Sharing and Caring - ESH

[MajestyJo]

When we decide to make changes in our life, it becomes a process. There are several stages we go through. 1) We become aware there is something wrong and we just may have an issue we need to address. 2) We share with a close friend, clergyman, counsellor, and/or family member our perception of the problem and allow others to give us feed back and direction. 3) We come to a place within ourselves which we acknowledge what is and make the decision to change and to find a solution instead of living in the problem. 4) We take action towards obtaining our goal, be it seeing a doctor, a counsellor, a recovery institute, a self-help group, a Twelve-Step program, who can guide us on our recovery. 5) We change our attitude and be willing to learn to listen and to do what is suggested to us to obtain our goal. Sometimes these last two stages are reversed and I have to ask for the willingness to be willing to change before I can take the steps towards making things better in my life.

The butterfly has been the symbol of change for me. When I come from a place of love from within myself, and through my Higher-Self, I can raise myself above any problem and live in a new solution.

[MajestyJo]

So tired today and yesterday after all my busy this week. I know that to do is going to cause this, and I generally accept the results, except for the fact today, I do have housework to do today along with laundry, and am in too much pain.

Not much posting will get done today. My memory isn't clicking in, like I know I posted prayers on here somewhere and now I can't find them.

The worst of Fibromyalgia is the pain but the chronic fatigue. This morning, I made a small sandwich and only ate half, too difficult to chew. My arms are heavy and it is difficult to pick up the mouse and my typing is slow.

To top it all off, I had two peaches that didn't ripen, and so I cut them up, put them in a small saucepan with some aguava juice and a little water, forgot it until I could smell the pan burning and ended up with a burnt offering. It is a normal thing for me, when the fibro flares, but still doesn't make me a happy camper.

Expectations are killer, too sick to post last night, went to band ed early, slept about 9 hours, and figured I would be up raring to go. Not! I figured that bed with be part of the equation of the day, it is just whether I can stay awake and watch my shows from 1-3 pm. I tend to put a lot of expectations on myself, not so bad at taking on that of others, but most days I am too hard on myself. What is, is!

Thanks for letting me share. Hugs.



Today is a struggle, but one minute, one hour, and even if it is seconds, I know my God will see me through it.

[MajestyJo]

From time to time, I will share my own personal awareness on a topic and the gift that has been given as a result of working my program. It is just my experience, strength and hope, and isn't meant to represent any one fellowship. It is my truth, not someone else's or my interruptation of what I heard or read.

From Alkie Speaks:

I realized I had a body which can't tolerate alcohol, which is OK. except that I had a mind that can't leave it alone. I'd always said that I could take it or leave it alone - I couldn't do either.

- Doug D.

Because I had a high tolerance for alcohol, I thought I wasn't an alcoholic. I labelled my dad and my ex-husband as alcohlics because they passed out, fell down, staggered, were violent, couldn't walk or drive a straight line. I once said to my dad, "You drove in that condition?" He had just come from his girlfriend's. He looked at me and said, "Well I certainly couldn't walk and proceeded to fall flat on his face and I had to help him to bed.

The reality was that I could match them drink for drink, drive them home, function and resented them for drinking all the booze, before they passed out. I wanted to party and there wasn't much for me. That is when I started hiding my booze. I couldn't have consumed all that liquor and been sober although I never saw myself as drunk. There was only a couple of times that I recall taking the stairs on my hands and knees.

When I saw myself in my dream, because I was wearing red high-heeled shoes and walking a straight line, I was sober. Then I saw myself in living colour and saw the person I changed into when I did drink. It wasn't what or how much I drank. It was what it did to me when I did drink it.

[MajestyJo]

Learn to listen. Listen to learn.

That is true. I have found for the most part, most people don't want to hear.

My evening meditation cards:

"Enlightenment is seeing the unseen itself, and in this there is no seeing and no seer - only beginningness, endless calm."

ATISA DIPANKARA SHRIJNANA (980-1054)

"HE WHO DOES HIS DUTY IS TOLERANT LIKE THE EARTH, FIRM AS A PILLAR AND CLEAR AS A LAKE: NO FURTHER BIRTHS WILL BE IN STORE FOR SUCH A ONE.

DHAMMAPADA (1ST CENTURY BC)

"THERE IS ONLY ONE MOMENT IN TIME WHEN IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AWAKEN. THAT MOMENT IS NOW."

