Awareness

Mindfulness

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From SESH, June 27: T.H.I.N.K.

Am I thoughtful?

Am I honest?

Are my words intelligent?

Are they necessary?

Am I kind?

I love this acronym because it shows how emotions can collide with rational thinking. It also shows that even when we are being rational, we sometimes say the wrong thing. As a writer, I’m aware of the power of words—how they can persuade, or repel, how they can win friends, or lose them. I’ve done them all! When I get too emotional, I’m sure to say the wrong thing. Experience has taught me to use this acronym to weigh carefully what comes out of my mouth. To ask myself if what I say is necessary, or am I just spouting off, releasing steam like Old Faithful in Yellowstone? Am I being honest, or are my words brutal and tactless? Do I care how my words might affect the other person? Am I so emotional, in the moment, that my words might appear unintelligible? And most of all, do my words demonstrate kindness towards the other person?

Of all those terms, kindness for me is the most far-reaching and important. No matter what happens to us in our lives, no matter how deeply we are humbled by our circumstances and shortcomings, if we can remain kind in the face of everything, then that says a lot about our character.

“Thoughts become words. Choose the good ones!”

Grateful To Be Growing Within

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from Sharing Experience, Strength and Hope, June 16:

“I remember feeling my anger and resentment lessen at my first meeting when I learned that addiction is a disease, like cancer or diabetes. I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it and I can’t cure it.

Today I am grateful that I am married to an addict because I have been given the opportunity to explore my spiritual nature and move out of my comfort zones. I have taken a good look at who I am, what I want and where I’m going. I am facing my past, my faults and my fears. I am becoming a better person, a happier person, and a more serene person. I am slowly but surely learning not to suppress my emotions and fears, but to release them and grow.”

‘No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear. But, grateful, take the good I find, the best of now and here.’  John Greenleaf Whittier

Just for today, I will pay attention to my blessings. I have so much to be grateful for, and I guard against complacency. It can all be snatched away in a heartbeat, so I take nothing for granted. This is a good way to live, savoring every good moment.

Others Need Us Too

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I’ll never forget a friend I had years ago. She was the youngest of three girls in her family. The middle sister had suffered from cancer years before and had died. My friend was ten when her sister died at age fourteen. But it wasn’t the death that traumatized Jillian so much. It was the years of care, heartbreak and obsession with saving her dying child that her mother endured—to the exclusion of her other two girls—that turned Jillian into an angry, rebellious teenager. She did not get her share of mother love, she felt, and to this day she has not forgiven her mother. I should have remembered that story while I was obsessing over my daughter.

I have since made amends to my other children and family members for allowing my daughter’s illness to take up so much emotional energy in my life. And they have forgiven me. It’s so easy for a loving mother to become enmeshed in the life of a troubled child. But I need to remember that there are other people in my life, and I will try to keep a healthy perspective and a sense of balance. For them. Because they matter too.

“God, Grant Me The Serenity To Know The Difference…”

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From Each Day A New Beginning, March 23:

“’On occasion I realize it’s easier to say the Serenity Prayer and take that leap of faith than it is to continue doing what I’m doing.’

Most of our struggles, today as in the past, are attached to persons and situations we are trying forcibly to control. How righteous our attitudes generally are! And so imposing is our behavior that we are met with resistance, painful resistance. Our recourse is now and always to ‘accept those things we cannot change, and willingly change that which we can.’ Our personal struggles will end when we are fully committed to the Serenity Prayer.

‘The wisdom to know the difference is mine today.’”

Oh yes, the wisdom to know the difference…how often our egos get in the way of living well. We want what we want when we want it! We want our substance abuser to give up drugs and come back to the living. If only that choice were in our hands…

But it’s not. Only substance abusers have the power to reach for their own recovery…and we have the power to reach for our own. That has been my choice for several years now, and I’m learning to be happy despite losing my daughter to the living death of heroin addiction.

A good friend told me that ego is what separates us from God and each other. Ego (Easing God Out) is often our enemy and keeps us from the serenity we so desperately long for. So I’ve learned to turn my pain over to God (Step Three), to “let go and let God,” and that has made all the difference in my life.

Living In The Solution

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I messaged a friend on Facebook: “Oh, God Bless, Maryann, my heart goes out to you and all of us mothers. I often say in my book and on these sites that I’m grieving a living death because my daughter is not the person who’s walking in her shoes. She’s split right down the middle. Anyway, we all have different stories, but some parts are so familiar. My books are all about finding solutions for myself, and I hope they help you too. One thing I’ve learned on this difficult journey is to live in the solution, not in the problem. That’s how I’ve learned to be happy. Hugs to you!”

From a Nar-Anon handout: “People like myself whose problems have brought them to the point of despair have come to Nar-Anon to seek advice and find solutions. As soon as they attend the first meeting they feel like they have come home and feel like they are among people who really understand. And fortunate is the newcomer who finds a group that permits such expression. It gives those who have gone before them a way to give encouragement and hope. The newcomer discovers that it is by giving and receiving in our sharing that we are able to heal ourselves, and slowly we are able to regain control of our lives again.

But still more fortunate is the newcomer who finds a group that does not allow such unburdening to continue meeting after meeting. There is work to be done; Nar-Anon is not a sounding board for continually reviewing our miseries, but a way to learn how to detach ourselves from them.

A Recovery reminder:

I will learn by listening, by reading all the Nar-Anon literature as well as all good books on the subject of substance use disorder by working and trying to live the 12 Steps. The more I read and study the more knowledge I receive. Knowledge is power, and I will be able to help myself as well as others.”

Surround Yourself With Love, And Not Just On Valentine’s Day!

