Series Three: Blog Forty-Six

Last night I dreamt that I was busy caring for everyone around me. Busyness was swirling all around me, just the way I liked it. I had written a second book and had just completed 35 miles during my early morning run. No one knew about either of these personal undertakings.  I was surrounded by people who had many needs and I was adept to meeting every one of them. This was vintage me. 

In my dream, I was conversing and engaging all of these people who I knew very well because I had spent so much time solving their problems and caring for them. They all decided to divide up and go get something to eat at a restaurant to socialize and celebrate. I was caring for them and helping them organize car rides etc to different restaurants and watched as they all drove off to go get food. In my busyness to make sure everyone had a ride I failed to arrange one for myself. I was left behind. Everyone assumed that I had a ride and waved. Some even called out as they drove by saying “See you at the restaurant” assuming I would be there.

I tried to reach out to my brother who was there in my dream and who I had spent so much time worrying and caring for. I was sure he would come back and get me. But, I couldn’t figure out how to use the device I had. I tried to text him. But, it wouldn’t transmit. I tried and tried!  I desperately wanted to be with everyone and not be alone.

I took care of everyone else but did not know how to take care of myself! I was frustrated and tired from all the giving and hard work I had put in trying to be more for others to keep from being less.  When everyone was present I felt so appreciated and valued because of the care I was giving everyone around me. Now, they were gone and I desperately needed to be with them. It felt so unsatisfying, unfulfilling and lonely.

In my loneliness, I envisioned everyone having wonderful and fun conversations while I was by myself. As time passed, I gave up thinking I could figure out a way to get a ride. It would be too late. By now, they would be eating dessert. So I settled in with my forlorn lonesomeness. When they returned I felt so physically hungry and exhausted from all that I had done but no one noticed.  However, I kept all of that secret as others casually engaged me for conversation. Everyone assumed that I had a nice dinner and good connection with others.  I kept secret my longing for closeness and need for food after running so far, writing so much and caring so deeply for others. My brother brought home his blueberry cobbler ala mode.  He raved about how good it was. I didn’t want anyone to know I had missed out. The physical hunger, craving for connection and being cared for was so palpable. But it was too scary to admit my needs and ask for help. So I smiled and kept caring for others as if no one had left in the first place. Then I woke up.

My dream is a reality for millions of people whose primary way of getting notice is through taking care of the needs of others. My mother was this way to the extreme. She would stay awake till all nine of us kids got home each night. Many nights it would be 1am. She would be up at 5am the next day, making breakfast, packing lunches and doing laundry in the basement which included hanging the clothes outside on the line or downstairs in the basement when weather was inclement. When we were in school she worked to gather clothing and food for the Fryman’s who had 22 children and then she would clean the church building for the next meeting. Her day was one of service from early am till past midnight every day. When it was time for her to be appreciated she was embarrassed and very uncomfortable. No one had ever taught her how to take care of herself by receiving a compliment and bathing in it.

Codependency is a cancer to the spirit of life. It’s the empty space in your soul that grows when you don’t know how to properly hygiene your own spirit with self-care. A group of professionals gathered in Scottsdale in 1989 and determined that codependency is that painful pattern of dependency on others for approval in an attempt to find safety, self-worth and identity.

It’s age old. It showed up in biblical times. The apostle Peter was so wanting the approval of Jesus, his master, that the storyline says that when Jesus was arrested Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of one of the soldiers, thinking this would be a way of pleasing his master. The behavior predates the Bible and unfolds throughout the history of time. It has been described many different ways and will continue to be identified with numerous labels.

You lose your identity when you think you have to do more to keep from being less in order to be noticed and not invisible.  Seeking adulation and approval through acts of kindness is a codependent behavior that leaves you unfulfilled. Like an elusive butterfly, you never quite catch the feeling you most desire. You resemble the little kid who can’t get enough sugar.  Innocently and maliciously you flirt with others through behaviors that will give you the message that you are special.

When your identity is driven by outside acts of kindness or other behavior you lose sight of who you are and what you are about. Many people live their lives never really knowing who they are and what they are about. They are driven by outside validation to prop them up and give them approval of their sense of being. There is a great fear of being invisible. Mother Teresa once said that “being unwanted and uncared for, forgotten by everybody, is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty, than the person who has nothing to eat.”  Everybody wants to matter to somebody.

This is the motivation toward becoming a human doing. Early in life, people learn that who they are is defined by what they do. Some of the greatest contributions to the world come from people who are essentially human doings. Many contributors who recognize this dynamic have even written books or blogs about it. They articulately describe and define the difference from “human doing” from “human being”.  Some do workshops and podcasts describing the importance of practicing “human being” versus “human doing”.  Some of us who are therapists are at our very best helping others intervene from acting as a “doing” and practicing “being”. While helpful to others, we struggle with our own lost identity.   It is one thing to help others with this challenge and another to separate out what we do from who we are.

Often I ask myself, who am I if I no longer practice being a therapist? It sounds like a simple answer until you contemplate giving up whatever you do. Many people fear being invisible if they give up their occupation or whatever they are really good at. They don’t know how to be emotionally vulnerable so they depend upon their ability to care for others. They weld their identity to their ability to care for others. It is horrifying to let go of their identity to care for others in order to recognize the good of their own being.

Codependency is a lack of relationship to yourself. Therefore, you do not know who you are except how you interact with others. It is a lack of identity. Terry Kellogg says that this lack of relationship to self is a child’s reaction to a dysfunctional family. When children live with people who are not dependable, the child never learns to depend on others or self in healthy ways. They depend on fixes, externals and inappropriate people. To find their worth, they allow others to depend upon them, or they become isolated and present as independent. (Kellogg, Broken Toys/Broken Dreams, Introduction, XIX).

