Bus Stop Friends

A learned teacher of life told me this the other day.

"Some people are like bus stops. You are friends while you wait. You chat. You look forward to seeing them. But when school is out, you don't see them any more or hear from them. They were probably there to teach you another of life's lessons, or to teach you something about yourself. Don't be discouraged, some friends are just bus stop friends."

I take courage in that statement, and yet I feel tragically sad. I don't like endings and I don't like confrontation. I don't like not being part of someone's life, even someone I am no longer friends with.

Separating from Family Issues

We can draw a healthy line, a healthy boundary, between ourselves and our nuclear family. We can separate ourselves from their issues.

Some of us may have family members who are addicted to alcohol and other drugs and who are not in recovery from their addiction. Some of us may have family members who have unresolved codependency issues. Family members may be addicted to misery, pain, suffering, martyrdom, and victimization.

We may have family members who have unresolved abuse issues or unresolved family of origin issues. We may have family members who are addicted to work, eating, or sex. Our family may be completely enmeshed, or we may have a disconnected family in which the members have little contact.

We may be like our family. We may love our family. But we are separate human beings with individual rights and issues. One of our primary rights is to begin feeling better and recovering, whether or not others in the family choose to do the same.

We do not have to feel guilty about finding happiness and a life that works. And we do not have to take on our family's issues as our own to be loyal and to show we love them.

Often when we begin taking care of ourselves, family members will reverberate with overt and covert attempts to pull us back into the old system and roles. We do not have to go. Their attempts to pull us back are their issues. Taking care of ourselves and becoming healthy and happy does not mean we do not love them. It means we're addressing our own issues. We do not have to judge them because they have issues, nor do we have to allow them to do anything they would like to us just because they are family.

We are free now, free to take care of ourselves with family members. Our freedom starts when we stop denying their issues and politely, but assertively, hand their stuff back to them - where it belongs - and deal with our own issues.

Today, I will separate myself from family members. I am a separate human being, even though I belong to an unit called a family. I have a right to my own issues and growth; my family members have a right to their issues and a right to choose where and when they will deal with these issues. I can learn to detach in love from my family members and their issues. I am willing to work through all necessary feelings in order to accomplish this.

The Language of Letting Go by Meloday Beattie

God can't hand you anything new until you let go of what you're holding onto now.

Healthy Limits

Boundaries are vital to recovery. Having and setting healthy limits is connected to all phases of recovery: growing in self-esteem, dealing with feelings, and learning to really love and value ourselves.

Boundaries emerge from deep within. They are connected to letting go of guilt and shame, and to changing our beliefs about what we deserve. As our thinking about this becomes clearer, so will our boundaries.

Boundaries are also connected to a Higher Timing than our own. We'll set a limit when we're ready, and not a moment before. So will others.

There's something magical about reaching that point of becoming ready to set a limit. We know we mean what we say; others take us seriously too. Things change, not because we're controlling others, but because we've changed.

Today, I will trust that I will learn, grow, and set the limits I need in my life at my own pace. This timing need only be right for me.

Melody Beattie - The Language of Letting Go

New Life: Let God Direct Your Travels

"Direct my steps by Your word, And let no iniquity have dominion over me." Psalms 119: 133

You are not alone. You have begun a strange new process that will take you from dysfunctional choices and boundaries to health. It may be long. It certainly will be hard, but you are not required to know the entire route. God is your guide.

In your travels, you will go to places you have never been before. Getting lost is normal; that is to be expected when you are in a new place. Sometimes you must stop and ask directions. This is not failure.

However, you have a constant traveling companion who knows the route. God has been there with many other individuals in recovery. Allow God to direct your journey, trust him to lead you down the correct road, and remember to thank him as you near your destination.

Guide me as I walk down this foreign road to recovery.

Setting New Boundaries Daily Devotions for Those in Recovery - Serenity Meditation Series

Pray, and expect an answer. God answers prayer prayed with expectation and trust in the outcome, even the outcome not expected.

The New Year' Goals (Not Resolutions)

Make new years goals (not resolutions). Dig within, and discover what you would like to happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come.

Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play - on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction.

What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed?

What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and in love? What would you like to have happen in your family life?

Remember, we aren't controlling others with our goals - we are trying to give direction to our life.

What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career? What would you like to see happen inside and around you?

Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go.

Certainly, things happen that are out of our control. Somtimes, these events are pleasant surprises; sometimes, they are of another nature. But they are all part of the chapter that will be this year in our life and will lead us forward in the story.

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.

Today, I will remember that there is a powerful force motivated by writing down goals. I will do that now, for the year to come, and regularly as needed. I will do in not to control but to do my part in living my life.

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Staind

New Years Eve - Tomorrow I will begin the process of evaluating 2007, and reviewing my growth for the year. I will make definate decisions, on the things I need to work on. God will take care of the process. But tonight, (read my Christmas Day posting when I finally put it up) I am in a mood. You know the mood. The one of meloncoly, no matter what the tragedy - the alcohol- or drug-induced state where one looks back on one's life and remembers, even the tragedy, with a meloncoly, sadful understanding. and even a longing. After getting cleaned up, at times one still misses the bliss of denial.

The feeling of being lost - it comes at a high cost, but there is escape in the sadness, the darkness that envelopes one, and causes one to not care anymore. There is escape from reality there. There is blissfulness in a state of catatonic denial (fear undercover).

I went to a friend's house tonight. We listened to the music I grew up on. You remember, or maybe you don't. Lynard Skynard, Three Dog Night, Janice Joplin, The Alman Brothers, War, Foreigner, Rush, Heart...or maybe you came from the genre of Rufus & Chaka Kahn, The Gap Band, The Whispers, Earth, Wind & Fire, Tina & Ike Turner, War...I came from both, varied tastes tempted my palatte.

We also listened to Staind, a relatively new band. I like the song "It's Been Awhile." It speaks to my addiction. I didn't have the drugs and alcohol addictions that so many of the people I meet did/do, but I had an addiction, and it acted itself out the same way as drugs or alcohol, without all the immense harmful physical consequences. I still have the debt from my ex-husband that looms over my head from time to time, and it reminds me of his addictions. I still have the tendancy to "**** things up just like I always do" - a lyric in the song.

I still remember not being able to "look at myself straight in the mirror." I remember not being able to remember what I looked like after I had turned away. I remember not being able to say "I am sorry." I remember not being able to "hold my head up high." I remember not being able "to stand on my own two feet."

"Staind" I felt that way today, and yesterday. HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. I have been all those things this week - not because it was the post-holiday blues, but because I am broke. My work reduced my salary, as well as the other employees, two months ago. I kept praying that God would send a little miracle my way and I wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of this one again. But alas, here it is again, and I do not want to face reality. Although reality has smacked me in the face this week, I still think that maybe God will pull a rabbit out of his hat, so to speak, and I won't have to alter plans or my way of living or my comfort zone, and things will just miraculously work themselves out.

Well, taxes are due on my house, and I don't have all the money. I always have all the money. Where is my rabbit, God? I still have seven days before penalties begin to accrue.

Anyhow, the words in this song were my mantra for a number of years when I first separated myself from my ex and began to clean my life up, take responsibility for what was mine, and for some that wasn't, and get my "****" straightened out. (Okay, get a grip. For all those wondering, I am still in the addict stage, and considering how I have messed my life up, that is the only "real" way of expressing it. Softer, kinder, more politically-correct words just don't cut it. Ask any addict - you have to say it like it is, man. And God forgives...even the addict. I thank God he loves me, is healing me, forgives me, and restores me; the real me.) Reality sucks! I've been Staind!

"It's been awhile since I could say I wasn't addicted. And it's been awhile since I could say I love myself as well...But everything I can't remember...I knew it was all me. I cannot blame this on my father (mother?), he did the best he could for me...It's been awhile since I could hold my head up high, and it's been awhile since I could say I am sorry."

I guess that says it all tonight. I am "Staind" and it may be awhile til I can say I am not...and live like I am not all the time. Anyway, I know God has washed that stain out. And I know he will see me through this one as well. Stains are washed away each night, and we are new and clean each morning. God's detergent. No more staind.

