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This is the authentic voice of an old woman who hopes she has learned some things to share. It is about transformation. It is becoming our true selves. It is finally about returning to Oneness. It is also about writing and recovery.
HOPE:
WHAT ONE THING IS LEFT TO DO?
If the answer doesn't spring to mind, or maybe because it does too readily, take some solitary time now and go within and ask and listen deeply.
It probably has nothing to do with money, property, possessions, revenge, becoming famous or the ego's other favorites. Ask your intuition. Ask your heart. Ask your higher consciousness. Ask your soul. Meditate on it. The answer is there and it will come clear as dew on the young spring grass.
If you're just too analytical to trust the answers you carry within, get a pencil and paper and brainstorm a while. Mind map if you like. Knock yourself out. You can't get a Ph.D. in it, have a fortune teller give you the news, or open your horoscope for the day and read it.
On the other hand, it is possible that someone close to you, who knows and understands you, and loves you unconditionally might have some answers for you that you may or may not believe.
Your best bet is to hone in on your own truth because we know what we know and we can believe it is true.
It's simple for many people. It was for me when I asked myself this in a journaling exercise yesterday. I instantly responded "Love." That was it. Before I leave Boot Camp for Souls I hope to have learned my love lessons well. I want to love unconditionally, unselfishly, compassionately, and authentically. I want love to come forth from my being as swiftly and naturally as drawing the next breath or blinking. It should take no time, have no hestitation, succumb to no doubts that slow its progress or make critical judgments about who is worthy. I want to become Love for Love is God and we are all this one God of Pure Love. That is, I believe, what we came here to remember and to practice.
When I consider how slow and unsteady my ability to feel compassion for everyone and anyone, I think I must work on living many more years, because, brother, sister, I have a long way to go.
Namaste'.
Maryellen
CELEBRATE RECOVERY: IT GOES A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS
Perhaps you weren't even sure who you really were anymore. You had become a drinking/using machine that only lived to satisfy its cravings for the moment, and then set out to do it all over again. Sober living seemed an impossible dream. Now you have joined with others in the bittersweet, painful process of peeling the onion layers that presently make up who you are. Welcome to sober living. First you have to peel off the user who pretended not to care about what was happening to their life as it fell apart and crumpled around their ankles.
Then you unpeel a layer in which you pretended not to care what you were doing to loved ones with your drinking/using. You let them leave and take the kids. You abandoned them and started a life without them. You disappeared and didn't contact them.
Now you are getting in touch with your feelings for the first time since before you picked up a mood-altering substance, which may put you back emotionally around age 12. As much as it hurts, it's a good thing--a healthy thing. You are coming to know your true self. It's all part of sober living. You are becoming a person who can hold up their head even when it means saying things like, "I'm scared. I'm lonely. I'm lost. I feel overwhelmed. I'm afraid I'll use again.
You decide to do what the program suggests and actually do something that doesn't even sound like anything you'd do: You ask for help. Better even than that, you ask a man or woman whose recovery program you admire to be your sponsor or temporary sponsor. Then you begin telling that person how you really feel on a regular basis. You are more honest with this person than you know how to be with yourself. You didn't think you were capable of honesty any longer, but you open up and get rid of a lot of old garbage you've been carrying around that might lead you to drinking/using again.
You learn that your sponsor really gets you. They understand at a level that only comes from having lived the same things themselves. They seem to intuitively know what the right thing is to suggest or say to you because they listen to the still, small voice within.
The result is that you are having what Oprah likes to call "Ah-ha" moments pretty much every day. You begin to feel as full as wonder as a five-year-old on Christmas morning. You are awestruck by the miracle of a second chance at life and what it means for you. You feel a thing called hope for the first time since you can't remember when. You wake up looking forward to the day ahead not cursing it. As they like to say around AA/NA tables: Instead of saying, "Oh God, it's morning," we say, "It's morning, thank you God."
One day at a time becomes another new day of growth and opportunity. You lose that sense of calendar pages being ripped off and tossed on the ground like some movie montage of time slipping by quickly without accomplishments, growth or change of any positive kind. You are growing and changing each day. The idea of using/drinking again becomes a nightmare to you. In fact, you do have nightmares about it now, and when you awake and realize it's only a dream and you're still clean and sober, you are so grateful and give thanks.