I have watched people in every field struggle with letting go of what they have done for many years in order to celebrate their being. Certainly, I have known this struggle personally.  My experience is that most people don’t let go of their false identity. Even when they retire they identify themselves by what they once got paid to do. Addicts want to control their identity. Yet, their obsession to control results in replacing one addiction for another. They short circuit their own self-empowerment. Yet, freedom at the end of the road is only real if you let go of what you do to experience the greater depths of who you are. When what you do controls who you are, you have created a prison that prevents the release of your inner being. What remains incarcerated is your inner brilliance and the freedom to be you. Don’t allow the cancer codependency to eat away at the spirit of your life.

Series Three: Blog Forty-Five

Codependency is a nebulous term utilized to address relational dysfunction rooted in current and past trauma. Like addiction there is not a one description that fits all codependent behavior. Terry Kellogg once said “you scratch an addict and you find a codependent”. This unhealthy dynamic is rooted in a complex pattern of abuse, neglect and abandonment issues that seduce people to utilize extreme measures to control what they cannot control.

Codependency is glaring in unhealthy relationships. Addicts build relationships to others in the same way they build a relationship to themselves. Codependents grew up in a dysfunctional families and learned to be controlled by other people’s problems and feelings. You learned to ignore your own feelings, needs, and wants. Countless stories told in 12-step meetings indicate uncertainty and tension that many endured through childhood. Coming home from school, you learn to check the vibes before entering the house. There is a succession of indicators that you translate to determine whether or not it is safe as you enter the house. Is Mom depressed, lonely or sad? Can I cheer her up? Do I just let her cry? Try to avoid her? Is she suicidal? Should I try to distract her from her pain? Is Dad home?  Is he tense and pissed? Is he drunk? Can I tell him about my day or should I stay away from him? Are mom and dad fighting? Should I keep clear or try to get them to stop? Maybe, I should create a distraction. Maybe I should leave or isolate in my bedroom. Maybe I shouldn’t have even come home. All of these decisions for a child are not based on their needs. They are a reaction and are focused on what others feel and do. As children people learn to become reactors, controllers and manipulators. Codependency becomes ingrained and woven through childhood insecurities triggered from living in a dysfunctional family. It is promoted through a lack of affirmation and parental unavailability that fosters self-doubt, self-centeredness, shame and a lack of ego strength. It is the product of excessive expectations and being over controlled.  In this context kids try to fill family needs and parental emptiness that births perfectionism, stress, martyrdom, sainthood, overachievement, rebellion and self-destructiveness.

It is the result of a child reacting to parents who fail in their marriage relationship. The unhealthy marriage creates isolation, enmeshment, triangulation, inappropriate bonding and emotional incest. A child loses sight of where they stop and their parents begin. The parents’ difficulties engulf the child who tries too hard to make things better but they can’t. As a result, the child grows up feeling over responsible, helpless and hopeless that relational living could ever be different than what was known as a child. You learn to embrace the improbable and ignore the obvious that exists in the sick family system.

Addressing complex codependency born in dysfunctional families requires comprehensive treatment. Consider the following:

1. Intensive treatment: Unravelling the complications of trauma and codependency calls for deep intensive treatment. Premium place for treatment include Psychological Counseling Services Ltd (PCS) in Scottsdale, AZ who have been treating dysfunctional families for over 40 years. Other premium treatment centers include the Meadows in Wickenburg AZ, Onsite, just outside of Nashville, TN, and the Hoffman Institute. These healing organizations can provide a deep dive into family of origin dysfunction and will help you establish a foundation to build your ongoing healing process.
2. Dig into the 12-step community for support and ongoing accountability: Particularly Codependency Anonymous, AL-ANON, and Adult Children Anonymous (ACA) are excellent support groups that help to unearth family dysfunctional dynamics and provide for accountability and consultation to improve relational living.
3. No one and done treatment process: Codependency is a relational dynamic that demands lifelong consultation and accountability. It is clarifying and helpful to create a sobriety contract whereby you identify clear and specific patterns of behavior that you identify as codependent. It is also helpful to specifically list out high-risk people, places, emotional states, feelings and behaviors that trigger codependent response. Then to list the positive replacement behaviors you will incorporate to address codependent tendencies. You cinch your contract by establishing five people who are in recovery of their own that you will be accountable to in order to achieve this behavioral change. Your commitment is to tell on yourself within 24 hours if/when you codependently act out. When you tell on yourself you not only identify the behavior violation but what you are committed to do to eliminate the behavior.

Codependency is complicated and will implore a lifelong pursuit. Many addicts struggle more with changing codependent behavior than they do addressing their addict behavior tendency.

Addicts who pride themselves with long term sobriety, admit in frustration that they seem to violate their codependency contract often. The goal in recovery is one of course correction. A pilot flying from Dallas to Denver doesn’t draw a straight line with the idea they never will deviate from the line drawn. Rather, there is continual course correction throughout the journey so that ultimately touchdown is on target when they arrive at Denver as if they never deviated from the course in the first place. The same is true for the codependent. What is more valuable than having never left the center of behavior, is engaging ongoing course correction. Those recovering from codependency who learn to course correct, see themselves drifting from center and involving codependency then bring themselves back to center are ones who learn best to manage the dysfunction from their family of origin.

Series Three: Blog Forty-Four

“Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try—

No Hell below us—

Above us only Sky—

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one”—-

John Lennon

Spirituality is an important quest in addiction recovery whether you seek healing through a 12-step program or otherwise. Some people say that spirituality is the quality of being concerned with the human spirit as opposed to material or physical things. Recovery requires tuning into your spirit in the presence of chaos in your physical existence.

I grew up understanding that spirituality had everything to do with an individual relationship with God. Since I was a Christian, God always included Jesus. This complex journey led me through a labyrinth of contradiction that required more possibility than one world religion or all of them combined provided. Did I really believe that everyone had to accept Jesus to go to heaven? Did I really believe that there was one sacred book or was there many that God wrote or inspired others to compose? Did I really believe that spirituality required a religious reference? Could someone experience spirituality through mathematics, astronomy or many other sciences? Why did science and spirituality need to be so juxtaposed? Why does spirituality demand that someone create a concept of God, traditional or otherwise? Could the principles of 12-step recovery be helpful without identifying a known Higher Power? Black and white answers to these questions and many more did not satisfy or create a space of inner peace for me and many others who journeyed through their own labyrinth.

