Hi, pals. I am currently reading the book War of Art. And though it's for writers struggling with their resistance and doubts, I found there's a lot here that relates to our addiction-fighting journey as well. I know that I'm afraid of success, I more or less even know why, but I couldn't find the precise words to describe it. Finally this description hit home for me. I've decided to share it with you.
And I think that, though I am still struggling a lot with my eating issues, and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, and it's still a bloody war, I've made quite a progress. And on this journey I met you, my badass pals, my new friends in sobriety, my "pals in arms".
"Fear That We Will Succeed.
That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess.
That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.
This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years.
We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.
We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to.
Of course this is exactly what happens. But here’s the trick. We wind up in space, but not alone. Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they’re better friends, truer friends. And we’re better and truer to them."