Your relationships begin to improve. Your significant other or spouse and you even start over and try to work things out after they see the change in you is for real this time and not just talk made up to try to manipulate them.
You are meeting people who did not go as far down the rabbit hole of addiction as you did. You are also meeting people who went much further down, and you marvel that they are even alive. Don't compare. There are always those who are better or worse off.
You can't believe how many new friends in the program you now have. You know most of these will be friends for a long, long time if not for life. These are the people who will be standing up for you at important times in your life and being there when it counts the most.
What also astounds you is that you are working regularly and bringing in enough money to support yourself and your family. You feel proud of your daily accomplishments and do the best job you know how to do. Perhaps you go back to school with your vision set on pursuing a dream that you've harbored as a secret fantasy since you were a kid. This is the time in your life when dreams become real. Be sure to dream new dreams, big dreams. They are no longer just grandiose using/drinking fantasies that never bear fruit
You can be proud of the person you have become one day at a time by working the twelve steps and going to A.A./N.A. meetings. If you already have a conscious contact with a power greater than yourself, you are way out ahead in the gift of sober and clean living. If you don't, hang on loosely and don't despair.
Another saying around the tables is that when you can't find your higher power, ask yourself who has moved. Wasn't it really you that moved? Your higher power has been standing with arms outstretched waiting for you to return all the time.
In sober living we get better physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The important thing is that we all make it home to our freed selves together in sober living. Even if you have a hard day at staying sober and clean, you can break that one day into five or ten minute increments and you can hold on. And then one day you're sitting at an A.A./N.A. meeting, and a person newer to the program than you takes a seat. You can feel how nervous they are. You reach out your hand, introduce yourself, and share a little of what it was like for you when you were new. You can see the relief on the visitor's face as they listen. They can't believe someone else understands so well. Maybe you even offer to go out for coffee after the meeting..
You are doing 12th step work. There are many rewards built into 12th step work in sober living and most of them come instantly. You feel good about yourself. You feel like you are a worthwhile individual. You feel like you have an opportunity to give back some of what so many people generously gave to you. They told you to expect that reward in sober living. You give the new person your phone number. Maybe they ask you to be their temporary sponsor. You feel like your flying you are so high on life.
It's called sober living and you earned it. Even better days are coming. Your close relationships, even with your spouse or significant other, are improving. The bills are starting to get paid. You feel better physically and know your body likes sober living and is healing. Your head is beginning to clear. You can even read again. Your kids seem to like you for the first time in a long time. Isn't sober living grand? It's not all going to be smooth sailing. There still will be some rough seas. But you are on your way and you are only getting better from now on. Take heart. Just for today all is well.
SIX OF ONE, HALF A DOZEN OF ANOTHER: WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
I discovered a great way to meet friendly bloggers, make a little AdSense money, have fun writing with some new ways of looking at things, and get my blog links out there and pick up some new readers. It's called Seeded Buzz.com (MsRefusenik has spent many a mellow day into evening with seeded buzzes, and can tell you all about them. She was always getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous teenage pot dealers who sold her lids that were mostly seeds.).
Seriously, it's a community of bloggers who share their content ideas and writing goals with each other. The benefit of these friendships and idea and writing exchanges are increased subscribers, followers, revenue, backlinks, new writing opportunities, new topics to add your two cents to, and a place to get guest hosts to freshen up your blog and get some new perspective once in a while.
There are two parts to how you do all of the above, which I won't get into now or it will take the focus off what I am supposed to be doing with this post, which is "planting a seed" (a.k.a. providing linkbait.)
I read a very thoughtful, interesting, well-written post by a young woman trying to make a big decision and asking for help with it. My job now is to write a post about this piece and link to it.
This will help Lauren Holgate, the young woman, with her decision about whether she wants to incur loan debt by accepting a place on the January roster of MFA Fiction Program students that begins in January 2011, or work on the debt she already has and try some of her other goals such as opening a coffeehouse. You can read her post here.