Many people have concluded that spirituality is obtuse to the experience of life no matter how you define it. If you are atheist does that mean you cannot be spiritual? Could there be a better word to describe the non-material aspects of human existence? We do have a vast vocabulary. Why insist on one or a few words to describe human adventure? Some people prefer “life force”, “energy” and other words to replace the word spirituality to describe their life experience. I am resolved that the spiritual journey in life can be described in a myriad of ways. For me, spirituality includes many paths that involves a vast vocabulary to describe its meaningfulness.

Here are a few forethoughts about spirituality to reflect along the journey of addiction recovery.

Connection: I contend that humanity is social. One of the basic needs that exists is the longing to connect with another in some way. I have a neighbor who is reclusive. Many times he will not acknowledge or say hello when I notice him in his yard. Yet, he does have a network of connecting that is important to him. It just doesn’t include me! Spirituality embraces the desire to matter and to connect with another human being. Isolation destroys recovery for addicts. People who pull away from the connectivity of a 12-step group replace the energy with a relationship to a drug of choice. Vulnerability is the conduit for connection in a 12-step recovery group. Sharing the raw and rugged reality of your relationship with addiction is met with acceptance. It is matched with other stories who share the same reality. Like magic, when this occurs you come back. When it doesn’t happen you go back to your addiction. Human connection is critical to the development of a spirituality that heals addictive behavior.

Paradox: The story of recovery always includes paradox. Who would have thought so and so would have become a disciple in a 12-step group? This remark is hallmark throughout 12-step community. There are so many paradoxes in recovery living, such as “to win you must learn how to lose”, “to be in control you must learn to let go”, “to connect you must first detach” etc. Spirituality is a journey of paradox. For many years I conducted a spirituality group. Often, I would pose a speculation of thought that if spirituality was only to be found in the wound, life imperfection, or failure, then which part of your wound or imperfection is most difficult for you to embrace? The question is designed to help identify the experiences of life that you try to avoid. The suggestion is that the painful experiences that you try avoid is likely the very place you might find “God” or cultivate your spirituality.  Frequently, folks didn’t get it. Why would you want to find God there? You mean the painful reality in the wound of infidelity, abusive behavior, or hatred and resentment toward another are places to cultivate spirituality? Isn’t there a better place like a church or a retreat with a spiritual guru or something? The idea that where you have perpetrated pain and suffering for another is antithetical to where most would set up shop to cultivate spirituality. It seems so counterintuitive. Yet, spirituality requires these moments of brokenness to cultivate humility and to connect with remorse. Spiritual enlightenment and transformation occurs when you stalk these moments of shameful behavior. Learning to love yourself in the presence of shame is the workshop of cultivating spirituality.

Tolerance: Tolerance is not just putting up with another person’s differences or idiosyncrasies. It means to care and identify with someone who is different and disagreeable. Tolerance multiplies appreciation for the rich diversity that exists on the earth and promotes deep understanding that all our struggles are the same. It is possible to connect to the same fears and the same sorrows. Most folks are doing the best they can to make life work out. In his book, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama made this appeal to the world, “On some days I think it would be better if there were no religions. All religions and all scriptures harbor potential for violence. This is why we need secular ethics beyond all religions. It is more important for schools to have classes on ethics other than religion. Why? Because it’s more important to be aware of our commonalities than to constantly emphasize what divides us.” This spirit points to the common threads of everyday living that connects humanity. Tolerance moves beyond connection with others whom we share commonality. Connecting through weakness brings people together and is often where we find our bond and common beginnings. Tolerance toward others begins with tolerance within self. It is bedrock to deepening spirituality in the recovery process. Sit with Presence. Society points a finger of disapproval to addicts as numbed and checked out from reality. Yet, most everyone wants to be checked out from discomfort. It’s human nature. During the past few years there has been a revival in the use of psychedelics toward healing mental illness. Psilocybin’s, designer drugs, and other hallucinogens offer encouraging results when utilized by trained therapists in a controlled environment. Michael Pollan in his book, How to Change Your Mind, chronicles the encouraging advances made in offering relief to those tortured with mental illness. Alongside these discoveries it is important to promote the value of sitting in the reality of the present moment and uncovering one’s own brilliance in the average experience of daily living. Rather than pursuing spirituality through the spectacular or through an hallucinogen, there is a way of connecting to what is, without a mind-altering drug experience. It is its paradoxical nature to take what most would want to escape and make the miracle of heaven in the present moment simply by embracing its reality.

Series Three: Blog Forty-three

I recently visited relatives who live in a small farm community in the Midwest. I was privileged to be invited to a small community coffee. The town’s population was 40. Everyone was pretty much related to each other. It was held in a nondescript farm office. They made the coffee but you bring your own cup. I borrowed one from my relative. There were three other men plus me.

In the beginning everyone was quiet and I stared at the bulletin board and the walls around me. Then, one of the guys began talking about Jerry. He had recently died from a stroke in his old age. These are guys who grew up with each other and interacted for decades. Jerry was single. He was a mama’s boy whose mother had chased away the only two girls who showed interest.  He was described as an eccentric individual with a peculiar pattern of obsessive compulsive behavior. He loved making beer bread on Saturday mornings. For years one of the men attending the coffee would take a bottle of beer to him on Friday so that he could make the bread. Jerry refused to be seen purchasing beer at the grocery. He lived an uneventful life. Jerry went through a midlife crisis.  He broke out and bought a bicycle and started drinking Mountain Dew.

