Painful but necessary reflections

After reading today's daily meditation from Answers in the Heart, I thought back to a conversation with my mother that I had just this morning. During this conversation, we were discussing how far I have come in my life in the past year, especially with my sex and love addiction. I was explaining how I viewed my most recent qualifier, the man from Buffalo whom I dated last summer. Literally I made this man God. If he told me he didn't like a certain band, I stopped listening to them. If he told me to wear my hair a certain way or act a certain way, of course I did without even thinking about it. I gave up integral parts of ME to satisfy HIM. And although I gave them up for a short time, I didn't turn essential parts of me off. I just completely abandoned myself when I was entangled with him. And that's what I did with every single qualifier and relationship I have had thus far. Here's to making healthier decisions and loving myself! Here's July 15's entry:

• JULY 15 •
The spiritual life springs forth in the pastures of the heart, in its free spaces, as soon as these two mysterious beings, God and man, meet there. — Paul Evdokimov

Sex addiction is a spiritual disease. Living as a practicing addict strips us of our spirituality. We lose our connection with reality, giving more and more of ourselves to try to fill the emptiness within. Unfortunately, we often don’t discover that the addiction cannot deliver what it promised until we’ve paid the high price of spiritual atrophy. We once made compulsive sexual behavior our Higher Power, but it is only our real Higher Power who can remove our obsessive attitudes and behaviors and can make us sane. Seeking this Higher Power means changing directions completely. Step Two helps us find hope, without which none of us can live. We come to this Step as people emerging from a long, life-threatening journey through a wasteland. It is then, as beings of spirit as well as of flesh, that we start another journey to a Higher Power of light, joy, and unconditional love.

Step Two is a process, and I get all the time I need.