dailydatewithgod

Innovation seems to be the biggest buzz word these days. In my professional field as well as business in general.  It is as though if we are not talking about innovation, we need not talk.  I am not sure if it is a western mentality or just the way human beings like to attach to the latest and newest novelty in whatever it is, but we are so quick to jump on the bandwagon.  The brain loves novelty and it wakes us up and we are invited to see all things new when we are focusing on a few things new.  It is revitalizing and rejuvenating to be running with the newest ideas and trends.  Sometimes we do so at the cost of valuing what is currently happening.  The funny thing is that it is in the process of doing what has already been established as standard practice ideas of innovation get stirred up.  I think there is a way to value where we have come from in the process of moving forward.  When I was in my disease of addiction I had many established ways of being.  They worked for me to help me survive until they did not.  It was only when they began to break apart that I noticed how unmanageable my life had become.  If I didn’t have those and only jumped from one thing to the next, it may have taken longer to see my life spiraling out of control.  Over time I have also seen how some of those established patterns and ways of being did not need to be completely replaced but adjusted.  I was raised in the Catholic Christian faith and while my spiritual practice has expanded into other areas, many of the religion’s established practices and understandings of God play a very important role in my life today.  They were fundamental in me having a relationship with God to begin with. There is an expression in recovery which I think honors the established parts of our lives: “We do not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.”  If I had not been there, I would not be here.  The hardest area of my life in which to reconcile this is when I see the effects of being an incest survivor.  There are many ideas and ways of being I established to survive in body and mind that are not effective as a grown woman.  Some of which are still very present for me.  In the process of seeing them and learning to let them go, I must honor them for the safety they provided at the time.  I made the best decisions I could, given what I knew, understood and the circumstances I was in.  I may not need to keep such established ways of being and ideas, but I do not need to make them wrong or label them as pointless.  All our experiences, ideas, and ways of being we have established in our lives serve us in some way for as long as they need to.