His most neurotic behavior involved the 20 chickens that he raised. Jerry did not eat eggs. He generously distributed them to his neighbors. You became a regular recipient if you engaged conversation and gossip with him. On his basement wall he maintained a detailed account of every egg he ever delivered for 46 years! The record included date, name and the amount of eggs delivered. He delivered 13,646 dozen eggs to those who would gossip with him. Jerry liked to refer to himself as “we”. He would often say to himself “I don’t know why we do this?” However, he continued the count until he got too old to deliver the eggs.

People act obsessive compulsively to reduce fear and anxiety of not being in control. Most addicts can relate to Jerry even though they don’t raise chickens or keep fastidious records of their kind acts to others. They share with Jerry the anxiety and fear of not being in control.

Addicts carry the shame of their parents. This is triggered when a child is put in a position of needing to respond as an adult. There is a myriad of ways that this can happen. Sometimes kids carry their parents’ rage. If you ask them in adulthood what their parents were so angry about, they won’t be able to tell you. Yet, they have adopted a similar anger response to things in life that their parents expressed.

Sometimes generational shame is expressed through depression nourished by mistaken beliefs such as “life is overwhelming and I cannot cope”. During the present moment they won’t be able to tell you why they feel so discouraged. Likely they won’t be aware that they are carrying generational shame through depression.

Roles that children play can also express carried shame. Family roles can be healthy when they are chosen and not assigned. When a child becomes a scapegoat, the family clown or hero, they fill a need that is left unmet by parents who have the responsibility to meet those family needs. Kids make up where they fit into the family. Doing so promotes validation through approval from their parents. Frequently, children lose their sense of self-awareness through identifying with their family roles. They discover their value in what they do rather than who they are. Yet, they can never do enough to fulfill the need for being validated for who they are. This is how children get set up to carry their parents’ shame.

If you are a rager as an adult and don’t know why, it is often because you are carrying your parents’ rage. Dad or mom got the kids’ attention when their needs were expressed through rage. A child absorbs this energy and exercises the same behavior to get the same results. They learn to carry their parents shame by becoming a tough S.O.B. when things don’t work out the way they want. They learn to explode in order to provide the same or opposite results when things did not work out for their parents.

When you trace the feelings that keep you stuck, it will often lead back to shame that has been carried by your mother or father or other significant caregiver. At first it will be confusing, but when you peel back the mistaken beliefs that shroud the dominant feeling, it will lead to a discovery of the shame source that kept your parents stuck. Examine the mistaken belief that energizes your unwanted feelings. Once you uncover it, explore how this same mistaken belief dominated your parents when you were young. This will help you understand what keeps you stuck now.

Generational shame is carried through powerful feelings like, depression, anger, sadness, fear, loneliness etc. It is shrouded in mistaken beliefs that trigger behavior which keep the shame intact. Compulsive behaviors, i.e. addiction and family dysfunction, are fueled by generational shame bound by mistaken beliefs. Even Jerry’s OCD behaviors about counting the eggs he distributed are tied to generational shame. His fear of abandonment and loneliness fueled his generous behavior which was tied to an elusive need for control driven by the generational shame that he carried.

< What are the feelings that keep you stuck?

< What mistaken beliefs shroud the feelings you feel stuck with?

< Trace how your parents may have been stuck in the same feelings with the same mistaken beliefs. This will be the pathway of understanding to how generational shame is passed to you from the previous generation.

Series Three: Blog Forty-two

The journey in addiction recovery teaches that healing is not a one and done experience. Effectively, we apply the wisdom gained from early experiences in recovery and use it to rebuild healthy behavior and intimacy in relationships. Along the way it is easy to become distracted and derailed from principles of sound recovery. For addicts there are times that your mind races out of control. It might involve a craving for a drug of choice or an unbridled rumination about over control toward someone or some situation. Whatever the thoughts, your monkey brain creates an inner critic that rules. This negative imaging takes you away from centered living.

Self-parenting is a required skill set necessary for addicts to deepen their recovery from sobriety and into the experience of serenity. Getting at root causation for addiction is a journey into family of origin. In this exploration, an addict learns to identify and understand unresolved family-of-origin issues that trigger current addictive behavior. The recovery assignment is to address unmet developmental needs by giving back carried shame to parental caregivers. This process involves a lot of grieving. Treatment helps to accelerate this process. Addicts in recovery learn that the practice of grief is a lifelong journey. Throughout the ups and downs of everyday living, there are many resets and redos in practicing self-parenting.

Here are some suggestions to consider:

Create a still mind away from the daily fray of recovery living through mindful meditation: Mindfulness requires a beginner’s mind. When your mind is empty, it is ready for anything and open to everything. A beginner’s mind is open to numerous possibilities while the expert is open to only a few. Quieting your mind depends upon the skill of meditation. When you meditate you focus on your breath as it rises and falls. When your mind wanders, you simply notice the distraction and bring yourself back to the breath. As you practice, little by little, you will begin to discriminate the raw sensory events from your reaction to them. Eventually, you will experience a gradual stillness within.

Make a list of grievances that painfully distract you from the present: Nothing changes until it is real. (Fritz Perls) Nagging discomfort shows up in many ways. It can be physical and emotional. Physical pain is a way for the body to tell you what is out of balance. It is an alert system signaling that something is out of balance and needs to be addressed. Listen to what your body has to say! Emotionally you feel up and down. Sometimes joyful and sometimes depressed. Listen to your emotions. They will tell you what is out of balance. Upon listening, make a list of issues present and past that trigger emotional pain and anger. It doesn’t matter if on the list is an issue you have previously addressed. If it still causes pain it needs to show up on your list. The list is a way of concretizing what is going on inside of you.

