Blossoming ...

Turn your Face to the Sun
Originally uploaded by Ben Heine
Tonight I had the pleasure and privilege of hearing one of my sponsees tell her story of experience, strength and hope. She will have 8 months of sobriety tomorrow.

This is a woman who is determined to be sober. She brings a journal to every meeting and furiously takes notes, hanging on every word of every share of every member.

I met her at a Sunday night meeting, almost exactly 8 months ago, when she had 3 days of sobriety. She could barely look anyone in the eye, let alone hold her head up, and she shook like a leaf. Her self-esteem was on the sole of her sneaker.

She asked me to sponsor her when she was approaching 5 months of sobriety. I respected her discernment of waiting to sort out just the right person for the job. By this time, she had more of herself and it was apparent that she had grabbed onto this program by the horns and wasn't letting go. She asked for homework. She said she needed structure. She wanted to understand the Big Book because it didn't make sense to her reading it on her own. She wanted to work the Steps.

She and I meet faithfully, every Wednesday morning at 7:30am, over coffee. I have witnessed first hand a woman who was getting pricked regularly by the thorns of her past begin to weed her own garden, asking for her soil to be nourished and fed in our meetings and by her therapist and a support circle she created. Tonight, I saw a tall, strong, flower blossoming -- wide open.

Her story is less about the way she drank and more about what was fueling it. With great dignity and grace and unwavering integrity, she shared her experience of being an awkward, overweight, spectacled girl, who never felt like she belonged and then a young teen who was repeatedly sexually molested by her brother and how the culmination of all of these factors was the catalyst for her soothing and self-medicating with alcohol and food. The room, comprised mostly of men, fell silent and in awe of this brave sharing.
The statement that was the most impactful for everyone tonight was when she said the following: "In AA, I have learned that I don't have to keep living my history, that I can simply live my life."

Members of our group were struck by her honesty. The door was now held open for some people to speak openly about their own abuse as children and how grateful they were that this subject was given a voice.

This is a woman who strengthens my program on a regular basis. I just shared with a loved one tonight about how much I am getting out of being a sponsor. When I left our regular Wed morning coffee meeting today, I felt like whistling as I walked to my car. This is the joy of living that is spoken about in the Big Book. Recovery is where we go from being slumped over, nearly dead at our roots to rising up, turning our faces to the sun, and blossoming.

On Becoming a Warrior ...

Yvaine: Audtion 8
Originally uploaded by Elven*Nicky
In between teaching 2 classes today, I had about 45 minutes of downtime. I began to read a book by Carlos Castaneda, "Tales of Power", which is an assignment for the advanced study group of my non-dual healing school.

The first chapter is titled: "An Appointment with Knowledge". I was so taken by the following lines, given the territory of my personal work and what I have been writing about as of late:
"In the final analysis, sensitivity matters little ... what matters is that a warrior be impeccable ... what matters to a warrior is arriving at the totality of oneself."

Whoa.

Stopped me right in my tracks.

Here's my 1st take upon reading this. Substitute "sensitivity" with "people pleasing" . What had historically mattered 1st and foremost, top priority,  was that I be sensitive to the needs of others. In fact, their needs were always put before mine. My needs were not deemed important. At least not at the time I was busy attending to others. Enough pushing of my needs to the back burner,  however,  fueled some heavy duty resentments over time. I grew bitter and downright pissed off.
I understand today that I am responsible for creating these situations. So, as Castaneda's character, the sage don juan, suggests above -- a warrior is to be impeccable. I associate this with any one of these: Being in integrity. Rigorously honest. Trusting one's interior. Anchored and seated on one's base. If I am engaging in the world, with others, from a place of being impeccable, then sensitivity indeed matters little. Being in my Truth, trusting and listening to my interior and to God and having my actions be informed by these places, there will be a kindness that is "built in" so to speak. It does not mean I will be received well by another (hence, the sensitivity matters little) but it will mean that I have not abandoned myself, squashed myself or dismissed what is the Reality or the Truth of that moment. That, to me, is what don juan is referring to in becoming a warrior.

