I was taking a yoga class the other day and the instructor said if the next pose was hard then that meant you need it the most. I began to wonder why pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth. Maybe it is because we are ultimately afraid to die. We are afraid to go beyond limitations because it leads to a kind of death for parts of our minds and life as we knew it. If I push further than I ever thought I could go then I must rearrange everything I thought about my life, myself and my way of being in the world. There is a continual readjustment of my mind and the way I think about myself.

We are afraid of dying and therefore afraid of change.

Once I inch passed the edge of my limitations I must reset my thoughts. The process of change is very uncomfortable. If I change, I will see everyone around me differently and if they don't change as well, then our relationship becomes like babysitting. I suppose this is why the road gets narrow and many people have fallen off the edges in my recovery.

Even when homeless and I was faced with the choice of recovery I was scared to take it. You would think it would be an easy choice because it was ticket off the street but still I was terrified. I knew how to survive in the street and I figured simply that I would die there. The thought of change and the responsibly that the change would bring was overwhelming. I was afraid, not of succeeding, but of the accountability and responsibility that success and normalcy would bring.

What if I actually could live sober? Have a job? Pay rent? Marry? Have children? What if I could live the life I had dreamed of? If I dared to move toward the life I deserve, then I must grieve the life I have left and learn a whole new way of being in the world. The very foundation on which I built my belief structure and existence shatter, and a new way of thinking must be born.

We are moving. Soon my family and I will be moving to a different town, a different home, a different school and neighborhood. I am scared. I have two small children to consider and my worry keeps me awake at night. It is a move up for our family and terrifying all the same.

Change is a death of sorts and dying is never easy even with 14 years sobriety. My lessons are hard to learn and the process of growth can be relentless. Today I am tired, and the best I can do is walk through the discomfort of change with some grace and dignity. I do not want to shy away from the life I want. I don't want to shrink back or curl up in a fetal position and wait for the storm to pass. I want to walk face forward into the exciting and tumultuous process of change and embrace the death of a chapter in my life and look forward to the unwritten pages that lay ahead.