Taking Care of Ourselves Emotionally

What does it mean to take care of ourselves emotionally. I recognize when I'm feeling angry, and I accept that feeling without shame or blame.

I recognize when I'm feeling hurt, and I accept those feelings without attempting to punish the source of my pain. I recognize and feel fear when that emotion presents itself.

I allow myself to feel happiness, joy, and love, when those emotions are available. Taking care of myself means I've made a decision that it's okay to feel.

Taking care of my emotions means I allow myself to stay with the feeling until it's time to release it and go on to the next one. I recognize that sometimes my feelings can help point me toward reality, but sometimes my feelings are deceptive. They are important, but I do not have to let them control me. I can feel, and think too!

I talk to people (who are safe) about my feelings when that's appropriate and safe. I reach out for help or guidance if I get stuck in a particular emotion. I'm open to the lessons my emotions may be trying to teach me. After I feel, accept, and release the feelings, I ask myself what it is I want or need to do to take care of myself. Taking care of myself emotionally means I value, treasure, explore, and cherish the emotional part of myself.

Today, I will take care of myself emotionally. I will be open to, and accepting of, the emotional part of myself and other people. I will strive for balance by combining emotions with reason, but I will not allow intellect to push the emotional part of myself away.

Language of Letting Go - by Melody Beattie

It Takes Discipline and Self-Control

Maintenance requires commitment, pursuit, vigilance, and what is good. There is no such thing as passive maintenance. We must push ourselves to grow and to cultivate a desire for what is healthy for us. Somewhere along the line, that may have been lost, but it can be regained.

Loving what is good both spiritually and emotionally (and psychologically) requires an understanding and knowledge of just what is good. Do you know what is good for you spiritually, emotionally (psychologically)? Are you pursuing these things? To answer these questions may require time to reflect, consider, and list them for yourself. It takes discipline and self-control to cultivate a love for what is good (and healthy for us and our lives).

Think of people who set out to become experts in fine art. They study other people's writing about fine art, they study the art itself, and they expose themselves to many artists and their works of art. They are relentless in their pursuit. Does that characterize your love for what is good, both spiritually, (psychologically) and emotionally?

"Be...hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, and self-controlled."
Titus 1:7-8

Setting New Boundaries - Daily Devotions for Those in Recovery - Serenity Meditation Series - December 23rd Reading

Are You a Toxic Person?

Do you know what I mean by "toxic" people? Its kind of hard to explain to someone who isn't in recovery yet. Toxic people pull on you emotionally. They hold your relationship ransom. If you do not act or respond the way they want you to, you will pay for it from now on.

They will remind you of any fault or misdeed every chance they get. They will hold it over your head, recount it, and tell everyone else of how you have failed them in some way. They will whine when you do not perform the way they imagined you should. They will pull on you emotionally and psychologically, forever wanting something you cannot give. They badger you, call incessantly, ask why you haven't called them back, and wonder why you don't want to call them back.

I have a limit to how much I can handle, and how much of my time I spend with these type of people. I actually begin to feel angry when faced with a toxic person now - and that's okay. Anger is a warning signal. Anger tells you to be careful or afraid of something or someone. Listen to your anger.

Before getting into recovery I did not know these people were toxic. I grew up with toxic parents. Our home was a stew of unrealistic expectations, hurt feelings, dashed hopes, and always, there was the never ending revenge to exact.

Sickness runs in familes. Until one gets some help, and "you" discover you are toxic as well. If you have an inkling that you are a toxic person, please talk to a counselor. There are even books on toxic people. Check one out to see if "someone you know" is a toxic person, and learn how to cope. If you discover you are a toxic person, think about this, "Maybe you wouldn't get your feelings so hurt if your expectations weren't so unrealistically high."

Friendship - No Strings Attached

I have an acquaintance who I have never really gotten to know very well, but I like as a person. Our friendship is kinda different. He is the husband of a "lost" girlfriend of mine...long story. Anyway, he is concerned about us becoming closer friends, since my girlfriend and I are astranged right now. I have told him not to be concerned about our being friends, in connection with my friendship with his wife, nor her new "significant other," also a "lost" friend. Our friendship does not hinge on either of these two people liking it, or on their feelings about the situation.

