Recovery Karma Part Two: Reaping What You Have Sewn

Hello Everyone. I am back with some more words of wisdom for you all as well as myself. I had another incident with a so called friend lying to me about a silly little thing that was not necessary to lie about in the first place. I typically reacted to this the way I used to by becoming angry and hurt and then placing all of the blame on myself. Today I decided to stop doing that yet again and do something positive by sharing it with you all. The friend in question was someone I haven't seen in a long time and when I did run into her I mentioned that I had a new place with a guest room. When I left I never really expected to see or hear from her again but I was wrong. She called that evening to ask if herself and her friend could spend the night instead of going to a motel. No it was not what it sounded like ( a one night booty call). She really was in a bad situation and they just needed a safe place to get their thoughts together. My girlfriend and I discussed it and said yes. Once they got here it was great we all got along beautifully and had a great time. I of course went overboard playing the hostess and acted like an excited puppy who just got a new toy. I have had such bad luck with friends or should I say people I chose to spend my time with that I just knew we were all off to a great start. As the weeks wore on they began spending a lot of time here and all was well. The other day they left with the promise of calling whenever they got to where they were going and they didn't. I didn't take it personally, I knew that they were in a drifting sort of phase in their lives and that I would see them again. I did see them a few days later and invited them to stay another night instead of shelling out motel money. This is where the lie begins. Upon leaving our meeting place to go home they mentioned leaving the next day to go to another state to see a relative for three days. The story was very elaborate and detailed and true to their words they left early the next morning to meed the relative for a ride. I thought nothing of it until the relative called here that evening looking for them. When I explained that they were supposed to be with her, she broke my heart when she said that they never mentioned staying with her and that no plans for them to stay with her were made. They obviously had plans for somewhere because they lit out of here at 7:00 A.M. like they were on fire. I am not upset about the actual lie, I am upset that the lie seemed tailored for me and that upon looking back on it, it seems they never call after using my hospitality. I always have to run into them somewhere in order to get in touch with them. Lots of things were going through my mind. Especially being that tomorrow I will be at a place where I typically see them. Also is the fact that I sent two emails to them since and I know they have gotten them. Both emails let them know that they were busted and to please call. I am still waiting. Whatever the case I thought of all kinds of reasons for the lie and again blamed myself. It must be something I did. I must be the problem. They are avoiding me. What is wrong with me? None of these things is helping the situation. They are only serving to make me more desperate to find them and get to the bottom of this. Then I think, what purpose will that serve either. All they will do is lie again or sugar coat the situation or worse they may call of any remnants of the friendship. Am I so desperate for companionship that I will tolerate these things in my life, or is it actually that I am so selfish as to think that because I did things for them that they owe me by calling and putting on the pretense of friendship. Do I even know what friendship is. All of these things and more are going through my head as I write. Truly the bottom line is this: Somewhere at sometime, someone has felt this way because of my actions. Someone has been hurt because I lied to them and misled them to get my needs or wants met. Somewhere at some time I have gotten the impression that I am not worthy of a true friendship and that I must buy peoples affection. Somewhere I went wrong. At no time should you have to buy someones affections. In no way should you give and expect to receive because you will always want for more and come up dissapointed and never ever can you make someone do what you want them to do unless they want to. Now I can go out tomorrow and keep behaving the same as I always have and hunt these two down and beg for more punishment by accepting less than from these two people that I have labeled as friends. I can beg them to tell me why they did what they did. I can plead with them to stop mistreating me, 0r I can let it go and start some new Karma by letting them be them and by setting up some boundaries with myself and others and start to choose more wisely with whom I keep my company with. I can turn over a new leaf and realize that true friendship starts within and then and only then will I make and form true friendships with others. As always I want to thank Karma for once again letting me see the error of my ways and for helping me reach that place where I am okay with me. I want to thank you all for being here with me as I reap my harvest of seeds planted so long ago. Bless you all and have a wonderful insightful day. May your lessons be many and your burdens be light.

What goes around....

Hey everyone, I am writing today on one the many lessons of Karma. I am a recovering addict and have spent a lot of time asking myself and God the question of WHY? I often ask why things are happening to me now that I am living right and doing the right things. Most of you or maybe just some of you may think that I and others like myself deserve whatever comes my way. I say this because some people do not view addiction as a disease and feel that no one should be pardoned for their past crimes. I tend to agree to a degree, but being that I have lived on both sides of the tracks ( Sobriety and Active Addiction) I also feel that people do deserve a second chance to some extent. Yes there are some things that cannot be forgiven no matter what frame of mind the person was in when they did whatever they did, but for the most part everyone does things they are ashamed of and drugs are not always in the picture either. Now back to my original query. WHY? there are many answers I could give myself. One of them being: Why not Me? Another being: It could be worse, and the best one: Did you really think you were going to get away with all of that stuff and not have any repercussions? Honestly thoguh folks, my crimes were mostly of an emotional nature and Karma to me is a reciprocation of what you put out into the world, good or bad. I don't see Karma as this big evil God that sits and laughs at us mere mortals while deciding what horrible fates to bestowe upon us. I see Karma as a natural and beautiful law that mirrors back to us what we present. Now I know there are skeptics among you that may say " what about all of the good things I have done, and haven't gotten any of it back". While this may seem true, the real question is: did you do all of those good things from your heart or did you just do them to get something back. You see another beautiful thing about Karma is that you cant lie to it. Whatever is in your heart during the time of action is what you truly get back. So if you give to charity but complain about it for the whole week, then most likely you will get your just reward of lack or insecurity or whatever is in your heart when you commit these false deeds. If you steal from the grocery store because you are hungry, yes you most likely will go to jail but you will get fed in the process. If you truly do a good deed from the heart, then you will get a beautiful blessing in return that is meant just for you and you will know it is for you when it shows up. Now once again back to me and the WHY'S? I am telling you all this as well as myself, and here is the beauty of it. It doesn't matter why, what matters is what you learn from it. So when my feelings got hurt last week from a good friend lying to me about something I knew was a lie, I realized that all of the times I lied to people who knew I was lying that they most likely felt like I did just then. I saw that I don't want to ever feel like that again and I will do my best to keep from ever hurting someone else the way I have in the past. When I got mugged a few weeks ago at the light rail and I wondered how this could happen to me, I never mugged someone. I see now that I am lucky to be alive, and as wrong as it was that maybe just maybe he needed the money more than I did. I also see that even if never physically mugged someone that I did keep a lot of people up all night worrying just like my mugger kept me up all night worrying. No matter what, I learned that sometimes you have to take the wrong road and hit a few bumps and potholes in order to see the right path ahead of you and to be able to enjoy your destination all the more when you get there. I also learned that I can see the part I played in every single thing that has or will happen to me . Past, present or future, I had a role in everything pertaining to me somewhere along the line. With that I am going to say thank you to the great law of Karma, because without it I wouldn't know how I feel about several things and I certainly wouldn't know how I have made others feel.