Well, Lauren didn't count on her post being seeded by another B.A. in English writer who wants to write and publish books. (And has started three different graduate programs at three different universities and dropped out of all of them.) And what she couldn't possibly have known, but may now finding interesting, is that seven years after graduating from high school I read an article in the newspaper that said that with the 1972 changes in federal education legislation it was now possible for anyone who wanted to attend college to go regardless of finances. I took them at their word, registered at a nearby university and became an honors student for four years, winning many unexpected grants and scholarships.
Further, today, at 61 year-years-old, having discovered my life's purpose more completely, I am about to apply for financial aid as well as apply for grants and scholarships to attend graduate school in April 2011 in a totally new career direction. The kicker is that I live solely on Social Security disability, and can barely afford to eat and buy my meds from month to month, no less afford a luxury item like grad school. But I have learned that anything is possible with God so I might as well dream dream big
Lauren wrote out an interesting, semi-realistic (how much does debt does she think she would take on in opening a coffeehouse?), goals list of the top five things she wants to accomplish by age 35. And guess what? Getting a master's degree in writing, or fiction, or in anything does not make the cut to the top five. It only shows up way at the bottom in what she calls "flexible goals" and explains that this means she might change her mind about them. And even then it is snuggled in close to "become a personal fitness instructor." (because she loves to work out), and "go to an outdoor black and white movie."
Now Lauren's husband. Tim, is in grad school himself, and they had a son, Isaac, before she finished her B.A., which brought on more debt than they were ready to take on.
She sounds like she really hates the very idea of any new debts, a good choice considering that that small baby will soon be needing money for education, more health care visits, larger wardrobes, dental work, haircuts, books and school supplies, maybe orthodontics, entertainment and dining out money, and on and on until he hits college age and the bottom drops out in their post-retirement years unless he wins a total-package scholarship.
As Lauren herself says, "unknowns" do get published (I guess she means regular writers who don't put "M.A." after their bylines), and she can, too, if she writes well. Good writing has absolutely nothing to do with taking writing courses, judging from the educational backgrounds of some of the finest writers in the world. Writers write. That's how you get good. If she writes, and writes authentically and from the heart, she will no doubt find someone willing to publish her.
If you want to make money off of writing, you don't need a master's degree or even a bachelor's degree, to be a freelance writer. You can get paid for publishing in magazines and other print and online publications, pr you can, and Lauren could write e-books and print books.
My advice to Lauren, as someone who has lived and continues to live the anything is possible dream ticket on education, career and life's work, is if she really, really wants to get this master's degree--and she'd better really want it more than going to listen to a big band ("if there are such things as big band bars"). Because once she hits the wall of all those graduate level hours and hours of reading, writing that will take her away from her husband and infant, she may want to drop out if she isn't fully motivated and committed. If this is only something she's doing because she thinks it will look good, and she only wants it about as bad as she wants to go to a drive-in movie, she is going to definitely going to drop out and leave a mess of debt and unfulfilled commitments. Besides, no one likes being quitter.
Let Tim be the grad student in the family for now. She can always go later if she decides it's something she wants as much as one of her top five goals like, say, learning to play tennis.
In the meantime, she appears to be a good writer and loves to write, so why wait to earn an income from writing? As long as she is working at home already, she can sign up with an agency such as Elance.com, Sologig.com, or My Guru.com and find some gigs she can do as a freelance writer. You can make good money on Elance I know for sure, if you are ambitious and bid on a lot of jobs.
She should get a copy of the most recent Writer's Market and get to know the markets and start reading the publications she's interested in submitting to so she knows their style and what they're looking for. You can make really good money writing magazine articles or blogging if you choose your markets well.
Start publishing and selling some e-books today. Download any one of hundreds of free "How to Write, Publish and Sell Your E-book" e-books, pick a topic, write your outline, and get writing.
There are countless ways to make money as a writer. She could write music and CD reviews, since it sounds like she's into music. She could write reviews of products, services, books, movies and organizations and their services. She could get a job in television, movies, promotion, or drop out of writing for others, and try writing a television show or a screenplay.
And yes, as someone mentioned, she could have written a novel in 30 days with the rest of the thousands competing with all of us who are writing furiously (or not) in the NaNovWriMo contest. I don't have that many words as my NaNovWriMo word count. She could start today, bypass me and win the contest with the thousands others who will be winning. I won last year, and I never thought I would achieve my goal of writing a novel.
