The Epic Burn out of Summer '014

What is exhaustion?

Got my coffee on my desk, a day off and a mind full of words.

In many ways I am coming back into myself and in many others I have this new personality developing within me.  My HR manager would argue that our personality is something we are born with and does not change.  I am not sure I am on that same train of thought yet.

I do know that I am almost at the end of a tremendous growth cycle.  My writings wont be as much about where I am at.   They will move back into things I am studying as oppose to things I am experiencing.  For me life is about cycles of experience and go get em' kinda of growth.  Then there are times of going within to rest and study up on what I just experienced or look into new areas to study.

That is where I am at now... going within.  Which seems odd as physically I am back at work now but mentally I am going within,  These past four months, physically I have slowed down and seemly experienced less but my mind was still processing my gigantic burnout crash.

The explosive dramatic burnout of summer '014.

I just read a time magazine article about exhaustion.  The writers take was factual.  Sometimes the facts hurt more then an opinion.  As a nation we frown deeply upon exhaustion.  Doctors don't buy into it and therefor people are not supported at all in their concerns of being over tired.  Employers continue to work their employees to hard and marketers continue to hypnotize people into believing they would feel better if they had this or that product.  Thus creating a viscous cycle of debt and the need to work more..... disgusting.

Did you know we are really the only nation that works this way?

We are easily lead pawns.  Makes me so sad.

So my crazy crash into a brick wall was apparently quite a norm in this society we have created for ourselves.  That does not make it any easier to deal with.  Strangely enough what does make it easier.... is the fact I am also a drug addict.

Does that not sound entirely strange to you?  Yay for being a drug addict.

With a drug affliction I was taken seriously by not only a medical doctor but a psychiatrist and a psychologist.  However if I was to just have burnt out.... nothing.  I would have had very little support.  How does one measure being over tired?  Tough I guess, doctors cant work with that maybe?  But have me fill out an assessment of what drugs I have used in the past twelve months and I am admitted into a world class womens treatment center for six weeks to rest up.

Our society is ass backwards. What we reward is ludicrous.

But holy Hanna this is not at all where I was intending to go with this post.  I merely wanted to share my experience with integrating back into work force after four months off and the struggles to re prioritize my recovery plans.  I guess I do love a good rant about society though.  So let me move on to what I really wanted to identify...

 How do you know when your exhausted, or over worked and how do you deal with that?

I have only been working like 20 hours each of the past two weeks but it feels more like 60 hours each of the weeks.  I am a landscaper and in my little northern city that means shoveling a shit tonne of snow.  So the work has been physically demanding.  No wonder I am tired after each snow fall, from four months of sleeping and hiding under my covers, to back breaking work... duh!  

What I was not aware of is what exhaustion feels like.  I can pound out my list of 24 driveways in a mere six to eight hours alone with no problems.  Physically I am still fit albeit grossly overweight.  Its when I get home that this extremely heavy feeling blankets me and my eyes wanna close but my mind is still awake and calm.    It makes sense that my body would be tired after working it like that, but what do you do when your mind isn't so much tired?

Drug it?  Yes, doc I will take some sleeping pills please.  Or wait I can just get some weed, much easier, thanks anyways.

The use of drugs or alcohol in this time magazine article stated that addiction was considered the leading cause of exhaustion.  Addiction to what?  The article suggested Street drugs and booze.  What about all the doctor prescribed drugs that change a persons moods and forces a person into states that are desired?

Please let me not digress here.  I have a strong opinion about medications and I don't want this to move into a me bashing them rant.  So let me just state the point that using prescription drugs is not the only answer to dealing with your problems.  Its the easy way and in some cases its is the best way for A person... but those some cases are less then twenty percent. Prescriptions are a drug that eventually lead to more exhaustion thus keeping us pawns in the life game of chess.

Physical and mental exhaustion go hand and hand I am noticing.  When I get tired physically from lack of sleep due to stress, I tend to eat more starchy foods which quickly escalates that over tired feeling.  This moves into exercising less because I am just to tired and then the really viscous cycle of weight gain and all levels of energy drop dramatically.  Leaving me no energy to deal with the original problem of grieving or an emotional upset.  Truly those are the basics to energy and low vibrations within the body and mind.

