Growing up in Brooklyn, keeping your own stoop clean was an understandable idea. Recovery eventually taught me the same principle in a different form.
When I first entered recovery many years ago, certain expressions really aggravated me. “When you point a finger at someone, three are pointing back at you.” Or “When something about another person really gets under your skin, there’s likely something there for you to look at.”
A stronger idea based on the same premise comes from Step Ten of GA: if I am disturbed, regardless of the cause, there is something within me that needs attention. I resisted that one too, initially.
Taken too literally, it may sound as if I’m saying anger is always wrong. I don’t believe that. There is such a thing as righteous indignation. In the biblical story, even Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers on the temple grounds when he sees a sacred space being used in a way he believes is wrong. Some things should disturb us. People really do behave badly, unfairly, dishonestly, or disrespectfully at times. Eventually, I began to understand the deeper point: whatever someone else has done, my reaction is still my responsibility.
For a long time, I was very good at identifying what I believed was wrong with others and, frankly, was probably accurate a good deal of the time. I could build a strong case, even if only in my own mind, explain exactly why I felt the way I did, and sometimes be completely right. The problem was that being right rarely made me more peaceful, useful, joyous, or free.
Through practice in recovery and in life, I eventually shifted the inquiry to a more useful question: What is happening on my side of the street? Why is this affecting me as strongly as it is? What am I telling myself about it? Is my response helping me? Am I carrying something longer than I need to? Is there anything here I can learn from, change, accept, or simply let go?
And that shift wasn’t only defensive. Looking at my own part didn’t just help me preserve some peace or avoid getting stuck in resentment. It gave me a way to use difficult experiences as material for growth. Even when I couldn’t change what someone else had done, I could allow what happened, and how I processed it, to teach me something and move me forward. Lemons into limoncello, if you will.
Looking in the mirror doesn’t require excusing anyone else or pretending something wrong is right. It simply means I decide what I am going to do with my own stuff.
Reflecting now, I think my early resistance to these ideas delayed work I ultimately needed to do. As I became more willing to examine my own reactions and place less focus on what others were doing, my recovery became steadier and the quality of my relationships improved.
I still notice what other people do, of course. I just put more of my energy into keeping my side of the street clean.
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