And if she is determined to not lose the money she has already invested with the University, she should spend all of her free time researching scholarships and grants. That's what I have been doing. I found entire long lists of some I'm eligible for by virtue of being "elderly," a woman, in recovery from some of my diseases and conditions, having adult attention deficit disorder, and many more. It just takes patience and time. They are out there going to waste if no one finds them and claims them. There are surely some for which she is eminently eligible. Maybe her Dad being in the military, or her Mother's work offers something. Perhaps her bank, her community, her church, or organizations she belongs to. Her former high school might help give her suggestions and leads on some. Start looking and you and Lauren wil find some.
Finally, if she still can't make a decision, give the decision to the Divine, to whomever or whatever her power greater than herself is, to the Universe, to synchronicity, to the Cosmos, and then pay close attention and listen deeply for her answer. It will come. There are three possible answers: Yes. No. Wait. Take one and accept it.
Lauren, I hope you publish several bestsellers, open that coffee house, learn to play tennis like a pro, travel the world and end up living some place remote and exotic, and make a hundred records, all of them big sellers, if that's important to you, and many more dreams come true that you haven't even discovered yet. May you learn your true life's purpose while you are young enough to fully pursue it. May you find lifelong bliss doing what you love and making a living at it.
What do the rest of you think? Go over to Seeded Buzz and Plant Your Seed.
Writing Fiction Class at Southern New Hampshire University
Note: Readers are welcome to read the original article and comment on it, but, as I understand it, no further seeds are invited to be planted on this post.
HERE'S A SHORT CUT TO A EPIPHANY
I was inspired by today's post,"Within Us" on Deanne Fry's blog,SOME DAYS OR NOW (Click for link just below title of this post) and it reminded me of a very good Oneness journaling exercise. Faithful readers know how I value journaling exercises. You not only save hours and hours in the uncomfortable therapist's chair, you save paying his or her fees and you gain the kind of intuitive insights and epiphanies that your therapist couldn't possibly lead you to in a few hours as journaling can. See what insights come forth from your inner wisdom by taking the suggested time and completing the following statements. Don't censor or criticize your responses. Let your answers flow from your heart which doesn't lie.
Take 20 to 30 minutes to complete the following statements. Write quickly, tapping into your stream of consciousness; don’t stop or edit your words. Spend approximately two to three minutes on each statement.
• I am being invited to heal . . .
• I am being invited to forgive . . .
• I am being invited to surrender . . .
• I am being invited to become . . .
• I am being invited to express . . .
• I am being invited to create . . .
• I am being invited to expand . . .
Trust what you receive and what you know. Have faith in the guidance that’s coming to you. Dive in, and keep it simple and clear. Cut through complexity and confusion, and discover your holy curriculum of Oneness.
Affirmations
I AM a disciple of the school of Oneness, embracing my holy curriculum.
I AM engaging Life as my teacher.
My turn to share:
1. I am being invited to heal my relationship with my 20-year-old son who was estranged from me these past few months and said he hated me and that I was the worst mother in the world. Of course I took to my bed with depression and agreed that I was probably quite hate-worthy and the worst mother in the world for sure. But why now? Why so soon after he had just told me that I was his main supporter and confidant and that he could really talk to me when he felt like he had no one?
Now he has dropped from the sky to live with me for the first time in 13 years. We tell each other daily that we love each other. We kiss, hug and say "Good night. Sweet Dreams," just like when I used to put him to bed so many years ago. He cleans and scrubs my house, buys me food, is considerate and kind and talks to me as if I am a real person and not just a parent. We are healing and we are bonding. I thank God for this second chance.
2. I am being invited to forgive my son who threw cold water on me and screamed for me to get out when I saw him the time before he came over now to ask to move in. He still is somewhat volatile and can lose his temper easily. He's 20 and he's finding himself. He doesn't know his purpose in life yet, and lacks direction and guidance. I find forgiving him easier each day. He ends up apologizing and really is sorry when he goes off on me these days, and I am ready to forgive and forget again. Practice makes it easier each time.