Create a safe spot: You may have completed significant anger work toward a caregiver’s neglect and abandonment. However, as time goes by more anger work is needed. To do this work, you must establish a safe space. Grief work involving anger expression is seldom one and done. It is a lifelong process. Create a place that you can visit old wounds that trigger anger. It can be helpful to have a friend with you who will serve as a fair witness. Direct the anger by focusing on the person who hurt you. Share unedited anger expressions toward the person. Allow the anger to flow and just be there with your feelings. Then, redirect your anger to the issue of abandonment, neglect and unmet need that was so hurtful. Then, redirect your energy of anger toward what you want to create. This is the point where you transform your anger from a negative expression to creating a positive outcome for you. Invest the energy to establish a boundary, and a commitment to love yourself with healthy self-parenting and self-esteem. These steps are not meant to be assembly lined. It is simple but each step will take time. Take whatever time you need.  You do this as many times throughout your life whenever you are aware of the need to grieve. Sometimes people use a tennis racket and a pillow in a garbage bag to express anger. Other times it has been a punching bag, heavy exercise with venting, a long run, or twisting a towel with verbal expression. It can include journaling, writing an article, poetry or music expression. There are many ways to express your anger. Beneath the anger are feelings of sadness, disappointment, regret etc. It is important that you treat each feeling with thoroughness in recognition. Allow yourself to be vulnerable without judgment. There is no room for an inner critical voice to invade this process.  Your safe spot is very important. It can be a physical place.  It is important that you are able to take your safe spot to a mental space that you can access in your mind’s eye because you will not always be able to connect with your physical space. Quieting your mind requires that you periodically will need to take time to work through feelings of grief throughout your lifetime.

Visualize yourself caring for your vulnerable self with kindness and sensitivity. Feeling the raw feelings of hurt, resentment, anger and disappointment is hard work. Keeping the inner critical voice out of the process is even harder work. You will improve through ongoing training and practice. It will be necessary after doing your emotional work that you visualize yourself as one who is capable of expressing feelings. Affirmation and visualization practices is often overlooked by addicts in recovery. It is important to affirm and nurture the work that you do in your safe spot. Affirmations are a powerful antibody to the mistaken beliefs that shame triggers. Visualization is a pre-meditated energizing force that propels transformation of distraction into quieting your mind in recovery.

Series Three: Blog Thirty-Nine

“Power comes from being centered and clear. This is where answers, insights, and lessons will come to the surface of awareness.”

Relationships can be fickle. The more you open your heart and invite someone to be close, the greater likelihood you might encounter conflict that could have been avoided had you chosen to not to be vulnerable. For reasons beyond your control, friendships waver, jobs don’t work out, people suddenly die, and marriages fall apart. There are times that life seems to close in like a vice grip. During these times you feel lonely, isolated and question your ability to make solid decisions. You feel vulnerable to compare what you don’t have to what other’s do have. There are times you must face issues that those around your refuse to acknowledge. You are afraid of other’s judgment. You are sensitive and aware of how much you want other people to accept and approve of your decisions and behavior.

Sometimes you fear other people’s judgment about your behavior. Your fear of their judgment is a way of carrying their shame. You understand their concern around your behavior and you don’t want to disappoint them because you love them very much. However, your awareness takes you to a different place and decision. Your fear of their disapproval is really a way for you to carry their fear of life. This is the way shame is passed from one generation to the next or from one person to another. There is no visible sign but rather it is a relational and transactional experience.

There are times we need to endure and get through rough spots in relationships. There are other times we need to recognize it is time to let go. There are considerations designed to bring you to the center of your soul when the road of life creates unexpected twists and turns.

1. Calm yourself.  Find a space of acceptance to what is around you. When your relationship gets stuck in a difficult place, embrace what you like and don’t like about where you are at. Feel what you feel. The key is to not to overreact to your feelings. It is critical to finding your way through difficulty. Leaning into discomfort is a way of connecting to the Divine of life.
2. When relationships are damaged, they require slowing the pace of life, even stopping to address your broken spirit. When you hurt from someone else’s actions you desperately want to know why and seek immediate answers. Reaching desperate for an answer will not help. when you are wounded you need rest to gain healing. The wound needs to rest in order to heal. don’t pick at the sore spot in your relationship. Don’t rub it in the dirt of other people’s opinions. Just sit with what hurts for a season of time so that the wound can heal.
3. Relax, release and let go. Life can be like fighting against gravity when trying to control someone else’s behavioral response. It’s impossible to control someone else. This is a simple profound truth that some people pound their head against a brick wall before they embrace its reality. Let others be who they are. Tensed or relaxed, like freeway traffic you cannot change the situation. Practice working with rather than against. It will yield daily strength. When you try to control the impossible you exhaust your powers of healing. Learn ways to unwind. Relax your mind and your body. Visualize and meditate. Take a relaxing bath in hot water. Take a walk on the beach. Listen to Buddhist meditation music, get a therapeutic massage, listen to inspiring music, drink hot tea, take in a good movie, practice deep conscious breathing and on and on.  Everyone has their own way. Make a list of what works for you.

The only person that keeps you on the treadmill is you. Create quietness in your mind. Notice the life force in all living things that surround you. Allow your own brilliance to speak to you about your next step toward healing brokenness in your relationship. You will find wisdom to take the next step when you still the noise of your chattering mind and listen to your heart by tuning in to your body and your feelings. This is the way cement your next steps and create meaningfulness in relationships.

Series Three: Blog Forty

I recently finished reading a fascinating book entitled The Life of Hidden Trees by Peter Wohlleben. He spent considerable time discussing the growth and development of the beech tree. He shared that the beech like many other trees thrive in community with other beech trees. Apparently, a beech tree deplores the oak tree and will expel it from its community. While the Oak can grow strong separate from the forest, it will not become a mighty Oak but will live out a wimpish short life in a grove of beech trees.

In community trees thrive and look out for each other. When a disease approaches or a destructive insect enters the tree community warning is sent out through a complicated network of mitochondria. Trees then produce a chemical reaction to ward off the dangerous intrusion. Beeches and other varieties of trees survive longest within a community or a grove that cultivates compatibility.

Recovery among addicts is like a grove of trees. Addicts flourish in an environment with other addicts. There is a kind of “mitochondria” that ignites connection from one addict to another. When one group member shares open brokenness, it triggers an energy within the room for others to be vulnerable in like kind.

