freedom in surrender

                                                                   

Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lyin' on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me

 
sometimes, my head get so bogged down in details and drama that i forget to go back to the basics. now and again, i begin to get disheartened because i am not able to help some people. they are too sick or beyond my abilities. this usually is the time for me to start working "harder" than the client and to second guess myself every step of the way. but that is not helpful either. typically, i know this is not helpful, but find myself doing it anyway. it only dilutes my abilities and my senses. my supervisor once told me that sometimes it needs to be enough that we are just present. that we listen and that we are there. learning humilitiy on a deeper level is "right-sizing" for certain. i can help someone without solving their problems. it's a simple concept that i have a tendency to forget. just as simple as i can have problems and still be okay, too. this is life on life's terms in my eyes. none of us get of scot-free.

The key to Step 6 is acceptance -- accepting character defects exactly as they are and the willingness to let them go.


Step 6


Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.


After identifying shortcomings and admitting to them by working Step 4 and 5, the next step forces members of 12-step recovery groups to ask themselves if they are really willing to give up some of those faults. After all, some of them have been around so long, they are like old friends. They have been comfortable.


But if the previous steps have been done thoroughly and honestly, many times facing the truth can bring a measure of guilt, which is a great motivation to become "entirely ready" to have those shortcomings removed. As with all the steps, the ability to become ready comes from a higher power, a power greater than yourself.... from 12 step study

today's sound choice is an acoustic version of colorado's own "the fray". here is "you found me"




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use somebody

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm”

i realize that there are some things i really don't understand. and there are some things i probably never will. without a doubt in my former life, this would have driven me crazy- this not understanding. but that was before. now i am okay with not knowing. i can't say i like it, but i can live with it. at least i can try to live with it.

i have an acquaintance that has told me they have a bi-polar diagnosis. not so unusual, right? however, the more time i have spent with this person, the more i question if that is actually the diagnosis. i am in no way a diagnostician, but i have come to wonder if this person has a more intricate issue- perhaps even a disorder.

is is sometimes called bpd- borderline personality disorder. from what i understand it is not treatable. or if it is treatable, it is extremely difficult and certainly not curable. the nature of the disorder itself is one that fools its inhabitant into not seeing beyond itself. it causes the affected person to be completely unable to see their own responsibility. they become too busy manipulating any situation to lend their own position into a favorable one. they lose the sense of genuine-ness.

being unsure if my suspicion here is authentic or imagined, i can only go on my gut. knowing i cannot change something makes it no easier to deal with. and living in frustration because of a situation is foolish. so i can't change it and i don't like it, so what do i do? my first inclination was to leave the situation, but that isn't surrender, that is retreat. surrender is acceptance without giving in. understanding is needed and leadership is still required. i am not sure if it's in me, or that i am the right one.

here is a brief description of some traits assigned to bpd from the palace. please know that many of these could easily be assigned to me, especially before i got clean and started taking meds regularly. and i believe they say that often bi-polars in manic periods will present as bpd. (kinda hard to keep up then, eh?) to top it all off, i think i get triggered by this person's behavior, as i recognize it in myself. and i'm pretty sure they know it bothers me, and they enjoy it.

The Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines, Revised
Gunderson and his colleague, Jonathan Kolb, tried to make the diagnosis of BPD by constructing a clinical interview to assess borderline characteristics in patients. The DIB was revised in 1989 to sharpen its ability to differentiate between BPD and other personality disorders. It considers symptoms that fall under four main headings:

Affect
chronic/major depression
helplessness
hopelessness
worthlessness
guilt
anger (including frequent expressions of anger)
anxiety
loneliness
boredom
emptiness

Cognition
odd thinking
unusual perceptions
nondelusional paranoia
quasipsychosis

Impulse action patterns
substance abuse/dependence
sexual deviance
manipulative suicide gestures
other impulsive behaviors

Interpersonal relationships
intolerance of aloneness
abandonment, engulfment, annihilation fears
counterdependency
stormy relationships
manipulativeness
dependency
devaluation
masochism/sadism
demandingness
entitlement

today's sound choice is one from one of my absolute favorite current bands. here is kings of leon with "use somebody"

start where you are

pic-pete wentz with a monkey on his back- can you relate?

