Timebuster

The purpose of making amends to others is to heal our Spirit, to clear our conscience, to dump any baggage from the past that we are still carrying. We do this for ourselves. Often the other person doesn't even remember an incident that we make amends for. Sometimes the other person is hateful and bitter still. We can still make amends for our side of the street, even if they are not owning their side of the street. We are not making the amends so that we can all make up and be friends, although that is certainly possible sometimes we are making them to free us from the past, we are doing them as a Loving thing to do for our self. We do not have the power to get others to do what we want them to, so we need to focus on what we do have the power to change. We can shine the Light of Love and consciousness into any dark corners within so that we can stop giving power to the past.

Making amends for the ways in which our behavior has hurt others is part of the process of healing self. And making amends is much more than saying "I'm sorry." Making amends is about changing the dysfunctional behavior patterns. Making amends is about doing what it takes to stop empowering the dysfunctional attitudes and black and white thinking so that we can change the behaviors. It is about becoming willing to face the terror of healing our emotional wounds, so that we can stop reacting and hurting other people and our self with our behavior.

Here is one of my many experience of making financial amends. I avoided many of my area convenient stores. At the end of my addition the choice between drugging or buying something to eat was simple. I would buy the drugs. Unfortunately I stole food from the convenient stores in my neighborhood to eat. I now live in a different neighborhood. In early recovery, I still had the guilt of my wrongdoings and I avoided these convenient stores like the plague.

When I started on my 9th and started making my amends. My sponsor suggested that I should go back to each store with a logical estimate how much I owed them. Shop for the items I stole, pay for them, leave what I paid for on the counter, tell who ever is behind the counter that you are ‘Sorry’ and am here to make my amends, take your receipt and walk out the store. I look at my sponsor like he was completely nuts. He look right back at me and said. (and I quote) When you relapse don’t come back crying to me (end quote). I actually miss going to those convenient stores. Now I can drive by them and stop and buy a cup of coffee with out feeling guilty for my wrongdoings. To live in the now, I have to be willing to say am sorry and make financial amends to my past.

TB