 From there depression sets in and all negative mind bashing thoughts which lead to the over use of prescriptions or street drugs.  An easy fix and when your tired, the seemingly only fix.

From my experience with proper eating after a lifetime of over portions and extreme starches, I cannot even begin to stress how important diet is to a persons mental state.  My four months off from a crash from being over tired threw all things healthy and good for me out the window.  I have been eating huge portions again and eating starches with little regard to healthy amounts.  I have gained twenty five pounds in four months and feel like the biggest bag of shit around.  I am reminded of how I felt before I began eating to the Canada food guide.

Going back to work is forcing me to eat better again just to get through my day which is good. Getting enough sleep has been the toughest thing, eight hours my ass... this girl needs at least ten on days I push my body.  Instead of sleeping pills to slow my mind I have used meditations and sleep hypnosis.  Already my mood is shifting from one of defeat and inertia from being off all those months.... yet now I am finding that the fear of crashing again is almost overwhelming

This is the true nature of the post I wanted to write about.  I am very aware now of when I get tired.  Physically and mentally.  I never want to burn out again like I did this past summer.  Over work, lack of nutrition, and addictions drained me entirely of my energy.  Not practicing any source of energy drawing activity just about killed me.
 
I have learned from my HR manager as of late that I am an introverted person.  I recharge alone.  Being around people drain my energy not increase it.  This has presented a huge problem as far as fellowship meetings for my drug addiction is concerned.  I have had a terrible time reworking my recovery plan to be kinder on myself.  Now I spend more time on the phone with my sponsor reading the daily meditation together.  That fuels me up.  I go online to meetings now, I get what I need information-ally but keep my energy from seeping out.

I love cooking for my girls I have learned during my time off.  I find I am gaining much energy from doing that.  I am back to yoga and meditations which are always wonderful for me.  Plus studying has these huge energy spikes that I had no idea of before.  I study what I am passionate about and this fuels my dreams and helps me visualize an amazing future which has a strange way of becoming my present.  Art and crafting things for my home bring me joy as well.

I think by keeping mindful of what makes me happy, will help me stay in balance with the work I must do in order to pay my bills.  I love working outdoors and truly enjoy my job.  In the past I have kept my passions out of line with my income because as soon as I attached dollars to what I loved doing, what I loved doing became a job.  Today I enjoy that I have passions and I work to support those passions.  If those passions make me a few bucks on the side, great.

Truly illuminating exhaustion for me is to accept that I work to live.  I cannot live to work.   There is way more to this life, way more depth then just working.  Love what I do as I spend 40 hours a week doing it, but know that there is a whole wide world beyond work.  Work has become my humbling experience, my hours to keep myself in check.

This is the end of my workaholism.

Wow took a long freaking time to get to that conclusion.  I said at the beginning I was full of words!!  Man I need to write more often, that might keep the topic a bit more simple and to the point.  If you made it this far.... thank you and I am sorry for the double rants.  Blessings!

Clear Space for Something New!!

It's amazing to me how fast life can change when you take the bold step into the unknown.

The day after I closed the door on a frequency no longer resonating with me, I received closure not only in that area, but another one nagging me for a very long time.  Deciding to leave NA somehow brought a silence to the demons in my head constantly reminding me of my failure in the weight loss industry.

How?  Scratching my head I wondered...  I am surprised I am not bald with all the head scratching I do....or have a dented scalp with the banging that frequently happens too.  lol

It was the day after I made it official in my mind, by writing it out here, to move away from my twelve step fellowship.  That a coworker from the weight loss industry tagged me in a status connecting me with everyone involved in that time of my life.  Connection and Communication silenced the demons by powering up the light.  My negative beliefs around the events leading to my fall from grace vanished one by one instantly with each person I talked to.

I was amazed.

I am still unsure how everything is connected.  What seemed like a completely separate issue plaguing me was vaporized within 24 hours of making a decision in what seemed like a totally different area of my life.

Energy and focus is what comes out of my head scratching on this one.  I seem to have this limited amount of energy.  Which this thought goes against my past beliefs that energy is infinite.  Maybe it's just focus then.  Maybe I can only have focus in one area at a time.

With having a year clean and no longer needing that focus to stay clean my path was cleared to focus on something new.  This is where I question the validity of relapse in the second year as a popular notion within the rooms.  Maybe relapse comes from the person not moving forward, thus moving backwards.  I personally do not believe any part of life needs to be hard work.

