When Obsession Chooses You

I choose recovery.

So whats my next step??  I think this is the part of my addiction recovery journey that I tend to lose track of where I am going and why I am going there.   After having a few days clean and by few I do mean just over thirty days. Which is just a very few in the scope of forever, yet to the addicted mind it feels like forever already.

 That forever seems to be very cunning at teasing me into believing that I am ready to jump back into life with both feet.

I feel almost desperate to get back to work.

My energy returning and my mind starting to need more then a just for today thought.  I can feel my addict starting to tell me that if I don't get back to work soon I am gonna gain all my weight back. Several years ago the scale used to read 250lbs.  I am a landscaper today partly to keep in shape... that shape is quickly rounding again.

I want to go back to work.

My addict also tells me that my boss wont hold my job with his sights removed from me. My oldest daughter works as his receptionist.  He hasn't forgotten me.  My addict then shows me my very meager bank account and tells me I will never make it through the next couple months on those pennies.

You see I just transfer my addictions.  I have always lived from a place of obsession.  Workaholic.  Overeater. Sex and Love obsession is the worst and the one you see most of in this blog. These obsessions always lead back to drug addiction.

Can I live in some form of obsession and survive?

 I used to spend hours and I mean like two to five hours a day at the gym when I was losing my eighty pounds.  I would rather be at the gym then home making supper for my three young children and husband.  I would rather work out then hang out with my friends and family.  I was so into my body that even when my husband wanted to touch it, I was annoyed.  He was overweight.

People tell me to get into a healthy obsession.  I don't think that works for me.  Obsession for me makes my life unmanageable.  No matter how I slice it when my mind is obsessed with something it exhausts every resource available to me until I am sitting in a detox center hanging on by a thread.

I cannot afford to be obsessed.

How the fuck do I live then??

I look back to my early formative years and all I see is obsession.  I see nothing but one obsession after another.  My mind was molded at a very young age to be obsessive.  I have, through years of counselling. traced my obsessions back to younger then six years old.  Too young to be even able to comprehend obsession as a mind that young is nothing more then a perceiver.  Yet all the perceptions I got were from the people I loved and every one of them was deep in their own obsessions. Unavailable to me.

I struggle very hard to be in my life and present with my own children.  I learned that obsession was the only way to function my mind.  Trauma's supported that lesson and turned it into a belief.  The rest of my life I continued to play out the belief.  

I am always trying to get out of my life and my feelings as I have watched my own parents do my whole life.  Except now I am too old to blindly follow my parents examples.  Wish I woulda figured this out in my early twenties.... damn ridiculous slow learner that I am!!  And people say I am smart... ahahahaha.  Not!!

So let me move back to the original statement at the beginning of this post before I digress... where do I go from here??

I have until the end of December before I must go back to work.  Going to a drug rehabilitation treatment center has not panned out.  I  have an amazing therapist that is moving me swiftly through some pretty major stuff.  So I am not worried about a treatment center, what I need to work through here is time management and self discipline.  I have been to treatment before.  Its eight hours a day of intensive counselling and work book stuff on trauma's.  I have that kinda time and I have tonnes of resources and even the old work book from the center I attended the last time I landed here.

I finally feel ready and up to the task of ripping the obsession band aid off and get down to the dirties in my life.

 The rose colored glasses have already come off and pretty much every moment of my day is spent feeling gross, uncomfortable and wanting to crawl out of my own skin.  Every time I open my mouth to speak its almost like I regret it, I say shit that's not congruent to me anymore,  I don't know who I am, I feel like I have all these caged personalities fighting for my attention within me and the anxiety is almost overwhelming.

I stress again I have an amazing therapist walking me though as well as a psychiatrist on stand by in case I feel the need to self medicate with some blow, he promises me he has better shit in a prescription bottle... shit that wont kill me if I get a bad batch.

 And I have my family in Narcotics anonymous that wont let me go even half a day without word from me.  Man I love my sisters in recovery... its the only thing besides my girls that makes my heart glow even in the middle of a tar slimed, skin crawling dawning realization about myself or my life.

