Recovery!

I wrote this in Group Therapy for one of my homework assignments back in 2004 and sometimes when I feel like doing something stupid I go back and read this letter. It's been along hard road and I learned acceptance about self love and looking at the world in a different way. I had to do this faster than I wanted but I'm grateful for all the hard work on my end and my Psychologist making me deal with all of my emotional pain. I learned lessons along the way and how I was missing out on living rather then just existing. I would never change anything because life lessons I learned have made me stronger. Letter to One Self Dear D, I would like to introduce myself to you. I’m your physical body. I’m the one you don’t listen to, the one you punish yourself with and most of all, the one you wish you could change. I need you to understand I’m here for you and you need to start listening to me. You have been training your subconscious mind for many years to think you don’t deserve self-acceptance. Your Mother made you believe accepting yourself is wrong but it was her choice for telling you this. It’s your choice not to believe her. Once you left your parents influences you repressed the creative flow of life within you. You allowed yourself to believe everything you were told. You allowed yourself to believe something is wrong with you. You’ve been trying to change what you believe is wrong ever since without challenging it. What you don’t understand is your way of thinking needs to change and not me, your physical body. Everything you ever wanted in your life is everything you deny yourself of having because you believe you don’t deserve it. Just because your Parents made the wrong choices doesn’t mean you have to make the same choices and keep them as your own. You are allowing yourself to hold yourself hostage to your past. You are still blaming yourself for those past actions. Some of those actions were not your fault and were out of your control. You can’t control something you had nothing to do with. They were decisions you didn’t decide for yourself because they were made for you. You can’t take responsibility for someone else’s mistakes, but only your own. Harming me will never change what happened to you from before. Only you can make choices to change. You need to have faith in yourself and believe you can accept yourself just the way you are today. Learn to accept this as your own reality and you will start believing in your own happiness. When you break me down, I bleed. When you hurt, I hurt with you and when you cry, I cry along too. When you self abuse you are reacting to your own emotional trauma, the ones you keep re-creating over and over again in my brain. You’re afraid to confront thoughts that give you the most pain but in reality you’re re-creating those same thoughts. I hope you realize these same thoughts are the same one’s which are too hard for you to face. It’s the way you deal with them that should change and not the reactions to them. When you punish me you will not heal that part of yourself that is longing for self-acceptance. You continue to get caught up in your own internal dramas and unknown beliefs to determine your feelings. Without knowing who you are, self-acceptance and change becomes impossible. You need to believe and allow yourself to appreciate, validate, accept and support who you are at this very moment. You need to take me as I am and stand up to yourself and believe in who you are because nobody knows you better then you. There will be positive people and negative people in your life and it’s very important to go inside yourself and view opinions as your own and not what other people think. Remember recovery is not an event but rather one of many journey’s leading to still many more journeys. You need to teach yourself values and morals that will last you your whole life. You’ve got to believe deep inside yourself that you’re destined to do great things. Recoveries are awareness to ignorance, and weakness to strength and often back again. A journey is growing from stage to stage with wisdom along the way. Don’t be afraid to walk down this path because this is where you will learn and face your greatest challenges. Challenges in life come with a gift we can only discover if we listen to what it has to say. When you accept self-punishment I get affected. You put a strain on my physical being. I’m not as strong as I used to be. My muscles are weak from years of abuse. You haven’t been giving me the fuel and nutrients I need to function. I’m weak and wearing thin. I’m having a hard time keeping you going and someday I will fail you. The headaches, the stomach pain, the malnutrition, the low blood pressure, the hair loss, and the dental problems are due to the abuse upon my physical self. These are symptoms I’ve given you over the years to wake you up but you haven’t been listening to me. These symptoms are because I’m over worked, stressed out, chemically over feed and over polluted. I’ve been giving you indicators over the years because it’s to let you know we are not balanced. It will get much worse if you don’t stop what you are doing because when I fail, you die. You will die if you don’t change your way of thinking. You need to understand you need me to help you survive and I can’t be strong when you deprive me of everything for life. I want to live for you but it’s up to you to determine how long you want to stick around this life. I want to be here for you for many more years because you are worth it to me. You have the power to fight those thoughts within your psyche and challenge them. I know you believe if you have self-confidence you’re being self-centered but that is your fear of self-acceptance. It’s okay to have self confidence without being self centered. Believe in yourself and you will succeed. The power is within you and only you. Good luck and start believing in you. Remember it’s your thoughts and not your physical self that’s hurtful. Sincerely, Your Physical Body Okay, wow..I like this letter. Reminded me of some good times during my process of healing some issues in Therapy. I thought it was going to be hard being in a group setting but I had laughs and at times tears and it was all worth it. My motto in group therapy: The only control you have are the choices you make! It's nice to see the other side of life!