“A letter
to myself”
Hello, I would like to share an AHA moment when I was reviewing
my notes. I am currently on Step Nine in CODA so I went back and reviewed Steps
4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. In Step 8 it mentioned make Direct Amends to all people you
have harmed. Of course, I naturally made an Amend to my Higher Power but then
came the AHA moment. The person I needed to make amends to was ME! So I wrote a
letter to myself. Hopefully, my letter will help someone in their journey of
recovery:
Dear Linda: You were very helpful in your own way when we were
growing up. You helped me develop coping skills that unfortunately for us no
longer serve our best interests. We developed low self-esteem because we were
always told we were wrong. So we developed a codependent behavior of difficulty
in making decisions. That way we wouldn't have to be accountable or take
responsibility. We had difficulty taking constructive criticism and viewed it
as a personal attack.
As time went on, we perceived ourselves as victims and became
martyrs. In our relationships we were needy and controlling without realizing
it. I suppose this was denial. Because we were oppressed socially, emotionally,
and spiritually, we became very naive and gullible. Because of our illness, we
were perceived by our brothers and sisters as "different" and we
never did quite measure up. But you know what Linda, that is a bunch of
"hooey”.
But to be fair, Mom and Dad did the best they could with the
tools they had. They were not perfect, but no one is. In fact, with all the
illness, separation from family members who have never even tried to get to
know us and never will, they gave us a lot of assets that formerly we thought
were weaknesses. We are kind, generous, have empathy, are very loyal, are
compassionate. We have integrity. We are honest and trustworthy and we are
understanding.
So, Linda, we need to "Let Go and Let God.” We need to take
responsibility for our choices. We need to speak for ourselves. We need to be
proud of who we are and never be ashamed. But most of all, we need to be
grateful that we have been given the opportunity to live a life full of
exciting experiences. We need to seek God's help in recognizing these
opportunities. So let's say goodbye to the past and live in the present and be
grateful for every day we have. Let’s let go of our resentments, anger, and
confusion and replace it with love, clarity, acceptance, and recognition. We
must recognize that all the character defects that we have identified are not
going away overnight. The key to our success will be a change in our attitude,
our feeling of importance toward our character defects, and our consistent and
daily progress to better understanding ourselves without giving up our
integrity.
Hopefully, someone out there will be helped by my story.
Linda 11/12/20
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