The Power of Now - Being Grateful

I picked up my old copy of The Power of Now just to see where I am on the spiritual spectrum.  This book helped save my life quite literally because he talked about the voice inside as the ego.  You have a listener and a talker up there whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

We stay so busy with listening to the talker we create a life in our head that isn't exactly the truth our personal version of the truth.  If that truth gets bad enough and you can't cope you  you have some sort of awakening. Also could be called a mental break of some kind. I think this happens when the version of life you had in your head doesn't match a hard punch of reality. 

Then the ego we created to run our lives is not use to being seen as helpless and just keeps pushing and trying to find a solution to the unsolvable problems until there is no place to go. For me it was a number of things mostly grief that I ignored - the loss of the life I thought I would have even if I wasn't happy there at least I thought knew where I was going.

I am awake now as in "the power of now" when I have too much time on my hands like I did over Thanksgiving I can drift into what I wish had happened instead of what happened.  This is great for my book but bobbing up and down in the cesspool of the past can leave me  rotten. I feel hungover and worse I feel dead inside.

When I went black before I was in this state everyday all day for what felt like years. I was a zombie just doing things that I knew I did before but not really sure why. When I feel this even for a day I panic and think it is back to stay but I wake up the next morning feeling normal or normal for me anyway. 

I didn't ask to have an awakening.  I did always want to be enlightened when I thought it meant peace a tranquility all the time. I didn't know without the burden a giant ego telling me all the time that I needed to being doing something better or I should be further along or happier that I would have so much time.  I still have that but only in small doses. 

Eckhart Tolle says that we would be better off without the idea of time. It would make us less anxious about everything.  I get that because we are always thinking about something other than what we are doing right now. I have decades I hardly remember because I was overbooked all the time. I felt like I was being chased and if I stopped it would be over and I was right.

I am happy most of the time unless I compare myself to other people's full lives and wonder what I did wrong. I talked to a guy at work yesterday and I told him I wasn't too busy and he said to enjoy it. He lost his wife last year and three sisters and a cousin so life is short and we should try to enjoy it. That made me stop feeling like I should be working harder and enjoy the freedom this season brings me. 

Spiritual Awakening - Being empty

Last weeks post that didn't get published...

I woke up late today and took my coffee out to the porch.   I heard a loud screeching noise from a flock of birds.  It is very wooded in the back and I noticed a large owl sitting on a branch with dozens of birds flapping around him.  He didn't look like he was that interested and was ignoring them. I wondered what it would be like to get that kind of reception where ever you went. 

We are different from the animals in that we have psychological feelings and the animals don't. I am guessing the doesn't sit around and thinking "why don't these birds like me?"  Maybe asking their mate "what can I do to be more liked?"  She might reply "stop eating there children for a start." 

I think we are the only ones plagued by self awareness and are worried about what other people think of us. We really mostly care about our inner circle but in general we expect everyone to like us. My mother taught me early on that not everyone would like me.  Mostly because we were persecuted Pentecostals.  It was expected that children of God would be outsiders in this world and not understood by the world.

I was comfortable with being on the outside for many reasons. I did help that I could lean on the religious angle to back me up.  It definitely didn't help the way I dressed and the fact that I couldn't participate in the dance session we had every Friday. 

It is funny now that I don't really fit in with the God's chosen group either. I never could buy the whole story that we had the answers and everyone out there was going to burn. I remember asking my daddy "what if we are wrong and those other churches are right?"

 It didn't make sense to me that we would be the lucky ones and all the other nice people were doomed. He was not happy with my many questions and it was the beginning of me having to choose between us and them.

I have lived my life on the fence which is a very insecure place. I haven't been able to believe without question anything really. I can always see the merits of both ideas if you are in the chosen group what better way to feel safe and secure.  It doesn't explain when bad things happen to good people. The story of Job it is all just a test. The holes in all the different  beliefs are the same.

I do believe we all have a spirit and some carry negative energy with them. Their brain has locked in on some event and they are stuck. Eckhart Tole said that he was so stress and agitated that is mind just couldn't take it anymore he had a spiritual awakening.  This is a story many people tell about there spiritual awakening. 