The last part of the statements, "arriving at the totality of oneself", is one of the most significant aspects of the healing work of our non-dual school. To become more of who we are, to come into wholeness of being. I am learning, with each healing session and with each new peeling away of my exterior, that the work to arrive at the totality of oneself is absolutely courageous, not for the faint-of-heart -- the stuff that warriors are made of.

I used to associate the word "warrior" with a person who fought in battle, usually with a weapon, and whose intent was to conquer and to dominate and to destroy when necessary. In reading both Castaneda and the Buddhist monk, Pema Chodron, the concept of warrior has dramatically shifted for me. It is much more brave and noble to show up in the world, consistently, in one's Truth than to put on some form of "armour" as a protective front -- which essentially keeps people at a distance and keeps me from connecting and relating and experiencing intimacy with others.

Becoming a warrior, to me, means stripping off the protective gear and getting buck-naked ! A proclamation of "Here I am!", free of shame and out in the open, not hidden in any way.

It's time to lay those old weapons down, raise my hands high in the air, and show up as the warrior I am becoming ...

Cultivating my Inner Fox

Fennec fox
Originally uploaded by floridapfe
Stealthy messenger of the gods,
Cunning and wise, reliable friend,
Guide my steps through this maze of deception
And see this problem to its end.

~ Anonymous quote on Fox Totem website


Yesterday afternoon, I had the pleasure of being read all about the Fox totem by a beloved woman in my life. I took in every word deeply.
Ever since my dream last week, I can't stop thinking about foxes. Particularly the one who is being birthed in me. Or perhaps has always lived here, dormant and patient, awaiting its landlord to wake up so she could actively engage in the fox hunt.

Of all the aspects of the fox totem that I heard, the ones that got my greatest attention were about camoflauge, shape-shifting and creation.

I am very aware that I have entered into a cycle of my life in which I no longer need to camoflauge and shape-shift, as I did for so many years, in order to survive what I deemed "unsafe" circumstances. I have been gearing up for the mother of all shape-shifts ... to remove every mask and false facade and deceitful trait so that I can become who I really am. My truest self. The one, as this beautiful soul reminded me yesterday, whose healthy shape-shifting can be an asset and a strength -- like adapting quickly in the classroom when the tone of the room has changed and requires a different approach.

I am aware in this moment that healthy shape-shifting also includes being able to more smoothly transition and adjust to the shifting shapes of others, of situations -- the very source of tremendous anxiety and fearfulness of my not-so-distant past. And that I can do this with the understanding that the changing shapes of others and of situations is not personal and does not necessarily mean I have to flee to the woods for safety. The only shifting I may need to do is subtle and deeply interior, rather than the overt and hypervigilant adjustments I've been accustomed to engaging in. Cultivating my inner fox will allow these adjustments to be unseen -- this perhaps is the healthier version of camoflauge !

Lastly, the aspect of creation. To birth something into the world is to offer new life. This fox energy, or "medicine" as it is referred to , is allowing me to be the one giving birth and the one being birthed simultaneously. This returns me to the Great Bear Mother piece. There is a line that goes: "The mother who watches out for her cubs, who essentially IS her cubs ... same fur, same blood ..." I am the mother and the cub. The lore is that foxes can take on human form. The cultivating of this inner fox is perhaps the canal for the true human me to come forth into the illumination of my life.

So I shall request outloud and deep inside, the profound statement from the above Fox totem quote: "Guide my steps through this maze of deception". This, for me, is a plea for Truth. Up to this point, the maze of deception was the smokescreen I constructed over the course of 4 plus decades and called it "my life". I hear the call of the fox and am ready to give birth and to be birthed into my True Self.

FRED G

Nature . Sea . Sad . Solitude (La Tentation du Pire)
Originally uploaded by Tiquetonne2067

Fred G is not a member of AA, but is the mystery man I learned about from an incredible speaker tonight, in the form of an acronym, that will help keep me sober.

