the unexamined life

i realized a couple of weeks ago that the unexamined life just isn't nearly as interesting as the intentional one. i have found a counselor and see him this morning. it's been over 20 years now that i've been 'in counselling' most recently i've had female counselors. i'm looking forward to a new perspective.

i find that they help pick at the loose threads in this tapestry of my life. find the areas that are covering over wounds or confusion and unravel the knots to find out what really lies underneath. no big crisis - just a deep desire to go deeper.

i originally decided against seeing him because he was so very different than anyone i've seen before. his life experience and perspective are worlds apart than where i've come from - he's so calm, peaceful and methodical - i think i feared i'd freak him out with my stuff. i can be overwhelming at times... then i realized that i wanted some of what he had. he is a man of peace, passionate about justice, compassionate about helping the poor and the hurting. i figured out that many times i am the 'poor and the hurting'. if i could sense that in the few months we've been here i knew that i could trust him to have compassion toward me and my story.

so an appointment made weeks ago seems very well timed in the middle of this family visit. i look forward to pulling at the threads today.

i need words

i am finding it far too easy to be distracted from writing lately. kids home, reading all of your words, tv on, music on, good books, housework, sunshine, etc. unfortunately most of those are really good things - but i think it's more than that. i think i'm chickening out.

i need to do some deep soul work and i've gotten lazy. distractions are so much easier. liam took the kids to the festival tonight. chocolate dipping lessons - i knew that would be too much for me, so here i am in the silence - no distractions - but just fingers away... talking on the phone, listening to a podcast, reading other's blogs, even cleaning looks more attractive than admitting that i'm afraid right now.

afraid of what? i'm so out of touch with my own thoughts i don't really know. i've gotten so good at helping liam process out his own thoughts they have become a smoke screen. for years he rode the coat-tails of my recovery and soul-work... now i'm riding his.

the counsellor friend who moved to town isn't taking clients - so i emailed the counsellor who is on staff at the church and the university. he is such a kind, soft-spoken man. i have gotten to know him a bit better since i judged him too soft to help me. i determined early that he would be put off by my personality. i have since found out more about his sense of humor, his passion for justice, his heart for the down-trodden and the underdog. i just emailed him asking to begin living 'the examined life' again.

it's my heart's cry. my deep need. hopefully it will begin soon. it's just far too easy to get distracted. it's more fun to get distracted. live like i have no problems, no worries, no fears. i guess i have found some words, but now that i have i want to run to those distractions - uncovering the fear makes me want to flee. being present to the emotions without distraction isn't something i feel up to right now.

well, i guess burying myself in a good book isn't such a bad thing, right?

history in pharmaceutical drug ads

this is a collection of vintage ads run in medical journals. some of these are terrifying to think of the lives ruined, the addiction created and the loss of dignity taken by medicine. i know they didn't know then what we know now, but it's still such a clue into how trying to anestitize a generation from their emotions and facing their past has brought us here. fascinating.

vintage_ads: Drugs

via

pci - personal craziness index

i was reading at deb's abiding blog and she mentioned that she was in a bit of a dry spell and asked people to leave questions to inspire her blogging. i too LOVE questions - they give me a reason to dig deeper. i have been pretty surface lately. content to just sit in the peace after so much tumult this past year. i don't think it's denial, but it definitely isn't effort either.
one of the questions i left for deb was 'do you have any good tools that help you identify 'red flags' to let you know if you're nearing a danger zone in your recovery?" (or something like that?) i thought that would be a good question for me as the tool i use has the THE MOST HELPFUL for me to keep my recovery stabilized and balanced.

it is taken from my guru - patrick carnes - a gentle path through the 12 steps (AGPTT12S)- it truly was the book that changed my life. and this tool he developed is the 'red flag' that keeps me from careening back into my addictions. it's called a "personal craziness index" or PCI (the people who use it call it "picky").

i hope i'm not interfering in any copyright territory - i made the graphic myself (without any help from liam, the graphics master. i'm so very proud of me!) and i'm giving full credit to carnes - AGPTT12S, pgs. 212-223.

he says on pg. 212:

"The Twelve Steps will help you learn the necessary skills, but you also need to develop a lifestyle that builds up reserves of strength and endurance.

Think of your life as having an addiction "set point" - the point at which the imbalance leaves you vulnerable to addiction, when you are too stressed or overextended to maintain your recovery.

