This Pile of Sh!t Stinks!

Depression.  Detoxing. Bi-polar pendulum swing.

As I stay home from work the second day in a row I question why.  Yes I feel ill.  However it is a come and go ill, of wanting to vomit but not, of wanting to sleep but not, of feeling sore and tired but not.  Almost like a faint illusion, I feel these things and when I focus on them they go away.  It's kinda weird actually.

I am doing a metal detox cleanse as well as a spiritual meditation body cleanse.  When I take the pills I tend to get nauseous.  Today while doing a body meridian clearing through guided meditation I found myself dry heaving over the toilet.  So yes this cleanse is definitely bringing up some unhealthy stuff physically in my body.

Which I already know the cause of really, and have been complaining about it for weeks.  Yet have done nothing about it.  I cannot eat like crap anymore.  I just can't.  Let me explain what crap is so people get a better understanding of what I am talking about here.

Healthy eating for me clears my mind and helps me function from a happy place.  Eating six times a day, every three to four hours is healthy.  Lately I have been having my morning smoothie then not eating again till suppertime because I have filled up on coffee.  Healthy eating has no coffee in the day, as coffee makes me tired and not hungry.  For every cup of coffee one has you should have two glasses of water.  When I drink coffee I stop drinking water all together.  That from a place of only drinking water in my day, I drink no other beverages, all your body needs is water...and its cheaper.  Our bodies are made up of like ninety percent water, drinking it helps flush the toxins out, coffee holds them in.

Not to mention when I eat six times a day, I am focused on fruits and veggies which are made up mostly of water as well.  When I eat unhealthy I eat my entire six portions in one sitting and I choose 'white' foods, which consist of no water.  So my entire day has been about feeding myself energy that sucks the life out  of me not the normal life giving energy my poor body is used too.

So knowing this, why is it that I am still planning to make a pot of coffee as soon as I am done this paragraph now that the nausea from my meditation has subsided?  Why am I refusing to make the changes necessary to feel better?  Why does an addict continue to use knowing full well that she hates it and knows the end results will be disastrous?  An addiction.

Read the book Wheat belly.  I haven't even got fully through it because it was simple for me to see by the first page how it was going to play out.  The chemicals in your food are very similar if not exactly the same as the chemicals in your dope.  It's the chemicals that our bodies become dependent upon.  It's why the weed smoker suffers the same fate as the crack addict.... everything is grown and produced with chemicals.  It's these chemicals that hook us.  Every smoker knows and entirely accepts this.  Don't get me wrong, crack fucks with your brain on an absurd level and for many addicts it's this brain functioning they seek.... not all addicts are created equal.. contrary to popular belief.

I am once again hooked on the chemicals in food.  Where does it end then?  I look back to my entire life and I can see the switching of chemicals.  What is it that the chemicals do to my body that make me want to continuously crave them?  That's really what this post is about.... filling that stupid proverbial void that every religion sings about and every twelve step fellowship tries to uncover.

I am not worthy.

I eat crap knowing full well it will make me feel like crap because that's what I deserve.  I am not seeking out sympathy or to feel sorry for myself here.  It truly is a deep seated belief that I am not worthy of any good in my life, so when the good happens I self sabotage.  Or when good gets stripped away from me it reinforces that I am not worthy and I fall back into self harm.  Normally the good that I perceive as being stripped away is actually not so good and its being removed because it does not fit with the good that is actually in me.  hmm.. that was a mouthful, hope you got it.

I can see now my evening of fun with my coworkers triggered a not worthy response in me and I have been suffering in that for three days now.  Many factors in the work situation have lead up to this feeling of unworthiness and I am just putting the puzzle pieces together now.  I get feeling nauseous when I see all the individual pieces.  It was the same in early recovery for me too.  I relapsed each time I really started to feel like maybe I would get it that time.  I see now how much I didn't feel like I deserved recovery.  Just like I feel like I don't deserve a job or career that nourishes me.

I have so many skeletons in my closet that haunt each success I achieve.  So many ghosts whispering in my ear.  Reminding me of the major fuck up here or the horrible thing I did there.  I see visions from my past that support my unworthiness.   On good days I can keep these naggings at bay.... what are those good days?   Days that I am already in that place of less then... because when I am there it's called humility.   Hmmm as I added that last word, it doesn't resonate properly, but I am gonna leave it because I lack another word there.

You see Saturday night was good, way good.  I felt worthy and wonderful, I felt like I was in my power.  Today I feel like I wanna crawl in a hole and die.  Bi-polar?  Maybe, but I am more leaning towards my low self worth and inability to allow my true light to step forward.

So I kill my light with chemicals.  No longer using dope and my main source of chemical I have found another one.   You see I am learning that I am not in the twelve step fellowship just to get off the dope, I am there because of my low self worth.  Peeling back the layers through the steps is why I am there.

I am not sick today, I am depressed.  I am falling back into a pattern that I have lived with my entire life.  A pattern hidden when I was married because my ex carried me and our family when these times hit.  He took extra jobs when I couldn't work, he fed the kids when I couldn't get out of bed, he covered for me with our family and friends when all i wanted to do was die.   I no longer have that support.  I believe it's one of the reasons one should not get into a relationship in recovery.  You have a partner in your own self inflicted crime.  A partner to hide behind and blame.... even if you are completely unaware of it.  For whatever your inflicted low self worth outlet is.  Mine has always been depression.

Depression is anger turned inwards.  The skeletons in my closet make me angry and instead of dealing with them I kill any feelings I have about them with chemicals.  I am still, on a new level, refusing to deal with my shit.  Not a new higher level, maybe that was bad choice of phrase.  I think a new layer of ghosts have emerged to be faced.  These skeletons go a little deeper then the ones I have faced and conquered over the past two years of recovery... actually three years of recovery.  (Time has a way of standing still as I age).