His and my friendship can exist outside of my friendship with other people. I hope I am more mature than to allow someone to control who I am friends with, and I hope my friends are more mature as well. He can have his feelings and opinions - from his personal point of view, and I will have mine from my point of view. We can always agree to disagree if necessary. And that is the mature way to handle such things.

I love my lost girlfriend very, very much. I love and care about the other lost friend very much as well. Their behavior does not change the fact that I love them, care about them, and want the very best for each of them (separately). I do not have to agree with the decisions they have made, to continue loving them and considering them friends, whether they feel that way about me now or not.

Feelings are fickle things, they come and go, they can change based on circumstances. They can change based on someone's own feelings of guilt and embarrishment. Love, real love, does not change, no matter what the person does. I still love my ex-husband very much, and will probably never find anyone else that I will care as deeply for, or have as strong a connection with. But that does not mean that I can live with him. He is a very emotionally and psychologically sick person, as I was at one time.

I got the counseling and help that I needed to move out of that sickness, and I cannot subject myself to that sickness any longer. He did not get the help he needed. He felt he did not have a problem (denial), but when I speak to him even today, I can tell he has not grown emotionally or psychologically, and still has a very sick way of looking at life and people. It saddens me that he is stuck in that place.

There are people who are sick and/or toxic, and without help, will never find peace and happiness. That does not mean I cannot still love them, even in their sickness. I pray for both these lost friends almost every day. I pray that they will seek the help they need to move out of their sick thinking (stinkin' thinkin'). I pray one day God will be able to push through the blanket of denial they are both hiding under. But it is easier to hid one's head in the sand that to sum up the courage to face one's faults, wrongdoings, and sick thinking, and face one's "self." It hurts a great deal, and it takes a very long time to work through all of the hurts from the past. It is not an easy road, and many people cannot muster the courage it takes just to get started.

The hardest step is the first one, and people are so afraid that they won't even chance taking the first step. If they do, and it begins to hurt, and they begin to feel worse about themselves, they quit.They don't realize that its always darkest before the sunrise, and that if they will just continue forward, however slowly, they will begin to see rays of golden light on the other side of the darkness, and that will give them the courage to continue onward and upward.

I made a valuable decision in 1988, and that was that no matter how much it hurt to face myself, my faults, wrongdoings, and failures, that the process of healing would never be as painful as the life I was living. To continue living in the emotional pain I was in would have resulted in death for me. I had to move towards healing. I did not believe in suicide, and believe it is a sin against God to just check out, give up on myself and on life, on othes, on God. I refused to consider it, so I had two choices, stay where I was emotionally, or move towards healing. I chose healing, and that meant intense counseling for years.

It paid off. I am a different person than I was then. I am happier, and I am continually stretching myself and looking to improve myself. I am not stuck in sick thinking any longer. I can face myself and my faults on a regular basis, and it no longer hurts to do that. It even feels good, refreshing...healing. Healing has become a way of life, a "lifestyle" so to speak, and I am so grateful to God for being there and him helping me through it all.

Sorry for the sermon! I just feel so very deeply and intensely about counseling and healing from our past, that I beleive the world would be a better place if everyone would get real with themselves and deal with their own "shit," so to speak.

Okay, sermon over. As I said, my friendship with this guy has nothing to do with his astranged wife, nor with the male friend that she has "hooked up" with, just as my firendship with other people in this tangled web of deception and deciept has nothing to do with anyone else.

Friendship shouldn't have strings attached.

Sons and Daughters

If my luck is bad and his aim is straight
I will leave my life on the killing field.
You can see me die on the nightly news
As you settle down to your evening meal.

But you'll turn your back as you often do
Yet I am your sons and daughters too.

In the city streets where the neon lights
Turn my skin from black to electric blue
My hope soaks red on the gray pavement
And my dreams die hard for my life is through.

But you'll turn your back as you often do
Yet I am your sons and daughters too.