I have experience this myself I had a steady obsessive mind manically looking for the answer to my unhappiness and the negative self talk just kept searching for the answer and then there was nothing. One day I just woke up empty and calm and I have been that way ever since.

I read about this medically that when the brain reaches a point it can't function it basically snaps to protect it'self. I couldn't function any longer where I was and I needed a correction. It felt like nothing I had experienced before. Someone said to me pointing to some books I bought "the person that bought those books is gone aren't they?"  "Yes" was my answer I have no doubt that who I was before "the awakening" has been replaced.

First replaced by nothing and then slowly moved back to the person I was as a child. Without the imprints of sorrow and loss that being human lays upon you. It is an awkward place to be because you can see easily where others are because you have been there but you know you can't really help them. I want to shout "it isn't real" the pain you feel you are causing yourself with the words in your mind. 

I feel like the owl in the tree today just doing my own thing while birds are flying around me screeching. I don't even hear the screeching anymore. I care deeply that others suffer and offer words of encouragement but when your mind is in chaos - you can't hear me - I can't save you.

I do believe those that become addicted probably have a mind like mine.  One that can only be tamed with some kind of substance. It only works temporarily and then you want more. The answer I think is recognizing it is both physical and emotional and dealing with both sides of that is the only answer.  

Panic - Flow - Spiritual Awakening

I was planning on writing yesterday but had a little scare with my computer.  It crashed and wouldn't even turn back on.  I jumped into action and got dressed and drove to the Best Buy like a maniac.  When I got there the guy said well if it won't turn on then there is no hope.  He proceeded to plug it in and like magic it came on as if nothing was wrong with it.

I felt relieved of course but decided to start moving my stuff to another computer which took most of the day.  I have had that one so long that a few of the keys have stopped working but did that stop me? No.  I just bought a wireless key board. Why do something now when you can wait for a crisis to motivate you into a quick action.

I have to admit that I deleted a ton of stuff yesterday mostly pictured from hundreds of jobs I have done over the past 10 years.  It felt sad but liberating to purge the past. The only jobs on that computer were before the place I am working now. 

It did give me time to wallow in my personal photo past too.  Looking at the people who are no longer part of my life and letting that go again. Sometimes you are just there and you have to it ride out.  I was in a funk the rest of the day with my to do list left untouched feeling flat.

I woke up today feeling like a new person.  I watched Joel and his message was inspiring. He said once we ask for forgiveness the slate is clean. There is no need to mull over our past even to ourselves.  Rehashing the mistakes we made is something that we do to punish ourselves.  It isn't loving and kind to ourselves we need to move on and let go.

It was what I needed today because sometimes when I am alone I think "how did i get here?" and I want to blame myself for bad decisions I have made.  

I have done my best and I am alone because other people decided to move on and I was left behind.  Also I have decided to move on and left other people behind too. Sometimes holding on to something that doesn't work because it is better than nothing isn't good for anyone.

I had an spiritual awakening today with my own tears and forgiveness. In my mine I kept hearing "remember the date"  I wasn't sure what that was about until I remember that today is my mother's birthday.  I am sure she was smiling and consoling me through my tears. 

I have had a life that has dealt me some blows but I feel grateful that I am from sturdy spiritual stock and that I have chosen to search for strength through the pain.  I do believe that if you are open to it you can have a life that is divinely guided and you move with flow instead of against it. 

Space - Spiritual Awakening

I had a lot of time on my own this holiday I didn't feel like forcing my plans on the universe and decided to just let life it's natural course. This decision left me empty and a little panicked that my life has become so small. This is just my mind working against me.  I decided to try to just relax and accept things the way they are instead of wishing them to magically be different.

When the anxiety of being alone comes to the surface the first thing I want to do is blame myself.  I blame where I am on all the bad decisions I have made.  Choosing the wrong people to love or picking the road less traveled spiritually and alienating myself from my family.

If only I had done things differently my life would have ended up like one of those holiday TV movies.  This thought is about about control I tried that route when I was younger.  I was still abandoned by the people that were suppose to love me.  At that point with the help of the program I decided to let go and just go where ever life took me.  I was happier by far but in the end I was left again.   At that point I decided there was something wrong with me. Another lie I told myself.

