If I pay attention and listen.
When I first got sober, I was hypersensitive to the world. Overload. Too much info coming at me. I was scattered in my thinking. So used to being in a buzzed state. Not thinking about anything. Not accountable to anybody. Gone.
I know you can relate. Checking out is easy. Engaging and showing up is hard. Sobriety changed everything. I didn’t have that crutch of alcohol anymore. The filter between you and me. My liquid courage. I had to retrain my brain to behave differently now.
One of the first things I had to do was learn how to start my day. Not just react, recover my fumbles from yesterday, or get up and try and function with a hangover—just get through the day.
Now, clear-headed, I start with prayer and acknowledge that I am not in control. Let God lead my day. Get me out of the way. God talks to me. It may not always be words. A thought, an idea, an inspiration, from nature...I find that God talks to me, when I regularly talk to Him! When you think about the relationships you have in your life, the people you communicate with the most and spend the most time with are the closest to you, right?
The more time I spend with God, the better that relationship becomes. The way I do that is spending time is meditation—on a walk or standing on the beach and observing his beautiful creation.
At one point, I thought God had stopped talking to me. After many days of resistance, stubbornness and me NOT talking to God, I stood on the cliff and looked out over the ocean at sunset. I saw a group of pelicans with huge wingspans banking out over the water. As they turned, the afternoon sunlight bounced magnificently off of their backs such that it made me catch my breath!
God saying to me through that beauty, “I will continue to send you beauty and you need to pay attention!” I was so surprised hearing from God I shouted out loud, “Hey, You are talking to me again!”
His reply?
“I could say the same to you.” Whew, what a great realization.
I need to talk to God for Him to talk with me.
Relationship.
“Be still, and know that I am God”
Psalm 46:10
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