“ONE DAY AT A TIME”
I am sure we have all heard, especially when things are challenging, “Take one day at a time”, right?
Well, for the most part I generally get what this means, but I think a lot of us don’t know how to do what it says.
So how do we actually do it??? I have a few ways I would like to share.
Being a recovered drug addict, I experience “one day at a time” as a common mantra chanted between all ex-addicts that i know. “One moment at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time”, these words can sometimes be a saving grace, yet other times, it has sent me into a freakout knowing how time can be such a distorted thing, and even a second can sometimes can seem like an eternity.
But I do agree this advice is solid. I believe these words can encourage us to focus on what we can do in the right now, to further us along our path of healing when dealing with, for example, me not picking up the needle again. I see that little by little as the moments pass and all of those moments are added up, I can look back and see how far I have actually come, and how much healing has been happening. This is rewarding, encouraging, supportive and strengthening, all things which help continue to, for example, help me remain sober.
There are 3 ways i try to practice this:
1) Accept that we cannot change time, but we can change how we practice healing ourselves within our time. Often when things are hard, we want to just skip to the end result of feeling better. But it is how we apply our tools of healing within this time which can truly reap the rewards within our own healing.
2) Allowing ourselves to be present one day at a time does not create the burden of any “set expectations”.
So if I wake up feeling fragile and unmotivated, I can grab my healing tool box and work with myself accordingly, in that moment. I can live authentically and honestly, and practice proactively dealing with my healing for that particular moment. No day is ever the same and we should never expect it to be, nor should we expect us to repeat our successful steps to healing in the same way at any particular time.
3) There is no such thing as failure. We are human, we all make mistakes, but I know if I continue to practice living authentically and in my present moment, there can be no such thing as failure, only room to develop, grow and flow. If I am not able to do what I wanted to on that day and read all day instead, I will not beat myself up, I will rather honor that this is where I needed to be today. I will be gentle. I will hush my inner critic and I will remind myself “one day at a time”
All we need to do is try, TODAY. Do your best today and suddenly we have put together a chunk of days that have gotten us further along the road to recovery. We are healing while we are dealing with our healing, and this is pure magic.
Love and light
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