What Message Have You Received That’s Stayed With You?

This week’s question was:

What message have you received that’s stayed with you?

Most of my Tuesday questions aren’t created with anyone else in mind.

They usually begin when something quietly catches my attention.

A sentence in a book.

A lyric in a song I’ve heard a hundred times.

The way the trees sway in the morning breeze.

The expression on one of my dogs’ faces.

Even the unexpected shape in a piece of blue cheese.

Not because I believe life is constantly sending us messages…

But because I think there are moments when we’re finally ready to receive one.

Or perhaps simply ready to explore.

This week, while listening to a book, a question surfaced:

What message has stayed with me?

I didn’t want to frame it or suggest what your answer should be. I wanted you to meet the question without my interpretation because however you answered it would be exactly right for you.

As I sat with it myself, several threads appeared.

One of them kept catching the light.

So I followed it.

A Book I Almost Forgot

More than twenty-three years ago, shortly after I stopped drinking alcohol, I entered what many would recognize as a traditional recovery program.

My sponsor quickly became one of my closest friends.

Only a few weeks after we began working together, she handed me a copy of You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay.

I don’t remember every chapter.

I don’t remember every story.

But I remember one message.

You can heal.

I didn’t know if every idea in that book was true.

I didn’t need to.

I simply left the door open.

What if healing was possible?

What if who I was today didn’t have to remain who I would always be?

That possibility quietly settled somewhere inside me.

I didn’t realize it then, but it never left.

Permission

At the time, I was doing everything I had been taught to do.

Meetings.

Service work.

Reading.

Calling my sponsor.

Following the path laid before me.

And yet, in the background, another thought continued to grow.

If I could heal my life…

why couldn’t healing include this too?

That question eventually led me down a very different road.

Many of you know that story. If you don’t, I share it more fully in Wholly Sober.

What matters here isn’t where I left.

It’s what stayed.

The Message That Endured

Today, I don’t drink.

Not because I believe I have a disease waiting in the parking lot.

I don’t drink because I genuinely love my life.

I love waking before sunrise.

I love having a clear mind.

I love knowing I won’t lose a day to a hangover.

I love having access to my creativity.

I love being fully present in my conversations.

I love that I know who I am when my head meets the pillow each night.

Looking back, I realize that little book gave me much more than hope.

It gave me permission.

Permission to question.

Permission to explore.

Permission to believe I wasn’t finished.

Permission to trust that growth doesn’t stop simply because someone says it should.

Without realizing it, one quiet message had rooted itself inside me.

You can heal.

Not because someone else promised it.

Because I allowed myself to remain open to the possibility.

Looking Back

Sometimes I think the most important messages don’t change our lives in a single moment.

Sometimes they settle quietly beneath the surface…

and only years later do we look back and realize they’ve been growing us all along.

Perhaps that’s why I love questions so much.

Not because they provide answers.

Because they help us notice what has already been quietly unfolding within us.

Life rarely moves in straight lines.

It wanders.

It circles back.

It surprises us.

Perhaps we’re better served by living with an ellipsis than a period.

There is always another thought to explore.

Another thread to follow.

Another possibility waiting to catch the light.

So I’ll leave you with the same invitation I gave myself this week.

What message have you received that’s stayed with you?

Don’t rush to answer.

Simply notice what comes forward.

Sit with it.

Pull the thread.

You don’t have to decide today what it means.

Stay curious long enough to discover why it caught the light.

There is no wrong way to explore.

Only another opportunity to know yourself a little more deeply.