Welcome home...

You left a warm, predictable world and were born into an existence where you relied on other humans to keep you safe, warm, nourished and alive. These humans did the best that they could with what they had at the time. They told you stories, and without questioning, because you did not know any other way to be, why would you, you absorbed the stories and you made them your own. You did your best, every day, with what you had, to keep going forward. You learned to crawl, to walk, to giggle when you were tickled and to scream when you needed something - physical or emotional nourishment. You learned that some things hurt - falling off a bike, touching a hot marshmallow, a bee sting. You learned that people help us, hurt us, lead us, teach us, punish us, love us, abuse us, disappoint us, thrill us, challenge us, bore us, protect us, react to us, guide us, run away from us, trust us, need us.

Along the way, you started to learn how to be in the world. Like a baby bird who first tumbles out of its nest, and gingerly begins to take its first steps, and learns to fly. First a few flaps of the wings, then longer flights, looking for food, moving with the gusts of wind. You, too, learned to adapt to the environment you were moving through - at home, at school, in all of your activities, with people you thought of as friends, acquaintances, enemies. Now you look back and realize you were a master chameleon, adapting to the environment in a way that kept you safe. Sometimes blending in so you looked and sounded like everyone else, sometimes invisible because there was, is, comfort in blending in with the background view and noise. Somewhere along the way, you may have lost touch with who you are, because you were so busy becoming what others thought you were, who they wanted and needed you to be, who you thought they wanted and needed you to be.

And then one day, you started to wake up. You started to get this feeling that something wasn’t right. You started to feel that maybe this stuff that you were doing, or not doing, saying, or not saying, thinking, or not thinking, maybe this was not how you wanted to be. Maybe your body started to give you hints - you were more tired, more achy, got sick more often. Maybe you had noticed that no matter how much you ate, you were still hungry, no matter how much you drank, you were still thirsty. Maybe it was a void you were trying to fill with physical things - but a soul-level hunger cannot be sated by ice cream, chardonnay, forbidden lust, pills, JImmy Shoo or Pinterest. So you started to explore the idea that maybe, just maybe, those things were not working any more. At one point, they were working, and you know this, because you are here today. The masks you created and wore, the coat of armor you enveloped your body and heart in, the stuff you built around you like a wall to avoid intimacy - into-me-see - it all worked. Because you are here, maybe broken, maybe a heart that has been pierced, maybe a soul that has been suffering - but you are here.

And in showing up today, you are taking the most powerful step in recovery. Because showing up is the hardest thing to do and you are doing that. You are showing up, for your body, your mind, your soul. You are showing up for your sisters in this room, for your loved ones back home, for your community and the world. Because the world needs you to show up. The world needs you to choose to remove the masks and the armour that no longer serve you. The world needs you to step into your power, the power that comes through acceptance. Acceptance that, who you are today is because of who you were every day leading up to this day. The power that comes through surrender.  Surrendering control over other people, over the past, over the future. The power that comes through knowing, that today, you can choose to do the next right thing, knowing that if you do that, and only that, the rest will fall into place. And you are not alone, you are never alone, because it is through whatever brought you to your knees, and to this place, that you are showing up ready to connect, to discover, to remember, to recover. It is in this state of willingness that you realize that you are finally, in this moment, and only in this moment, home.

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