This is just life and you just have to deal with it.  I feel I am ready to enjoy life again and feel another shift happening.  With work being slow right now I decided to clean out my office after five years. It was so busy when I started and I have had my head down learning.  Where does the time go?

I cleared out all those old files some where I had invested so much time and paperwork in people that never came to anything.  This is a little disheartening but I am seasoned now and have a different process for handling customers and purging my files. Ironically the first person I waited on yesterday I had been to their house two years ago and now they are ready. I still had that file. Funny.

Doing nothing is really scary but it can bring on an awakening.   Getting past the doer in me is hard with the list of things that I want to do along with with the things that need to be done.  I felt frozen even after lecturing myself daily about all the valuable time I was wasting.  I did do a few things like baking cookies for the office and on Christmas day going to a friends open house and then to an Al-Anon meeting. It was my home group location and it felt good.

The meeting was on the 12th step and it did give me an opportunity to see just how many awakenings I have had over the years.  Some in your face awakenings and some revealed slowly over time.  Awakenings require you to step back from your situation sometime willingly and other time by force it seems we have no choice.

Today I am feeling good.  Just writing this has made me trust the awkward space between me and myself.  It is sometimes ugly being me and I have hurt myself and other people trying to figure things out.  It was never intentional or personal just like the people that hurt me.  We are just trying to make it through life the best we can even if it isn't always good enough.  It is what we have at the moment.

I can see I needed this empty time to evaluate where I have been and where I want to go and make choices in that direction. I don't micro manage my life anymore and I don't let my life run me either so I have come to middle and I can make decision today to my life a little better.

Making decisions - Jumping ship

Here is my latest drawing of Eckhart Tolle. I was listening to one of his lectures on YouTube and decided to draw him.  We are suppose to use live models but this is the closest I could get. He wasn't moving too much so it worked.

His eyes are a bit smaller but I think I captured the perpetual glazed look he has on his face. Peace I guess.

Drawing seems to be all that perks my interested these days. I was considering ditching the life I have but thought maybe first I should just take a vacation. I haven't had more than two days off in a row since October so maybe it isn't my whole life that needs to change maybe just parts of it.

My friend and have been talking and texting about following your heart instead of your head through life. Making every decision based on whether your heart says weeee or ugh. This goes totally against the grain of what we have been taught. Safety first.

When I think about when I was my happiest I have to go back to my eight year old self again. The summers where my mother relaxed all rules really and turned us out in the morning and said not to come back until we got hungry. Hey back then if it was between adventure or food I always chose adventure. This could be a new diet.

I was expected to entertain myself and I was good at it. There was so much I wanted to do and never enough time to do it. I had a million ideas. These days my life seems to be just about money. Do I have enough? Making decision based on how to make more instead of  " is this working for me anymore?"

I know can't be eight years old again, with my parents footing the bills and I doubt I will ever say weee about doing my taxes but surely there is something in between.

I have been lucky that all the jobs I have had I did feel inspired for a time or maybe I had less expectations about work. Until my last spiritual awakening I considered myself task oriented and was generally satisfy just gettin things accomplished. I think I want my life to be more joyful.

When my enthusiasm did finally end for the corporate job the job also ended. Just like my relationships I had already left the building.  I just didn't have the heart to abandon the comfort of what was for the potentially discomfort of the unknown. So fate did it for me.

Can I be braver this time and make the first move even if I have no idea where I should move to or will I wait until I am forced to jump ship. Maybe I will just start with a vacation.

Embrace it or get rid of it - Baggage

Embrace it or get rid of it. This is what I came up with during my meditation and journaling yesterday. I am where I am and it is my own lack of acceptance that keeps me in turmoil. There isn't really anything in my life now that couldn't be changed.

First my biggest issue is work. Should I stay or should I go? Do I stay and accept the uncertainty or do I get out there and find something else? It is my choice to continue as I am waffling and whining.