 If you have to bust your balls at it, your on the wrong path.

Of course this is my point of view.  We all create our own realities and live from our own frequencies.  I am not advocating everyone slam the doors to areas of their lives that they are not happy with right now.  Life is not always a bowl of roses.  I can recognize when it's time for me to move on, from experience and connection to my higher power.  I am learning to stand in my truth which is not easy, but not a ball buster either.

Going against popular belief is not an enjoyable experience.  The rewards however are well worth the sacrifice.

.....and let me tell you about more sacrifice and rewards that are shaping up in my life right now.  I have taken a crazy bold step into my future and it's scaring the poop out of me!!  This is what I call the work in my life now...taking that first step.  Drunvelo Melchizedek says the first step is about three feet high and then all the rest are easy.  I couldn't agree more.  I just took a giant leap of faith and am mildly vomiting in my mouth now.

I enrolled into an 8 month intensive course on HypnoTherapy.

ooohhhhh...... ahhhh.....  Gasps abound.  Shock reverberates through the readers...

Okay fine!   Maybe that's an exaggeration.  But, boy oh boy, does it ever feel like that in my little world.  Why does it feel so scary to me you ask?  I know your longing to have that answer.... lol  Well let me share that with you then.

I have wanted to take this course for years now.  I have researched it and researched it again.  Many times I have almost signed up.  There was always something stopping me though.    It was too expensive.  I didn't have the time.  I couldn't get to the City hosting it.  I was too sick/tired/high.  Always something seemed to block me.  I see now I just wasn't ready yet.  I was to afraid to climb that first three foot step.

At the beginning of this past week as the Moon sat contently in her Newness I found myself thinking about what I wanted to create now.  With the energy of the planet I too was ready to embark upon another journey across the sky.  But what?

I was clearing my clients driveways of snow at five am in the utter peacefulness of the land.  When the thought of hypnosis kept nagging me.  Interrupting my peace.  This is how I receive my guidance.  In meditation those thoughts that repeat and wont go away are my higher voice.  I can hear this voice only after much daily practice of quieting the monkey mind.  Well worth the 'work'.

So heeding the voice I researched courses, once again.  Like for the hundredth time in my life.  It was the second course I found online that had this crazy resonance with me.  My spidey senses where on overdrive as I read page after page of knowledge that I already had understandings too.  I watched youtube video after video to get a feel of the teacher and instantly like the frequency he was on.  There was absolutely no hesitation to contact him.

His response was simultaneous.   Like he was just sitting there waiting for Me specifically to contact him.  With 24 hours I was on the phone with him.  The talk was animated.  I felt like I was connecting with someone from home.  The general feel of the call was.... finally she is ready!  I really did feel like he had been waiting for me forever.        .......My point of view... whatevs, I like it.

Within an hour of speaking with the developer of the course I was signed up and had my first module.  The speed of light!!

It was then that I found the realization of the magnitude of what I just took on, to sink in.  I was really doing it.  I was really embarking on a path I have been skirting for way too many years to count.  I was going to take my love for meditation to a whole new level.  I was taking the first step of my dream to get on a stage to motivate the masses into a better life!  I was really doing it.  Creating the future I have always seen myself in.

I had to call a friend.  I had to lower my cresting wave of energy before it set into panic and I sabotaged the entire project.  Laughing a lot my two beloved mentors on the other end of the phone verified my 'finally she's getting it' energy.  What they have known for years was finally just starting to dawn in me.  I love those supports in your life that hold a vibration for you until your ready to step into it.  These women have been holding it for over ten years now.... and they never gave up on me and my butterfly ways.

I am truly ready to step into my future.  As I write that I can feel my belly get hot.  My cauldron center boils, I am pregnant with a new adventure!  Tears spring to my eye's with the connection to my soul.  I AM finally becoming.... ME.

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!!

Spiritual Grounding...A Flight Risk??

Keeping Balance.

That has been a tough concept to bare in mind these past few weeks.  I was reminded many times over those days of the movie 'Eat,Pray, Love'.  There is a scene in that movie where the guru explains to the main character that getting knocked off balance is a part of understanding balance, its an acceptable process of learning and life.

I struggled hard with that life lesson these past weeks.