3. I am being invited to surrender my will and my funky, ego's grandiose plans for a writing expert's platform, the right branding, a well-designed logo, a good promotion and marketing firm, best-sellers and appearances on David Letterman to hawk my new book (as yet unwritten) in favor of a life's purpose of answering the call of love to serve others who suffer as I have suffered with the stumbling blocks of diseases and conditions such as alcoholism, drug addiction, adult A.D.D., bipolar disorder and depression. I am 61 years old and about to go back to grad school to become a wellness counselor. I have direction. I have my soul's mission. I give up my plastic, image-based, egoic selfish, self-centered fantasies glady. Let me get myself out of the way and watch as God works out the details in Her own perfect way. I do surrender.
4. I am invited to become fully human, fully alive, and a multi-sensory human being capable of interpreting my life's purpose and soul's mission and message of service far beyond the limitation of my five senses. I have my intuition, prayer, meditation, the Holy Spirit, Angels, Saints, deceased loved ones, other teachers and guides in the spiritual realm, people on this plane of existence who are put in my life to point the way, books that I open at just the perfect time, synchronicities, signs, miracles, mandalas, symbols, magic and so much more.
A woman is calling me next Monday night to interview me for a Elder Wilderness Quest Scholarship for a one-week passage with women from around the world over 50 who want to mark the next stage of their lives with rites of passage and celebration in the high mountains of California. I am being called to become one with nature, the Divine, and with sisters to share it with as we tell stories, drum, create new rituals, fast, and hike. If I get it, and I trust I will because it feels right, I will mark my right of rite of passage into the next journey of my new life of service and well-developed knowledge of my life's purpose with the sacred. I am becoming at 61.
5. I am being invited to express my thoughts and feelings every time I write a post for this blog, and now as I have the great fortune of working on writing my NaNovWriMo novel to be completed in 30 days. I lose myself in it. I express so many different parts of myself through my characters. One minute I'm a 36-year-old life coach from a small town in California and the next a 61-year-old male bereavement counselor with a M.S.W. who works at a hospice and isn't allowed to discuss his days at home because his wife finds it all too depressing. And to think I could write the odd haiku anytime at all as well... It's a rich life!
6. I am being invited to create a totally new life. With a newly discovered life's purpose and direction in life, a new career path and educational plans in a whole new direction for me, I am trying on lifestyles like I am trying on hats at Neiman Marcus. I recently joined Toastmasters to see what it would be like to learn how to speak well publicly. I set up a self-help support group for people who have adult attention deficit disorder and I am getting it done and learning as I go. I may set up one for bipolar disorder soon too. I think I am going to try my hand at watercolors because I want to pain a series of mandalas. I can't seem to read novels any more which I used to ingest like Tic-Tacs at a rate of several per week. I now am only drawn to non-fiction books with information I can use, and inspirational and spiritual books. I am finding how good a novelist I might become if I try. I am creating a home for a son who hasn't been with me since he was seven-years-old. I am creating a new, more authentic, freer me.
7. Each days I am invited to expand more. New ideas, inspirations, suggestions, and opportunities come to me and I am not afraid of adventure and taking risks. More people fear public speaking than fear dying, and I have already got up before my Toastmasters club and given a short speech and won a first place ribbon for it. I never thought I could write one novel, now I am working on the second. I never imagined in all my years of solitude of making room for another in my life, but I am expanding. I am larger and more giving and loving than I knew. You have to use a muscle to know that you have it. If I were still a secretary in a soul-killing, death by boredom desk job dreaming of one day writing but afraid to write the first sentence I never would have expanded to write as much or professionally as I do today. If I had never taken the risk of pledging my life with a man's for love, which did not last forever, I would not have the two beautiful souls that have been entrusted to my care and bring my heart such joy and fulfillment. I grow and expand as I reach and stretch. I can achieve what the mind can conceive, as the motivational speaker says. Anything is possible with God I say.
SHOULD REAL LIFE INTERUPT MY NA NOV WRI MO NOVEL WRITING?
Yes, an angry, petulant 20-year-old, alienated from his sister, step-mother and the last time I saw him, he threw cold water on my head and told me to get out. I did not throw water on him, however, and yell for him to get out. But it doesn't look good for my NaNovWriMo novel which I haven't yet begun and didn't begin at midnight last night as I had planned. Love comes first.