Progress not perfection is something I used to stress to my weight loss clients and that's some advice I see shining behind the skeleton threatening me today.  The ability to balance the good with those scary memories is a new tool I have for dealing with my shit.  However dealing with my shit is the focus.  Slipping into depression is not dealing with my shit, it's hiding.  Three days of nursing my low self worth is enough, all is not lost or even dented yet.  I watched a Youtube Movie called Kymatica on my TV yesterday thanks to my super cool daughter hooking me up with the 21st century.  Its not a movie for the faint of heart or one with a deep connection with our society, but it does talk much about dealing with our inner demons before they manifest themselves in the world we live in.

This is me dealing with my shadow side.  Not all is rosy and bright in my inner world.  Not all is dark and scary either.  I speak lots about people being all about the positive, which is definitely good to strive for, but to ignore your shadow self is to run into some serious trouble down the line.  I fully understood this when I sat in the pits of hades a few years back and wondered how the fuck I got there through practicing my white light meditations faithfully.  Don't ignore your darkness, that's what keeps taking you back out.  You can only keep it at bay for so long before it will want some attention.

 Deal with it on your terms......  Today I won't let depression be the terms, it's but a warning.  I will heed the warning and walk through my fear.  Time to focus on self care today.  Get my house ready for my baby girl coming home and get better so I can kick ass at work tomorrow!  Thanks for reading my rant.  I Love You.

An Intimate Freedom Dance

Over 2100 views and 3 posts away from hitting a 100!  I cannot tell you enough how much I love to write and how comfortable I am getting with people reading what I write.  In the winter I have plans of moving my blog to my own site and investing some time and money into marketing my writing a bit more.

Thats me getting vulnerable and sharing an inner desire.  Thats me seeking accountability for the development of that desire.  I have such a hard time letting people in on my plans because I am such an easily swayed person.  When someone has any comment about my dreams I shut them off pretty quick, positive and negative alike.  Why?  Because negative comments I believe and positive ones set me up for failure.  So I just don't bother sharing my dreams with anyone.  And at almost 40 it's probably the reason why none of them have ever manifested.

Again that is not what I want to discuss here however.  Why is it that I start my writings that way?  Nasty habit thats needs tweaking I guess.  What I truly want to discuss is having fun in recovery.  Whats healthy fun and whats treading the line.

Last night was our company end of summer staff party.  The original plan was to go paint balling.  I was not all that excited about that plan as I heard those little pellets hurt like fuck.  I guess I was not the only one not into the idea because everyone bailed the day of.  Struggling to find a new plan my boss decided drinks at a pool hall.

I was pretty nervous about this plan, I am not gonna lie.  I have not been in a bar in forever and just the thought of crossing the threshold scared the pants off me.  I never really stressed about the booze I would be around because for me it is more the party atmosphere that triggers me.

I played the pro's/pro's list in my mind and came to the conclusion that I need too connect with my co-workers on a more personal level.  This was my whole post yesterday about moving past the phase of friendships where things got more intimate.  This party was my opportunity to put action to my words.  Totally uncomfortable all around.

I really did wish that we were doing something other then the bar.  I understand the treading a fine line where testing my limits is concerned.  I have been testing lots lately and it has really scared me.  I have passed the tests, however in the reality I create I know I am still skirting that trouble avenue that I so longed for a couple weeks ago.  So I had made a decision to go for an hour or so and gracefully bail before the rowdy takes over my co-workers.

I got home at three am with a huge smile on my face, clean and sober.

The night progressed nicely with me drinking Virgin Cesar's and playing pool.  Letting my personality bust my co-workers at the seems.  Comments like 'and she doesn't even have any alcohol in her'  roared from their lips numerous times.  I was just letting my hair down and having fun.  I was amazing myself at how much fun I could have with no booze in me what so ever.  Not one time through out that evening did my co-workers push drinking on me, no one time did I feel the desire to even have a drink.  Truly no joke.

Then later in the evening as I had completely forgot my own bail after an hour game plan,  I was having so much fun and feeling very comfortable with the venue, and group I was with.... Just a side note the waitress was very good to me and my Virgin drinks.  I really felt respected by everyone with my drink choices, it was not what I was expecting at all.  But anyways back to the Story...

Soon of course everyone wanted to go dancing.  This is where panic hit for me.  Shooting the shit in a tame pool hall was one thing, swinging my hips with the sharks was a whole different arena for me.  Of course being the non drinker I was elected unanimously as DD.  Not that I minded, my boss drives a fully loaded Ram that I am in love with.  So again I planned my escape route should it get to be too much.  I let everyone know of my plan so that they didn't worry about me and I stressed how uncomfortable I was about going, but also how much I dearly miss dancing.  The girls agreed not to let me out of their sight and off we skipped to the nearest dance bar.

Walking in brought me back to good times and bad times equally.  I shared my nervousness with being at the bar to the bouncers and anyone who would listen.  I didn't announce I was an addict, I faked it was because I was too damn old to be there. With entry granted we made our way to the dance floor.  I found my spot in the corner and never left that spot for the rest of the night.

And I danced!!!!!!  And danced!!!  Omg did I dance.  I danced for all the years I have been unable to.  I danced for all the work I have put into my recovery.  I danced for all the times I danced for the wrong reasons.  I danced for all the pain I have been in.  I danced in glory of the joy in my life.  I danced for my new life.  I danced with everything I had!!  And I did it with a bottle of water in my hand and a clear head.

As my boss spun me on the dance floor and the young twenty year old female co-workers grinded up on me.  I could feel the connection, I could feel the walls coming down around all of us as we let each other into our personal spaces.  I realized in that moment what a tribal act it is to just let go and move your body to the physical beat of your heart.  With no mind altering drug in me to let loose I could see the beauty in the release.  I was truly happy and having fun.

Now please know that I will not be heading out to a bar to dance anytime soon.  The aftermath of that adventure was a bit more intense for me.  As I drove my drunk ass boss home.  He commented about how he was shocked that I was still single.... I told him it's cause I go for the broken boys.  But as I said it I realized thats not entirely true.

 I am a broken girl.  That is the truth of why I am single.