Second my house it too big for just me. This isn't really true and it is a great house. It is perfect for me but lately I have also felt like it is another burden. It seems everything in my life is a burden. This view keeps me tired and climbing some endless hill.

Even the small stuff is weighing me down these days. It is my thoughts that make me feel this way, no one is making me do anything but me. So I must embrace those things in my life or get rid of them.

My friend said that was black and white thinking but I don't think so. I see it more as accepting what is or moving on. Bringing your whole self to the party or not showing up at all.

If your on the fence you give other people mediocrity. The weight of indecision or just tolerance doesn't serve anyone. So finding a way to look at the situation so I can see it as my choice instead of seeing myself as powerless is the only answer. If I can't do that I got to let it go.

I have been resisting my life since the break up and holding on the hope that I will feel secure and happy again someday. Why can't that be today? I wasn't happy there for a long time. I was fat from filling my void with food and I developed health problems. This came up today because I am changing insurance and they had questions about my temporary asthma. I haven't had that since the day I left there I was suffocating.

Why can't I accept that being on my own is not some tragic void but an open road with endless possibilities. Letting go of something that is not there anymore anyway, how can that be so hard? Why must I let the past define who I am today? Without the stories or grievances will I be empty?

For me I get really scared every time I decide that something is no longer serving me spiritually. The baggage. Who will I be without it? Free. Free to replace it with something better something that brings me joy today. What if I don't know what that is? So I guess I can stay in the old familiar stories or I can take a leap of faith and make some new ones.

Prodigal Daughter - Awakening

I went back to a meeting on Monday that I use to attend regularly before I took my sabbatical from all personal commitments. I felt like the prodigal daughter everyone was hugging me and very welcoming and not a bit awkward.

When I started going to the meeting it was held on Wednesday and they were going to change it to Thursday which conflicted with my Al-Anon meeting so they changed it to Monday. I didn't ask them to do that but they are a very agreeable group so when I dropped out I felt a little guilty.

I felt saturated with all the different things I had gotten into. Don't get me wrong I have a short attention span and to keep myself engaged I am interested in many things. I did get overbooked and spiritually too focused on helping others. I remember a page in the Courage to Change that says like in an airplane put the mask on yourself first and then help the person next to you.

I learned a lot about myself during my time off. It has been nine months and a re-birth has taken place. At the time, my life consumed me and even if I was able to help others it had to come to an end. I was still running from my true self and afraid if I stopped something horrible would happen.

I remember the exact moment of the shift, the spiritual awakening, I was standing on the stairs and on the phone with a friend. They were informing of one commitment that I had forgotten that would make three total for the evening. I decided then and there that I needed to exit the stage and I did.

A new life was created in the past nine months. Even if my life from the outside looks worse on the inside there is calm, for the most part. I feel a freedom of spirit that I have never felt before.

Going back to the meeting was a test and not a commitment. A toe in the water to see what the temperature was like. Did it feel right? I know now that once something feels like an obligation it starts to drain me slowly. Sometimes so slowly I don't even notice until all the joy is gone.

This my experience and what I have learned about myself it has happened to me over and over again. Whether with careers, relationships or even my spiritual quest. Keeping things the same feels comforting at first and then that wears off and there is a subtle shift from comfort to routine and then boredom.

I having to keep writing about it to remind myself to keep things loose even if I am uncomfortable. I can't run for safety in the routine this time. I got to make my way and rely on faith when it all feels so uncertain. Right now that is real scary.

Beads for Sunday - Growing up

On the 7th day God rested and so did we. In my home growing up we honored the idea that Sunday was a holy day and no work was done. We would get up and go to Sunday school and then to church. After church we would have a big Sunday dinner and then a nap and then off to church again Sunday night.

It was a quiet routine and a thing of the past these days. In my neighborhood someone is always cranking up the power tools just as I settle in on my back porch with my coffee. I have always hated louds noises. I think it is worse for me now since my mind is quiet. At least before the voice in my head distracted me from the fact that the world is noisy.

I have implemented my own Sunday ritual which involves being alone and hanging around the house. I give myself the day off from working my job and worrying about the future or the past. No one is looking for me or expecting anything from me. I have done this for the past month and it has really restored my peace of mind.