ATTRIBUTED TO THE BUDDHA (C.563BC-C.483BC)

"IF WE CAN BE WISE, AFTER LISTENING TO THE LAWS WE BECOME SERENE, LIKE A DEEP, SMOOTH, STILL LAKE."

DHAMMAPADFA (1ST CENTURY BC)

FROM: The Buddhist Prayer Deck - February 22

[MajestyJo]

One of my favourite sayings and I have seen it happen so many times. I am grateful for the people who did the research for me so that I didn't have to go back out and discover for myself. Once I found what I wanted here, I stayed.

Quote:
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

If you fail to change the person you were when you came in, that person will take you out!

As the slogan says, "If nothing changes, nothing changes."

It makes me sad when I hear people say, I have been doing things this way for 10, 20, 30.... years and it has stood me in good stead, why should I change now. Why wouldn't you want to change it if it brought you to your bottom and you want to learn to live clean and sober?

[MajestyJo]

So glad that this is a one day at a time program. The new awareness and experience along the way and the many blessing that have happened as a result of working the program.

One of the reasons I went back to school in 2001, was that I became aware that I was so involved in service, taking the newcomers in the group through the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Traditions, that I was again, focusing on people, places, and things outside of myself, and not always looking at me and my issues. One of the things I did was go to an out-of-town meeting with a friend that I volunteered with at the jail. Her husband would come and pick me up, they lived in Dundas, just outside of the city and drive me to Burlington, which was another city, which was part of our cities of Hamilton and District.

I need to be at a place where I wasn't giving and was in a meeting where I could top myself up. Giving is good, it is good to get out of Self, but when I exclude myself to look after others, it takes my life out of balance. Like in today, my son doesn't see me as working or doing anything when I am on the computer. As much as I tell him it is my lifeline, he chooses not to see it. That is not surprising considering the fact that he is still using, and he often uses me if I don't set up boundaries.

Putting someone else down to make myself feel better, isn't my idea of recovery and the kind of recovery I want for myself. I know I have health issues, many in fact, but the good news is I don't have to use in order to deal with them, unless my coming to the boards is an addiction. Truthfully, at one time it was. It wasn't so much the boards as the computer, and me again, getting out of self, and not looking at myself. The difference today, is that it is my only Source of Recovery contact. In the last 6 months I have not been to a f2f meeting. I can't go out in the night air, and with my cough, it is annoying to me, let alone the people around me.

I special thanks to those who I have met on this site who have send me private messages.

My spiritual adviser told me many years ago, "You have a message that people do not want to hear. Don't worry, it is their denial." I had to laugh when one guy said he doesn't read my posts. That is OK, I didn't post for him. I post for myself and my healing, with the hope that there is someone out there who is helped as a result of my sharing.

I know that I suffer from chronic pain, but when it flares up and I get several messages in a day, I know it is my emotions or something I am doing or thinking, which is causing the pain. What I really need to guard is taking on someone else's pain, especially when people don't want to help themselves, they project there stuff onto me.

[MajestyJo]

The Rules For Being Human

Cherie Carter-Scott

1)You will receive a body.

You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of time around.

2)You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time school called Life.
Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.

3)There are no mistakes, only lessons.

Growth is a process of trial and error: Experimentation.

The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

4)A lesson is repeated until learned.

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, you can them go on to the next lesson.

5)Learning lessons does not end.

There is no part of life that does not contain it's lessons.

If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6)"There" is no better than "here".

When you are "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here".

7)Others are merely mirrors of you.

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8)What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9)Your answers lie inside you. The answers to Life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10)YOU WILL FORGET ALL THIS.
How true! This was something I didn't want to allow myself. People repeatedly seemed to be saying, "Well you are only human you know!" That wasn't acceptable to me. I could not always be perfect and right but I felt that it was my job in recovery to be the best me I could be each day. I didn't always live up to my expectations and I learned not to beat myself up for falling short of who and what I wanted to be, and yet I felt better within me for having tried.

Before recovery, I didn't try. I had given up on life and I got to the stage where I was sick and tired of being tired and sick. I have been back there a few times since then and it is not a good place to be. Thank God for this program.

[MajestyJo]

When I came through the doors of recovery, I wasn't too sure I was glad to be alive. For several long weeks it had been stop the world, I want to get off.

It talks about being human, and I didn't feel very human or humane. When you live in a room in the YWCA there are not too many places around that look much better than here, when all the places are the same, except maybe neater or with more stuff. Which is what life is all about, we look a the surface and look at what we don't have rather than what we do have.

