards our silliness. We bask for some moments in the tangible presence of whatever has been with us in consciousness since the womb. We bow in gratitude.

Our load lightened now, we soldier.

Onward and upward.