So as I walked home alone from his house, which is only a few blocks, I thought of my bad boy number three and desperately longed to walk to his house instead of my own, which is also close to me.  I knew that he would not be there and even if he was would not want to see me, but I still longed to go anyways.

After all that dancing and adrenaline my body craved its old ways of releasing and the power of the craving was intense.  That is the aftermath I don't want to experience on a regular basis.  The compliments I received from a few guys in the bar bounced around in my head like a ping pong game.  When I got home, not without a deep struggle with myself to make the left hand turn onto my street and not the right one on to his, I crawled into bed with my adult daughter.  I woke her to share my wonderful night and forced her to smell my breath and look at my pupils.  I really needed someone to know that I was not loaded.  That I had this fun without any drugs.  I felt so good about myself.  Then a text came in from my boss stating how proud he was of me for leading the crew in fun and showing the young coworkers that real fun could be had without drugs or booze.... personally I think he meant himself but I will leave that one alone.

I received verification that what I set out to do at the beginning of the night was achieved.  Letting people in.  Letting people get to know the real me.  Connecting on a deeper more intimate level with those people in my life that play a large part of in my daily interactions.  I feel like I achieved something massive in my little reality last night and again I can barely contain the tears.

I know it was a thin line and I could have fallen off many times, it just takes one tiny slip.  That understanding has me solid on the understanding I will not do that again for a very long time.  The self control to not contact that bad boy was too much for me.  I contacted another addict who walked me through it instead and for her I am so grateful.  I will keep this night in a very special place in my heart and cherish it the way someone who has just found a valuable gem would.  Priceless.

Getting High on Feelings?

The thread of my posts for the next bit are surely to continue on with the element they have been seemingly assuming.....  feelings.

Such an intriguing concept to me now that I am opening to them.  A very large playground for my analytical mind to dive into and pick apart.  The reason why I am stating this now is to warn those people that don't wish to walk this journey with me.  For some people feelings are still a foreign understanding and for others a repulsive action.

I have observed recently how much our society feeds the feel good feelings and teaches us how to go out of our way to avoid the not so good feelings.  I am beginning to see how we are rewarded for our positivity and shunned for our balanced counterparts.   Staying overly busy is the norm in this western world we live in,  being busy leaves no time to feel our wide range of feelings.  Thus only affording us time for the feelings we choose to cultivate.

That sounds wonderful... choosing our feelings.  Except we can't always choose them, sometimes they choose us to communicate something to us.  Our feelings I think... still working on the understanding part... are not like our thoughts.  Our feelings are deeper.

I was reminded of our societies idiosyncrasies when a beautiful Spanish man shared at a meeting last week.  His accent captured my full attention but his expression of feelings reminded me of a dear Love of mine.  I call him Merlin.  He was the first man I dated after I left my ex.  He was Lebanese raised in Mexico and world traveled, he was in tune to his feelings also.  I sometimes long to live in a country that honors and nurtures our true full natures and not just the sunny shine self help in full control of your entire thought/feeling process one hundred percent of the time country for which I was sentenced this lifetime.

Alright I am done my rant...

I have come to understand that I am extremely uncomfortable sitting in my not so blissful feelings.  I have come to learn this by identifying my patterns in my life.  This is what Step four gifts us, a chance to see the patterns playing out in all areas of our lives.  Each time I have worked step four I am shown a different pattern that needs to be removed or changed.  It is the same concept as the new agers see as belief re patterning.  Our beliefs create our realities, step four shows us very detailed ways our beliefs keep us sick.

How have I been keeping myself sick?  By never allowing myself to feel anything negative.  Now for myself I must define what is negative and what is positive.  Because its not good or bad terms I am dealing with here.  I don't believe anything is bad in our realities, everything is balance.  To have a good feeling is to also at some point experience an opposite feeling.  This is also not referring to a bi-polar pendulum swing of good one day not so much the next.  In my youngest years to feel a feeling of anger or sadness or anything on the down side was not good.  I can hear the words ring in my head..'stop crying or I will give you something to cry about'.   So I have stopped crying about my life.

However that's not entirely true either I am beginning to see.  In order to give myself permission to feel my feelings I must be engaged in some kind of situation that is acceptable to my mind to express negative feelings.  Oh I see a deeper understanding developing here then the one I originally intended to write about.  How exciting,  this is why I blog folks!!  You see what I wanted to write about was the ways I get out of my negative feelings, but I am seeing that these same ways to get out of them are actually ways of getting into them.

Let me explain.

I live in a feel good mentality.  I am always starting something new to create passion and excitement in my world.  New job every six months to a year.  Once a job gets settled I feign boredom and begin seeking out New adventures.  My resume is fifteen pages, front and back!!  I am always starting up new friendships but when things get to touchy feely for me I back off for a couple years and reconnect when things will be fresh and new again.  I have long term friends but not incredibly deep friendships... just super patient friends.  lol

 And of course the way I love to get out of my feelings the most is through romance.  The excitement of finding a new guy to explore is over the top good feelings for me.  I love jumping from guy to guy giving each one six months to a year depending on how entertained they keep me.  Some last mere moments, others allow me to keep doing the break up and get back together exciting thing, which I love even more.  Lastly is the party time feel good.  Although I am not sure if its my age or the fact I have ruined every drug under then sun for myself, but there is never anymore feel good in that, I always fall into the new budding awareness of using to actually afford me an out for my feelings.

And this is the new dawning for me.  Each of these ways, maybe not work so much, but definitely using and romance and not so much friendships either.....  brings me to a flip side of the excitement which is pain.  I am beginning to see that I need these romances to turn ugly so that I can feel the pain that is bubbling under my surface needing an outlet.  I can see how I use in order to be able to find my whale song.   I can only express my pain in what I identify as a healthy outlet through broken romances and getting loaded.

 As I write this I am thinking.... Duh, your just realizing this now.... it does seem kinda logical and maybe normal people can identify this without having to do a Step four fifteen times.  I am far from normal.