The speaker uses Fred G every night before she goes to bed as part of her 10th Step inventory.

Fears
Resentments
Ego
Dishonesty

Gratitude

I love this tool. It's specific and the phrase is catchy, like a secret password that you say when you knock on the door in some
dark alleyway.

Knock. Knock.
"Who sent you?"
"Fred G"
Door opens.

Doing this each night really will open the door to sober living. I really love the idea of specifically focusing on each of those areas, which are plastered all over the Big Book and the Steps. And the bonus being the inclusion of the gratitude list. Something I have great intentions to do and then it quickly slips my mind.

I'm gonna do my 1st Fred G right here on this page, before going to bed:

Fears: I was fearful about the workshop I was to give today, as this particular agency can be challenging in terms of their attitudes toward training. Later in the day, I was fearful about a staff meeting I would be doing involving a therapy client of mine and a plan we'd be implementing that involved a behavioral contract. I expected resistance. Both situations went completely smooth and my fears were unfounded. I realize that the source of my fear in both situations was my past experiences and anticipating those same behaviors.

Resentments: I have a current resentment with someone in the rooms of AA. I am going to pray about this situation in order to be guided in my next right action. I will also pray for this person.

Ego: This morning's fearfulness kicked up my ego's need to overcompensate in the form of impatient driving and raging at rush hour traffic that I believed should move faster for ME. I have to laugh at my self-centered, bordering on delusional thinking.

Dishonesty: I went to a speaker meeting tonight closer to my home and made an excuse for why I couldn't go to the Step meeting I often attend which starts later and is further away. I didn't want to lead the Tradition meeting tonight at the Step meeting because I wasn't into it, yet I was not fully honest with the group's chair when we texted back and forth about me not attending. I contacted him after the speaker meeting to apologize and make my amends. He was very loving and accepted my apology.

Gratitude:
I am grateful for all of the following today:
- My relationship with God
- Being alive and in good health
- The abundance of work that I have, esp in this economy
- Being able to pay all of my bills and have money leftover
- The connections I had today with loved ones
- Having good meals
- My dog
- The ability to teach and connect with my students
- Getting to a meeting tonight
- The willingness to sponsor a young woman in the program and being available when she needed to talk this evening after the meeting
- Receiving the shimmering light of the glorious moon as I stood in my backyard and appreciating it for just what it is, no longer needing to anchor to it to locate myself in the world

Thanks Fred G for helping me stay sober another day.

Goodnight.

The Fox that I am ...

Red Fox Portrait
Originally uploaded by naturenev
Another "beast" dream last night.

My healer shared just this week that these Ox-herding pictures and Great Bear Mother stuff will be working me, rather than me working them. It couldn't be more true.

In my dream, I am in a large spacious field, surrounded by woods. In the distance, I get a glimpse of a large fox with striking features. I am enthralled and petrified. It sees me and begins moving toward me with lightning speed. There is a metal cage, much like the one that people are in when they go deep into the ocean to view sharks, and I quickly crawl in, shaking furiously as I try to bolt it shut, with this feeble latch. As soon as I hook the latch, the fox is above me in the pine tree and then is suddenly right at the opening of the cage, snout to nose with me, looking right into my eyes. My heart is beating rapidly and I blink and it has vanished.

When I wake up from the dream and make notes to myself, the following phrases appear on the journal page, as if they had been channeled, as I certainly was not aware of thinking them up.

"You cannot out-fox the fox."
"I can no longer hide from my true nature."

I can barely go back to sleep after this. I have now experienced the 3rd picture of the series: "Seeing the Ox." As I lay there, restless and exhausted simultaneously, I am flooded with thoughts, images.

The "sly" fox. Part of my true nature is that I am clever and quick-witted. I do things by the seat of my pants, I can improvise. I adjust to some situations very easily and readily. I am charming.

