A Quick Thought on Meditation

Recently, I began focusing on my breath during meditation. Breathe in and out. In and out. Concentrating on the air filling my center. And when other thoughts come to mind, as they usually do, I simply notice them like I would a piece of chewed gum on the sidewalk - stepping over those thoughts and then returning to my breath.

When I first began this practice I saw those chewed pieces of gum every where, and many would stick to my shoe, too! :)

Now, on good days, I don't see any gum at all, and on really good days I become so relaxed and centered that I doze off after about 20 minutes!

What do you focus on during your meditations?

Alcoholism and Its Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Affects

So this alcoholism thing is physical, mental, and spiritual?  Wow, that is like my whole being!  Does this mean if I just not drink and eat well and exercise, I will find peace?

Oh, wait, that doesn't address the mental and spiritual part directly, does it?

What if I just go to counselors who teach me how to change my thoughts through cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe go to church every Sunday?

Hmmm...then I am ignoring the physical side of things, aren't I?

What about this - I take my medication and wait for it to cure my mental illness, you know "replenish" my lack of serotonin and all that neurotransmitter stuff?

Wait, that alone won't improve my spiritual condition, will it?

I know!  I've got it!  I will work my ass off with the 12-steps and everything will be grand!

Or not?  Aren't I then ignoring the physical part of my make-up as a human being?

For me, I must attack this alcoholism with everything I can because it hits me in every area that makes up my being - physically, mentally, and spiritually.

For me, this means don't drink, eat well, exercise, get enough sleep, and take my medications.  This means learning from professionals and non-professionals how to change my thinking and how to process my feelings in ways that heal me not hurt me.  This means working the 12 steps on a daily basis.

Alcoholism looks for any way to take hold and kill me.  It doesn't care if it is the physical, mental, or spiritual part of me.  Once it creeps into one area, my peace is lessened and like a bad rash, it will spread out until it touches all the areas and then I am really screwed!

Therefore, I can't ignore any of the three facets which make up my whole being.  I must use all of the tools at my disposal, which God places in my life, to help me fight alcoholism.  If I take the actions needed to use these tools, I have a good chance at living a joyful, serene life. 

And that is all I really want.  How about you?

Sober Living - How to Stay Serene

I have been busy with life…too busy. Not saying no to things I could say no to, to things that are taking me away from time with God. Therefore, I am not surprised at my current state of irritability and discontent.


Life has a way of bulldozing me without me realizing it until I find myself face down, flattened to the concrete, hurting, cussing, and saying to myself, “I can’t believe I let this happen again!”


What next?

I asked God to peel me up from the pavement and tell me what to do. I opened my laptop to write this post and the words from a previous post sit in wait for me to see, at this very moment when I needed to see them, when I asked for guidance He used my own words to answer me:

The most effective way for me to find joy in everyday living is by working the 12 Steps. Following the suggestions outlined in these steps brings my will in line with God’s will without fail. The steps pave a path that leads me to the two reasons for which I believe that I exist:

1. To attain and maintain conscious contact with God

2. To be of service to others

Due to my choice to focus on things other than maintaining conscious contact with God and being of service to others, I find myself in emotional chaos. I have been focusing on maintaining contact with others in order to serve myself. My how easy it is for me to flip flop my priorities.


Time for me to slow down and regroup. Autopilot is no place for me to operate…it is a guaranteed crash and burn. I pray that God’s grace surrounds me like a protective shield, blinding me to the things my thoughts and actions have been foolishly chasing these past few days.


Do you ever find yourself feeling like this? If so, what do you do? Thanks for any insights you offer.

Communication Styles - Tricks Before Recovery versus Tools After Recovery

I haven't read any sober blogs in two weeks and I miss it!  I can't wait to catch up today.  I hope everyone had a blessed Holiday Season.  Mine was busy with God, family, gifts, food, shopping, decorating, cleaning, more family, more cleaning, and hanging out with my husband and kids. 

Last week we saw the movie, Tangled.  It is based on the story of Rapunzel, the princess with the long, golden hair.  "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."  The movie was funny, adventurous, and dramatic.  I highly recommend it for kids and adults alike.

Communication Tricks Before Recovery


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I hate to admit it but the witch in the movie, who held Rapunzel hostage in a high tower for the first eighteen years of her life, reminded me of me!  The witch was nicey, nicey to every one's face and schemed and manipulated behind their backs.  If I was ever an expert at anything in my life, being passive-aggressive was it.  "Kill them with kindness" had a whole different meaning for me than I think it was meant to have.

I grew up with a aggressive father and a passive mother.  I picked up traits from both of them and ended up being a well-blended mix of both.  A mutt of unhealthy communication skills, if you will.  My bag of tricks contained all of the following:

• verbal attacks
• threats
• guilt trips
• silent treatments
• sarcasms
• cynicism
• negativity
• vengeful acts against people that may or may not know about them
• and most confusing to those around me, like the witch in the movie did, I was an expert at taking verbal jabs at others and quickly following them up with an innocent smile and a "I'm just kidding" lie.  I did this to express my anger but gave myself a way out in case they didn't like what I said.  Fear of what people thought of me played a huge roll in my unhealthy communication style.

Thinking about the way I was, let alone writing about it here, makes me cringe and feel a bit nauseous. 


