IS IT TIME FOR YOU TO COME IN FROM THE STORM YET? IT'S A BRIGHT NEW DAY.






You know the storm I mean don't you?  The one that wages within each day and when you say, "Should I use/drink today or should I try to stop?"  Yeah, that one.  The big storm that takes over your life and puts you on that damned collision course with all those horrible consequences like the breakup of your relationship, not being there for your kids, losing another job and not being able to find a new on. It's hard to find another job because your work history looks like a big chunk  of Swiss cheese except that you could drive a semi through some of the holes where you were  missing and not in action.

The big storm that comes up quickly some days, and blows all your money into the wind just like it blew your friends and family away.  Or have you noticed they aren't standing beside you any longer saying, "He just works too hard."  "She is under a lot ofstress."  "Their marriage is just in a rough patch right now so she/he goes out."  Not even, "It's just a phase," from your earnest, ever-loving and co-dependent  mother.





Today is a new day.  It could be the start.  It's a bright new dawn.  You can change your life starting today.  You could find shelter from that storm as easy as clicking your mouse.  I have every self-help recovery program listed here too for every problem, not just alcohol and drugs.  I've got your 12-step program links in every flavor of drug including crystal meth and marijuana.  I have 12-step anonymous programs for: Alateen, Alanon, Overeaters, Gamblers, Debtors, Nicotine, Emotional Health, Emotions, Depressed, HCV (hepatitis), Obsessive Compulsive, Survivors of Incest, Sexual Compulsives, Co-Dependents, Sex and Love, Families Anonymous, and Anorexics and Bulimics.  I may have missed some.  They are all right here.

Do you already know that you're done fooling around with this nuclear bomb in your pocket, and are ready to check yourself in and take care of business?  There is no time like the present.  It's one less day of regret, remorse and suffering.  Who knows where or how you could end up today.  Make that phone call.  Here's a few lists of detoxes and rehab treatments centers as well as outpatient programs.  They are ready to help you today.  Some may cost you nothing so don't let lack of money or insurance stop you.  Saving your life would be worth whatever you had to pay anyhow so don't worry about that now.

1.Pick up the phone and dial or pick up the  mouse and click.    
This website has everything from fancy schmantzy treatment programs, to 12-step communities, sober living homes, faith-based programs, alternative sentencing programs--you name it.  Check it out.  It's all listed by state and country.  You are bound  to  find something to fit your circumstances on this list, and probably with no waiting.

2. Find what you need in your area.  Drugs/Alcohol Treatment/Rehab.

3.Call now 24/7 live counselors and "affordable" detox and treatment.

There are thousands more, but you can use a search engine as well as I can.  If you don't have a computer, get a phone book or call information.  If you don't have a phone, go to the nearest hospital emergency room.  Even if they won't keep you for financial reasons, they should give you referrals to places that will take you.

Here's about all you need to get started with the

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT DO I WANT TO HAVE, DO, LEARN AND GIVE NEXT.

it's a bitch o be unemployed and have to look for a job.  I am trying to help my 21-year-old son find the first job of his life.  I want him to know that it's an opportunity to reflect on what he really loves to do, and what he'd like to do in his life for those hours of our day that are categorized as "work."  He says I'm way out there in space somewhere.  He is just wants to get some McJob for seven bucks an hour.  Who he really is and what he really would love to do all day seem irrelevant to him and he doesn't think of them as having anything to do with work.


Two years ago I bought him an assortment of well-chosen books on finding out who you are and what you want out of life in an attempt to live your life's purpose. One of those was  What Color Is Your Parachute For Teens.  He admitted he has never cracked it open, but then he has never really had a job either. I  don't give up easily.  What Color Is Your Parachute is the best book I have read and used to find jobs, and lots of other people regard it highly too. 


I went to the library yesterday and checked him out a copy.  The book astounded me.  I don't remember it containing the answers for finding your life purpose,, and the three stages of acceptance and practice of it, but it's all there in plain English. I told Eric that if I knew I had less than 24 hours to live, I would tell him I love him and have him read those ten or however many page there are.  They cover everything you need to know on the subject pretty darn well.  It's all there between the lines--how to live a love-filled, good, happy, productive and rewarding life.   The author, Richard Bolles, writes about God's role in our lives but without any peachy over-religious, dogma-filled  b.s.  He is speaking in universal spiritual terms.  That's real important because my son may be an agnostic.  I don't know.  I don't push.

Although I have been trying to tell Eric since he came to live with me in November for the first time in 14 years, that we all have a life's purpose and once we discover what our talents are and use those we are put on a path of miracles.  Then, as Joseph Campbell , the respected mythologist and writer said of his often repeated admonition to "following your bliss" "doors will open where there were only walls.

