from A State of Grace
“THE ONE”
The power of my long denied emotional yearnings for love completely overwhelmed me. My “lover,” I thought, was my “one and only,” the one light in my life—made in heaven for me. — SLAA Basic Text, Page 4
I found “the one,” my soul mate, the perfect man for me… so why should I care about his wife? That’s how my disease spoke to me. Anything goes when you’ve found “the one.” You go down in flames for them like Romeo and Juliet. I told myself, “It’s okay that you’re acting obsessive because you can’t live without him.” He was the air that I breathed. He was going to fix me. But that desperate neediness and inability to leave breeds contempt. All kinds of dramatic situations come from it. When no one else in the world can fix me, I have to get everything that I can from “the one.” I remember a romantic moment when we were standing on a cliff after our 10th time getting back together and I thought, “He’s going to push me off of this ledge and kill me.” That’s how frustrated we were with the affair. The only one for me now is myself and God and people who come into my life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. And because of my work in SLAA, I will leave if it’s not healthy. There is more than one person in the world.
I will not concentrate on finding “the one.” I will practice self-care today.
From Answers in the Heart
Don’t hold the sprout against the seed. Don’t hold this need against me. — Melanie
Being human means having many different needs. Why then, do we cling to the idea that we are totally self-sufficient, needing nothing and no one? Why do we treat our needs — physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual — as mere nuisances that must be gotten out of the way as quickly as possible? Why do we keep pushing our needs away to the point of making ourselves ill?
With time, we will find the answers to these questions through a recovery program that substitutes gentleness for invulnerability, self-love for self-hate, and faith for fear. Once we let go of the delusion that all our needs can be met through sex and addiction, we begin to find out who we are and what we truly need. We will gradually let go of the fear that our needs will not be met, especially when we turn to other people. With patience and a realistic attitude, we will know the peace of having our needs fulfilled.
I live in the present, paying attention to my needs this moment and doing my best to meet them.
Daily Meditation Books
Answers in the Heart - daily meditations for people recovering from sex addiction
Touchstones - daily meditations for recovering men A State of Grace - daily meditations by SLAA members
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