So now that I have identified the issue how do I solve it.  I get not getting into another romantic relationship.  Its just hiding my feelings by focusing on the other person and the feel good stuff.  That has been a harsh reality for me and I am getting that lesson loud and clear.  However I am feeling a down feeling at work these days.  The excitement of working this job is wearing off and I am getting antsy.  Although now I see it a bit clearer and I am not truly getting bored, I am just beginning to open up to my boss and co-workers and letting people get to know me. All of me, the great makes no mistake employee and the one that fucks up coworker.... Yuck.  I am starting to have to walk through some feelings other then the feel good excited ones that a new job brings.   I am also feeling this same thing in a couple friendships of mine.  Moving past the bolting part, sitting in the never been here what are these feelings about??

I see that I am also feeling that in my fellowship of recovery as well.  Having thoughts of moving on and starting something new because I have learned all I need to and it's time to stir up my emotional excitement.  When in reality it's truly time for me to push through these not so 'high' feelings and get on to the more grounded and balanced feelings.  In step ten its asks if we have felt any extreme happiness or pain today and I am beginning to understand why they ask that.  I am always on the high cloud of recovery, new job, new romance, new friendship.... new something.  I really never get past that high into the more mundane feelings in a healthy fashion without over eating, getting loaded or sexing my way through it.

I think the key to solving this is to know when to push through the feelings that are uncomfortable for me and when I am truly being prompted by my higher power to seek out a new adventure.  I know I am not in for a life of humdrum, I just need to find a bit more of a calmer balance and not strive for those extreme feelings any more.  Those are the feelings that swing the pendulum to balance themselves out.  Maybe its time to learn to live in the grey and find contentment with happy and sad, instead of excitement and pain.  I think to get to this place I need to roll through my feelings as they come up instead of self forcing them by getting into romances that are not for me, or quitting jobs that are for me.  Maybe this is part of the trust in the universe that I need to step into.

When I force a situation in order to feel, maybe I am doing so because that way I can identify my feeling and have some form of control over it.  I know right now when something comes up out of the blue with no seeming cause I get pretty messed up about it.  I can't analyze it or try to figure it out and that scares me and causes me to want to shut it down instantly.  Aka... eat a pound cake or smoke a joint.  See I got suppression here that I control and then when that suppression gets out of control I jump into a romance to release it!!!  Ah fucking dirty patterns!!

Okay I need to stop writing.  I don't want to learn anything more about myself today.  Back to blissful ignorance.... I'm out.

You Live in a YES Universe!!

Signs, Signs.... everywhere are signs.

We live in a Yes universe.  Our thoughts and feelings create our outer reality.  

Man my wrists hurt so bad from sodding yesterday that I can barely type.  Add in a new keyboard my daughter brought with her and I am having some serious difficulties writing this post.  I have a lot to say and don't work till later this afternoon so I gots to write when I can... like bee's making honey when it's sunny.  Just saying.....

I have been privy to this ancient knowledge of creating my own reality for many years now.  When I first began to experience my own outer creations from the focus of my thoughts I was amazed and awestruck.  I moved my station in life from poverty stricken to middle class.  Moved my body from over weight and sick to healthy and thriving.  However my mind and emotions got left out of the new reality I was creating and soon my world crashed.  I can only understand this now as I begin to rebuild my world again for a second chance.

The beauty of aging is experience.  With experience comes wisdom.  One thing I do not fear in this world is experience, some might say I choose to experience too much and could take a much easier softer route to wisdom.  lol  I say.... what fun is there in that??

This mornings mediation with Oprah and Deepak was about releasing feelings that hold us in the past or from moving forward in life.  It struck a deep cord with me as now I see why I have been spinning my wheels for so long.  Residual traumatic feelings have kept me bound to a past that I have so forcefully evicted from my inner sanctuary.  I truly refuse to acknowledge or deal with any feelings remotely attached to my past.  I had no idea that these feelings having no voice are making themselves heard in each and everyone of my current male relationships.  Romantic, Family and platonic.

We create our own reality.  Our thoughts are powerful in themselves, but when you add deep feelings to the mix they become the reality you live.  Thats the Secret behind the 'Secret'.  When I learned that a few years ago I desperately tried to shut off my mind and feelings at the same time because the reality I was living was so so dark in nature.  I knew that I had created that and that paralyzed me.

I just about slipped back into that dark reality recently.  Praying for trouble, desperately wanting to follow my feelings backwards.  Feelings of residual trauma manifesting in current relationships.  So badly needing to release them I really believed chasing them was the solution.  I am learning that is not the solution, it's more of the problem.  That is keeping me in my feelings and slipping backwards.

The problem for me is always the signs I get from my little world.  Little things that only I would understand.  A string of incidents that trigger my mind into thinking that I am on the right path.  I love my life signs they make my life fun and interesting.  I have learned something new about my signs.

We live in a yes universe.  My signs always support what my thoughts and feelings are creating.  When I am affirming I want to get into trouble because that's the most direct point of releasing my feelings my universe sends the signs posts for me to follow towards that trouble.   What I once believed was God telling me it was okay to go that way, I now recognize as my own mind creation.

We are always in control of where we are going.  I still struggle with my will and Gods will and thats a larger discussion for another post so I will leave it alone right now.  My mind is always directing my path, the sign posts are the quickest way to hit my goals.

Where in the past I have mastered how to reach my financial goals and my body goals, I must now learn to master my emotional goals.  It's my emotions that get me into trouble, its my unexpressed feelings that keep me spinning circles.  It's my over active feelings that command the direction of my life.  I see now thats why I change directions so often and quickly.  My mind truly is a slave to my feelings.  And here I thought I was the intellectual type and always lived in my head.  I just choose to be there instead of my feelings because those little bastards scare the fuck outta me.

At this point the signs are equally positive and negative. I am at a turning point a fork in the road if you will.   I see all the places I can still get into the trouble and chase those stupid feelings.  However current affirmations and a recent scare have turned around my heart and I am now beginning to see new exciting sign posts before me that will lead me back into the light and the life I truly love.  Learning to manage my feelings is the path of light, and drowning in them is the path of the darkness.  Damn I just about sank to the bottom of my ocean!

