Meditation

Ok, so I'm surely not the first person to write about meditation in a blog, but I felt compelled to do so!
I've been practicing Vedic Meditation on and off for a little over three years. I was fortunate enough to learn from my teacher Light Watkins. As of late, I have been quite diligent in my practice. Most days I do it twice a day (morning and evening) for 20 minutes. I've grown to realize the benefits of my practice. It's as vital to my sobriety as is attending meetings and taking the medicines that have been prescribed to me. In essence, it is a daily dose of peace and serenity.

My mind is quieter, my patience is greater, as well as my tolerance of others. The 20-40 minutes of meditation I practice each day, give me a respite from my unruly thought process. It is amazing to see how much the conscious mind fights to be heard when I attempt to quiet it. Some days, I'm successful in quieting down my mind for a better part of the session. Other times not so much. But that is all right. It's a PRACTICE. Just like any other activity one does on a regular basis, sometimes it isn't as fulfilling as others. But the cumulative effects are rewarded when it really counts.

I'm convinced that if I don't continue to practice meditation, I will be sliding backward. I know this from experience. Last year I put the training for a marathon ahead of it. Justifying it by telling myself that running was a form of meditation. The end result was a slow decline back into negative thinking, depression and anxiety that ended in a relapse.  For me, the act of sitting still quietly on the couch is a more effective method of keeping my mind in check.

If you are curious about learning this method of meditation, I highly recommend clicking on the hyperlink of Light's name above. There you can find some resources that you might find to be as invaluable as I have!

Jai Guru Deva Om

There's No Place Like Home

Tonight I attended one of my home groups. It's a house meeting at a married couple's home in AA. I can't begin to say how grateful I am to have been welcomed into this group! For those that are unfamiliar with what a home group is, it's a meeting where a member attends on a regular basis. A place where one can get to know other members and form close relationships. These relationships are vital for any member of AA. Without them, it is easy to slip into isolation and drink again, maybe even die...

Tonight's group is very special. It is a place where there seems to be a deeper sense of intimacy than a regular AA meeting. Most of people that attend this group are there every week, and share what is going on in their lives. There is an accountability that goes with attending a home group. I have found that it is imperative that I be at least one of my home groups every week. This meeting is really important to me, because I feel safe there to discuss things I might not share at a regular meeting. And if I'm not there, someone will notice. They might even reach out and find out why I'm not there.  This is so important!  The other thing I love is the camaraderie that is shared. When it is some one's sobriety anniversary of "belly button" birthday, we have cake and celebrate after the meeting. There is much joy in this house when we gather together. It is fellowship that keeps people coming back long enough until the are able to work the steps and learn to love themselves. Much like what I've been learning to do in the past two months.

I am truly overjoyed at the prospect of getting to know the people at my home group at a deeper level. At a true and honest level. At the same time, I will learn to allow other people to know the true and honest me.  For that I am so grateful!

Shame

There is no bigger threat to my inner peace than shame. For years I've lived with it, not really understanding why. I just felt it. What is shame? According to Wikipedia:
Shame is, variously, an affect, emotion, cognition, state, or condition. The roots of the wordshame are thought to derive from an older word meaning "to cover"; as such, covering oneself, literally or figuratively, is a natural expression of shame.^[1]

Ah... so shame is literally the act of covering something up. When I was in 1st grade, I had a terrible time sitting in class.(There had been some recent upheaval in my life at the time)  So I would ask to be excused to go to the restroom quite often. This lasted for a period of time that I can't now determine, but I remember the day it was put to a halt. Ever hear of the fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Well, it happened to me. Let's just say that on that particular day I REALLY had to use the restroom. And wouldn't you know it? The teacher said NO. So I sat at my desk trying my best to control  my small, but overwhelmed six year old bladder; to no avail...

So there I sat, dreading the bell for recess. And when it came, I was forced to stand up for all of my classmates to see my failure to control my bodily functions. That's when that word shame overcame
me... This of course led to schoolyard hazing and eventually bullying.  At that moment, I took it upon myself to think that there was something terribly wrong with me. That I didn't deserve to be protected, that I was a bad person...

