[bluidkiti]

March 8

Quote of the Week

"If you don’t go within, you go without."

Legend has it that the deepest wisdom was once freely available to man, but he ignored it. The Gods, growing tired of this, decided to hide this wisdom so that only those determined to use it would search for it and find it. They considered hiding it on the tallest mountain, then underneath the deepest sea, and even burying it in the earth, but they decided that man would eventually stumble upon it. Finally, they decided on the perfect place, inside man himself, a place he would never think to look.

This certainly describes me before recovery. I was constantly searching outside of myself for the answers to my life. I was convinced the right job, the right relationship, or more money would fill the hole I had inside me. Eventually I turned to drugs and alcohol, thinking the temporary relief I got would work, but it never did. In the end, I didn’t know where to look anymore, and once alcohol stopped working, I entered recovery.

I remember the first time I heard this quote: “If you don’t go within, you go without.” My sponsor explained that it meant not only were all the answers inside of me, but that if I didn’t go inside for them, then I would keep searching outside of myself and would continue to go without the solutions. It has taken years for me to consistently search within—the Gods did find the perfect hiding place! Each time I go within, however, the wisdom is there waiting for me. Now I know what they mean in the program when they say, “It’s an inside job."