The other day I had breakfast with a close friend of mine. We were celebrating her 40 – something birthday. I have known her for 10 years. She is one of my “people” – a term for those remarkable souls travelling with me in a twelve-step recovery program. Sobriety is a pilgrimage. I chose that word as it captures the leaving behind of habits and familiarity, and engaging in a process with elements of devotions and rituals to support a profound personal transformation.
As I sipped my latte and nibbled on a breakfast bowl of quinoa, greens and tofu, I was immersed in her becoming. She was not the woman who nervously asked me so many years ago to be her sponsor. That person had fragile sobriety and no tethers or support system that I could see. She, like all of us when we arrive, was lost.
During our early years together, the work we did was sporadic and often felt unproductive. When I moved out of the city, I suggested she might find someone local to work with. She flatly refused – you’re not getting rid of me that easily. Don’t you remember my fear of abandonment?
For many years, she held fast to a relationship that was undermining aspects of her recovery. In the midst of the harmful partnership, she decided to have two children. She wasn’t alone in wishing, hoping and believing that creating a family would fill in the cracks of a fractured relationship.
It turns out her path was my teacher. I couldn’t control her actions and decisions. I learned to be patient and supportive, letting her journey at her own pace – testing her willingness to change with gentle truths. I noticed I was being kinder to her in her struggles and foibles than I was to myself.
The phrase “A leopard can’t change its spots” is rooted in the Old Testament of the Bible, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?” Thanks to medical discoveries and the business of beauty and vanity, skin can be changed. As a person who has witnessed the miracle of recovery from addiction, I know people can change. Rarely because they wish to, or want to, or think they should. It’s because they can’t stay as they are any longer. A quote from Anais Nin is how I think about personal change: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
It’s painful and humbling to have a front row seat to an unravelling, knowing I have no control, praying for a safe passage to willingness and relief. It’s like waiting for the heavens to open and pour rain to wash away the spots.
Now she has no spots. Her eyes are bright, her voice is calm, her body is smooth and fluid as she moves across the room. She speaks of her creative energy, shows me pictures of amazing custom clothing pieces and artful installations of clouds and birds, and asks me to speak at a women’s event she has organized with a business partner. She reeks of gratitude, confidence and potential.
I am at the age and stage in my life where it is common to hear that we will sink deeper into our habits, fears, and narrow beliefs. That aging amplifies our flaws. What if we could all find the willingness to be expansive, find new potential, and live more truly to ourselves?
That’s another thing I learned from her.