That event eventually led to my doing things I didn't want to do. Things that I didn't feel right about. But things I was compelled to do out of desperation for what I thought was friendship. This in turn made me feel more shame. Basically, I got caught up on the perpetual wheel of shame. I felt alienated from my peers, so I would do things to get attention. Sometimes things that I knew weren't acceptable, but none the less, I did them for attention. Then when it was pointed out to me that these things were wrong, I would immediately fall back into shame. If you are following along carefully, you'll note that I'm not saying shame is always a bad thing. But because of the way I understood it, I would suffer feelings of inferiority, helplessness, weakness and defenselessness. All of which plagued me through my life.

I recently had the opportunity to do EMDR therapy. It really helped me to deal with the shame I've been dealing with over various situations from my past. Basically how EMDR works is that you recreate the event of trauma while being stimulated visually, tactically and aurally.  This system helps break up the memory in sense. When we go through trauma, our Amygdalae takes over the functions of the brain and creates the fight or flight response. When this happens our Frontal Lobe goes on vacation. That's the part of the brain that uses reason. But the memory of the event is stored in the Limbic system in the Hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for both long and short term memory. This trauma continually spins around in our brains, with no logic attached to the event. EMDR activates the Frontal Lobes while recreating the trauma to allow processing.

Let me tell you, it works! The memory of the events are still there, but they don't have the same emotional impact they once had over me. It's still going to take more work for me to deal with the issues that have caused me trouble, but I know longer feel shame over them. I recognize that the messages I've been telling myself were based in false assumptions.  What happened to me as a child wasn't my fault. I'm not a bad person, I've just operated under this falsehood. Today I have a choice to believe those thoughts or not. I choose not to live in  the toxicity of shame!

A New Perspective

Today I woke up with a smile of gratitude upon my face.(and a little dog named Chloe licking me) No fuzzy head, no blurry bloodshot eyes. But a promise of a new day and the possibilities that were ahead! I contribute this to a new perspective that I've taken about my life.

It wasn't too long ago that I didn't wake up this way. As a matter of fact, it was more like coming to. And then there wasn't any gratitude. Exactly the opposite. I dreaded the thought of facing another day. I wanted to crawl back into bed, and worse... Climb into a bottle of scotch and drown myself in in it. What a miserable existence! What made it even worse was the fact that no matter how much liquor I consumed, I couldn't block the memories and the feelings of my past that had haunted me for so long.  

This is a horrible place to be. To be terrified of the feelings of guilt and shame, and being unable to turn to the one thing that had always taken them away. This was the "jumping of place" for me. Couple the inability to blot out my thoughts and the realization that I had to resort to scraping change together to feed the Coin Star just so I could by more alcohol at 7:00 AM helped me reach my bottom. That, and a little voice in my head that told me to reach out for help. Which I did...

I finally made it to treatment three days later. Upon getting my vitals in detox, I was informed that my blood pressure was in the danger zone, and that I was a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. It took me a couple of days of coming out of the haze that I was much sicker than I could have ever imagined. And this was only after four days of drinking! (Of course that was four days straight)Fortunately that's no longer the case. I went in for a physical today, and gratefully my blood pressure is at a safe and normal state. Overall, I'm in pretty good health for a guy my age. 

Today I can say I'm very grateful to be alive. Grateful I don't have to live that way anymore. It's hard to believe that 51 days later I could have such a dramatic change of perspective. Of course when one's feet have been put to the fire, one can't help but feel immense relief to have them withdrawn!  Today I live in today as best I can. Because the truth is I feel like I'm living on borrowed time... Only grace saved me. Something I hope I never forget!  

Boy on the Red Line

Riding home tonight, I saw a family of three get on the L at the Jackson stop. They were all dressed in mismatched clothing and poorly groomed. The mother looked as if she was a heroin addict, and the father had a similar appearance. The boy who looked to be around seven although disheveled, was a handsome lad.

The mother took the seat in front of me, and the father and son sat directly behind me. I mainly paid attention to the mother as she was in my line of sight. I noticed that when we made the stop at Harrison that she stood up and looked confused as to her whereabouts. The father growled at her to sit down, she then took a seat to my left. She was holding a plastic bag in her hand that seem to hold a bottle of pop and some cigarettes among other items. She clutched it as if her life depended upon it. I noticed that other passengers were looking at her in a puzzled fashion, as well as a looks of disdain. 