This kid needs nurturing. He needs soft love and he needs tough love. He has already walked out in one huff when I informed him, after he screamed and kicked something across the room, that I wouldn't tolerate more dramatics from him. But he came back, and he apologized.
He is growing up. He is exerting his independence. He has nowhere else to go.
And me? I haven't been a hands-on, in the house mother for 15 selfish, self-centered, non-cooking, non-cleaning years. I have lived in my solitude with my writing and my computer and kept my vampire hours, thrived on Diet Coke, coffee and the occasional nuked Indian curry or Mexican quiche, and worn clothes inside out instead of doing laundry.
As Bette Davis famously said in All About Eve, "Fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy night!"
He is, to call a spoon a spoon, a spoiled brat. His Dad died of cancer when he was only 7, and people have given him a lot of breaks I think, because of that, including his very patient, loving step-mother. I lost custody of my kids when they were quite young due to an alcoholic relapse and undiagnosed (at the time) bipolar disorder taking over control of my life. Now I get to step out to main stage with the spotlight on me. Will I be up to the role?
I still want to write my novel. It is now after five in the evening, and I am words per day late and still don't even have an outline. But when I asked while journal writing what I could write a novel about, these people stepped forward and started telling me all about themselves in detail and demanded to be in my book. They dictated and I wrote. I am less a novelist than a transcriber. I now know what novelists are talking about when they say that their characters have a life and will of their own.
My son, Eric, asked me if I would help him go look for a job today. Of course I said yes. The kid has had only one brief job dish washing since he graduated from high school. He started college but dropped out. He really is without plans for his life. I was trying to interest him in learning Ruby on Rails computer code and becoming a software engineer. They are in short supply and demand is increasing in the Chicago area, as it is for developers, application integration workers, quality assurance workers who ensure the software is working as planned, specialists in green IT, security, cloud, and and software as a service are also in short supply along with project managers and help-desk techs, according to Comp/Tia report. Average salaries for software engineers in the Chicago area are about $90,000 a year, and the region employed about 131,000 IT workers in 2008, the report said.
My son looked at the October 17, 2010 Chicago Tribune article I had handed him, "Software engineers harder to find," for about one minute, and handed it back to me.
"Look, Mom, I can make my knee pop any time I want, and watch what I can do with my feet."
He got angry with me for not being enthralled with these feats that were the result of too much time on his hands and boredom, if you asked me. Who needed a job that paid $90,000?
Don't get me wrong. I've been in my children's lives all along. I also have a daughter, now 24, who just moved out on her own too, but she has a shared apartment with a roommate. I made it my business to follow their educational progress, meet with their teachers for conferences and other necessary chats, attend all extra-curricular activities before they could drop out of them, like soccer; take them to culturally stimulating, educational and entertaining venues from art museums, planetariums, to The Blue Man Group. I spent one summer while my son was in high school teaching him my own course in classic movies. We watched one film a week that I, and many others, considered great, and discussed it. It was fun, and he really did like many of the movies.
I was there to help give suggestions for writing reports, even when my daughter was in college. I was proud to attend awards ceremonies for my daughter's social services awards, volunteer awards, and money and scholarship awards. I attended the functions of her many clubs and organizations. I was all ready to go to Parents Day at her college more than once when she uninvited me at the last moment because something better came up.
By bedtime last night, mine, he was going out with his friends, he was apologetic and gave me a hug and a kiss. One of these days he may even apologize for throwing the water on me, but for now he says I had it coming because I didn't move fast enough and get out when he told me too.
So should I be washing my sink full of dishes so he won't get grossed out in the kitchen or should I get busy putting my novel's characters' traits on index cards and developing an outline and a timeline?
Why change horses mid-race? I am the same slacker mom I always was. I am a writer not a domestic goddess, as Roseanne terms it I think. He walked out of here to go hang some more with his friends and mumbled something about bringing home job applications to fill out tonight. And, the little bastard took my very favorite coffee cup on the road with him. I may have 20 coffee cups, all dirty, but I don't drink it if I don't have my favorite mug. So I'm starting my outline right now. Wish me well.
If you're writing the NaNovWriMo novel and looking for a writing buddy who got off to a late start, drop me a line or leave a comment with your NaNovWriMo name and how to get a hold of you.
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