Foxes are cunning. Equally accurate about my true nature is that I have mastered every form of dishonesty and deceit. From exaggeration and manipulation to cheating and stealing and everything in between. In my drinking period, I wielded this tool belt of deception in order to get what I wanted, when I wanted it, all in the name of my addiction. After that, my cunning inner fox had me believe that I was doing "just fine" -- the guise for denial and self-delusion.

I went as far as to go onto the internet early this morning to google search the nature of foxes. On a reputable animal behavior website, this statement was particularly compelling:
"They [foxes] find an escape once there is a scent of danger."
I laughed out loud. My healer has been making this statement about me for years, almost verbatim (substitute the word "whiff" for "scent")    I also read that foxes are not just aggressive by nature but they are also gentle. And can even be domesticated.    I know that both of these qualities exist in me vividly. 

One of the first milestones in my lifetime of allowing my true nature to be revealed to myself and then to others was when I came out as a lesbian. I knew by age 6 that the way I felt about girls was the way girls felt about boys. And then, I wouldn't let myself know much more. My inner fox went into hiding, into stealth mode. Peering out from time to time, like when I would let myself experience brief moments of having a crush on a girl. This was swiftly stuffed back down into the foxhole. To come out of the woods and into the open field and frolic and proclaim: "I dig chicks!" or "I get turned on by breasts and pussy!" was a victory. The claiming of my true nature. Not to mention the freedom I felt to no longer be trapped.

In the dream, I wanted to see the fox and I didn't want to see the fox. That's how it's been about having my own true nature revealed to me. I'm curious and I'm scared. The cage in my dream was flimsy at best, with a latchhook that could have easily been broken. For me, that symbolizes a movement from resistance to readiness. My self-imposed prison is loosening its bars and locks. I don't really want to be protected from knowing who I am any longer. After all, I looked at my true nature face-to-face in the dream. I want to see the beast intimately, so that I can also see her beauty. And that she was.

I want to know the fox that I am ...

In the Eyes of Poverty ...

24 hours with Rakesh (Work in progress) **6:39 am.**
Originally uploaded by --Liza--
In my social work class this evening, we studied the impact of poverty on people who make up the "lower 1/5th" of the population in terms of income. The current poverty line is: $22,000 for a family of four.

I posed a question to my students tonight which rattled their sheltered, for the most part, worlds. "What changes would you have to make in your life in order to live on $2 a day?" The gasps and bulging eyes spread like wildfire around the room. Some began to protest: "Are you kidding? That's impossible!" I shared with them that folks living below the poverty line survive on $2 a day, sometimes less. And then I told them to get creative and resourceful and see what they came up with.

Some students thought about how they would have to ride a bike to work or school if they had to, while others were aware of some "free" perks offered to students who fell below a certain income.  Some spoke about the "treats" they'd give up,  the ways in which they would have to be frugal.   Some students flat out said "There's no way I can do this." To which I responded: "What if you had no choice?"

Dead Silence.

For the duration of the class, however, I noticed a shift in the attitudes of the students. They had softened, they offered more thoughtful responses to other questions about poverty. They grew more enthusiastic about wanting to develop strategies to educate and support people who are homeless or malnourished or just plain poor.

None of us in that room really "get" , fortunately, what it would be like to experience life on $2 a day. The closest I came was a time period during my alcoholism when I perhaps had, after rent and a few select bills, approximately $30-40 extra each pay period. Much of this went to booze. A minimal amount of this went to food which consisted of : rice cakes, tuna, peanut butter. An occasional package of Ho-Ho's. I had no furnishings outside of a borrowed futon and milkcrates and a boom box. I had a few forks and knives and spoons which were all mismatched and likely stolen from restaurants. This is where addiction took me. I was lucky to have been able to keep a job and to have a roof over my head and to not have landed in a shelter or on the streets. One drink away perhaps ...

