September 12: Who? Me?! What’s been your latest spiritual growth spurt?

Topic for the week: Who? Me?! What’s been your latest spiritual growth spurt?

Ok, so, I read a random article that popped up in my Google feed this past week. It’s title was something like, “How to Recognize the Seven Signs of a Narcissist.” I’ve probably read dozens of articles about that particular topic & I tapped on it out of habit, really. I was married to a narcissist for 28 years & felt so vindicated each time I assured myself that he was sabotaging our marriage, which I knew for a fact because I’d read all those articles, you see, & reacted the same way to each one: “I knew it!! Geez he’s such an a. . . umm, jerk! He’s the reason I’m so damn miserable!” Imagine my surprise, then, when this time it wasn’t him I recognized, but me. I’m a narcissist, a “covert” narcissist. That article described the me I couldn’t, that I chose, not to see.

That was the first surprise. But not the biggest. The biggest, most dazzling surprise was that this time, for the first time, ever, I was willing to sit with & examine a destructive defect in me, rather than letting my brain bounce off of it & ricochet away toward something nicer & easier the way I always had before (& almost always with a nice merlot in hand, bottle, not glass.) This time I wanted to see, I wanted to understand this about myself, I wanted to know so that I can finally grow. Wait, what?! Who? Me.

This is excerpted from my daily gratitude list on Friday:

My name is Julie, & I am an alcoholic. I’m grateful to God today for:

  1.   another twenty-four hours free of alcohol
    2.   . . .
    3.   the quantum shift taking place in me, which has been triggered by acknowledging at last the narcissism of my past
    4.   the amazing only-God-thing seeing my defect, understanding the truth of it, & really wanting to somehow hand it over was, & feeling spiritually lighter, not weighed down by it anymore, not flattened by the ugliness of it & wanting to run & hide from it, or sit & drink at it anymore . . . seeing how something so bad can be so good in God
    5.   the opportunity to share this stuff on Sunday when I get to chair our [GROW] meeting
    6.   . . .
    7.   . . .
    8.   . . .
    9.   this weird kinda Twilight Zone sensation of my spiritual sober vision coming into clear focus
    10.  this day which God has made. I rejoice & am really, really glad in it <3

What’s been your most recent or most dazzling spiritual growth spurt? Please share it, or anything that’s on your heart or mind to share with us. AA really, truly is a “we” program. We help each other because we’ve all been there, to the bottom of that pit of despair. The only way to climb out is as a team ~ that’s us, a team of the redeemed!

Gratefully,

Julie <3