Today I broke my new routine because I previously scheduled a class with my friend making jewelry out of beads. She gave me the gift of the class for Christmas and this was the day of the class. I am not that into jewelry but the process of making something was fun and the beads were beautiful.

It was a good distraction from my situation with my dog. She still isn't eating and I will have to make a hard decision in the next couple of days. I bathed her when I got home and made her a comfortable as possible.

Taking Sundays off mentally and just practicing some mindfulness around the house has brought on a lot of clarity for me. It is weird to become wiser with age and in that wisdom seeing your life come full circle.

Spiritually I am becoming more and more like my parents. Establishing my on strong beliefs and living life in a way that really honors those beliefs. I had to take the long way to come full circle but it is still back where I began this life.

The only real difference is that to feel secure in their religion everything was black and white. For me I realize now that everything is gray and I am ok with that.

Take what you like and leave the rest works for me and finding the program helped me to get to a place that I can admit that my parents way of thinking wasn't all bad. That is progress for me and I can see that and appreciate it.

Gratitude and Cabin Fever

I have cabin fever. I didn't make it out of the house today like I planned. I got up and got dressed and my customer called and said she had the flu. She didn't want to see me or expose me to something lethal. I appreciate that.

I have been in the house three days and I am a little loony. One of my friends called and we decided to do something tomorrow. We are going to just get in the car and drive south for the day. It sounds good in theory and I can't wait.

I could have gone out today but I decided that I should tackle some final issues with the IRS, the thought of it is wearing on me. I promised the agent on the phone that I would complete everything within 30 days. This should be it and I am trusting that it is. Now that I am out of depression it doesn't really seem that complicated and I could really beat myself up over the time and cost of waiting this long. But I am past that.

I am glad I got it finished today. Even if it meant not leaving the house. I will be happy when I don't dread going to mailbox. Really at this point another letter from the IRS doesn't even hardly raise my blood pressure.

This whole situation makes me realize just how far I have come in life. If this had happen before the program I would have spent so much time beating myself up about it and I certainly wouldn't tell anyone about it. But you know I am a kinder person than I was back then I can have compassion for what others are going through and I can have compassion for what I have gone through. Just because I didn't admit my mistakes before didn't mean they didn't exist.

Back then I judged people harshly because I felt I was judged harshly and I was, by me. I never measured up to my own standards. I still don't but now I can say it's OK to be exactly where I am today. I can accept my limitations and yours too, assuming you have any.

I am a survivor and the past three years have been the worst in my life. At times I didn't think I was going to make it. I spent so much time in the hall waiting for the door to open that I thought I would go insane.

I use to be so superior saying I would never do this or never do that and I have had to eat those words many times. This is part of my own spiritual awakening and has revealed my own shortcomings. My own failures have made me a stronger and better person. I am eventually grateful for the lessons when some time has passed and the pain is just a distant memory. I am not there yet.

Having the IRS chase me and paying some penalties isn't such a big deal after all that I have been through. I made it, I am healthy and happy and out of the hall. I can work a little harder and if business is good, I can pay even more taxes next year.

The Miracle - When your ready

Here on Christmas Eve I thought I would write about a miracle. Not that miracle but something in the spirit of the season and what working the steps has to offer.

My personal miracle is that I am happy. I won't bore you with a repeat performance of my grief and depression. I think if you have ever read this blog you have heard it before, over and over again and frankly like you I am sick of it. But it was honest and where I was in my life and I have moved on.

I want to write about my own spiritual awakening that resulted from the steps. Not just once but over the years many many times. Some were just ah ha moments others were oh my god moments. Some obstacle that has been there all along reveals itself. I think it suddenly appeared but really I had used my cloak of denial to hide it from myself, in some cases for years.

All the pain in my life comes from my inability to accept the situation at hand and my need to hold on to what no longer works for me. The only way I can do this is with denial. I must keep the dream alive and if that means I have to deny reality than so be it. This is of course and art form an takes years of practice. When I came to Al-Anon I found so many people just like me. I could clearly see their denial and really wanted to help them. Come on now their problems were so so obvious.