I have everything I need to move forward and get on with my recovery.  To really actually overcome my obsessive mind and change the way I think and act.  I have been doing a fair amount of study on the mind and it is a muscle that can completely and I mean completely regenerate itself.  I need to put in the work but I am slowly beginning to believe I can fully change the way my brain fires up.

So time for me to move the focus away from everyone else and the obsessions still playing out in my life.  I say that with some sadness.  I still really do enjoy my love obsessions... the fantasies it creates for me are way more enjoyable then the current reality I am manifested in,  But alas I know my life is unmanageable because of the thoughts so I must let go of them..... but its still sad for me.

Eight hours a day of step work, therapy, homework and self care.  Fuck I thought I was a mess before.... look out my friends Its about to get really real for me.  Dorthy is coming home and taking off the red shoes.

How I Escaped the Devil in my Dreams

I dreamt of the devil the other night.

He has come to me four other times in my adult life that I can recall.  I say the devil because of the image it portrays in this society.  Really I don;t believe in the devil, he is the Prince of Shadows to me.  He is the very seductive masculine energy that tricks me into doing things against my intiution.

I didn't truly know his full nature until this visit though.  Let me share the other times he visited me and what was going on in my life at that time...

..... I had just fallen asleep, like literally just.  My husband was on the computer not more then five feet away from where I slumbered.  within moments I felt myself being pulled to the bottom of the bed.  That horrible feeling of being paralyzed, I was unable to stop it.  I was screaming loudly at my husband who was hypnotized by the computer a mere spit away.  I looked down and felt, more then saw this male energy.. aka the Devil, The Prince of Shadows.  He was laughing at me and drawing me to him.  I screamed so loud at my husband to come save me that I woke myself up.

Looking at the clock I had been asleep for about ten minutes.  Everything in my dream was real time and it felt like real energy.  I asked my husband if he had heard me but he said no I was sleeping soundly.  I was so unnerved.

The second time he came to me, again I had just fallen asleep.  This time his pull came from the side and caused me to begin to spin in my double bed.  I was sleeping alone, just my big black elk hound and I were in the room.  I screamed for my dog but he didn't budge from his slumber.  I was afraid but had been here before so was more analytical this time and didn't actually feel The Prince physically.  I woke within moments of falling asleep again.  I was unnerved again when I woke and wondered why he kept coming to visit me.  Although I hadn't seen him in a few years.

The third time he came to see me was a short visit and in a more of a dream state.  He wore a very seductive energy and came up swiftly behind me.  As he breathed his moist breath on my neck, I welcomed him.  The dream spun into something else after that.  This was the only time he came to me in the middle of the night and in a seductive way.  That's how I knew he was the Prince of Shadows and not my own fears.

The fourth time and the most scariest.....  I had barely and I mean barely just fallen asleep when I heard a loud knock at my bedroom door.  I was up and out of bed before I was even awake.  I knew deeply who was at my door and why he was there.  I was shaking and standing by the side of my bed as my boyfriend laid in slumber on the bed.

That was over a year ago now that I have had a visit from my dark prince.  Until the other night.  He came to me again in the middle of the night.  Paralyzing me as his energy crept up over my shoulder slowly.  I could feel his anger this time, not his laughter or seduction.  He was holding me so painfully tight.  I couldn't get out of his grip and I was angry not frightened.  Finally with my will I kept telling myself it was a dream and not real.  He was never real and this time was no different.  He got angrier and I woke myself up.

I am a big dream analysis girl.  I feel many of life's answers are embedded in our dreams.  This dream has always, since the first one, been my favorite one to interpret.  It is way more real then any dream I have ever had and honestly I have a deep belief that it really is an energy that lurks outside myself.  I used to think he was a warning, and to some extent I guess he is.

The first time he came to me, I was about to cheat on my husband for the first time.  My understanding of life was torn between the man I thought was my soul mate and the new man in my life that I seemed to have a deeper connection with.  Looking back now this is when I began to wake up from societies hypnotic trance and realize I was in  relationship keeping me asleep and from my path.  But at the time I seen it as a warning that I was about to embark on a dark path.... so i didn't.  I stayed in the marriage.

