Recovery

A recurring theme in the books I read is recovery.  Many books feature a recovering alcoholic or drug addict, or a person recovering from the loss of a spouse, or the loss of a child, or the loss of a job or the loss of health through either accident or illness.

No matter what a person has to recover from, recovery is a process without a fixed timeline.  If you Google "recovery timelines"  you get links to all kinds of stuff.  Business and organizational recovery timelines for post disaster recovery, stroke recovery timelines, physical therapy recovery timelines for a multitude of conditions.  The most striking fact about all of these is how fluid they are.

The business and organizational recovery timelines are the easiest to create and follow, often because the humans involved can be interchangeable, so that if a particular human is incapacitated by the disaster, another human can take their place.

With the personal or human recovery timelines, so many variables impact outcome.

For many events, recovery is a lifelong process.  For anyone recovering from addiction, recovery is what that individual will be in for the rest of their life or until they relapse to their addiction.  Recovery becomes a state of being, often needing support from others in a similar recovery to stay the course.

The death of a loved one is the start of a lifelong recovery.  I believe we never really "get over" the loss of a loved one.  We learn to live with the empty space, we learn to live with the grief, we learn to accept a new normal is the only normal available now.  The recovery can be interrupted by anniversaries, or memories, or events that crash us back into the aching emptiness of the early days of our loss.  Often people recovering from a profound loss also need others who have experienced great loss to counsel them and provide support.

With a physical illness, or an accident, complete recovery is sometimes possible.  All of us have been ill, or had surgery, and after a period of time feel exactly like we did before the event.  Complete recovery does exist, but many medical events leave a permanent disability.  Sometimes, these disabilities are visible, but many times they are not.  A brain injury can leave impaired memory, or impaired processing or speaking abilities.

The thing is, with so many different events that can injure a person physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, just about anyone and everyone you meet on any given day can be recovering from something.  And there is not always a way for you to know that.

Just one more reason to always be kind.

It is so easy to assign a negative motivation to anyone that upsets your order.  Labeling them selfish, or self absorbed or a bully is easier.  What is harder is to accept that no one knows what someone else is going through.

I believe we can train our brains to stop assigning negative motivations to people we don't know, and start offering up our aggravation as a prayer or a petition for that person to receive peace.

The harder our own personal recovery is at any given moment will impact how well we practice kindness and forgiveness.

For some people, the pain and difficulty of recovery make them more sympathetic and empathetic; for others, the pain and difficulty of recovery seem to short circuit the ability to feel sympathy and empathy.

That is why if each of us, on the days when we can practice as much kindness as we can must do it.   That kindness will change the world.

At least for the person struggling with their own recovery that we showed kindness to.

And each struggling person treated with kindness makes the world a better place.

You can change the world, one kind act at a time.

And the more of us that embrace that philosophy, the better it will be.

Society has to experience recovery just like individuals do.  And as we collectively practice supporting recovery in each other, we will see society recover too.

I genuinely believe that.