The power of our minds still scares the crap out of me, the power of our feelings is so foreign to me but life is completely and utterly exciting, I am moving further and further away from ever wanting to extinguish that myself.  I am truly beginning to choose life.

Feelings are like Pea's

Feelings.

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


What a stupid concept.   Feelings.

I am an analytical Virgo who is much more comfortable with intellectual concepts and pursuits.  The affairs of the heart are for the emotional people of this planet and I stay far away from that shit.

Of course that is until that 'shit' comes sneaking up behind me and threatens to drown me in my own ocean of unacknowledged emotions.  Such an annoying thing to have a heart, life would be much better for me if I could just cut that thing out.  I would function just fine on logic and reason, thank you very much.  Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory does just fine.

Ya, tell yourself.   I can hear my tittat bad boy number 2 say.  Which I have now discovered there have actually been three bad boys in my recovery so I am shifting all the numbers.  Just a side note.  Much rather talk about the side notes then the stupid feelings that are raging inside me.

I can't stuff them with food anymore.(said with a grating 13 year olds whine)  Which in my denial I was doing.  I should know my pattern by now.  When I start over eating the way I have been lately, there is always a feeling lingering that I am ignoring.  I really truly believed I was just struggling to get over a hurt inflicted recently upon me.  However it never made sense because the action was not matching the sheer volume of pain surfacing on my heart.  So I stuffed it down with food because my Virgo mind could not spin logic on it.  There is no logic to stupid feelings.  (i just gotta keep saying it... ignore if it you already figured this shit out)

Knowing that I cannot over eat like that anymore brought me to a cagey animal in heat mentality.  Trolling for something more physical to cure my ill heart was coming more and more to the forefront of my over active mind.  The more I tried to take that route the more my guts inside turned.  I can not even step foot in that arena anymore, no matter how hard I try and force it.  It's just not in my nature to act out that way as I grow and change.  Super frustrating when it was such an instant release for me, for many years.

Learning new ways of letting my feelings out is where this lesson is going.

The other night I found myself sitting on my eldest daughters bed with her stash in my hands.   Reality rocked my world loud and clear.  I sat vibrating, heart pounding, mind racing, hands sweating, mouth watering, and soon sobbing uncontrollably.   I dropped the numbing out medicine and booked it to a meeting where I shared about my shock over being 'here' again.

......Ahh... tittat badboy #2 would understand the 'here' cry escaping my lips.  How I miss him some days... hmmm....  digression, avoidance, distraction.

With every relapse I have I always wonder how the fuck  I got back to 'here'.   I realize now, how.  I don't deal with my feelings when they come up.  I am unable to just let a feeling wash over me without knowing exactly what,when, why and how of every little facet of that emotion.  I need logic to reason it out.  I am learning that logic and emotions are in completely different rooms, not even in the same wing of my huge inner mansion.  Connected by a maze of hallways.

Rest assured.  I am clean today.  I didn't end up 'here' again.  I recognized the fall before it hit.... mere moments mind you, but I stayed on solid ground nonetheless.  I am working a solid program today and I really don't want to get loaded.  I love my life.   I just truly struggle with my feelings.  This experience has made it very clear just how deep the pain of my past goes and how much needs to be cleared in  order for me to move forward on my journey.

You see I never allow myself to feel the pain of my childhood.  I rationalized and moved on.  I have skipped all the work and have just jumped into forgiveness.  I can't do that, it doesn't work that way.  I have to allow myself to feel.  I cannot always be in my head about these things.  I was so afraid of becoming a victim that I thought a survivor just forgave and moved on.  Really i was brushing everything under the carpet under the disguise of forgiveness.  I really don't harbor any ill will towards the people of my past, but I have to get real about my own personal hurts.

This past incident with bright blues Bad boy number three triggered a way deeper issue of betrayal and abandonment from my past and my childhood.  The waves of emotion were to intense and after a couple of days I had to shut 'er down.  That is where I started to slide down the relapse slope.  Thats where I need to learn a new way to handle the fear of being overwhelmed by my feelings.  I have to figure out an off switch for them so that I feel a little more in control when they get to intense.  I understand I have to roll through the waves but its terrifying to me.

Feelings are a disconnected aspect of my personality.  I have never allowed myself to express them let alone feel them.  It just wasn't safe as a kid to do so.  Now as an adult I must learn how to effectively handle these feelings that are erupting within me and threatening to drown me if I don't acknowledge them.  That's scary shit to me.  I am much more comfortable sleeping with the devil.  How fucked is that?

Feelings?   What a stupid issue.   It's like my youngest daughter said to a psychiatrist once when asked what she thought about feelings  ...' feelings are like pea's, you know they are good for you, but you just don't like them'.  

And with that witty wise comment from the mouth of my babe I bid you ado.  I hope this week finds you walking through your own feelings and sending me waves of strength to walk through mine.

Planting my Self Worth Like buried Spider Babies in your Ear

I sure do love the rain days off when they are far between and much needed.  It's one of those days.

Some realizations have been dawning on me lately and they haven't been pleasant ones.  True to my Virgo nature of analyzing everything I have uncovered a uncomfortable truth about myself.  I am not sure what to do with it or how to move forward because of it.

I am now aware of the belief that I need a man to lift me up.  I need a male energy to motivate me forward in life.  I need the constant reassurance from a male.  As I write that I realize its actually not just from a man I need these things, although from a man it holds ten times more weight,  from anyone close to me.  I need positive re enforcement in all I do.

I am sure on some level we all do.  The awareness is settling in my Psyche that for me without this outside encouragement I lack motivation to take care of myself.  With my daughters gone, I couldn't be bothered with cooking or cleaning.  When I don't have a romantic interest I barely shave my legs.  If I am not being rewarded at work I quit.   Constant assurance is something that I need to function.

