Cracking the Stone of the Past

I was reading Amy Eden's ACOA blog, and I feel like she wrote a post especially for me regarding frustrations about current situations. Check out the excerpt that follows:

Do you often find yourself thinking, "Why does this seem to always happen....?" Do you realize that OF COURSE it always happens? It always happens because your frame of mind hasn't changed although the situation may have changed -- your frame of mind will continue to interpret things as it does until you reconsider how you view your world.

Think about what frustrates you. Then think about how altering your interpretation -- altering the frame through which you interpret your world -- might alleviate your frustration and bring you a sense of satisfaction.

I have been slowly coming to realize that the only thing I haven't changed about my situation is myself. It sucks that it's the hardest thing to change, but I'm trying! It's interesting how the more I allow for recovery, the more realizations seem to magically become apparent...ever...so...slightly.

The recovery process kind of reminds me of a story about "personal layers" I once heard. It involved a little girl who inherited an old, ugly statue that had been in her family for generations and generations. She didn't know the statue's history, but she decided to somehow make it beautiful. She worked hard and saved up her money to purchase gold leaf so that she could cover the ugly statue.. Excited about her efforts and changes, she rushed the statue to her grandfather to boast about her accomplishments. At the site of the statue, though, the grandfather was surprisingly disdained! The little girl didn't understand, and grew upset because all her hard work was not appreciated. In response to her reaction, the grandfather lovingly took the little girl by the hand and explained that had she taken the time to understand the statue's history, she would find the true beauty already inherent within the stone itself. At that, he took a hammer and chisel to the statue. The little girl watched (somewhat painfully) as he removed all the gold leaf and continued to chisel and chip at the stone itself. As he worked, larger pieces began to fall off revealing what appeared to be a slightly smaller statue inside the stone. When the stone was completely removed, the grandfather began to polish the inner statue, revealing the the statue itself was made of pure gold...

I feel like I have been trying to cover up my past with gold leaf. This seems like the same concept as changing everything about a situation but oneself--the common alcoholic nature of "putting on the show" that "everything's fine here!" It's difficult that you can't discover the "inner gold" until learning about the history of the stone--not to mention the difficulty and pain in then chipping it all away.

I feel like my mini-realizations are pieces of stone falling away. You've got to feel the pain of the past before being able to work according to the present and toward a better future.

We'll get there... piece by piece... little by little....