Maya Angelou (excerpt)

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but...to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

Dorothy Nevill

Holiday Triggers

"One year when I was a child, my father got drunk and violent at Christmas. I had just unwrapped a present, a bottle of hand lotion, when he exploded in an alcoholic rage. Our Christmas was disrupted. It was terrible. It was frightening for the whole family. Now, thirty-five years later, whenever I smell hand lotion, I immediately feel all the feelings I did that Christmas: the fear, the disappointment, the heartache, the helplessness, and an instinctive desire to control." - Anonymous

There are many positive triggers that remind us of Christmas (and other holidays as well): snow, decorations, "Silent Night," "Jingle Bells," wrapped packages, a nativity scene, stockings hung on a fireplace. These "triggers" can evoke in us the warm, nostalgic feelings of the Christmas celebration.

There are other kinds of triggers, though, that may be less apparent and evoke different feelings and memories. Our mind is like a powerful computer. It links sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste with feelings, thought, and memories. It links our senses - and we remember.

Sometimes the smallest, most innocuous incident can trigger memories. Not all our memories are pleasant, especially if we grew up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional setting (and other dysfunctional behaviors and addictions can cause the same triggers).

We may not understand why we suddenly feel afraid, depressed, anxious. We may not understand what has triggered our codependent coping behaviors - the low self-worth, the need to control, the need to neglect ourselves. What happens, we need to understand that some innocuous event may be triggering memories recorded deep within us.

If something, even something we don't understand, triggers painful memories, we can pull ourselves back into the present by self-care: acknowledging our feelings, detaching, working the Steps, and affirming ourselves. We can take action to feel good. We can help ourselves feel better each Christmas. No matter what the past held, we can put it in perspective, and create a more pleasant holiday today.

Today, I will gently work through my memories of this holiday season. I will accept my feelings, evein if I consider them different than what others are feeling this holiday. God, help me let go, heal from and release the painful memories surrounding the holidays. Help me finish my business from the past, so I can create the holiday of my choice.

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Let Go and Let God

"Let go and let God." It's a 12-step slogan that everyone uses, but do they really know what it means?

Surrender. Letting go and letting God is surrender. You say "I can't, He can, I guess I will let Him." In the beginning, when you first start on that path of recovery, you aren't so sure He can either. You aren't so sure anyone can help. You've been doing this thing as long as you can remember, and it hasn't worked out yet. You've pushed and pulled, twisted and stretched, strained and stressed all you know how to do, and finally you've come to a place where you just don't know what to do any longer. And there is the place where you find surrender.

Surrender isn't not caring. It's not giving up. It's not giving in. It's giving over. Giving over the outcomes that you've tried so hard to make happen, but they just keep slapping you in the face. Give it to God. Give the problem to God. Give the outcome to God. Give the person you're so over-stressed about over to God. And don't dictate the outcome.

The outcome is in God's hands now. Whatever it is, will be what it is supposed to be. It is all part of the journey. Breathe out. Relax. Breathe in. Stop thinking about it. Stop worrying about it. Give it over to God to handle, and don't take it back.

God can make it work out, whether it looks like it or not right now. All is well. All is in control - God's control, not your control. And remember, He is God! He has to be able to do a better job than you can, right?

Let go. Let God. And begin to live!

Thanksgiving: Yes, I Am Truly Blessed!

I have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. I have several wonderful friends who treat me like family, and I always feel welcomed in their lives. To have family, real family, not the blood-kind, but the heart- kind, is a real blessing.

And look how far I have come in just a few short years. In 1996 I moved home to take care of my father after my mother died. He was slowly becoming unable to care for himself. I also got divorced! Wow, what can I say about that blessing? I misstepped and went outside God's will for me, and paid the price. (I would have done it anyway, with someone. I needed to learn those life lessons someway.)

By mid 2003, I was able to return to church (Dad had care on Sundays), and I made two very good friends that I call family today.

In 2005 God answered several prayers and gave me a grant to do some long overdue and much needed repair and refurbishment work on my home(previously my dads; he had passed away in late 2004). Work was completed in February of 2007. When there has been an everyday problem, you know, a leaky faucet, a broken refrigerator, a bigger tax bill than you expected, God has given me the resources in either people or funds to handle it.