As this dawning is occurring I find myself backsliding like crazy.  It has shown me how dependant I really am on others.  I am always spouting how independent I am, and physically, financially and maybe even mentally I am but definitely not emotionally.   My worth is completely tied into other people.

The brutal fact is that when someone rejects me it rips me straight to the core of my being.  My core being that of other people because that's where I place my energy center.  When a person walks away from me they take a piece of me with them and I am found chasing them to get it back. Reminds me of the horcruxes of Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies, pieces I place in others to keep myself alive.  I am only alive when another being is deeply into me.

Thats the backsliding I am feeling these days.  A rushing back to collect the pieces of me I have gave away so unwittingly to people who had no idea they were taking me with them.   How else am I to collect my lost self worth, but to win these people back into my life?  If they destroy themselves they are killing that part of me to and it is always the self destructive people that I lay my spider babies with.

Even as I write that I can see the absurdity of the cycles I have been caught in.  Constantly chasing my own self worth, running after people to gain it back.  To get my self worth back is to earn it for myself.  To move forward and collect  it on my spiritual path.  To pick the beautiful flowers as the universe rewards me for my own inner beauty.  Rushing backwards is an option but a tougher, longer path to collect it back and usually involves a bit more humiliation then walking forward into the unknown.  I say this with all the wisdom in the world because it's what I have done enough times now to know the outcome of chasing a backslide.

I just don't know how to walk forward knowing that up until now all my worth has come from others.  I look at my friends differently now.  I look at my family differently.  As my boss is picking up a large gift certificate for me from a bike shop for a new ride, I question the motives behind the actions.  How do I stop deriving my worth from what others think of me?

I have received some negative complaints at work lately,  I have been rejected on a soul level recently and have lost some people in my life... how do I learn to not take that personally?  All of it is attached to my self worth.  When the negative comes in I have to strive double hard for some other form of positive reinforcement.  How draining I see this has been.  I put so much energy into this avenue of self worth.

I have been told before that I do this and struggle with it, but I couldn't see it clearly until now.  Its one of those layered lessons.  I feel yuck all over the place because of this understanding.  How much power I have given away to others?  I give my power over constantly... and I have a lot of power to give.  No wonder I attract the broken boys (as my bff corrected me today, I don't like the 'badboys' I like the broken ones).  I give them my power to heal themselves instead of healing myself.  Plus I think I like them because what would a healthy guy want with me.... truly.  But I digress.

How do I walk forward finding a new place to derive my self worth?  How do I tap that from within instead of seeking it outside of myself?  Is it such a bad thing to feel good when I am rewarded for hard work?  where do I find the balance?  Ah... back to the balance again.

Well that's my food for thought today. 

Odd Feelings, Moon's Blooming, First Steps :)

Such an odd feeling but its like my heart is opening like a moon flower.  Blooming only once a year in the dark of the night.  Yet it goes even deeper then that, for me the first time in my life and out of the darkness it blooms into the light.

Such an odd feeling to have so many tears watering my heart flower, shedding tears..... letting go tears.

The process of letting go is what I want to focus on today and for the last time... hopefully. I feel like it is a topic I  have been beating a dead horse with.  I am always trying to let go of something.  Dope.  Food.  The sexy bad boy that chews at my heart.  Always struggling with giving up something that used to make me happy, yet quickly back spins and turn toxic.  That has been the story of my entire adult years, I am so tired of that story.

When the pain of remaining the same becomes greater then the pain of change.... the seed will break out of its shell and shoot through the soil into the light.  I am ready to shoot.

When I was at Aventa, A woman's treatment center, we were  asked to write a letter to our addicts.  I love to write and welcomed the assignment.  I wrote with vigor to my beloved Lady Vixen.  I let the images of her flow to my mind and I let my higher self speak to her directly.  I wrote about her beginnings, her journey and her ending. I could see the process so clearly nestled safely in an all women's facility for six weeks.  The work to walk the process began when I left that safe haven.

That process is finally coming to a close now, two years later.  Time, Time, Time.  Patience is not for the weak of heart because everything happens in its own time not ours.  Walking through is the only thing we have control over.  I lost control of that several times over the past couple of years. Each  time I gave in to my addict I held on.

I held on with each drug relapse.  I held on with each food binge.  I held on with each new bad boy conquest.   My arms are sore from holding on so damn tight.   I can't hold on anymore.  I am too tired. I have no more strength.  Such an odd concept to say it takes strength to let go, yet I am to tired to do anything but let go. One of those paradox's.

What I have recently begun to fully understand is that to let go is not to let go of just the focus of my addicts attention, but to release the addict herself.  I have been so busy working like a bee on the minor details of drugs, food and boys that I always over look the mane problem.  A case of spending my energy on the symptoms and not the cause.  Which coming from a person who teaches others to look beyond the illness to the emotional cause, is odd. don't you think?

The problem is not the drug, the food or the boy.  The problem is my addict, it's Lady Vixen. When I was in treatment I wrote so passionately about my gratitude towards Vixen for keeping me safe during my childhood.  IT was my emerging addict that kept the feelings off fear, betrayal, hurt and anger from consuming me when I was that lost little girl.  It was Lady vixen who taught me how to respond emotionally to my situations that kept me not only safe but growing.  As I got  older it was Vixen who taught me how to numb out the pain that was always on the surface wanting an outlet.  It was my addict that brought joy to my life where only despair resided.  My addict kept me alive for the first half of my life.  In my letter to her I cried tears of deep thanks, without her I don't know how I would have gotten through it.

As my letter progressed I became aware of how toxic and controlling Lady Vixen had become in my life.  Where my own inner joy was beginning to flourish she would kill it.  Where my own growth was occurring she would jump in an stunt it.  I was  learning how much she needed to keep me in the place of childness.  She only survived as my scared child thrived.  Without that fearful little girl lady Vixen was nothing.  In my letter I confidently put my adult foot down and said 'No More'.  I showed all the places that Vixen was killing me as an adult.  Where once she kept me protected now she threatened to destroy me.  I bid farewell to  Lady Vixen in that Letter.  I sealed it with my tears and I never looked back.

