Flawed? Always. Learning and Growing? Bet Your Ass.

I’m a warrior, a hardcore survivor.

I embody resiliency. I run seminars for cockroaches on how to persevere through the nuclear winter.

I survived a turbulent, bewildering childhood, without being taught how to process and express my emotions, or how to find my way in a society that made no sense to me, or how to discover, inhabit, and celebrate my authentic self.

I was told, “Work hard. Follow your dreams.” But those were just words to me because most of the people saying it weren’t doing so themselves.

I survived feeling like a nothing and a nobody, and the pure disconnection and isolation that comes from chronic escapism.

I survived the complete breaking down of my emotional processing system and the decades of self-medication and self-induced obliteration that turned me into a shadow of a shell of a human being.

Through the excessive onslaught of chemicals and perpetual nightmares beget by impulsive life-altering decisions of the most enormous magnitude, and through the hours, days, weeks, and months of being consumed by compelling suicidal fantasies, I fucking endured.

My heart kept beating, my cells kept regenerating, my lungs continued breathing, and I’ve had more second chances at redemption than I could ever reasonably expect.

Through this marvel of my body’s persistence in the face of my best attempts to destroy it, and though my spirit’s will to learn from my mistakes and adjust my perception, habits, and attitude while also practicing acceptance, surrender, and gratitude (to the best of my ability), I can, one right now at a time, do one better than survive this hell of trauma and limitation: I can live in a perpetual, unshakeable state of recovery.

JUST FOR RIGHT F*CKING NOW

I know that the hell of my past is what brought me to this magnificent moment of renewal. For this, I am thankful. Right now, I no longer merely endure. In gratitude and acceptance, I stand ready to heal, grow, and step up my game.

That was an unedited sample from my current work-in-progress, Just for Right F*cking Now, a 365-day meditational from the front lines of early recovery. Keep an eye on my blog for more samples and information, and please sign up for my newsletter for direct updates (I’m on my way to rehab for a month, so your patience is appreciated).