By developing a sense of what your own personal set point is, you can be alert to maintaining the balance that makes you less vulnerable to the "friends" of your addict. The PCI on page 214 will help you develop some criteria for recognizing when you have passed that point of sanity and are at risk. The PCI thus can become a set of "training" guidelines under which you train for anticipated stress. In addition, by keeping track of your own PCI for a period of time, you will get better and better at maintaining lifestyle balance and having some fun."

there are then three parts to establishing your own PCI - preparation, recording/charting your pci, maintaining/tuning your pci. the book is set up in workbook style, so you fill in the blanks as you read (GO BUY THE BOOK! really, it will change your life!)

preparation tracks 10 areas of your life and personal behavior that could have danger signs or warnings that you are close to the edge. he writes:

"Addicts and coaddicts are particularly vulnerable to the "insanity" of loss of reality from having neglected the basics. "Keep it simple" and "a day at time" are not shopworn cliches, but guidelines borne out by the experience of many recovery people. The PCI helps you to remember what you need to do each day. It helps you establish good recovery habits. Without a structured process to keep you on track, "cunning and baffling," self-destructive behavior patterns will return. You'll also find the PCI helpful during periods of stress and vulnerability."

the 10 areas are:

1. Physical Health
2. Transportation
3. Environment
4. Work
5. Interests
6. Social Life
7. Family/Significant Others
8. Finances
9. Spiritual Life and Personal Reflection
10. Other Addictions or Symptom Behaviors

each person is asked to list 3-4 things in each area that are signs of danger. an example i can give from my own PCI preparation would be:

3. Environment - To not have time to do your personal chores is a comment on the order of your life. Consider the home in which plans go unwatered, fish go unfed, grocery supplies depleted, laundry not done or put away, cleaning neglected, dishes unwashed. What are ways in which you neglect your home or living space?
-beds unmade
-dirty dishes on the counter
-laundry not put away

for each of those areas i have listed similar, embarrassing, honest answers. identifying my danger zones allows me to identify when life is getting out of control.

after those 10 areas are listed carnes provides charts to track your behavior - you choose 7 of the 30 that are the highest indicators that life is getting out of control. my seven are:

1. bad hygiene
2. avoidance of the telephone
3. avoidance of finances, balancing checkbook/paying bills
4. critical of others
5. no ordered quiet time
6. dishes piled up
7. pushing responsibilities on liam so i can stay home/isolation
   

i personally wasn't great at the charting and actually writing those things down - i just personally remember the 7 things - i have them tattooed on my brain. when i walk in that kitchen and see the dishes piled up i know doing them will help me maintain my sobriety. i know when i'm spending and not keeping good accounts i'm entering a danger zone. i know that when i don't sit at the side of my bed each night and read the next portion of 'the message' before bed i WILL slide back into my addiction (i have been able to maintain this now for over five years!).

this tool, like NO other has given me the red flags i need to check myself and avoid the craziness that drives me back into my addictions. when i maintain them i am able to keep my reserves charged up.

i have no idea if i've left parts of this out or if it makes sense to someone who hasn't read any of carnes. this is definitely not something you begin your recovery with - it is a maintenance tool. if you're actively working the steps it will help you to maintain your sobriety. my guide gave me this out of sequence (because of her love for it) early on in my journey and it made no sense at all to me. i was offended at the "crazy" term used in the name and bristled at all of the work involved. when the timing was right though it has become the 'level' in my toolbox of recovery tools.

please - ask questions - i will edit this if it doesn't make sense - and like i said above - GO BUY THE BOOK!! patrick carnes is a fellow addict - this really works.

you can find some of his great resources here.

jesus with skin on

i received an email this morning from my dear friend hope who saw the promises below and wondered if things were okay here. i can't lie to her - she knows me deepest, darkest parts - so i told her no, it's gotten hard again. liam's job was enough of a distration for a bit, but the newness of that has left and we are back to remembering what discouragement and burn-out feel like. we have realized that reaching out and asking for help involves trust, and trust is in short supply here. we've gotten burned by to many churches and it's hard to forget what that feels like.

it was easier to be financially needy and ask for prayer and help than it is to be emotionally desperate and wounded.

i wrote her back asking for prayer for some people here (the end of the school year and preperations for the europe trip have most people we would go to tied up in really demanding circumstances) to come and rescue us - there is just no motivation to get the things done for the move that need to be done and the stress of it all has us snipping and sniping at each other.

just typing out my response to her helped and not an hour later i had a phone call from a friend asking if she could come help me clean the new place to ready it for the move. the help cleaning won't be nearly as helpful as just having someone to talk to face to face.

the woman who will be our counselor arrives in about 5 weeks, but that seems so very far away. so if you think of us please say a prayer as the well is pretty dry and we must accomplish much in the next few weeks. reinforcements and encouragement would be so helpful. thanks!

divide and conquer

i saw my therapist today. the timing couldn't have been better. she listened patiently as i caught her up on all of the many things that happened over the summer and then go to what i've been working through these past couple of weeks.

