July 27th Meditation: Repressed Anger

Saturday, July 27th

My anger was my Higher Power.

Sometimes, feelings of anger — both at ourselves or toward others — overwhelmed us. As children, some of us had caregivers who never let us express anger. Often, we carried this repression into our adult lives. We may have turned inward, where our anger and resentment took the form of self-hatred.

Sometimes, these feelings drove us to seek refuge through the numbness and the escape we might have found in compulsive sex. However, despite our attempts to medicate those feelings, we became lonelier, angrier, and sadder.

“I was angry that I did not have the courage to face the reality of a failed relationship. I took out my anger by having abusive sex with strangers.”

As we attend meetings, we may benefit from witnessing the recovery of others. We see them endure great adversity or enjoy great success without slipping into compulsive behaviors. We become able to stop seeing ourselves as victims. Instead, we learn that we can take responsibility for our lives with the help and grace of our Higher Power.

We may become willing to right-size our resentments, anger, and fears while learning to forgive others and, most importantly, forgive ourselves. It is one way to practice acceptance.

Our lives will become manageable, and we will experience increasing serenity and recovery. 

July 26th Meditation: Healthy Sexuality vs. Compulsive Sexuality

Friday, July 26th

Healthy sexuality adds to self-esteem. Compulsive sexuality can feel shameful.

Many of us acted out our sexual compulsions to escape powerful negative feelings. We used sex as a coping mechanism to find validation and connection, though this feeling usually did not last. We often felt increasingly empty and incomplete after having sex and looked for riskier activities to recapture the high we first associated with our sexual behaviors. In seeking that high, we might have objectified and manipulated others or allowed ourselves to be the object of someone else’s fantasy.

“Sex did not mean love to me. It meant power. I could not let go of the source of my sense of power — controlling things and people.”

In early recovery, we might regard healthy sexuality as a hazy concept — perhaps something ideal, but something we cannot possibly achieve. Yet, we hear others at meetings share stories of breaking out of their compulsive cycle. When we accept the possibility of change, we can become open to a spiritual awakening. We lose our fear of intimacy and can define healthy sexuality for ourselves.

We are not here to repress our God-given sexuality but to learn how to express it in ways that affirm our humanity, self-love, and compassion.

Healthy sexuality is mutual and intimate. Compulsive sexuality uses conquest or power.

SCA Daily Meditations e-book now available

Our Journey of Recovery: SCA Daily Meditations is now available in e-book format through Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Books for $7.99. We will continue to post today’s (and tomorrow’s) meditation for free on our website each day. However, e-book users can click the “List of Titles” (an index) on each page to choose any topic or issue mentioned in any part of the book and instantly click the relevant texts. A slogan index is also linked to those texts. SCA plans to produce a print version of this book later this summer. Here are the links to the three e-book platforms.

Apple

https://books.apple.com/us/book/our-journey-of-recovery/id6503449662

Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D5N3ZFNY/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

Google

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Tw4LEQAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PT1