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My recovery work over the years has brought me out of isolation and pushed me into the circle of love in this picture. I have learned many things in my recovery program, but the most important has been placing a greater value on my worth, my needs and my wants. Learning to set boundaries is another way to take care of myself, letting others know what is and what isn’t acceptable to me. This tool has made my relationships healthier. Without a daily practice of self-care, what shape am I in to interact with those around me?

“Progress, not perfection,” to be sure, and we all have bad days. But I’m grateful to have found a sound guide for living in my recovery program. It doesn’t take away the pain of struggling with my daughter throughout her substance use disorder. But it does offer coping strategies that encourage me to focus on what I can control in my life. No longer drained from fighting a battle I can’t win, I feel energized to move on and celebrate the blessings God has given me.

It’s all a matter of perspective. Attitude is everything.

The Challenge Of Change

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From Each Day A New Beginning, January 8:

“’When people make changes in their lives in a certain area, they may start by changing the way they talk about that subject, how they act about it, their attitude toward it, or an underlying decision concerning it.’ ~Jean Illsley Clark

Acting “as if” is powerful. It leads the way to a changed attitude, a changed woman…Each positive change we make builds our self-esteem. Realizing that through our own actions we are becoming the kind of women we admire gives us the strength, in fact, encourages the excitement in us that’s needed to keep changing…Each gain makes the next one easier to attempt.

I will accept an opportunity today to act as if I can handle a situation I used to run from.”

I think, as  any of us grow older but not always wiser, that it becomes easy to descend into a passive state of “Oh well, what’s the use? I’ve tried everything I can think of to make this problem go away, and nothing works. So I guess I’m stuck with it.”

I’ve certainly been there, but eventually I got lucky. I got so tired of my misery that I became willing to try something else. That was the key. Willingness to change and do something else. It worked.

Now I’m happy, joyous and free of the demons and obsession that were destroying my life. I had to work hard for this. But it was time well-spent in recovery.

I’m in two 12-step programs, and they all have one thing in common: helping those of us who suffer to recognize our own part in our misery, to work through all those demons, and hopefully learn to be accountable and free of guilt. The freedom that follows is indescribable. And though I still carry the sorrows that brought me to the rooms, I’ve learned to view them through a new and different lens.

Life can be a glorious adventure. I’m so grateful for my recovery.

One Day At A Time

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Being able to live one day at a time, one of the basic tenets of the Twelve-Step Programs, used to be a challenge for me. How could I live my whole life in just the next twenty-four hours—without fear or projection? That was a tall order. But particularly for substance abusers it’s necessary to live one day at a time. Life happens—every day—and too many stresses can occur in a mere twenty-four hours to throw us a curve and beckon us back into our addictive behavior.
If we limit our vision to the day at hand, it’s easier to stay focused on our sobriety.
Early in my Twelve-Step study, I often tormented myself looking at my past mistakes because I’d felt I had it coming. “What goes around comes around,” and all that wrathful noise about divine retribution. But I don’t believe God has anything to do with my self-punishment because I believe that He is benevolent. And now I can “look back without staring” if I keep my focus on the present and remind myself that done is done, but today is the first day of the rest of my life.
Not dwelling on what happened yesterday, not worrying about what hasn’t happened yet, and having the gratitude to appreciate the colors of the sunrise today, or a kind gesture from someone, or a good meal, or a good night’s sleep—I’m always sending God thank you notes—I don’t know who else to thank! The ability to do this with an open heart is one of the many rewards this Program offers us.

The Spirit Coming Alive

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“The idea of God is different in every person. The joy of my recovery was to find God within me. “ ~Angela Wozniak

One of the promises of 12-Step recovery is that we shall learn to be “happy, joyous and free.” I like the free part best. For too many years I’ve been chained to my own human failings. I never understood with such clarity my own defects and limitations until I started to work this Program. I was so lonely and isolated. But when I came to believe after much trial and error that I was in fact powerless over substance use disorder—mine, my daughter’s, and anyone else’s—I fell to my knees and turned this struggle over. And I felt so much lighter. Now, at last, I was off the hook. I’ve turned over all the lost years with my daughter and turned my attention to things I can control now. And that has given me the freedom to focus on other things.

My spirituality is based on three factors: far less EGO (Easing God Out), humble acceptance of whatever my lot is in life, and the vision to appreciate every day for all the good that I can see and experience. In this way, the principles of this Program have changed my life. It’s really great to be alive, and for so many years my life was utterly joyless. That’s the power of the spirit coming alive in me through my spiritual Program.

Something To Leave Behind

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My shell collection is extensive and surprisingly sturdy. I’ve dragged them around with me from all my travels over the years. But I’ve run out of space to display them. And I wonder why I’ve collected so many. What have they represented to me? Maybe the assurance that something of me will be left behind.

Ego. Such a fundamental part of the human condition, the very thing that makes me human. And it’s my ego that has the power to separate me from God.

It’s ego that keeps me struggling in my relationships, ego that keeps me from accepting things as they are and feeling content with what I have. Ego and my willfulness beneath it that traps me in my restless search to outdo myself and others.

And it’s ego that makes me want to leave an imprint in the sand.

All human beings wrestle with ego, but substance users have found a solution that elevates them from their soul sickness: losing themselves in substances and behaviors that provide oblivion for a time. “We want what we want when we want it.” That tired old phrase smacking of egocentricity and immaturity.

Substance users in their disease are all about themselves. In Alcoholic’s Anonymous, one definition of an alcoholic is an egomaniac with low self-esteem.

To be “relieved of the bondage of self,” as the Third Step Prayer states in the Big Book, I’m learning how to nurture a relationship with God and remember my place in relation to him.

My importance is next to nothing in the scheme of things. This keeps me right-sized and humble.     

I’m just another grain of sand on the beach.

© Marilea C. Rabasa, 2020. Excerpt from Stepping Stones: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Transformation (She Writes Press).