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Arthur Ashe

i have developed a habit of reading from books to my substance use groups. i don't use them to replace any curriculum, but hopefully to enhance them. i am particularly fond these days of pema chodron's writing. when i was struggling to get clean about 5 years ago, my friend had recommended the book "when things fall apart" as something that might be helpful in my situation. sadly, when i to the used bookstore to find it, i mistakenly purchased "things fall apart" by chinua achebe. i never wrote things down at that point and somehow the names seemed similar to me.

fast forward to when i actually purchased the first book. i was amazed at the simplicity of its buddhist sensibility. and it offered me hope and some wiggle room in my views of my issues and how they fit in the world.

needless to say, this book brought me great comfort. i started reading it to my matrix group as they seemed to be struggling with inspiration. i have never tried to impart dogma, only ideas. and the selections, when read aloud, almost always inspire conversations and seem to address the shackles of our own perceptions, even if for only a short while. this has expanded to the dui groups as well. there, so many participants are in precontemplative frames of mind, and i find it helps to get them engaged in new ways in group discussions.

what happened for me initially, coincidentally, while i read to my groups last spring, was that my life started to mirror the chapters in "when things fall apart" in very eerie ways. many things in my life seemed to start to do just that- fall apart. my job fell apart. my relationship with my former counselor completely disintegrated. i found myself re traumatized and experiencing ptsd so evidently, that i was compelled to seek treatment for it and subsequently worked through it. but most enveloping was the complete implosion of my sense of self. i basically had to take apart the wiring and reconstruct. this last bit- a daunting task- is still in progress.

so my purpose here today is to share the wonder of following an instinct (or my heart as it were). i knew when i read that book, that i was tapping into something much larger than myself, and much more logical than myself. now i have gotten a second book written by pema chodron with the title "start where you are". i read the first two pages of the chapter with that same name to one of my groups last night. it talks about seeing ourselves, knowing ourselves, and accepting ourselves. this seems simple, but is a vastly tall order for me. it seems so easy for me to hate the bits of me that are stumbly or rough or unexceptional and ordinary. i find comfort in the directness she projects as she relays that it is intelligent and thoughtful for us to see ourselves and love ourselves now, as we are today- with our emotional pimples and our brainiac halitosis, and not when we become the fantasy we want to be- just as we are right here, right now.

she says "do it now, don't wait.... and start where you are"

today's sound choice is sigur ros doing hoppipolla

it's not over

i spent a good portion of last evening watching american idol. there were a lot of clips that i seem to have forgotten easily. but there was a clip of daughtry singing what about now in uganda. that scene for some reason has kept in the forefront of my minds eye. i think it was the little girl with aids that was laying in her bed in the middle of the afternoon. i honestly can imagine feeling so miserable, weak, and sick that i can't get out of bed. it just caused me to be sad.

and from "a course in miracles"

LESSON 31

I am not the victim of the world I see.


Today's idea is the introduction to your declaration of release. Again, the idea should be applied to both the world you see without and the world you see within. In applying the idea, we will use a form of practice which will be used more and more, with changes as indicated. Generally speaking, the form includes two aspects, one in which you apply the idea on a more sustained basis, and the other consisting of frequent applications of the idea throughout the day.

Two longer periods of practice with the idea for today are needed, one in the morning and one at night. Three to five minutes for each of these are recommended. During that time, look about you slowly while repeating the idea two or three times. Then close your eyes, and apply the same idea to your inner world. You will escape from both together, for the inner is the cause of the outer.

As you survey your inner world, merely let whatever thoughts cross your mind come into your awareness, each to be considered for a moment, and then replaced by the next. Try not to establish any kind of hierarchy among them. Watch them come and go as dispassionately as possible. Do not dwell on any one in particular, but try to let the stream move on evenly and calmly, without any special investment on your part. As you sit and quietly watch your thoughts, repeat today's idea to yourself as often as you care to, but with no sense of hurry.

In addition, repeat the idea for today as often as possible during the day. Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world.

The idea for today is also a particularly useful one to use as a response to any form of temptation that may arise. It is a declaration that you will not yield to it, and put yourself in bondage.