Last week while driving to the airport with a group of guys someone asked me if I would share how things have been going in my recovery life. I shared about the loss of my brother who had passed away recently and some complicated heartbreaking experiences within my family of origin. Sadness and tears overcame me as I shared. While I struggled to compose myself to continue sharing, automatically all three men in the car reached out and put their hands on my shoulder and knee while one said I’m so sorry for all that has happened. Even as I think of that moment while writing this blog, tears well up. The “mitochondria” that existed among the men in that car provided support for me in that moment. This is the magic of group consciousness and vulnerability in recovery groups.

The network of connection within the context of a recovery community is fragile and requires ongoing tending and cultivation. Its growth and development are dependent upon every individual that steps into the confines of a recovery room. It doesn’t matter how smart you are about recovery principles. To the point, in a recovery room those who are smart are ones who realize how dumb they are about recovery. They are the ones who testify that their best laid plans and thoughts got them where they are with out-of-control addictive behavior. When two addicts gather and humbly share their common shared brokenness, the mitochondria (connection) in that moment is incredibly palpable. It’s what Bill W refers to when craving is overwhelming. He says in that moment he only needs another alcoholic to tell his story to and listen to that alcoholic tell theirs. It’s the connection with common brokenness shared that helps the community grow and remain vital.

Accountability is necessary in recovery community. Like other communities, when addicts gather there is a tendency to gravitate to sharing life from your head and not your heart. Most addicts learn to manage chaos by relying on their capacity to control things with their head. Group accountability holds your feet to the fire to share from your heart. It’s not how much you know but sharing from the struggle in your heart that moves others to do the same.

Groups that cultivate accountability are sensitive to members who are quiet or whose shares are guarded. When one shares looking down at the floor without making contact, group conscious is concerned about the overwhelm of shame. In groups that do feedback, other members share their experience of shame and how they learn to manage shame. When feedback is not available in group, it is helpful for members to reach out after group and share their story of fear and shame and how they learned to manage these powerful emotions.

Rote disconnected shares stifle the chemistry (mitochondria) within a group. Broken open hearted shares followed up with coffees or car chats in the parking lot cultivate community connection. Phone calls and text chains throughout the week fuel the power of healing in community. Consultation activates the need for support and follow through. Most addicts live maverick lives. Addicts act out in isolation. Recovery requires the insulation that comes from ongoing consultation with a community of recovering addicts. Particularly during the onset of recovery, if you are not consulting and depending upon group conscience and individual guidance, the odds of relapse is great. The power of community will enable you to overcome the attack of craving in the same way a grove of beech trees ward off the intrusion of disease and destructive insects.

St. John of the Cross once said that “the virtuous soul that is alone becomes like a long lone burning coal. It will grow colder rather than hotter”. Just as the beech tree requires a grove to thrive and live a long life, so too does an addict require the connection with a vital community of common shared brokenness.

Series Three: Blog Thirty-nine

One of the great fears that exists in relationship life is that of abandonment. It is scary to become emotionally naked to someone. Many people never achieve deep vulnerability to their partner or anyone else for that matter. There is an underlying fear that if you know what I know about me you will run away from me. This fear is often disguised when people say I don’t want to tell this truth because it will hurt the person I love. It can be true but underneath the stated qualm is the distress that if you expose the truth about yourself you will be abandoned.

The fear of abandonment is kindling for most codependent acts in relationships. Codependency is a gnarly description in relationship life when people try to control another’s behavior in ways that are extreme. Everyone wants to be loved and accepted. Yet, when people go to the extreme of lying, manipulating with niceties, tolerating abuse, losing their identity, or ignoring painful experience because they desperately want to be accepted or loved, it is hurtful. This behavior is identified as codependent. Codependent behavior is always motivated by traumatic experience both present and past. When someone offends you, it is common to hesitate or judge your response based on past experience of being hurt by others. Putting up with the intolerable is endured because of the fear of losing something or someone you don’t want to live without.

Both addicts and partners participate in the trauma response of codependency. It varies in degrees of expression. While it is suspect to put everybody in any one category, typically both parties fear abandonment. Extreme is defined in a myriad of behavioral responses. Ultimately, people act in certain ways to protect themselves from the hurt of abandonment.  When you scare your partner with betrayal behavior, the cascading emotions triggered by betrayal is immense. Obsessional thoughts triggered by treasonous actions is common. So is trying to control what you cannot, to the extreme. The pain of deceit is so deep that compulsive codependency takes over to avoid further trauma. Many respond with codependent response at the onset of betrayal while for others historical codependent response from past trauma is magnified by present betrayal trauma.

Addicts avoid telling the truth from a fear of abandonment. Pressed with the crisis of telling the truth or losing a relationship, an addict is forced to do disclosure. Some tell the truth because they are serious about ending their destructive addictive behavior. Others piecemeal the truth, mistakenly thinking that if I just tell enough my partner will be satisfied and I won’t have to face the fear of abandonment.

After disclosure, many addicts avoid sharing their emotional truth about how they experience their betrayed partner triggered by shame about their addictive behavior and from a fear of abandonment. 

However, if there is not a process that moves a relationship to sharing emotional truth, codependency motivated to avoid abandonment will lead to the realization of what both fear the most—a relationship break up. Codependency is accelerated when a couple does not tell each other what they feel or think because of a fear that if the other knows it will crush them. When a couple concludes that it is their responsibility to protect the other from truth that is deemed hurtful, they create the reality of what they fear most–desertion.  In fear of abandonment, a couple can either tolerate unbelievable loneliness and emotional pain, or divorce. Either way it is possible to never address the fear of abandonment.

