You are the Tree of Life!

**Repost**

Living is a cycle. 

 A continuous cycle of learning and growth.  

Branching out into new area's.

In our world where staying the same is highly respected and truly favoured  I am not surprised how hard it is to embark on a journey of changing ones  inner self.  It is the reason why I am so grateful for my crash into the rooms of an anonymous fellowship.  In these rooms its a mentality of change or die.  The rooms create a space outside of the rat race of life where you are safe to build your inner light.

Although.......even with the change the rooms offer I see the same fear of growing as I do outside the rooms.  Keeping our minds open after the initial 'holy shit what did I do to my life' wears off is challenging.   An open mind takes courage, self honesty and the willingness to try things you might fail at.

I love the analogy that we are like tree's.  I use this visualization often in my meditative practices.  Seeing myself as a very large tree that has roots digging deep into the earth grounding me and holding me solid and un-sway-able.   I even feel my roots drinking up the nutrients mother earth has and I feel the love of Gia that takes care of me and gives me a home and food.  This connection is one that I create every morning.  I ground in that connection of Love to fill me up and give me courage to try something new that day to keep that mind wide open.

In the JFT reading today it took my visualization even further and reminded me of the changing seasons and the growing leaves.  As that wondrous tree given life by a power greater then myself, I also have leaves that are ever evolving.  They bud, grow, change colour and fall off.  This is a process the tree faces every single year.  Some years the leaves are more brilliant in colour and quantity and the years of drought they are a bit more spindly.  But they are there none-the less.    

So it is with us and change.  I have found with myself and watched with others as the new begins to fade in our lives so to does our passion and love for living.  When that love for living fades we resort to drama making and bad behaviours.   Manipulation and control begin to come front and centre in new a creative ways to keep that excitement and passion alive for us.  How I recognize this is happening for me, is when I am no longer focused on me and my own growth and I am now focussed  on others and their growth.  

To keep my life full of passion I need to be constantly learning something new and trying new challenges.  I posted about it in the past a few times about trying something new every week.  I can also see now how my higher power takes me through the process of keeping my mind open to new and exciting lessons.

I am now working the traditions like I did the steps and relating those traditions directly to my family life and how to create a solid family unit.  This is teaching me so many new ways of dealing with parenting and how I conduct myself with integrity within my family and friendships.  Of course it also helps with with the meetings I am in service to.   I am also working through the process of applying for new jobs which stretches me past my comfort zone, yet forces my mind to comprehend new data.

The whole concept behind trying new things is to continually keep that mind open.  It takes work to keep it open and it takes courage and vulnerability to step out of that what we know into area's we may be challenged with.  At first its very difficult to pursue something new and foreign but over time the mind gets used to it.  Then the process of finding something new all over again begins.  As does the seasons of the leaves.

It's not enough to come in to the rooms and just get clean if we want to recover.  The continued movement of growth is where the continued awakenings will occur.  Life will hold passion and meaning each and everyday as we continue to hold our minds wide open.

Recovery is not easy.  Living life and growing is not easy.  However after we master a new challenge the strength  courage and gratification we experience is well worth the persistence and discomfort of stretching the mind.