Authentic Recovery Soup

KELLIE R. STONE

In modern world vernacular, the foodie title would have thrilled my mom. She couldn’t pass up chances to experience authentic cuisine and introduce that love of superior food to her children. I fondly remember frequenting one exceptional restaurant called Chinese Ruby about three miles from our northside Indianapolis home. Walking in the door enchanted me with its stunning red and gold décor and incredible Asian art. It immediately delivered joy to my curious, young spirit. But, let me get real… the scrumptious, authentic pork-fried rice, won-ton soup, and egg rolls stole my heart...and stomach! To this day, I’ve never found a Chinese restaurant that compares to my beloved Ruby.

I’ve invited you to join me on a trip down my childhood memory lane because I saw it as an important analogy to reveal what I’ve missed during a complex recovery. Chinese Ruby had the perfect ingredients to create a pleasurable, authentic experience. However, this isn’t the norm because so many restaurants skimp on real, quality ingredients. Well, my friends, I was skimping on essential ingredients where my health was concerned.

Finding a Starting Point

I’ve spent much of my adult life fighting the bitter flavors of chronic illness and trauma. Recovery from that reality has presented a thousand tempting paths to explore (ingredients for my recovery soup). Unfortunately, the “get better” recipe I thought would heal it all, left me exhausted and scrambling to grasp life-saving hope, joy, and peace at a soul level. Yes, I got a helluva lot smarter by attending every online seminar I could and reading countless books with this-is-the-one sparkle. I shake my head at the extensive list of remedies, therapies, medications, supplements, and diets I’ve invested in to recover from multiple ailments. However, I had avoided searching for the pieces my starving spirit and soul wouldn’t find in that flawed plan. It was the recovery equivalent of “Lookin’ for Love” in all the wrong places.

Finding Miracle Perspective

Somehow, I crawled out of that chaotic mosh pit from hell and discovered a miracle perspective that revealed what was missing from my recovery soup. I had dismissed miracles as an ingredient in my life and couldn’t see the biggest one staring back in the mirror—ME. This awareness showed me that, as I create from an authentic place within, I can walk on the miraculous path that has been there all along. The badass woman— I thought I had to be— unwittingly buried that path with limiting beliefs and what she thought warranted recovery. I discovered that seeing and believing in miracles is about acknowledging what is with OK-ness and unchallenged gratitude.

Finding Self-Compassion

I shifted an obsessive mind-numbing focus from doing all those right things to listening to my inner child, who had been screaming and begging for the attention she needed and deserved. In her presence, I found festering wounds and unseen truths that held my deepest recovery captive. Though I still do physical things to be healthy, my recovery soup recipe now includes facing deep wounds, fear, and disabling darkness that I kept locked away for decades.

I’ve learned to be OK with not being OK, embracing moments of sadness, anger, and despair like longlost friends. This is an extremely challenging accomplishment for anyone, let alone for a perfectionist, who instantly wants to fix everything. This default action has been the bane of my existence for longer than I can remember. But I wholeheartedly choose to change what doesn’t work. Author, poet, and teacher, Stephen Levine said, “Healing comes when we meet our wounded places with compassion.”

That deep compassion is the ultimate self-love and care we can give ourselves under any circumstance. It is unconditional, present, and undiluted. In my case, it didn’t come naturally because the pain, illness, and trauma seemed like a force that came to tear me down or make my life miserable. I now believe the contrary... that with understanding and acceptance, adversity becomes our biggest catalyst for healing and self-awareness.

I reinvented my recovery soup dramatically by letting go of what doesn’t work and adding long-overdue authentic ingredients. I’d love to say that peeling away emotional layers has been a fun, electrifying party, but that would be an inauthentic claim. The truth is that the brutal revealing of deep raw pain showed me why my body got so sick in the first place.

In all transparency, I don’t know what my specific recovery looks like or how long it will take. However, I firmly understand this: it isn’t solely about cheering milestones or having earth-shaking victories. Small wins and moments of soulful clarity shine brighter than anything, revealing the strong, courageous woman I’ve become in illness and adversity.

Photo by Kellie R. Stone, 5/20/24

A writer, editor, artist, poet, mom, and nana, she has lived a complex, fascinating life coaching women and expressing her heart in multiple ways. Kellie is an indie internationally best-selling author, with three women’s self-development titles and one crime thriller under her belt.