Defiance

 When I was young I was in a state of defiance against everything. Occasionally loud. Usually quiet. My actions usually spoke much louder than I did.

There was this Blacklight Poster that was around that I really identified with. It showed a mouse flipping off and eagle just before the bird's claws took the mouse. It was, to me, epic.

It looked like this. I cannot find the one that I remember. This is close:

The poster that I remember was from the viewpoint of just behind the mouse, literally on the mouse's back, and looking up at the bird and the Bird's Claws with the Mouse's Middle Finger in prominently displayed. And I really liked it. More importantly, I Identified with it.

To give you an example of what defiance looked like for me, any of you that have read my previous stuff know this story. So here it is again.

My Step Father decided that I should wash dishes after dinner every night. For some "reason" I took this as a massive imposition. And, I would stand in front of the sink for hours, not touching the dishes, until Henry went to sleep and Mom would come down and growl "Go to bed" to me and wash the dishes. Massively unfair to her.

No words were exchanged between Step Father and I. There was just no way that I was going to do what he wanted. Never open defiance. Just "quiet" refusal.

I was also in absolute defiance of anything resembling authority. Parental. Teacher. Law Enforcement. Rules. Regulations. Societal Expectations. Anything. I was in a Rebellion against it all.

Again, mostly silent. It showed in my actions, attitudes, and behaviors. Not in words for the most part. As the old saying goes, no one could hear what I was saying because my actions (attitudes and behaviors) were so loud.

What that lead to was a very lonely life. In defiance one has no friends really. Part of the reason that I defied everything was that I did not have Trust for anything. And if I could not Trust you why in the world would I want to conform to, or obey, you?

And if one Trusts no one then one cannot be friends with anyone either.  I found, much later in life when I was actually working on My Self, that the barriers created by not trusting made it impossible to actually have any real friendships. Or any other type of relationship.

Thus, a very lonely life.

The toughest work I have ever done, and it is an ongoing and life long task, is the lowering of and coming out from behind those barriers. Because, while the world behind those barriers might be very lonely and small, it was known and "safe".

Lowering those barriers had to begin with Trust. And the first person that I had to trust was me. And that was the biggie. I had spent my life not trusting, or even liking, my own self. And kept finding all the evidence that I needed that I could not be trusted, was completely untrustworthy. I also found that my defiance of everything, especially societal "norms" was just another "proof" that I was not "normal" and could not be trusted.

Oddly enough, for me the beginning of trusting myself, and the lowering of those barriers, was with starting to trust my Sponsor.

My 1st Sponsor was a man that I had known and liked for years. And while I liked him, in the beginning I did not really trust him. How could I. And, as time went on and we got more Step Work done my trust in him grew a little.

After I moved to California for a few years I got a Sponsor out there. And again, while I could Identify with him, thus my asking him to me my Sponsor, I did not trust him. And again, in the process of Step Work went on I began to trust him also.

After a few years I moved back East, via a stint in North Carolina, and began a period of looking good on the outside and feeling like I was dying on the inside. That is a really terrible place to be. To know all the words, how to sound like I got it together, to look presentable, and to be internally miserable. While not letting anyone else see that I was miserable because I was afraid to "look bad" after all this time.

I was in total defiance of myself and my Surrender to Recovery in Narcotics Anonymous.

And then, not long before my Eighth Anniversary, I met my current Sponsor. I did not know he was going to be my Sponsor yet. After I had seen him around for a while and listened to him I understood that when he talked about the Steps of Recovery in NA he was not speaking theoretically, he was speaking from practical experience. So I finally screwed up my courage and asked him to be my Sponsor. And thru good times and bad, nineteen and a half years, almost twenty years, later here we are.

And this time, I began to trust. I began to lower my barriers. I began to stop being so defiant. Not completely on any of those things. And gradually, over time, and in fits and starts, I have gotten better at being Open instead of Closed, Trusting instead of Suspicious, Accepting instead of Defiant.

Over time I have also developed some real good relationships with people. People that I would not expect to be friends with. And the more I work on My Self the better my Family has gotten. And the more those relationships have been repaired.

The other great reward was I got less and less lonely. And today I know that Being Lonely is a Choice. I can be Alone without Being Lonely. Or I can be in a crowd of people who Love me and be Alone and Lonely. It completely depends on where I am in my life and the choices that I make.

And as I am not Alone my need for Defiance seems to disappear. Not completely. It will still show up at the oddest times. And today I have tools to deal with it. I just have to Choose to use those tools.

So my Dear Readers, a few questions for you:

• Are you defiant of everything?
• If yes, do you understand why?
• Are tired of it yet?
• Do you have the willingness to look inward and see Your Self?
• Are you ready to give up the Known Hell for the Unknown, and Scary, Heaven?

If you are able to answer Yes to any of these questions then Congratulations!!! And Welcome!!! You are now ready to embark on a journey.

I Promise you, if you will stay on this Journey you will find that the old saying "It is not the destination, it is the journey" is completely true. Because on this Journey there is no Final Destination, although there are many plateaus that will feel like a destination, there is only the Journey itself.

For me, the best reward, is that I get to share this Journey with others. This is one of the ways that I get to do this.

I hope that you get something out of it.

I know that I do.

Namaste 🙏 💖