A WOMAN’S SPIRIT #essentialsofrecovery

I can’t expect you to share yourself if I can’t do the same.

~ Cathy Stone 

We have been told we benefit from sharing our stories with others. However, most of us have shared intimate details of our lives in the past, only to have them repeated all over town. We may have decided that nothing was safe to share.

Now we are asked once again to share our secrets. What seems even stranger is that we’re asked to tell them to people whose last names we don’t even know. How crazy this seems when we first enter a Twelve Step program. Until we do it, however, we will not reap the benefits that are in store. We can only discover how like others we really are by telling them about us and then listening while they share similar stories. The intimacy that follows transforms our lives. Our time for self-disclosure has come. Let’s rejoice and reap the rewards.

I will tell a trusted friend who I really am today. I can count on affirmation and acceptance if I choose my friend well.

© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation 

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