Using the Tools

 No matter how long we have been in recovery or how much work we have done on ourselves, life will continue to challenge us.

We may think we have worked through something, only to find ourselves facing a situation that brings those old feelings right back to the surface. Or life may present us with something entirely new that we have never had to deal with before.

That is why the tools we learn in recovery are so important.

We don’t learn them just for the challenges we are facing today. We learn them so that when the unexpected happens, we have something to draw on. We have choices. We have ways to support ourselves instead of falling back into old patterns.

But knowing the tools and remembering to use them when life gets difficult are two different things.

This past year, I have been learning new tools to help me navigate physical pain and explore the possibility of neuroplastic pain. It has been a different kind of recovery, one that has challenged me in ways I could not have anticipated.

And this week, I have found myself being challenged again.

I am being asked to keep learning how to use the tools I have been practicing throughout the past year. It is one thing to understand these concepts when things are manageable. It is another to put them into practice when I am hurting, frightened, or uncertain about what comes next.

I’ve practiced compassion. Also being with pain rather than trying to escape it and co-regulating with someone safe.

Some of the tools are very similar to the tools I learned through recovery from codependency.

In codependency, we learn to stop trying to control everything outside ourselves. We learn to recognize our feelings, take responsibility for our own responses, establish healthier boundaries, and offer ourselves the compassion we may have spent years giving to everyone else.

I cannot always control what happens in my body. I cannot force pain to disappear, and I cannot know exactly how my healing journey will unfold. But I can learn to change how I meet the experience.

I can notice when fear begins to take over.

I can remind myself that I don’t have to solve everything in this moment.

I can reach for compassion instead of criticism, connection instead of isolation, and curiosity instead of immediately letting fear take over.

I am human. I will have moments when I struggle.

Perhaps recovery is a lifelong practice of remembering what we have learned and discovering how those lessons apply to the new circumstances life brings us.

I have spent many years learning about myself, and I am still learning.

This chapter of my life may be asking me to practice some familiar lessons in a new way.

I may not have chosen this particular challenge, but I can choose how I meet it.

And today, that is enough.

I don’t need to know every tool I will ever need. I just need to keep practicing the ones I have, remain open to learning new ones, and remember that I don’t have to walk through this alone.