Welcome to the journey of recovery.

These were posted on another site, may have been on the old one that crashed.

The last few weeks have been very stressful and very tiring, which triggered my Fibromyalgia. Much need for prayer, acceptance, patience, tolerance, and just living in the moment. So many things changed, got postponed, was late or forgotten, and it was all part of life, and ever so grateful to have the program and the tools to deal with it. For me, it is the difference between being sober and having sobriety. I can get on the "Oh Woe is me" train, sit on the Pity Pot, or just recognize that it is life, and my God will see me through it.

[MajestyJo]

Butterflies Gifts of God

http://www.gifts-of-god.com/types-of-butterflies.html

Found a quote on botterflies the other day and it said, "If you don't see a butterfly, you are cut off from the spirit of God." That is my memory, not sure it is exact.

I went to the bus stop today to go shopping, and I saw a white butterfly.

http://comfortinstylemag.com/fashion...erties-colors/

White

white capri pants. White is the perfect color for it is a combination of all colors, in perfect balance and harmony. It is the color of the awakened Spirit, the light of perfection, all that is pure, the light of the Cosmic Consciousness, the Divine Light. White light raises the vibration of one’s consciousness and the body, bringing harmony in all aspects of one’s life.
What the hue says about you-
Love it- White signifies innocence, purity, virginity, cleanliness, freshness, simplicity, nothingness, oneness and completion, truth. In certain cultures though white is the color of death and mourning.
Hate it- A person who has an aversion to white color is foremost or solely interested in ‘realistic’ and tangible things, not in illusions or things that are beyond seeing or understanding. They tend to know and accepts the own imperfection and do not wish to achieve perfection.

Death means change, letting go of the past, going through a grieving process, to make room for the new.

To add to that, I saw three patches of Black-Eyed Susans, my favourite flower. along with several species of roses, petutinias, and patience (I also saw lots of ants, which mean patience too).

[MajestyJo]

The spiritual enlightenment for me was the phrase, "If you have to control it, it is already out of control!"

I had heard this phrase around the rooms for several years and it mean nothing to me. I kept coming, I didn't think I was an alcoholic, but I wanted what the people in the rooms had. I knew I didn't want to go back to where I came from, so I just kept coming.

I thought maybe if just kept coming, some of what you head would rub off onto me. So I came, and said, "Hi, my name is JoAnne, and I am an alcoholic" and was in total rebellion, with the attitude, "I'll say it if I have to, and went through the alcoholic/addict stage. Ironically, I knew I was an addict, and I think it was because I knew the meaning of the word. Or I could relate it to chips, or cookies, and the feeling of more, but couldn't identify the alcoholism. I knew I misused and abused my medication, but it wasn't until many years later that I came to know it as dried-up alcohol.

I came but I did all the wrong things, I compared instead of identifying. I don't like beer, I didn't have black outs, I didn't pass out after so many drink, I could drive the car after drinking all day and night and not get pulled over, I could walk a straight line (my son use to say he looked out the window and saw Mom bringing B**** home). I didn't go to jail, I didn't get tickets, I didn't get cut off at the bar, and the list went on, and on, and on.

After I heard the phrase above, I came to realize "Don't look at what you didn't do, but look at what you did do!"

That was a different story. I decided I would rather be an alcoholic.

It wasn't until God saw fit to give me a dream to let me see how others saw me when I was drinking. I was a first class, manipulating b**ch, who told everyone how to do it, what to do, when to do it, and was aggressive and a loud mouthed person that I wouldn't have wanted for a friend. I had assumed that the reason that people had back away from us because of my ex-husband's drinking, when it truth, it was probably my conroling, manipulating and nagging ways. Now that was a spiritual awakening, and I was two years in the program. I was sober but I can honestly say I didn't have true sobriety until then. Sobriety for me means soundness of mind. You can't have sobriety and be in denial and life of secrets and control. I was continually at war with myself, and often with those around me because I didn't have my own knowingness. I only knew what was told to me, and I had to find my own path and my own truth.

My spiritual adviser said, "You will learn two thing. 1) How to work your program. 2) How not to work your program.

Keep coming, so you won't have to come back.

[MajestyJo]

Solid recovery

Each setback provides an opportunity to recover. And each time you recover, you grow stronger.

The route to your goal is not a straight line. There will be many times along the way when you find yourself off course.

When that happens, it can seem like your destination is unreachable. Doubt, fear and apathy will take hold if you let them.

