Dallas Bragg marks seven years sober from meth by describing an exercise where he imagined conversations with his past self in prison and his future self. He found that self-compassion was the tool that bridged his trauma, growth, and where he wants to go.
On the anniversary of my 7 years meth-free, I came to the park and I sat at a picnic table in front of myself 7 years ago, incarcerated, fragile, and hopeless. And then I sat on the other side of him was myself 7 years in the future. I had a conversation about what I could do right now to make them both proud. The answer? Compassion. I wanted to give my meth-user self what I never gave to him at that time. And I wanted to invest in myself now to make my future version better. And the answer to both of those came back as compassion, self-compassion. This and other conversations like this helped me ground in ways I could never describe. I use these conversations to assess how I'm doing compared to my values, the direction of my life, my vision. I get to see in a It's a snapshot between both versions of how well I'm doing, what I could add, what I could take away, what I should keep. How do you take a personal assessment of yourself in recovery? Tell me in the comments.