The steps worked for me then and still work for me now. They help me to slowly reveal what has been there all the time. It can be something small which I can buzz through the steps sometimes all in one day. With other problems it took years to really get to the core of the issue. The time it takes me has to do with the degree of denial I am in.

Sometimes I have to overcome a lifetime pattern that has set me up for failure over and over again. I can't seem to break the pattern the pain is familiar and I hate to admit it but comfortable. Same play different actors, still no happy ending. A better version maybe but the outcome is always the same. Then I, the star, am shocked that the ending was the same. The audience, my friends, are bored to death and say they have seen it all before.

Then it happens somewhere along the road I here that small still voice OK it isn't so small or still it says. What the hell are you doing? One eye open. Can we not do this anymore, haven't you learned anything? Both eyes open. The spiritual awakening has began and it isn't pretty. Next comes the what I call the scramble it is really uncomfortable denying the denial. It takes some serious pain for me to get past this point. But I eventually get there when I decide I can live without that belief or person or dream. The ironic thing, by this time, all that is left of it is in my head.

This is where I have to be nice to myself. I am letting go of patterns developed over a lifetime. A power greater than myself comes in handy about now. I am fully awake and I am pissed. Why didn't someone point the obvious out to me so I didn't waste all this time. It is all so clear. At this point those who love me roll their eyes and yawn. I wasn't ready, maybe I needed all the little things that led up to this and maybe it wouldn't take if I didn't get the full lesson

So there you have it my version of a spiritual awakening and when your ready you are ready. It all takes time. In the beginning you think it is the drinking that is the problem (yours or theirs), then you realize you are the problem and luckily the solution all wrapped up in the same package. A present just in time for Christmas.

Getting Lost

Last night I got lost on my way to a Thanksgiving potluck dinner. This is not unusual for me, I have resisted getting one of the many talking navigators because I am oppose to yet another electronic running my life. Besides I like to think of myself as a good navigator despite the fact that I am lost a lot of the time. After an hour of driving around in an unfamiliar part of town I gave up and headed back home.

In life my navigation skills have taken me down many a wrong road. Sometimes I just became impatient with the process and took the first road I came to without much thought. Then I would eventually wake up to find myself in some kind of personal hell of my own making only to blame someone else or God for the situation I was in. Some of those choices changed the course of my life in ways I try not to think about now. There is no wrong path path just sometimes a shorter more pleasant path. I don't believe in regret and for me time eventually reveals the importance of every moment good or bad.

I recently decided to speed up one particular path and face something I have been avoiding for quite some time. A person that caused me a lot of pain and I wanted to get some answers some closure so I can move on. But it wasn't the right time because after three attempts to meet there has been one obstacle after another. Oddly enough I don't feel like it is so important anymore and maybe what I needed was to just let it go. I think the lesson was to just face my own pain and insecurity and move on.

The 12 steps and a spiritual path doesn't guarantee an easier life in fact being present and accountable for yourself at all times can be down right painful sometimes. When I realized I was totally responsible, I thought great and then it hit me, I have no one to blame anymore for my feelings.

What no one tells you when you start the steps is once you have that awakening there is no going back. This must be the way they felt after the apple incident in the garden.

So here I am working my program tailored by my higher power, just for me. Accepting that even when I feel I am lost I am always somewhere and I will eventually find my way home.

Courage to Change-Step Six

I picked up my Courage to Change book this morning on my way out the door. The book is tattered and pages are falling out and it has an old cloth book cover from one of my first conventions. I still like to use it even though I bought a new one. I guess it represents the wear and tear of my journey over the years and it is good to remember where I came from. I read actually tomorrows reading about Step Six and it as always seems appropriate for where I am at this moment in my life.

It talks about letting go of who we are and the fear that there will be nothing left once we do that. "The desire to grow and to heal has brought me to this uncomfortable point, because I am tired of the way I have been".

Step Six- We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. So the only action is being ready and I am ready. I am an action person and I have tried everything not to be exactly where I am. So for me this is about retreat and surrender to stop doing anything.