I love meditation in my life.  Every night I spend 30-60 minutes in my meditation room going through a guided visual meditation.  Each night I choose a new adventure and enjoy greatly the places I journey in my mind.  I pray and play in my God box after the mediation and connect deeply with my higher self.  I love my evenings spent this way doing my tenth step.

Every morning I begin my day with 15 minutes of chakra balancing and grounding/centering.  This starts my day on a balanced note of calm and serenity.  I love my morning practice.

I have been unable to do either these past three weeks.   No excuses.  Every time I tried to go into meditation in the evening I was asleep before the first word whispered out of the speakers of my boombox.  I would shake things up and cut  out the meditation only to zone out during the readings from my God Box.  I felt as if I was insulting my Higher God so I could not proceed.  Even just reading through my tenth step questions proved daunting as by the second word in the first question I would already be asleep.  In the mornings my mind would not cease the chatter, the meditation would be long since over and my mind would still be lost deep in thought of my new jobs day in action.

My whole practice of connecting to my higher power has been a futile venture this past while and it was a bothersome situation for me.   I have grown to cherish my moments with my higher self, look forward to them and come away with such incredible feelings and insight.  I hated not having those moments.

|I could hear warnings of the program in my mind..... anything you put before your recovery you will lose.....  Everyday do something 12 step related or your addict will thrive.....   I was just too damn tired to do any step work, read any literature or even phone a single soul to connect.  No matter how hard I tried I just did not have the energy to extend in that direction.

Today as life begins to settle down again I am seeing the larger picture of my past few weeks.  They don't say hindsight is 20/20 for nothing.

 All the time before starting this job spent in deep ritualistic meditation paved the way for me to make a solid connection with my higher self.  That connection is very solid and very true.  It is a connection that cannot now be easily broken.  Three weeks of changed focus did not abandon my God.   She was holding my hand the entire way.

 I can feel her deep within me every moment now, I don't need the allotted set aside time to recognize the feelings and thoughts that are hers. I realize today I don't need to talk to her everyday to know she is there and in communication with me any more.  I don't need to spend copious amounts of time in ritual invoking her energy so I can understand and feel her love for me.  I no longer need to dive so deeply into the roots of mother earth to know I am always connected and grounded in her nurturing.   This is what all that energy focussed in meditation gave me.  Infancy grown into adolescence.

I am testing my knowledge now.  I am taking what my higher self has taught me over the past few months and I am applying it in the real world.  I am gaining understanding through experience of her teachings.  I am exactly where I need to be on my journey.... I am living life not hiding under the cloak of my God.  I am a teenager eager for experience.

My knock off balance has been nothing more then a mother bird pushing her baby out of the nest to teach them to fly.   What I was so worried about, losing my routine and stability, has actually proved to be one of the most exciting practices of losing the ground beneath my feet.  Why is it that we need something solid to stand upon to feel like we are building a foundation?  Birds are one of the oldest known creatures on the planet and they spend most of their lives in the sky.  Fish were here before anything and they swim freely with nothing beneath their feet.

I put way to much stock into my grounded foundation that I couldn't see the possibilities of flying to the heavens or swimming with the mermaids.  Staying grounded always keeps you forever the baby bird unable to leave momma's safety, always shrouded by Gods cloak... forever the infant.   I see now how I have spent the last 38 years as an infant afraid of the ocean.  Afraid to open my wings and dive off the tree into the freedom of the air.

I realize today..... it's high time I grow up.

Pray=Talk, Meditation=Listen

My Topic today is about Prayer and Meditation.


 Of all the steps, the eleventh one is by far my favourite and the one that has the most impact on my life.  If you have been reading my posts I am sure you are already highly aware of that as I rant often about meditation.

There is a reason why I spend so much time and focus on this topic, its because I have lots of experience in this area.  I have also come to understand the benefits it has in my life on a wide scale.  When ever we as humans I think get excited about something that has worked for us we naturally want to share it with others.  We are not generally a cruel race, we naturally enjoying sharing.  For me that sharing is the gift of peace a serenity found in mediation.

In active addiction I spent alot of time praying and whining to any power that would listen to me.  I begged for death, begged for life, begged for money, begged for freedom from the obsession of money, begged for my dealer to hurry up, begged for him to go away.   I have talked to the God of the passing current understanding so much that I got sick of talking.  I got tired of my own whining and pleading.  I also got tired of not being heard.  I found myself even more angry at this stupid God that seemed to be there for everyone else but me.  I was done praying.