Communication Tools In Recovery



Source

However, in the past few years I have learned new, healthier ways to communicate, including:

• beginning statements with "I" instead of "You."  For example, "I feel uncomfortable when you belittle her in front of me" rather than "You're so mean to her.  You're a jerk."
• avoiding all or nothing qualifiers such as "always" and "never."  For example, "I always do everything around here" or "I never get to do what I want."  For me, all or nothing statements are rarely true or simply gross over-exaggerations, which give the other person an opportunity to respond with specific examples that prove my statements false.  So, I try not to even go there.  Really, it is a subtle form of dishonesty.
• asking for help by admitting my limitations to others.  For example, rather than falling against the wall with the back of my hand to my forehead, giving my husband my best Scarlet O'Hara impression, and saying, "I do everything around here.  This house would fall apart if it weren't for me," I can instead say, "Hey, babe, I am feeling overwhelmed this week.  Could you help me by doing this, this, and this?" 
• which brings me to another facet about communication I learned in recovery:  PEOPLE CANNOT READ MY MIND.  Who knew?  I didn't.  I thought I knew what you were thinking and feeling so it stood to reason that you should always know what I thought and felt and what I wanted and didn't want.  It turns out that you don't know these things unless I TELL YOU.  Amazing!  Additionally, I don't know what you think, feel, want, or don't want unless YOU TELL ME.  What a revelation!  Better yet, what a relief!  Not to have to assume, guess, and feel responsible for anticipating your wants and needs is the most freeing thing in the world!  I never realized what hard work being a good codependent was until I stopped being one.

I still pull from my old bag of tricks when it comes to communicating with others, which invariably leads to chaos in my mind, my environment or both.  On the other hand, when I choose to pick up the tools of healthy communication, I give myself a real chance to experience peace of mind and true love of others.

What is your communication style?  How's that working or not working for you?

Happy New Year!

Finding Balance and Living Sober

I visited my family this week, which more often than not increases my anxiety.  Honestly, I feel a bit (sometimes a lot) crazy afterwards even when all I do is silently witness the dysfunction and not necessarily take part in it.  Although, maybe witnessing it is a part.  Sooooo...


Should I stop going to nieces' and nephews' birthday parties, spending the holidays with them, thereby denying my children the fun they experience in seeing their grandparents and playing with their cousins?  That answer doesn't feel right. 


Sometimes my husband takes the kids out to eat and I do not feel like going whether it be because I am tired, don't want to sit in traffic or deal with the crowds and waits or like this week, I didn't want to go out in the freezing cold weather.  I suggested we order in but they wanted to go out.  I used to suck it up and go with them thinking that it was the "right thing" to do...telling myself that I was not a very great mother or wife to choose not to go out to eat with my family.


Now days, I rarely go if I truly do not want to go.  For the most part, they are alright with this.  I know they would rather me go with them but they understand that if I give more of myself in terms of time and energy than I physically, mentally, and emotionally can for too long or too often, I will become irritated, over-fatigued, anxious, and depressed.


God has revealed these limitations to me over the past 2-3 years and unfortunately, they have been extremely debilitating.  I am finding however, that the more I accept myself and my limitations and love myself despite my limitations, the more I am able to actually do, be, and give in ways that are - I now believe to be - God's will. 

I wonder if what I referred to as "debilitating" - meaning that I could no longer do what I had been doing for so many years - would be better stated as, I just was not doing what God wanted me to do (even though the things I was doing weren't inherently unhealthy.) 

I think God's plan for me just changed and I fought it tooth and nail.  Change is hard for me, it always has been...it is completely fear-based. 

In my experience, whenever I am not in line with God's will, I am usually anxious and/or angry.  And whenever I am in line with God's will, I am at peace.  Someone sitting around the tables once visually demonstrated how she feels while not in line with God's will by tensing up and holding on to the edge of the table with a death grip.  She went on to say that when she is in line with God's will it feels like, "Ahhh" and let out a big relaxing sigh, relaxed her shoulders, closed her eyes and smiled.  I feel that way, too.

Fighting, denying, being angry about who I am, how I am made, what is good for me and not good for me in terms of my spiritual state, must have taken so much energy from me!  Now that I am (on most days) no longer fighting, denying, and being angry with who I am, I feel myself healing and getting better but, as I stated above, not in a way that allows me to go back to doing the activities I thought I should be doing like working, volunteering time I don't have, socializing needlessly with acquaintances, and signing the kids up in too many activities. 


Rather, I find myself being able to be a more patient and loving mom, a mom that has the time and energy to sit down and get eye-to-eye with her children and really listen to them, a mom that can say, "Sure, you can have a sleepover with your friends at our house" and really mean it and not freak out once I have a couple of eight year old girls giggling until two o'clock in the morning. 


I also find myself being a more fun-loving wife and an equal partner in my marriage instead of being either a total control freak or a helpless victim unable to even get out of bed in the morning. 

What would usually happen is I would go, go, go because I felt guilty about not being able to contribute financially to our household and then I would crash and not be able to do anything around the house or with the kids for days or weeks at a time.  This would compound my guilt and once I was back on my feet, the whole cycle would start all over again. 


Why is it that alcoholics in particular tend to have a difficult time finding the middle ground on most things?  (a rhetorical question, but feel free to share any of your personal experiences regarding this thought.) 


Thanks for reading and I wish you a happy, joyous, and well-balanced week!

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