The second time honestly..... not sure why he came to me.  Probably because of entering a twelve step fellowship.  I was dating this guy, I should better rephrase that, I was playing this guy at the time and thought it was about him that the devil came.  So I broke up with the guy and tried to play it straight and narrow.

The third and fourth times he came to me I was with a new guy.  He came during drug relapses.  The first one I was just getting back together with the guy.  I seen it as a dooming sign but continued the path anyways.  The second time when The Prince knocked on my bedroom door I kicked the guy to the curb permanently.

I always seen the dreams to be warnings about the men in my life.  I can see now from the recent dream that it's never been about the men.  I have no man in my life right now.

However as I over eat and dose my body with toxins my minds positive state slips.  I am seeing a definite trend in riddling my body with negative energy, effecting my thoughts and leading me back to searching for something outside myself to feel better.  Guys are always that feel better out for me.  The Prince of Shadows is the seduction of Love.

Today I am not seeking the seduction of romantic love however.  I am actually achieving self love and embarking on my true passions in life.  The Devil in my dream was mad, real mad.  And for the first time, I was not afraid.  Just annoyed that he was there and I couldn't move.  He is losing power over me.  My addictions are losing power over me.  My need to self sabotage is diminishing.

What started in 2006 is finally coming to a close.  Cycles break at the 3, 7 and 13 year mark... in my experience.  This one is the 7 year mark.  I was awakened by that first guy all those years ago.   It has taken me this long to actually become confident enough,  to step into my light.  It took seven years for me to shed the old skin that protected me, to lose the baggage that I carried around.

 I feel like the Prince of Shadows has finally let go.  I feel like I have finally completed my journey to the underworld.  I am on a new path, a new cycle...

Harvesting Recovery

Happy Fall Equinox!!

 Mabon Celebration of the Pagan Year.   This is the quarter of the witches wheel that brings us into the reaping of what we have sewn this year.  Full Harvest moon still sharing her full light with us also brings celebrations a plenty!   Tonnes of energy and transformation is available to us all at this time of the year.

 In the olden days this is when our ancestors harvested the food that sustained our tribes for the coming year.  It was a busy back breaking time of year, but it was also a time of freshness and abundance and therefore much happiness and celebration.  Today we get our food from the supermarkets and if we garden its for hobby, so our reaping and sewing has moved to a more inner and personal experience.  Today pagans focus on the goals that bring them the green energy from their jobs that supply the means for the supermarket purchases.

So I ask you, what are you harvesting from your Garden this year??

I have been questioning lots this past week about what I have sewn this year and what I am reaping.  I see much growth in my garden for which I am always grateful and awestruck by and I will share in a moment, but I also have some rotten patches in my garden as well.

As I watch the flowers wilt and the leaves turn brown in my small northern city, I get a bit frustrated at the loss of beauty in the flower bed.  I have to resist the urge to pluck all unsightly foliage off the plants I maintain at work.  An impossible task in the fall, and not one thats entirely advised.  I have a hard time accepting anything unsightly in my physical vision as well as my energetic sight.  Accepting death and decay as a part of life and beauty is a hard concept for me.   I am that white lighter that wants everything pristine and perfect at all times with no negative underflow anywhere.

This time of the year is a perfect mix of marriage like happy celebration and funeral like remembrance celebration.  Funny how this time of the year right up to Samhain/Halloween is my all time favorite times of the year yet I can't stand decay.  Astrology teaches me we are a bundle of contradictions within our own personalities......

..............................


.......So moving on from the brief lesson in the pagan calender, I have come to realize a tremendous amount of stuff about myself in the past few weeks.  Thats what I want to share here today.  I am 39 years old and feel like a four month old noticing her fingers attached to her hands for the first time.  Excited at the revelations yet saddened by yet again all the wasted years.

I am finally out of obsession .......again.  I see now that anything that fills my void or distracts me from myself and my higher power becomes an obsessive game for me.  Its that instant feel good that I seek which is truly self abuse hidden in those void filling feelings.  Again my forms of obsession are drugs, food, sex and the emotionally unavailable guy.  lol  See how I have changed that from the bad boy.   I am growing up!