Prior to active addiction, I didnt so much believe in prayer. I had already written God off in my life.  However I met a wonderful friend who turned me on to meditation.  Its effects in my life were instant.  The calmness that the focus of learning different forms of meditation brought to my mind helped ease the chaos in my life.   After time I learned to direct my thoughts within my meditations to create situations and opportunities in my life that were beneficial to me and my family.  The power of mediation began effecting job opportunities, relationship connections and so many other things.  My general well being increased substantially.  I didn't understand then how it worked I just knew it did and I was riding the success train into the clouds.

Then I stopped meditating.  I stopped connecting.  I slowly began to descend from the clouds until i crashed violently into the ground and into active addiction.   I lost contact with a power greater then myself that at the time I didnt even realize I had established a relationship with.  My anger at God for allowing me to be abused as a child prevented me then from praying or asking for guidance, but meditation took me there without even my awareness.  My life got better because I was listening to the guidance of a higher power that I didn't even realize I was doing that.

Today coming into the 12 steps has blown the understanding and awareness wide open to what was going on in my life then and when I fell into active addiction.  Now that I am coming out of it I see how my prayers are whining complaints to God and my meditations were patient listening for guidance.   In my childhood I felt abandoned by God as did I in my addiction.  Thats why my prayers are attacks on my higher powers abilities and qualities.   I can see that clearly today only because of what the twelve steps have given me.

The 11 step is so fundamental for my understanding because now I see how to ask properly and wait patiently for the guidance.  I am able to marry prayer and mediation to create an incredible viable, tangible relationship with my higher power.  Some days I almost feel a physical presence of my higher self sitting with me as I pray and listen.  I never feel alone any more because the awareness of that energy is always with me. The more I sit in silence with myself the more I am communicating with an energy that is for MY highest good.

I have been called flaky, hoakey and just down right weird in my life because of my spiritual beliefs and practices.  However this program has taught me how to have a healthy relationship with myself and no longer do those comments stop me from being who I am.  Its uncomfortable learning to stand in my own truth, but the more I do it the more excited I become about learning what else is locked away within me.  I could not be more in love with this program then I am right now.... lol  I just came out of mediation, can you tell??

I hope that you all find your way to your higher Power and are able to receive the wonderful gifts that they are eager to bestow on you.  My love goes out to you.

I AM my own higher Power.

 Todays Topic.... How to build a relationship with your Higher Power


 Each and every step is a step in the direction towards the inner God of your own being.   I can say that now and understand it only after working an entire set of steps.   Talk about this while I was on step three and you would have been faced with a much different view from my lips...  My god is an asshole and I want nothing to do with him.   Maybe all my relapses around step four were not just solely the result of fear of that step, but maybe that I was entirely unready to believe there was a god in my life that could save me from myself.

I have come to understand that trust runs so much deeper then just around the physical relationships in my life.   Trust with myself and trust of the god of my understanding.... Which is a goddess btw, was a hard trust to begin to accept.   My trust did not begin to develop until step 11.  Although I begrudgingly became willing at step three... The third time around at least.   Peeling back the layers in the steps between is what help me build my trust in a higher power as well as myself.

I have always been the instant snap your fingers kinda a girl, if what I wanted didn't come to my the moment I thought it, it wasn't worth my time.   How ridiculous I can see this train of thought was now.  As my relationship with my higher power grows I could not imagine my life without the connection to spirit I feel every day.   I do not think I could get through a day without feeling my heart grow big in my chest and my spirit whisper inner knowings to me.   I know that may sound strange and hockey to some, but until you experience it I cannot explain it any better.

I was at a woman's group last night and I was asked to explain what meditation was for me and I found myself passionately speaking about meditation taking me to a place within myself that was more ecstatic then the best orgasm or the highest high I ever had in addiction.   It was only in that moment that I realized the power of the twelve steps.   They give you a greater feeling and better thoughts then you ever had in addiction.   Now that I have achieved this state outside of dope and can call it up at will, why would I ever want to use again??

An inner power resides within each of us, it just takes patience, persistence and courage to tap in and to work with it in all of our affairs.  I encourage you to go within and find yours, be the change you want to see.