The key is not to let them. For as hopeless as the situation may feel, there are actions you can take that will enable you to quickly get back on track.

Much of the substance of achievement is in becoming skilled at making a quick and solid recovery. Each setback gives you the chance to practice and strengthen and refine that valuable skill.

Know that whatever has slowed you down can provide you with a way to move more effectively forward. Quickly get back up, and feel the new strength you've gained.

-- Ralph Marston

One thing I was told, you had to check my motives and intentions on whether I was using my bed to hide from what I don't want to face or do. It was my escape in the past. Today because of health issues and chronic fatigue from Fibromyalgia, I have to give myself permission to take the time out and allow myself the rest.

I also had to learn that I didn't have to give myself permission, I could just do. That was a long time in coming. Many times we can slip in our recovery and stop doing things that are the backbone of what has been the main stay of our recovery and we think we don't need to do it any more. All of a sudden, we feel sluggish, and things just don't seem the same, stop and pause, say a prayer, and get back to basics. You could be heading for a relapse. Remember relapse is a part of your disease. It is not a recovery tool. You can learn thing from a relapse, but you can learn so much more by STAYING!

This also helps me when it comes to my recovery in Al-Anon and when the Mother in me wants to get in the way and the Enabler comes out in force and starts justifying her actions and her rationalization becomes truth instead of fiction. Then I have to surrender, turn it all over to my Higher Power, and ask for forgiveness, and get back on track again.

The program works if I work it. It is a 24 hour a day program. It is not a 2 - 4 hour a day program.

[MajestyJo]

Found this post on another site. I had wrote about sharing with someone, who was referred to me from my old group. So many people say, you don't go to meetings, so how can you be sober? I don't know if I am delusional and in total denial or what. I probably talk and share recovery more than anyone on the planet, even people who work in treatment centers. Now I don't even have my bridge games to give me the balance, and my eyes haven't allowed me to have to break that I use to take from the computer. The only difference, is that I am getting more sleep, and it is cutting into my computer time.

They use to call me the meeting kid. They laughed at me for going to so many meetings. I am so glad I went to all those meetings. What comes out of my mouth, is what I heard in all those meetings. My thoughts are not original thoughts. They are words I heard, or words given to me by my HP. My goal in life is to be a channel to carry the message of recovery to the addict who still suffers, be he/she is new or old. Some days that person is me, and I need to give in order to receive.

Do you know what solid recovery is? I didn't pick up a drink or a drug! Do you know what solid recovery is? I didn't pick up a MIND ALTERING SUBSTANCE today! My doctors have prescribed anti-depressants for me for years. I just don't like how I feel on them. I find them to be mind altering for me and stop me from being me. I don't like my thinking, and or my inability to think and feel connected to my God.

It doesn't mean I had serenity all day. It doesn't mean I had peace and wisdom and love all day. It means that I tried to the best of my ability to be the best person that I can be in today.

I was told that sobriety meant soundness of mind. My disease is a thinking disease, so it isn't about not picking up a drug of any kind, but changing the thought patterns, the old behaviours that put me into that old thought patterns that lead me to picking up in the first place.

I need new light and awareness in my life. Me alone with me is bad company, I need that memory that it is no better out there, and to look at the whole picture. Look at the beginning, and the journey I took to the end, and remain grateful that I was able to walk through the doors of recovery.

[MajestyJo]

Even though I am a recovering alcoholic and I will never forget the day I walked into my Al-Anon meeting and was told that I was doublly blessed. I get to take the best from both programs.

I am the daughter of an alcoholic father who died from his disease at 66 and the daughter of a mother who used food to deal with my father's alcoholism and died at the age of 40 when I was 21.

I have a son who is in recovery waiting for a bed at a six-month treatment center for his drug and alcohol addiction.

Al-Anon has helped me with friends who have relapsed and from those who choose a different lifestyle and not healthy for me to be around. I know a lot of people through the bridge club but they don't invite me to their home parties. My not drinking or smoking makes me a party pooper I guess.

It doesn't matter what section or room of recovery that I go to, I can identify. The substance is but a symptom of my disease. Whether it is alcoholism, addiction, codependency, caretaking, gambling, work, food, etc. the Twelve Steps work for them all. Somethings we stay in denial about a little bit longer. i.e. my computer although it is a lot better than it use to be. I don't have to be on it each day or ever hour of the day!

Not sure if many identify with me or we have a lot in common. I had alternative medicine work done on my migraines by a sponsor who was a Reiki Master along with a friend of hers.

