42 Years of Recovery, Growth and Be~coming: Better and Brighter on Purpose and with a Higher Purpose
Fourty-two years ago, today, June 15th, 1984- I said ‘yes’ to recovery, and the adventure began.
For more than four decades
For more than four decades—and through more moves than I can count—the plaque pictured in the upper left of the collage has traveled with me. It’s been hung in every apartment and home I’ve lived in. Most often, near a mirror, quietly reminding me to tighten my bow and put my best foot forward. It was a promotion gift from one of the women in the recovery house when I became the night manager. Neither of us had any idea what this gift of love and celebration, this little plaque, would grow to signify. We also didn’t know at the time that ‘rabbit’ is my Chinese zodiac animal. The plaque reads:
“Lord, help me to be the best I can be.”
“Lord, help me to be the best I can be.” During the week, as I was preparing to share my reflections on this recovery anniversary and contemplating writing about the plaque, I was stuck- until yesterday morning, when I experienced a beautiful synchronicity; I opened my daily meditation book and found these words:
“Spare no effort to become all that God would have you become.” On the next page, the prayer: “I pray that God will help me to become all that He would have me be.” Wow! Different words with the same inspiring and timeless message! For forty-two years, that little rabbit has accompanied me through every move, every challenge, every reinvention, quietly reminding me of a prayer that would become a cornerstone of the foundation I needed to build to survive: “Lord, help me to be the best I can be.”
These messages still motivate me to keep striving to be~come more than I was yesterday. They are messages that keep me on my toes and inspire me to reach deeper for hidden potential. Stay tuned for more blog posts and podcast episodes about the exponentially unfolding aspects of our hidden potential!
About ten years ago, I stumbled upon a branding archetype card (pictured in the upper right corner of the collage) depicting a rabbit emerging from a magician’s hat. The card describes the Magician’s purpose as helping people transform their world, inspire change, and expand consciousness. I gasped out loud! This has been the central theme of my work as a psychotherapist, author, and creator of Celestial Psychology®, and now podcast host and life coach. I can barely articulate the deep satisfaction and gratitude that I experience when I read this. After forty-two years of recovery, three decades as a psychotherapist, and the recent publication of Kaleidoscope for Becoming and Genie-us Making, the archetype card of Magician reads less like marketing language and more like a surprisingly accurate job description. Serendipitously, in my chapter, Out of the Rabbit Holes to Common Ground in my recent book, Kaleidoscope for Be~coming, I write, Awakening is not a destination; it is the willingness to evolve, even from our own beliefs.” So, I am not aiming to pull rabbits out of hats, but rather to contribute to humanity’s experience of finding common ground and staying out of divisive ‘rabbit holes’
Honestly, for the past 42 years, recovery has never simply been about not drinking or drugging. For me, and I hope for all of us, it is about be~coming a better person. It is about developing myself in every area of challenge I face. Recovery has also taught me that transformation does not happen all at once. It happens one decision, one willing choice, moment by moment, one day at a time.
Watch the introduction to the Willing Ones here: https://youtu.be/0MFDI–uNPk
Recovery is about be~coming more conscious, responsible, compassionate, empathic, and authentic. It is especially about be~coming more honest, open-minded, and willing. And willingness is such a central theme for our entire species’ be~coming (not only those of us in recovery) that I wrote a song and created a video that I hope you will share with everyone in celebration!
Click on the image to watch the video.
THE WILLING ONES
(Verse 1)
Long before you opened these pages,
Long before you knew your name,
Something in your soul was listening,
Something called you just the same.
Before the roads and revelations,
Before the questions came to be,
You whispered through the veil of dreaming,
“Yes, this journey belongs to me.”
(Chorus)
Yes!
To being here and now.
Yes!
To this sacred threshold.
Yes!
To the unraveling and the becoming.
Yes!
To the greater story unfolding.
We are the Willing Ones,
The ones who still believe.
We are the Willing Ones,
The ones who choose to receive.
Again and again,
In wonder and uncertainty,
We keep saying—
Yes!
(Verse 2)
Not because we are the wisest,
Not because we know the way,
Not because we hold the answers,
Or never lose our faith.
But because when life is changing,
And old patterns disappear,
We choose to stand inside the mystery,
And meet the future without fear.
(Chorus)
Yes!
To being here and now.
Yes!
To this sacred threshold.
Yes!
To the unraveling and the becoming.
Yes!
To the greater story unfolding.
We are the Willing Ones,
The ones who still believe.
We are the Willing Ones,
The ones who choose to receive.
Again and again,
In wonder and uncertainty,
We keep saying—
Yes!
(Bridge)
We feel the pulse
Of something greater
Moving through us,
Calling us higher.
We sense we belong
To a story still unfolding,
A living song
The universe is holding.
And when the patterns dissolve,
When the old world disappears,
We turn the kaleidoscope once more,
And greet what reappears.
(Final Chorus)
Yes!
To becoming.
Yes!
To awakening.
Yes!
To participating
In the evolution of consciousness.
We are the Willing Ones,
The dreamers and the brave.
We are the Willing Ones,
The ones who chose this wave.
Long before we arrived,
Long before we could see,
We answered the invitation—
Yes.
Yes.
YES.
Click here to watch the video and here for the introduction. The full podcast is on my YouTube Channel.
“Recovery continues teaching me that transformation is not a single event. It is a lifelong practice of be~coming. The kaleidoscope turns, the patterns change, and yet the invitation remains the same:
Be~come all that you are capable of becoming—better and brighter on purpose, and with purpose.”