i talked of my dream, my concerns and the many other ways i've been dealing with fear. she's very gifted at listening to it all and asking some very pointed questions, and then giving a perspective. i told her about 'sitting with fear' and how overwhelmed i was feeling and how it seemed so sufficating sometimes.

her wise words were 'bobbie, you control the door. you don't have to let every fear in all at once. just invite the one you're feeling at the time, name it and deal with it.' what a concept. the big blob of 'free floating anxiety' i was dealing with was overwhelming for a reason.

she said fear can't stand on it's own. it's always attached to something. when we can identify what it's attached to we can then name it and face it. good timing. great wisdom. divide and conquer. that i can manage.

make sure you receive rather than remake

got a kick in the gut this morning reading over at jeremy's blog junkmail for blankets. the ghetto monk moves things in me i thought were dormant, if not dead. his writing takes my breath away.

he writes of 're-making' instead of receiving.

'All of my resentment, anger, hubris, selfishness, callousness, lovelessness, and self-righteousness stems from the perverted stance of demandingness. And, most stingingly, demandingness is the seed of almost every instance of personal disappointment; and, thus, inability to trust; and, thus, inability to be honest; and, thus, inability to love.'

i am an incredibly demanding person. i loathe that part of me. abhor it. to see it in this context is helping me see that it's not serving me well.

i know i am demanding of liam, my children and even god. what if i just received instead of remade, accepted instead of demanded?

love given freely is so much more meaningful. why do i have to be in charge and full of expectations? why can't i relax and refrain from imposing my will and desires on those around me?

my next book after i finish the gentle path, is compelled to control by keith miller. it's sitting on my shelf waiting for me to be willing.

oh god help me to be willing to be willing soon.

feeling a bit stalled...

it's late here for me to be blogging. usually it's the first thing i do after i put the beans on to grind. thought about a lot of different blog topics today, and none seemed like anything i really wanted to spend my time on. so whenever i get stalled i know it has to do with my recovery. the best way i've found to beat a stall is to do what's 'next'.

WARNING - this is a hugely long post. it's more for me than you. feel free to read on, but i'm really just trying to get my thoughts and plans organized.

i know why i feel frozen, i don't like to finish things. it's either they don't end well and i feel like a failure, or they end so well that i have to grieve their passing.

i am on step 11 on two of my workbooks, and both are looming to an end. one is just a trivial step series that has only taken me this past year to do, and i'm looking forward to finishing it. the other one though i've been working on since october 2002, and it's the best tool i've ever used. i hate the thought of it ending.

it's a gentle path through the twelve steps by patrick cairns. the steps, while gentle, aren't easy. they are indepth and mine deeply into my soul.

i know that this next step will be life changing for me and i am terrified.

step eleven

sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with god as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

here's the excerpt that i need to address today:

'spirtuality is simply another level of 'knowing' or finding. often this takes the form of a journey or quest. to undertake such a spiritual quest, you will need to make special preparations. here are suggestions for what you might need:

- a dream journal
- a seeking place
- a guiding metaphor
- a collection of sacred things
- a spiritual mentor.'

while i'd love to go to taize or linwood house or backpack around europe i have neither the funds, nor the freedom. so i have to think on a smaller, less grand scale. i think i've found my location. it's a romanian orthodox monastary i've visited about 10 miles from my home.

they have homes that can be used for pilgrims and a beautiful site, complete with a chapel filled with breath-taking icons. it's run by nuns and not monks, and they are warm and welcoming.

the issue i am stalled by is what it's supposed to 'look like'. do i hike there? do i drive? is it a silent retreat? do i participate in the routine of the monastery? how long should i go? i am so indecisive it is overwhelming me. i just don't want to screw this up. i have spent a day alone with god before, it's not the silence or solitude that bring me the anxiety, i guess it's more like 'this is my big chance, don't goof it'.

i put so much pressure on myself and god for everything to be 'just so' that i am terrified i will be disappointed (kind of like the dance - which should remind me that i will never be disapponted, but the intimacy thing still terrifies me...)

anyway, back to planning.

as far as a 'dream journal' goes, i don't have 'dreams' like spiritual people have dreams (like amy does). i've always wanted deep spiritual dreams, they just don't seem to happen when i sleep. maybe i'm meant to dream while i'm awake?? but i am 6 pages away from finishing my current journal (back to that hate to finish stuff thing - it's the first journal i will have actually filled, lots of them started, but they're just so pretty, and i want a new one all the time... i have forced myself to stop buying them and finish at least one...) so my goal is to finish writing in the current one and take a brand spanking new one with me on this trip. i have been preparing it for almost a year.