I also had several sponsors. Each one taught me what I needed to learn and then for some reason I moved on. Some fired me and some I separated from by mutual consent. My last sponsor said she didn't feel she had anything to offer me and she felt overwhelmed because she felt I had more of a grasp on the program than she did. To me there is no race, test, or blueprint, we do what we need to do for ourselves in the moment. I was one of the really sick ones. Partly because of my own addiction as a result of the decisions I made due to the dysfunction in my life growing up and in two abusive marriages.

I don't think I would have what I have today if it wasn't for service. I am not as active now due to health issues. Things have been closed down at the Community Job I volunteered for until the new year and it is going to relocate. I will be going back into the jails in the new year as well.

It is ironic, jails have been my focus for 16 years and yet I myself have never been in jail, yet no one was more a prisoner of her own mind, that I was. I didn't need steel bars.

I may suffer from chronic pain but I can't let it rule my life and allow it to stop me from doing what I need to do each day. I did lie down for about 20 minutes with the heat, but didn't sleep.

I was told that living is getting up each morning, ask for help, living each day as it comes, give thanks at night. I never know what my body will allow me to do on any given day but I do try to listen to it. Not listening is self-abuse. I ignored my needs for many years. I shut down and shut off and detached from myself. Thanks to the program, I have been able to turn that around.

I got sober in AA, it was the basis for my recovery because of my denial. NA was for affirmation of my addiction, I always knew I was an addict. Al-Anon helped me to find myself, not just in today, but the root cause of my disease and allowed me to heal all those deep hurts and pain that I had stuffed and forgotten, or didn't allow myself to remember.

Look forward to sharing more with you.

Some of these were posted from another site and added onto or edited in today.

[MajestyJo]

DAILY OM

Releasing The Reigns
Changing Others

Our perception of humanity as a whole is, to a large extent, dualistic. We paint people with a broad brush—some are like us, sharing our opinions and our attitudes, while others are different. Our commitment to values we have chosen to embrace is often so strong that we are easily convinced that our way is the right way. We may find ourselves frustrated by those who view the world from an alternate vantage point and make use of unusual strategies when coping with life's challenges. However ardently we believe that these people would be happier and more satisfied following our lead, we should resist the temptation to try to change them. Every human being has been blessed with a unique nature that cannot be altered by outside forces. We are who we are at any one point in our lives for a reason, and no one person can say for certain what another should be like.

The reasons we try to change one another are numerous. Since we have learned over time to flourish in the richness of lives we have built, we may come to believe that we are qualified to speak on behalf of the greater source. The sum total of our knowledge will never compare to what we do not know, however, and our understanding of others’ lives will forever be limited. The potential we see in the people who are a part of our lives will never be precisely the same as our own, so we do these individuals a disservice when we make assumptions about their intentions, preferences, and goals. Our power lies in our ability to accept others for all their quirks and differences and to let go of the need to control every element of our existence. We can love people for who they are, embracing their uniqueness, or we can love them as human beings from afar.

Your ability to influence people may grow more sophisticated because others sense that you respect their right to be themselves, but you will likely spend more time gazing inward, into the one person you can change: yourself.

What do you think?
Didn't realize that I didn't have the power. I kept bringing up the old tape I heard from my mother as a child, "Look at what you made me do."

I had a lot of false guilt, pride, phobias and fears that I had trouble letting go of, because they came from people who I saw as authority figures, and I didn't realize that when I surrendered to the program, I was empowered to do for myself. It was about me and not others, I can change me and I was powerless over others.

[MajestyJo]

Don't worry if your job is small,
and your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you.
--Anonymous

We feel better about ourselves when we can laugh at ourselves a bit. All it takes is a little attitude adjustment. For example, if I decide to learn to ski and my first day out I fall on my face, I can take the attitude, I am a klutz, I'm not capable, I don't fit here. Or I can take the attitude, This sport is a riot! What a challenge! I can't wait to feel what it's like to get down without falling.

The person with the first attitude will quit and feel badly about himself or herself. The person with the second attitude may never be an Olympic skier, but will have fun, confidence, and a sense of accomplishment.

Today let me remember that attitudes make the difference and attitudes can be changed.


You are reading from the book:

Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast

Found this posted to one of my sites in 2005, and posted it on another site in 2011.

I loved the quote. It reminded me that I was told that AA had a tool for any and all nuts who walked through the doors looking for recovery.