In August of 2006 I was let go from a job because I wasn't needed any longer. Do you call that down-sizing in an organization of two? Anyhow, I just couldn't make myself send out any resumes. God was prompting me with visions of going back to school after 20-plus years. In January of 2007 I began school! I am now a part-time student in a graphic design program at a local college. It's a drive, but it's financially feasible, and the college has a great reputation of graduating students who know what they are doing when they get out. Just the fact that I am making it, working part-time and going back to school part-time, is a testiment to God's love, provision, and his fantastic organizational abilities!

I am in debt for the first time since 1997 (a debt that came from my marriage situation, but the debt is mostly responsible debt like classes, books, software. And I purchased a real desk with credenza and storage. It's an investment in my future, a future that includes a business from my home some day.

Every day I learn more and more about who I am, and who I want to become. I struggle, one step forward, three steps back, but then sometimes God catches me up and catapolts me forward, and I realize how much he has blessed me.

My prayers of thanksgiving weekly have included, and still include, "God, thank you for clean, hot, running water. God, thank you for the heat in the house, and the air conditioner too. God, thank you for the washer and dryer, and it's right in my own home! God, thank you for an oven that works, and the microwave. God, thank you that the refrigerator is still running. God, thank you that I have something to eat today, and I promise not to waste a bite. God, thank you for my job, and for the provisions you have given me to pay my bills and go back to school. And God, thank you that there are no bill collectors calling and that there are no police knocking on the door. God, thank you that there is no fallout (severe consequences) from my marriage. God, thank you for the lessons I had to learn, and thank you that I finally learned them! God, thank you for my dogs; they are part of my family. God, thank you for the friends you have given me, who stick by me, even when I am down and the going is tough. God, thank you for the souls that you have placed in my life to lead me and teach me life lessons, and some to get me out of jams (some not of my own making, and others I have orchestrated on my own). God, thank you for leading me along the path that is this life, and giving me a second chance - a thousand times and more. And thank you for talking to me and providing for me, even when I am too busy to talk to you. God, thank you for forgiveness, past, present, and future" The list goes on and on and on.

When you have been through what I have in life, the little things in life, the things that others take for granted, aren't so little and you thank God for every breath of life he gives you. You thank him for every morsel of food and every comfort he provides. Yes, I have been truly blessed, and I never forget it.

Holidays: Lonely or Just Alone

Thanksgiving is an interesting time for me. When I was young I dreaded holidays. If you've ever seen the comic Titus, you can get an exaggerated picture of my family and how they interacted. Our household was not the Hallmark ideal that so many people remember, or wish that they could remember. So holidays were not something to look forward to, and as I grew older, I spent many holidays alone out of necessity; necessity to keep my sanity.

Saying that, being alone on a family-oriented holiday was at times very lonely. I can still have a twing of that lonely feeling on holidays when I am alone, but I don't feel unloved like I used to. I have taken the mindset that much of my daily interactions and life situations come about because of what I do or don't do. There are people who get multiply invitations to events, including holiday celebrations. And then there are people like me who may receive one invitation, but hardly ever multiple invitations. And a lot of that has to do with me.

When I extend myself socially, make friends, ones who eventually desire to spend time with me, then people think of me more often and call or invite me to go places. When I take a good look at my social skills, my current disposition (Many times I do not feel well because of health issues. I used to pretend a lot. Being in recovery begins to make pretending completely impossible at times), and how that affects those around me, I realize that my output determines the input I receive.

Right now, in my current situation, socially what I have extended myself to do maybe hasn't worked that well. More effort on my part is needed. But all in all, if I experience a holiday where I am not invited to a event or celebration, I think I will look at it as a vacation from all the busyness in my life, and realize that next year can be different, and that life is a journey of learning experiences.

You are enough, just as you are. The moment is enough, just as it is.

Ralph Martson

"Happiness is an inside job."

Sayings & Slogans from the 12Step program
Humor & Wisdom in Recovery