In order for codependent behavior to stop, the fear of abandonment must be faced. Here are some considerations:

1. When you fear saying it straight, you must face the greatest fear you want to avoid. If the greatest fear is that you will be embarrassed with your lack of knowledge, face that first. If your ultimate fear is that if I say to my partner what I really believe, h/she will leave me, you must face that first. If your greatest feat is that your real truth is that you do not have the physical or emotional strength to achieve what is required, then you must face that first. Go to the place you fear the most and practice letting go of what you cannot control and then return to the here and now moment. You likely won’t be facing your greatest fear in the present. But, inside you react as if you will. You must uncover your greatest fear as if it is present in the now moment of your life. When you do this you will be able to address your present moment fear of abandonment.  This requires engaging the letting go and surrendering process of Step 3 of 12-step recovery. You must admit that you cannot control or prevent you partner from walking away from you. You will need help but facing this reality is first toward overcoming codependency around abandonment. It is also true about fear in other aspects of your life. You must face the fear of failure and know that you will survive on the other side. When you do this you will be able to manage the anxiety of the present moment.
2. When you are stuck and paralyzed with fear of abandonment in a relationship, you will need to address past unresolved traumas. Most people don’t want to do this. I hear “I don’t have any past traumas in my childhood or life”. Sometimes peoples say “I don’t want to live in the past” or “I let that go a long time ago”. Yet, the fact that you are reacting to your partner on a level of intensity of 9 or 10 (on a scale of 1-10), but this issue would normally be a 3 to 4, tells you that you need to stop and figure out where the over reaction is coming from and address it. Addressing it means to go back to the point of pain and scrub the wound. It might be a present wound that must be addressed and it can be a childhood wound that has been left unaddressed. Essentially, you need to grieve the loss and the pain. You will feel worse before you feel better. When there is a medical intervention it is common to feel worse before you feel better. Abandonment requires that you go back and scrub the wound. Simply acknowledging, reading or talking about the loss won’t be enough. You will need to give back pain and feel the hurt of whatever occurred that paralyzes you with fear. PCS, The Meadows, Hoffman Institute, Onsite and a host of others specialize in this important grief work.
3. Be your own best friend. The feeling of abandonment is a most lonely, scary feeling. The reason many people don’t stand for principle is that it feels so lonely to do so. In a moment of aspiration many say “I don’t care what anyone says or does, I will do what in my heart is right”. But, when the moment comes to stand for principle, it is lonely and scary to do so. Yet, life has a way of bringing us all to that moment of recognition. In that moment when you need to stand for principle while facing abandonment, you must be your own best friend. Others can be supportive. But, no one else can be there with you in that moment of truth. So, be gentle with yourself and bathe yourself in the predetermined affirmations that breathe life and inspiration into your moment of fear. You can do this. Pause and breathe deeply and know that when others abandon you, you will never abandon yourself again! Once you do this, then you can rely upon others to remind you of your personal commitment to yourself and hold you accountable with love and support.

Series Three: Blog Thirty-Seven

“Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.”- Plautus

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night swimming in yesterday’s guilt. Things that I have done that hurt others years ago and have forgotten. Now, I remember them as if I had done them the day before. I tell myself that I have already made amends to others for the destructive behavior but guilt lingers. Sometimes it was something I did that I never told anyone about. I am the only one who knows. Recovery and activity over the years buried the behavior way down deep and now it somehow has worked its way to the surface of memory and I ponder what to do with it at 3am! Do you ever have bouts with yesterday’s guilt?

Guilt is not a pleasant experience. It’s the hound dog that never loses its scent and always relentlessly pursues.  There are overlays of guilt. You wake up each morning with the desire to do right. Yet, before noon you have already acted out with addictive substance or process. Your heart descends from your chest to your stomach. There is a bitter taste of failure and guilt that seems to permeate every cell in your body. There is an overwhelming desire to be someone else somewhere else. You feel sad, lonely, desperate and guilty.

Guilt is a feeling experience that dominates most addicts. Even in recovery guilt becomes a nemesis that is difficult to shake. Addicts feel guilt about the destructive things they have done and the good things never completed. Lying in bed replaying the things you did that were so hurtful. Like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing, guilt powerfully dominates the present with past memories of hurtful behavior.

How to manage guilt when you are committed to a life in recovery? Yesterday you stumbled. Maybe you did worse and fell off the edge of the cliff. You got drunk and killed someone driving. You had a sexual affair with your brother’s partner. You molested a child. You broke your partner’s heart with addictive behavior that created unbelievable pain for people you really love?

How do you deal with the guilt that dogs you every waking moment?

1. What happened yesterday, belongs to yesterday. There is an old saying in recovery that “yesterday ended last night!” This is true. Guilt is caused by too much past, and not enough present. Wallowing in the mud memory of past destructive behavior will never help you live free and clean in the present moment. Every day is a new day. It takes discipline to wipe the slate clean and live in the here and now and not be dominated by yesterday’s failure.
2. Guilt never rectifies past behavior. Guilt serves to remind you that you did something that hurt you or others. Sociopaths often don’t feel guilt when they hurt others. You do. Let guilt do its work and then discard it. Upon becoming aware that your behavior was hurtful to another recognize that guilt is no longer useful to you. Feel it and let go. This will take daily discipline. Each day guilt will visit you. Practice forgiving yourself which means that you choose to not hold past behaviors against yourself and are committed to walking in the opposite direction from destructive behavior. Recognize what you are doing to rectify hurtful behavior with healing action and then dismiss guilt by taking action that demonstrates guilt free living. Practice letting go of guilt moment by moment.
3. Make amends. The 8th and 9th steps of the 12-Step program suggests that you make a list of the people you have harmed and make amends to them. These two steps pave the way to clear and release guilt. Amends must be a daily practice. We hurt each other continually both intentionally and unintentionally. Amends create flexibility in relationships. It is unnecessary to defend your intentions, simply own the reality that your behavior hurt someone and make it right with a simple apology. In this way, you eliminate the environment that breeds guilt.
4. Learn to love your enemy. People tend to alienate unwanted feelings because they are uncomfortable. Guilt is one of those feelings. Radically, when you embrace guilt and love it for its worth, it will help you become more sensitive to ways in which you hurt others and the environment you live in. While it is not meant that you brood with guilt, it is helpful to listen to the message that guilt is sending and take positive action toward resolution. Proper management of guilt produces compassion for self and others. Guilt feels like an enemy to the soul. However, learning to love your enemy (guilt) will cultivate deeper appreciation and love for self and others.