This past month I have been repulsed by drugs when I found my daughters stash.  I have binged and then fasted only to become so disgusted with the ridiculously played out cycle that I have gone back to eating for my body and let go of the obsession around food.  I have been shocked to hear myself gasp when a friend mentioned me bringing a guy home, ....ewe..., and I have effortlessly turned away from an opportunity to travel back down the path of the emotionally unavailable guy.   These have all encouraged the lifting of my obsessions and have free'd up my mind and spirit to pursue higher forms of thought and action.

That is the death and decay in my garden.  I have had a terrible time letting those things go.  This entire blog has been my journey though those obsessions that gripped my mind and kept me sick and asleep.  I have had moments to months of freedom this past year and it was in those clear times that I urgently planted seeds for my return in future months when I knew I would get lost again.  Coming to believe is a great process of sleep and waking to the realities of who you really are..... and thats not the monster you perceive yourself to be.   Thats what obsession tells you.

So now that I am not in that place of low self esteem and self abuse where am I?  What does my garden

grow?

Funny how I draw a blank now that I am about to talk about some good positive things about myself.  Why is it so hard for us to talk kindly about ourselves yet so easy to rip ourselves down?  I think for me that when I embrace my light and begin to share it with others, some people get offended and attack it.  I personally feel thats why I have a hard time standing in that.  I also feel somewhat arrogant when I feel that I am good at something, or that I am being true to myself and want to share that.  It's truly not arrogance as I am so easily humbled.  I never forget my place in the cosmic food chain, we are all lights and we all have incredible destinies to embrace.  By sharing my lessons I hope to ignite others to theirs, yet I still find it hard to share the good in my life.  My old blogs were so intensely negative that I lost friends over them because my friends could not stand to see me in so much pain.  I can express that easily.  Love..... not so easily.

Oh I have a recent experience to share.....

My youngest daughter was sharing a situation at school the other day with me in which she had the opportunity to practice some advice I had gifted her a while back.  As she proudly reminded me of what I had taught her she was very grateful for my words of wisdom.  I was humbled and almost moved to tears... I really am teaching my girls something.  My older daughter did her first draft on her budget last week and was astonished at where her money goes, this week we will create a solid budget and I am confident I have the strength to hold her too it when it gets tough for her.  At the beginning of the year I set the intent to focus my energy on raising my daughter well.  In the course of that year my adult daughter moved home to reap that benefit as well.... I never knew my garden could produce that, I am doubly blessed.

Last year at Samhain( Thats when the goals are created for contemplation over the winter), I was on Welfare.  I set the intent that I would find a career path that would be able to support me and my daughter and help us flourish not just survive.  I bought her two pairs of jeans for school equally over two hundred bucks!  I could afford it and she is worth it as she moves into grade 8, the year where peer pressure is the toughest.  I am working with a career counsellor gifted to me from social services to better hone my skills and apply them to a real career that will satisfy not only all my needs but incorporate my Passions into it as well.  I am reaping way more then I sewn last year this time.... I just wanted a job.  Now I have a tan, lost almost 30 pounds and have a savings account.

There are some rough patches in my garden though.  I have had to let go of a few people in my life that i loved and others that I have hurt along the way.  I have had some pretty intense confrontations with people and with some of my own inner demons.  I have had to peel away from the obsessions that I am comfortable with and provided me with security and stability.  That last one in itself was truly what recovery is all about and it is scary as shit to find a new way to live.  It's unstable, like a baby taking her first steps, not without tears.

Confidence is only born out of challenges overcome.... so in a bit of a caddy way I lower my vibration momentarily to give a shout out to all the haters in my world this past year.... thank you for helping me get stronger.

So now as I move out of this year and into my next year I wonder where it will take me.  I truly feel a phase of my life is ending and I have finally broke the cycle of self abuse and self hatred.  I feel that what I have been working on for many years is now finally complete and it is time to change directions and start something new.  I feel like a book with blank pages, a second novel to my completed first.  Empty and completely open to being filled with the abundance of the universe.   I AM FREE.