What would life look like for me on $2 a day ? I shudder to think about this in any serious way. No car. No cell phone. No internet. No health insurance. I couldn't afford to live where I do. I would have to get a room in a house close to where I teach. I do have a bike, so I could ride as long as the weather cooperated. My grocery items would be sparse -- I would likely become a really resourceful "dumpster diver" -- especially outside of good restaurants. No luxuries of any kind, including a cup of coffee at a cafe. No classes at the non dual heaing school I attend, unless I'd get a scholarship. No favorite meals out with friends, unless they were treating out of pity. Second-hand clothes. Washing things by hand because of laundromat costs. Could I even afford my dog ?

1/3 of the entire world's population is starving. Another 1/3 is underfed. Makes me much more mindful about waste and how I consider my food and the deep gratitude for the opportunity to have a meal.

I showed a youtube video tonight to highlight the "faces of poverty", which included people in both urban and rural settings, of all ages and ethnicities and family compositions. I saw the tears streaming down some of the faces of my students. I told them that the reason I chose such a video (and will likely do more in the future) was because it was important for them, as future social workers, to see reality for what it is. To know if they can bear to take in the suffering of the world in which social workers interface with others' hardships.
I did not show this for some dramatic effect; I showed this because it's real.

Part of my nondual practice is about seeing the suffering of the world from our heart. I just shared with my healer in a session today about how I had been avoiding this because sometimes it was too intimate, too painful, too difficult. After tonight's class, I want my eyes open to the struggle of being human in the physical world. To have a large enough container to take it in, to find compassion, to soften toward the cruelty of it. To look lovingly in the eyes of poverty and find the life that is there too.

Loved Back To Recovery ...

You plucked my love, but it grew back.
Originally uploaded by Leah Johnston
In my prayers this morning, I asked God for guidance to find the right topic for the AA meeting I would be chairing in a couple of hours.
I was pulled strongly toward reading the Daily Reflections for today. It was absolutely the perfect choice.

The passage is titled: Loved Back To Recovery:
"Our whole treasured philosophy of self-sufficiency had to be cast aside. This had not been done with old-fashioned willpower; it was instead a matter of developing the willingness to accept these new facts of living. We neither ran nor fought. But accept we did. And then we were free.
~ Best of the Grapevine, Vol. 1, p. 198

As I shared this passage with the meeting members, I spoke briefly about its meaning for me. How just last evening in a meeting I was so moved by the speaker's capturing of "the moment of grace" when he had no other choice but to surrender to his powerlessness over alcohol. And how, if we're lucky enough, we answer the call and allow ourselves, as the passage is titled, to be loved back to recovery. This message, on the heels of my blog entry last night about recognizing our separation from God, blew me away.

The members' comments on this topic were so heart-felt that I was on the verge of tears with every share, goosebumps appearing and then re-appearing from the vibration of connectedness in the room. Each person spoke about their moments of grace -- at the time they put down the drink as well as situations during sobriety. These grace-filled scenarios ran the gamut: sitting with the possibility of having cancer and then finding out their test results were negative; the despair of knowing that one more day of drinking could very well kill them; the threat of a prison sentence; courageously riding the emotional rollercoaster of having one's best friend murdered and not picking up a drink; a new diagnosis of M.S. and being willing to seek alternative treatment; going through a painful divorce; accepting one's own mortality.

I love the last lines of the Daily Reflections passage: But accept we did. And then we were free.

This is our return to Steps 1-3, over and over and over again. There is a tremendous weight lifted when I have been able to acknowledge my powerlessness over any situation in my life and having the grace to both accept it AND to ask God to hold it or remove my attachment to it. When I am able to do these Steps, I am absolutely free.

My re-entry back into the rooms of AA over a year and a half ago allowed me to let go of my past associations and old stories and to let myself be loved back to recovery. I have an intimate relationship with God, as I understand God. And with myself. I completely trust God. And within this, I totally trust myself and my internal wisdom.

It is an embrace that keeps holding me, growing me, loving me -- a day at a time.