Guilt can be redemptive and can trigger love. Hating yourself and the feeling of guilt within intensifies the possibility of unwanted behavior. The power of self love builds bridges to the destiny of future healing and positive actions.

Series Three: Blog Thirty-Six

It has been nearly 26 years since Muhammad Ali stepped back into the spotlight to ignite the Olympic cauldron with fire during the opening ceremony in the midst of battling Parkinson’s disease. The lighting of the Olympic cauldron fire motivated and united people around the world with perseverance whose inner fire flickered with debilitating illness. It underscored the sacred fire that exists within each of us.

Fire is a symbol of many things. It points to eternity in the measure of time. It highlights continuity as symbolized with the Olympic flame. It points to hope, rebirth and resurrection of dreams and possibility. It represents the deep passion and desire within one’s spirit.

Fire can also represent destruction and symbolizes the place of Hell. It can be destructive or creative. Its use is dependent upon personal responsibility.  Managed irresponsibly it destroys forests and devastates dreams. When responsibly directed, inner fire rekindles creative thought and fuels personal passion. Love for another often reflects a “fiery, consuming passion” that knows no bounds. Athletes often speak of their determination to excel in terms of a fiery passion that exists deep within their spirit.

Life requires a sacred fire within to procreate, to create connection with others in community and to explore the spirit of the unknown. Every human being comes into the world with a sacred fire to live and survive. There is no recovery without a sacred fire within that longs for a different way of life.

Life is a braiding of highs and lows, bitter and sweet, gains and losses that impacts the intensity of the sacred fire within. The inner flame must be continually fanned and rekindled. Sometimes it must be restarted. 

The indigenous Algonquian Potawatomi tribe of the Great Plains, Upper Mississippi and western Great Lakes region identified themselves as the “True People” who were “keepers of the sacred fire”. They established a confederacy with the Objibwa (Chippewa)and the Odawa (Ottawa) tribes. They interacted with each other like members of the same family. They forged their relationships between tribes with the fires of mutual interest and brotherhood.

Addiction is a fire that is out of control. It consumes and destroys anyone in its path. There must be a sacred fire that longs to stop within the heart of every addict to end the destructive behavior and experience healing. When it is not present or has been snuffed out, it must be rebuilt and sustained.

Listed is information to guide and maintain the sacred fire within.

1.Sacred fire requires taking personal responsibility. Becoming a fire starter means that you must organize and gather kindling. You must gather tinder which includes fine twigs and a nest of dried grasses or shredded bark. Then you must cut plenty of logs and construct your fire so that it gets plenty of oxygen. A single match fire-start, in less than ideal rainy conditions, is no small order. It requires preparation and determined work.

Cultivating a sacred fire within also requires personal initiative. As an addict there must be a time and place where you are done. It is common to identify that place as “hitting bottom”. Like Charlie Brown who tries to kick the football and Lucy pulls it away at the point of contact, leaving Charlie sitting on his duff on the ground, he finally concludes “no more football”. An addict, too,  must  say “No more football” meaning no more acting out.  Typically, this is an every day declaration with a commitment to follow through. This is the beginning of building the sacred fire.

In addition, the kindling and fuel for the sacred fire is in storytelling. The sacred truth is that the shortest distance between a human being and Truth is a story. Telling your story and listening to others’ stokes the sacred fire within. The greatest healing truths are uncovered only through unpacking the intricate details of one’s own story.

2. Every fire requires a spark. Once the kindling is in place, the beginning of a fire requires the spark of a single match. There is some risk that when you strike the match, the spark will not be enough to engage the kindling provided and there will be smoke but no fire. Yet, when the kindling is right the single match ignites the tinder and soon a fire begins that  creates embers that burn for a long time.

In recovery, sparks are the crisis addicts create that trigger a jump start into recovery. However, many sparks simply fizzle. There may not be enough kindling and tinder to allow the fire of recovery to gain traction. So what happens is that an addict will start recovery but will flame out. The spark will only create a sacred fire when the addict commits to kindling recovery with the fuel of an in-depth recovery program. Without this spark, healing will quickly die.

3. Recovery requires a fire keeper. Unless you maintain the fire, it will soon burn out and become cold. Some indigenous people learned to maintain fire with shkitagen (pronounced- skit-a-gin). Shkitagen is a tinder fungus used as a fire keeper. Once an ember meets shkitagen it will not go out but smolders slowly in the fungal matrix, holding it’s heat. Even the smallest spark, so fleeting and easily lost, will be held and nurtured if it lands on a cube of shkitagen.

In recovery, the “shkitagen” for sacred fire is found in the wisdom of mature guides and sponsors. Protecting the sacred fire within means to cherish the wisdom and knowledge of the elders in recovery and those who maintain a deep commitment to sobriety and emotional growth. It means to remain closely connected to those who have guided you to a place of sobriety. There must be a commitment to remain hungry for sobriety, spiritual and emotional growth or the sacred fire of the heart will wane. Many who have experienced long term sobriety have left their “shkitagen” in recovery untended and as a result no longer have a hunger and thirst for personal growth. Their sacred fire has burned out and is now cold.  The fire within must be renewed. Others have allowed their sacred fire to burn toward materialism and self absorbed living. They have lost their balance and allowed their fire to burn out of control with little perspective. They endanger their sacred fire to be suffocated and risk the positive attributes attained in recovery to be destroyed.

Recovery fueled by a strong sacred fire within will stand the tests and tribulations of addiction recovery. However, it will be necessary to maintain the sacred fire by burning the underbrush of resentment and other distractions that threaten to extinguish the sacred fire of recovery.