I had dinner with a friend last night that pointed out that I have been stuck for a long time and since I don't see medication as an option then I am where I am. That is true on both accounts but I know that I am better and I have grown through the pain. It did make me see more clearly the burden I have been on those closest to me.

I am exhausted spiritually with the quest for the answers and so I am doing nothing and that feels really good. Just standing still and being entirely ready. "I need only trust, when the time comes to move forward, I will know it".

I am on the other side of the pain for the moment and I feel at peace with where I am for the first time in a long time. Every moment of pain has led me to an awakening and is a part of my journey.

Al-Anon-Spiritual Evolution

Yesterday I met with someone and found myself trying to explain how the Al-Anon program worked for me in the beginning and how it works now. This was harder than I thought is would be but it really made me think about where I was in the beginning and where I am now.

I didn’t recognize the alcoholism in my life until the relationship was over and by the time I reached Al-Anon I had lost the one person I thought I could not live without. At the time I thought it was my husband but now I know it was me. I was just a shell without him and I thought my life was over and I would never feel good again. I didn’t want to live and the grief of losing the only person in my life was beyond devastation. That is what the disease does and not over night. I was messed up before I got into this relationship, don’t get me wrong, but I could accomplish anything I set my mind to but once I found my soul mate I slowly turned my will and my life over to the disease. Cunning, baffling and powerful is what they say I don’t know how such a determined self-reliant person ended up a vacant shell with no support. The alcoholic had his drinkers a lot of them too to support him and a new woman, I expect a lot like me, that could see his potential and was willing to do whatever was needed to support her man ok at the time my man. So that was the beginning I was broken and empty and the 12 steps brought me back to life. I didn’t really work the steps I was too tired for that I just showed up. For my relationship it was too late I was up against something that I could not control, no one can.

I got better quickly in the program. I am willful and I know now that if I hadn’t been so empty and stripped away of all hope I wouldn’t have ever accepted the program. I would have thought I could handle it and never found the peace and even joy that I have now.

Now I can share that experience with others and use the steps to stay on the right track. I look at things differently today and spend my time discovering the person I truly am and not the person that life forced me to be. I still can be a care-taker but the difference is I know when I am doing it and can back off when I am spread too thin. Before it was like breathing I never wanted to disappoint any one and would end up feeling depleted and resentful. If I take care of my own needs I can be there for others in a more authentic way. I can share the gift of the program and the hope that it is possible to change oneself and be happy.

Strangeness in the air

I haven’t written in a month because I have been working internally to accept the person I have become. I am not thinking too much which is strange in itself. I have felt as though I am finally free from my past and the future is uncertain so I am just bobbing along in today.

All this time I have been waiting for the old me to return and what I realized is this is me without the pain of my story. The story I have carefully recreated in my mind over the years reliving every painful detail. I am finished with that part of my life now and can create a new life of my on choosing. We don’t choose our families and we couldn’t control what happen to us as children but we can choose to face that pain and then recognize that reliving it in our heads doesn’t free us to live life today.

Getting use to being free from the past feels very strange to me I have built my world around that pain and spent a lot of time focused on facing those demons. I never thought that I would have to adjust to having peace of mind.

Today’s picture was taken over my house of a hawks it is believed they represent the ultimate in spiritual awareness. Taking a look at life from a higher more spiritual place.

Pilgrims and Thanksgiving

This day has meant a lot of things to me over the years. The early years while living with the effects of alcoholism I tried to use the holidays to make up for the pain I felt in the rest of my life. I wanted everything to be perfect one time I talked everyone into dressing up like pilgrims. My controlling of others had no limit. Amazingly they did it and it was pretty funny.

Later on I did recreate the Thanksgiving of the Martha Stewart kind and I did this out of love and genially enjoyed the process. That time in my life is over and most of the people that were there for that are no longer in my life. Today I can accept that and my journey has moved forward. It has taken me two years to get to this point and to realize that life goes one. Like it or not.

Today I am having an unconventional Thanksgiving with the people I love and that love me. That is all you can really ask for in life and I am grateful to be able to see that now. The program has given me a life I never even knew existed. I can be who I am and know that I am loved and accepted. This is what I consider a spiritual awakening.