When I got up from my seat to stand by the doors to wait to exit at Roosevelt, I looked at the young boy. He had a smile on his face, but he had a lost look in his eyes when he looked me. It broke my heart to see such a young life already exposed to the obviously cruel side of life.  I couldn't help but feel pity for him. What it must be like to be him can only be imagined. He made me reflect on my own youth. Realizing that although I wasn't happy much of my childhood, I had two parents that loved me and did the best they could with raising me, I can say thankfully they were never abusive or derelict. I was flooded with a sense of gratitude as I exited the train. I then felt compelled to say a silent prayer for that little boy. 

Life isn't fair, but when I think of how much worse so many people in the world have it. I feel a bit guilty for complaining about my own troubles. I don't know if my observations were correct about that little boy. For all I know he's quite happy. But I know this much, I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's today. I have it really good. I have family and friends that love me and support me. I have it so well. And the thing is I have taken it for granted far too many times.

As you go to bed tonight, reflect upon your own life and think of what you can be grateful for. I know I will...

Please Stand Up!

"I stood up for the first time
When I was eleven months old
And ever since that day, my mama said
I never done what I was told
I never stood for nothing too much
All through my schooling years
But I stood as much as I can stand
And I guess that's why I'm still standing here"-Stood Up/John Hiatt


The lyrics above have a special meaning to me. You see, they sum up my life quite easily. I've always done what I wanted to do, no matter what anyone told me. I always felt like I had all the answers. You couldn't tell me what to do. Always thinking, "Don't you know who I am?"  Well, that way of doing things hasn't exactly been a success...

In Alcoholics Anonymous they have a saying that says, "My best thinking got me a seat in these rooms."Oh and how true that is in my case! My best thinking has led to untold misery, isolation and a feeling apart from the rest of the human race.  I always thought I knew what was best for me, you and the rest of those people out there. How presumptuous of me! The truth is I don't even know what's best for myself, let alone anybody else.

Things are slowly changing. I finally realized in this 46th year of my life on the Third Rock, that I need other people. Not to get something from, but to share in this wonderful experience called LIFE. I also realized that I needed to turn my life and my will over to God. That's OK if you don't believe in a God.
Lord knows I didn't for a very long time. But unlike many people, I need to have a belief in something greater than myself. The reason? I have a HUGE ego, one that needs to be deflated on a regular basis.
As I've stated, I obviously don't know what I don't know. And that adds up to a lot!

The last line in the lyrics above seem to encapsulate where I've been. I stood as much misery and fear as I could take. I couldn't go on the way I was, it was a death sentence... And no, I'm not being overly dramatic. I was slowly killing my body and soul. I feel grateful to be alive, grateful to have another opportunity at getting things right, well, as right as I can humanly do so. I expect to make mistakes. Something I was quite intolerant of, in both you and especially me!  I found out the real definition of the word Perfectionist. It's not doing something perfectly all the time, it's not doing something out of fear that I'll screw it up, thus leaving me to question: Why bother?  Today I'm more gentle with myself. And in turn, I'm more accepting and tolerant of others.

So today I'm standing up. But not alone, and not by my own devices!

Acceptance

I'm gaining an appreciation of this word: Acceptance. I've been going through a struggle as of late that really has tested this principle in my life. Finally, I came to the realization that no matter how much I kick and scream like a child, none of that is going to change the outcome.

I came back to a different life not to long ago. And things had drastically changed. I had pushed someone out of my life through my own selfish actions. I wanted to fix this immediately, to say how sorry I was, to ask for forgiveness, but that wasn't what happened. The truth of the matter is my words carry little weight. Only my actions and showing that I'm working hard to change the way I've acted in the past is changing, will prove my words truthful. The harder I fought the idea of acceptance of the situation, the more crazy I made myself.  Once I gave in to the idea that things happen the way they are supposed to, and in the time frame that the universe sees fit, I found some relief.

That doesn't mean I have to like the situation. But if I can accept that things are the way they are right now, this moment in time, I'll be ok. If I concentrate on what needs to be done in front of me, and show gratitude for what I still have, then I'll learn from my mistakes.  I need to grow up. Bottom line! 
I'm making some changes in my current living situation. Removing  myself from an environment that isn't condusive to the changes I need to make. I'm allowing myself the opportunity to let someone help me, so I can help myself. Time to put my pride away, suck it up, and go forward! Thus, acceptance.