That was two years ago.

Last night as I sat with tears over the pain that flows from me.  Pain from my childhood.  Pain for my lost youth.  Pain for my misused time as an adult.  Pain from all the hurt I played out through others because of my inability to walk through it on my own.  The smell of weed wafted so seductively through my open balcony window.  I inhaled deeply and knew that I could hold on if I wanted to.  I thought of a bad boy I could call to distract me from my pain.

Instead my best friend and Sponsor texted me in that creepy way that friends know when something is really up.  They kept me tethered as I had an out, a healthy out if I needed it.   I stayed on  my couch and let the waves of hurt wash over me...... and then I went to bed raw but clean.

I fell asleep knowing that Lady Vixen has finally left the building.

When I woke up I found a Moon flower in full bloom within my chest,  with a note attached to it.   'You don't need me anymore, your Strong enough now.  Love Lady V.'  My heart aches with each new breath of expansion.  My mind unsteady with each new step without my trusted other half.

Its finally a new day for me.   Metaphors aside, I am done acting out, I am done using to numb out.  I am done hurting people to avoid my own  pain.  I am just done with the old ways of my life.  I am walking through the grief phase of letting go and oddly enough the tears feel wonderful.  Such a strange thing these things called feelings.

Welcome to The City of Illusions

Erupting like hot lava from a volcano my emotions threaten to destroy the perfect little illusion I have built at the bottom of the mountain.

My little world of glass.  Totally see through, everything there like an open book.  Don't dig too much further because there is nothing there to see.  Everything I am is open for all to see.  Or so I would like to believe in my magic house of mirrors.  Satisfied with the reflection I choose to see through the distorted mirrors.

I am lost in my own city.  The mountain is over flowing and the Lava is pouring fourth into the suburbs and there is no where to run from it.  The mirrors trick me.  Running in directions unknown.  Slamming into clean glass stopping me in full run.  My city is melting all around me.  Everything is screaming inside the walls.  Trapped.

Never having been one that could express her emotions in a healthy way.  As a kid you don't want to hear the way I expressed them.  As I got older and understood how horrible that situation was it was through food that I hid my feelings.  As the food was stripped from my bones, it was dope.  My city is melting all around me.  My mirrors no longer reflecting what I choose to see.  The glass blocking my path now melts into the heat of the angry red liquid.

Standing on a rock I watch as everything I have known until now disappears.  I have known for a long time this day would come.  The day I would have to face the mountains inner turmoil.  No one chooses to build her city at the bottom of a volcanoe without having some wit her city could be destroyed at some time.  That time is here.

The mirrors of secrecy have melted.  The wall of despair has fallen.  The illusions of all is okay have shattered.  The borders of Fear have all but disappeared.  Halls of guilt and shame are somewhere deep below the fiery substance of change.  My little house of illusions no longer exists.

Sitting on my rock watching through my tears I feel a small stirring of..... relief?.  My home and all I have known is vanishing before my eyes.  All I have worked so hard to build to protect myself is slipping into the eruption of Powerful Mother Earth.  Smoke from the mirrors is all that is left.

Sitting in the smoke I cry.  Shedding years of held back pain, fear and disillusion.   Emptied out I fall asleep on my rock.  I have nothing left. 

As I sleep...... God opens up the sky's and sheds his own tears unto my destroyed city.  He cry's for my pain.  He cry's for my journey's past.  He cry's for my strength.  He cry's for my inner beauty.    He cry's for all I am to become.

When I open my eye's the smoke is gone and the sky is clear.  My eye's slowly adjust.   Budding young hopeful tree's that have replaced my mirrors of defeat.  Flowers of Love bloom where my walls of fear once resided.     Birds fly down my old halls of shame.     A rainbow touches down in the place secrecy used to hide.

I don't move off my rock.  I don't know how to feel.  I don't trust this new illusion.  Maybe I will stay here until the landscapes true reality comes forth.  I am done being hurt by pretty little illusions of the all powerful mind.  This could be only an illusion.  It is only an illusion.

I close my eye's and go back to sleep.  Knowing that when I wake up i will be back in the destruction of my life and the comfort of my sorrow.

AFGE!! Another F@$*ing Growth Expereince!!

"With the power of God that I AM, today I choose peace. 

With the power of God that I Am, today I choose love 

With the power of God that I AM, today I choose to be happy and to be be united with all life,

May all beings be happy.  May all beings be peace.   AMEN" 

 

Yesterday during my morning ritual of prayer and meditation I asked Spirit to help me learn the process of letting go.  I am tired of getting caught in the spinning cycle of holding on to my hurts and letting them fester, creating wounds beyond mending.  My prayers were answered.

One of the things I have learned through this program and through trying many other spiritual paths before coming to NA is that connection to spirit is not enough to gain complete inner healing.  Even walking through spirits lessons is not a full process.  We need to do our part in the healing, we need to do the 'work'.

In the past programs I was involved in the 'work' was learning how to pray.  Learning how to meditate.  Learning ritual, learning about props to aid in spiritual connection.  Learning through meditation how to clear problems.  All of the tools I was given were of a mental capacity.  For the mentally healthy person these are all great as that person has a foundation for which to already stand.  For an addict with a mentally unstable foundation I had to go back a bit further.

The twelve steps have taught me a very very basic fundamental tool that so easily gets overlooked by me when I get stuck in a process.   Pen to Paper.   Three simple words to release me from the bondage of suffering when I cannot let go.  I will write it again,  Pen to Paper.   How strange is it for me who loves to write and understands deeply the therapeutic value of it, to miss the simple act of picking up a blue ball point pen and a piece of loose leaf paper??