the current journal i have was a gift, and every time i open it i'm blessed with a fragrance, like i've walked into a wonderful candle shop. so i have my new journal in a zip lock bag with some wonderful scented aroma, and am hoping that this will continue the sensory experience.

boy am i full of bunny trails today... (okay, this is more for me than for you, sorry!)

so i have the seeking place, and the dream journal. now the metaphors. throughout the book you are encouraged to find metaphors that give you pictures of your recovery. i have many. my metaphor for my childhood is a hedgehog. curl up and protect myself because no one else seemed to. my metaphor for adulthood is the mama bear. hyper vigilant, protecting her loved ones (that includes you too) from any danger or attack. and the metaphor i gleened from reading when the heart waits by sue monk kidd. the butterfly.

there are too many layers to describe how this metaphor has touched me. my journal is filled with pages and pages. i'll have to blog on this another time.

the second to last metaphor i'll be bringing is a sunflower. at our last women's retreat the speaker told us we all needed to ponder what type of flower we were in god's garden. i thought it was a stupid 'ladies retreat' type of thing to do, and was very irritated by it, but upon actually meditating on it (reluctantly obedient that i am) i realized that i was a sunflower.

sturdy, tall and practical. have you ever tried to pull one of these from the ground? stubborn and rooted also fits too. they nourish others and lift their faces to the sun. even for a dumb ladies retreat assignement god used this metaphor deeply in my life. it was also a wonderful way to get to know and understand the other women i was in a small group with. i think i'm going to assign this to us all in the blogworld. (file for later)...

the last, most recent metaphor god gave me while starting preperation for this pilgrimage was a circus performer balancing on a ball. so much of my life has been marked by extremes. i don't do 'middle ground' very well. it is my prayer that my recovery is marked by balance.

sacred things... the thought of walking the 10 miles gave me the idea for a walking stick (balancing circus performers also use a stick to help them balance). i found a stick while at creation, now i just have to personalize it a bit. walking sticks also alert helpful drivers to know that the walker is intent on walking - and doesn't want a ride.

i will also need a mirror. body image and my self image is a very big part of my recovery. i hesitate to type that i'll be bringing a mirror. it seems vain. anyway.

i also have collected a small cloth bag of sacred objects. rocks, acorns, gifts from my children, reminders of childhood. i hang it on the corner post of my bed and dump it out when i need some connections or am feeling alone. it is a wonderful tool to help replace the lies i tell myself.

i also have a floppy hat to shade my head and it has a beautiful copper butterfly pin on it. i have copper colored hair, and remember the 'red hair' jokes of childhood that hurt me so much. i can't remember when/who it was that corrected that and gifted me with the words, 'you don't have red hair, you have copper hair'. somehow that made a lot of it all better.

the last sacred thing i want to bring (and this probably would have worked better in the early summer, but the timing wasn't possible) is a pocketful of sunflower seeds. i want to drop them along my path and either feed the birds who follow, or maybe plant sunflowers this year or next along my path.

the last on the list is a spiritual mentor. this is probably the most difficult for me to blog on. i have longed for a mentor all of my life. i have a wonderful therapist who 'fills the gap' but i truly want someone who loves me for who i am and is willing to step into my life and commit to loving and mentoring me. it has never happened.

i have heard rumor that a spiritual director has moved back into our community. i am very excited about this and hope to make contact soon. i would really love to have a director in my life that is close by and can be seen regularly.

so... there is my list. i have done what is 'next'. maybe that will break the stall that i feel like i've been in.

please father, help me as i plan, not to have too high of expectations, not to freeze or stop from moving forward. help me today to take another step toward you - and i pray today for knowledge of your will and the power to carry that out. amen.

feelings, nothing more than feelings...

okay, it's a bad title, but it's my 4th post today! :)

one of the frustrations i've had with my healing and recovery was trying to identify and feel the feelings i was (duh) feeling.

i told my therapist that i didn't even have the words i needed to describe them. they weren't a part of my vocabulary. i am an educated, fairly intelligent individual, so this came as a great frustration to me. it felt like another language i had never learned.

at that point she got up, when to her office and returned with a watercolor print that had small children drawn all over it. each child was expressing a different feeling or emotion and they were drawn to express that emotion, and even without the words and definitions you would be able to identify the emotion. it was magical - i loved it and have searched high and low for it.

as the blog world is unusually silent today my usual reading time was empty and i got a bit bored, so i began to google and came across this great site that is similar to, but not nearly as artistic as the print. it is a great tool to help those of us who need 'remedial feelings 101' as a kind of cheat sheet. so if this is you enjoy!

list of feeling words

here are some more to enjoy:

feelings inventory

needs inventory