How is the Disease of Addiction Manifesting itself in my Life Today??

How has the disease of addiction been manifesting itself in my life today??  This is one of the first questions in Step One.   The first time working the Step I was put off by this question.  How else would it be working, I couldn't quit dope... duh.  What a stupid question I thought.  Now upon the third time answering it I see how brilliantly layered the Steps are.  No matter how many times you work them you get something new out of them each time.

I vowed loudly in my excitement upon finishing the entire set of steps the first time that I would never do them again!  Once was enough.  .... And more will be revealed....., was apparently lost on me then.

So how is my addiction manifesting itself in my life today??  First defining what addiction is for me is key to understanding if I am in its grips or not.  Addiction is when my thoughts become obsessive and my actions compulsive to those obsessive thoughts.

My brain is such a tricky place to manoeuvre.  The past couple months have put some serious pressure on my program. At first I allowed myself the grace of a new job and big changes in my life, but that grace quickly turned to complacency.  With that came my Lower Self the lovely Lady Vixen,  as my beautiful Higher Power got pushed to the side forced to watch my decent back into a suffering mind.

Upon working the first three steps yesterday I have learned a great deal about the way my mind works and how this disease effects me personally.  I had been working the steps previously but got caught up in step four as seems to be the pattern for  me each time I work the steps.  I had started them originally, specifically for a guy I was struggling to let go of. I restarted them yesterday and broadened them to all romantic relationships, because it turns  out I cannot be without one for long in my life.

Now its not  the romantic relationship that's the problem for me, or the guy involved in it, these are new understandings.  Its the obsessive thoughts about that person that are the problem.  My disease cannot just go with the flow in this area and allow something to just progress naturally in whatever direction it is meant to go.  No my addict needs to control and manipulate it to fit into a safe little box that I have full control over at every little moment.  The obsession is all invasive in my mind, reaching out like deadly climbing vines towards the object, penetrating every area of their  lives.  The insatiable need to know exactly what, where and with whom they are sucks the life force out of my own life

This is where the compulsion steers me off track of my life.   I begin  to make decisions based on this obsession.  I slowly begin to cut out things that will interfere with my thoughts, the time away from my thoughts  as well as opposing opinions to my thoughts.  I begin to slowly move away from my goals redirecting myself towards the object of my obsession.  I start to lose the sense of myself and assume a sense of them.  Its a horribly scary process that  I have endured one too many times in my life.

Why did I open the door in the first place if I new this was a pattern??  Complacency told me that I could just play and not let it go beyond that.  Complacency told me that I could just be friends... something I desperately want to learn to be with the opposite sex.  Lady Vixen told me it would all work out well, she painted a beautiful fantasy that was just to enticing to ignore.

I caught myself before I lost complete dignity and entirely stepped out of my integrity.

I made a decision last night to turn it back over to my higher self and to cut off my lower selves obsession.  I have to take that first step and then my Higher Power will take the next one for me.  So I stepped up and asked the object of obsession to step away from me. I did it quickly before I changed  my mind.   Luckily I picked a better obsession today and it was an easy graceful situation with no confrontation.  For that I am entirely grateful.

Working the first three steps shed some brilliant light on my patterns which I was already aware of but thought I had already overcome.... turns out I have not.  I redefined my higher power and  recommitted myself to standing in my truth and integrity again.  I do not have enough time or energy right now for anything remotely romantic, sexual or even friendly with a male.  My focus needs to be upon my career and raising my beautiful daughter.  That is all I have energy for in my life after recovery.

My reservation is that I will dry up and become an old bitter lady.  I was shown in meditation last night that I will find love again one day.  After my career and my daughter are fully stable and have a strong foundation.... that takes time and work.  So for the first time in .... ever, I truly feel the obsession to be with a guy lifting and my heart coming alive again to all the possibilities my life has in store for me.  I tend to forget hooking up with a guy is the definition of insanity for me..... been there done that..... but living single and exploring new things on my own.... now thats trying something so different!!