Blogging is a wonderfully creative tool for me to discover things about myself in a meeting like public fashion.  However there are layers of myself that I cannot share in this fashion as they are not meant to be exposed to the world.  The wounds to sensitive for that much air, the risk of infection to great.   Good ol' fashion pen to paper and cauldron to burn it after sharing with my sponsor.  That is how I let go.  It's how I have always learned to let go.  Why does it escape my memory when I am knee deep in my own shit again?

I have the thickest skull with the slowest rate of learning on the face of this planet I am sure.  Constant repetition and at least three major go rounds before I learn a lesson.   Well this is go round number three so this is it for hashing this shit up.  

So today on my agenda after a pretty emotionally intense day yesterday for me, is a quiet day at home working my steps and writing out a few full length hurt process's.   A good release will come from that and tonight I will reward myself with a girly sleep over with my best friend of ten years.  No matter how much I cycle, no matter how far in the pits of hell I fall or how bright my light gets, she loves me.... that will comfort me after a day of open rawness.

Learning how to book end my 'work', is what keeps me sane and enjoying the journey of recovery.  Whenever I plan to do some deep painful inner work, I always do something fun and self care like before I start and then again when I am done.  My last sponsor taught me this and it has become a valuable tool for me.  I have let my current sponsor know that I am doing some scab pulling today and she is on stand by.  

 It's not an easy path we choose to recover our true worth, but it is a rewarding one...... when you work it.

Work it cause your Worth it!!

This is where we part my Friend.

I want to be bad.  I want to get into trouble, stir up some shit.

I have been in a constant turn it over mentality for the past few days.  I have had thoughts of using but have given them up to my higher self in the moment.  I have overcome tremendous urges to contact the bad boy to dive head deep into some kinky sexscapades.  I have unfortunately been succumbing to food binges leaving me with the yuck hangover the next day.

Whats going on with me?  Why all the self sabotaging actions?  I firmly believe if we are not moving ahead we get stuck in our shit.  Thats where I feel I am spinning my wheels right now, in my own manure pile.  But why?

A few friends I have spoken to lately have been experiencing the same thing.  Feeling stuck, feeling that they need something more.  I also believe in universal shifts and I think that is something we are facing right now.  Fear is what keeps me wanting to rush backwards into what I already know.  Fear of the unknown, blinded by the light of my future I always fall back into the comforting dimness of my past.  I am seeing this all around me lately.

So many friends, coworkers and acquaintances are indulging in there energy sucking addictions and hangups.  Many of them aware and struggling, many more however completely ignorant to their patterns.  I relate to the ones struggling and feel angry at the ones still blissful.  I wish I too was able to just sit here and not make the uncomfortable move outside my little bubble.

Growth in life not just recovery is about always moving forward. When we are not working on recovery we are working on relapse.  Recovery is about walking into the unknown ever single day of your life.  It is so easy to get comfortable in the safety of what we know which was recently something new, that we stop moving ahead.  Before we know it years have passed, complacency has snuck in and we are buried in our own shit again.

Thats where I am at now.  I know I have to take another step forward but I don't know where it will take me and that fear is paralyzing me.  Overeating pulls me back into depression.  Depression is my way to hide from life.  I can see the patterns even though my mind is not trapped there yet.  I need to make the small choices today to steer myself away from depression before I am buried again.  Hard to make those choices now though when I am still enjoying my sugar indulgences.  Ignorance is not bliss, but I am still getting something out of this form of using.  Playing the tape till then end shows me that this enjoyment is running its course and soon I will be hiding from the world in my room as my existence diminishes.

Bringing it back to the larger picture.  If I am seeing this reflected all around me as well, this is a universal shift we are all making at this  moment.  As my world grows in recovery and I move away from my self absorbed perceptions I can begin to see the connection between all things.  The planet changes and grows, ebbs and flows right along side of our little human lives.  There is a shift occurring that is effecting us all right now.  This shift is moving us forward and for those of us ready to move forward we will and for those of us not, we will relapse.

I don't believe that if you relapse however that you have chosen to not move forward entirely, but that you needed to clear away some old patterns before shifting.  That was my escapade with bad boy number two recently.  A clearing away of old behaviours that no longer serve me.... thank goddess!   Food is obviously still serving a numbing out that I need in order to make the shift forward in my life.  However I need to work on this because depression is all consuming for me.

 I think the energy mother earth is providing us right now is  giving us a boost in the right direction or a shove backwards.  Maybe my recent annoyance with those people that are choosing to go back out is that I am now being separated from them.  We travel along our paths alone and meet up with people along the way that we like so much we wish they would travel along with us for a time.  When they choose a different path I think it hurts me.  I have experienced several people leaving my path recently and my heart hurts.

Ahhhhhh.......... and it only took how many paragraphs to get to the core of my wanting to be the bad girl.

  The bad boy chose a different path, so did a few friends that I miss dearly but was not willing to admit.

  Its hard for me to let go of people I like and have much in common with.  Its hard for me to open up to someone like a flower to the sun only to have the rain come and wash away that brilliance.  Realizing that when the sun comes out again my friend has walked a new path away from me.

I speak in metaphors because its easier for me to express my feelings that way, people understand or just think I am crazy, but they get something out of it.  This universal energy shift has once again moved people out of my life that no longer serve my highest good, which is a good thing, yet has left me feeling lonely and afraid of the other people that might be moved out of my life as well.  Nobody stays in your life forever.... nobody.

How does one learn to let go?  How does one learn to keep their hearts open when they know sooner or later a friend will be removed from them?  That my friends is my true struggle here and the one I have been beaten by my whole life.  How do I let go?  Is it better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all?  And please understand I am not speaking of boy/girl love here, I am speaking of friendships, family and lovers.

I am sad that I am walking away from some people that I have loved and some of those people are walking away from me.  Nature insists upon this as we all walk our own paths so no hard feelings in me, just sadness.  Damn it takes me a long fucking time to figure out a simple feeling!!  I am sad and dont want to move forward without these people so I am gonna go back and pull them kicking a screaming along with me like a cave man drags his wife!!  Tarzan was hot, I would be his wife.

Okay Okay I am done.  Till next time.

..........Dont walk away from me!