 He derived this idea from the Upanishads, the 200 Sanskrit philosophical texts from before the 5th century considered to be an early source of Hindu religion.   Campbell wrote:
Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word "Sat" means being. "Chit" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being." I think it worked.[1]
He saw this not merely as a mantra, but as a helpful guide to the individual along the hero journey that each of us walks through life:
If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.[2]

Many people have written eloquently and passionately about the miracles that open up opportunities, new ways on creating, inspiration, "chance" encounters and on and on once we are totally involved with the thing we love to do most in the world and the thing we do best:  our talent.  

Because there is no such thing as random in this Universe of serendipity and synchronicity, I asked the Universe what I should read for my morning inspiration  for the day.  The book turned out to be one of my read and re-read favorites, Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness and Making Miracles, 

 by Marianne Williamson.  It opened "randomly" to answer some questions I had about starting my own writing website business.   Here's what she had to say about my ideas to start a business for no reason other than to make money:

"...We transform our work into a sacred experience by transforming our sense of its purpose--from that of serving our need as we define them to that of serving the work of God  This shift in purpose--from a focus on ourselves to a focus on God's love--activates a chain of miracles.  For anytime we walk into a situation with a higher sense of why we are there, we are bringing down the light. 


"The decision to adjust our perspective on a situation, seeing as its only purpose the extension of love, automatically illumines it.  For a situation to be illumined, our thoughts must become illuminated.  Within this light, our ideas are more insightful and wise, our personal energies radiate integrity, and circumstances around us unfold along a palpable path of divine right order.  There is a 'flow' we can all feel when a situation is aligned with the peace of God."   (Grace, pp. 100-101)


I have decided once again in my life against doing anything "just for money."  So much is lost in that notion and so high a price of doing business is paid.  I have learned this lesson over and over in the past.  What makes me want to stick my hand in the flame now to see if it still burns?



We follow the flow--and all we had to do each day is show up and be ready to work together with our partner God.

 Each and every one of us believes he or she is going to do something or create something spectacular that the world has never seen the likes of before, especially if we are young.  Children whose self-esteem hasn't been damaged yet have no doubt that they can grow up to be anything they want to become.  They can all be stars that shine the  brightest in the night sky.  Sometimes some of us can hold onto this kind of belief in ourselves for a long, long time despite some considerable disappointments and rejections if we believe in ourselves and our talents enough.

 Those who work each day to know God's will for them and ask to work on what they need to do for that day, the next right thing, take no credit for themselves and give all thanks to the Divine for the good that comes of their accomplishments. Mother Teresa freely talked about her success with God as her partner, and look how much she accomplished.

That is the secret of success hidden in plain sight for all to find. 


If Eric  prefers a seven dollars a day McJob to sitting down with me and doing some evaluations matching his personality with work type of skills and figuring out what his talents are,  I can't preach  to deaf ears.  He doesn't listen--I'm his Momma.  I begged him to read the pages in the book as a favor to me, but the God stuff turned him off and he didn't finish.  People say you can lead a horse...  Try a 21-year-old who knows it all so young.  As my poor dear late father often repeated to my deaf ears, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

I can only lead by my example of spending every day following my bliss by wriing all day and night and not being a slave to a paycheck and possessions or a job without a soul.  Marianne Williamson reminded me in her book today of the importance of lighting a sacred prayer candle before I start my day of writing.  She writes that otherwise she is trapped in the illusions of the ego, thinking about bestseller status and contracts.  "Only when I begin with a prayer that something I write might be of use to someone does a greater light infuse my thinking.  My mind opens vibrantly to its natural talents and springs free of its bondage of fear-based thought."



I give him two weeks at a McJob.  He's young but he's daily growing.  


-----------------
Sources:
1
Campbell, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, edited by Betty Sue Flowers. Doubleday and Co, 1988, p. 120.

2.Ibid,   p. 113.
In Hell, there is a huge banquet, but the forks are longer than your arm so you can't get any of the food to your mouth. So you spend your time wailing and gnashing your teeth over all he beautiful food that you're missing out on.

Heaven is like a huge banquet as well, with long forks. But everyone feeds each other.


The sad thing is that we really have done that "wailing and gnashing" our teeth bit when a window closes instead of opening the big beautiful door standing right in front of us.  Maybe we were afraid we'd we lose our place in the line forming for `brats having temper tantrums until somebody fixes the goddamn window.

I am writing an interesting freelance article for my part-time gig as a reporter on alternative medicine breakthroughs.  I think you'll find it very interesting tooAA
 According to a study released on January 28, 2011 "participating in community service activities and helping others is not just good for the soul; it has a healing effect that helps alcoholics and other addicts become and stay sober."  This is from a researcher at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Helping Others Helps Alcoholics Stay on the Road to Recovery
Released: 1/28/2011 10:05 AM EST
Source: Case Western Reserve University

Newswise — Participating in community service activities and helping others is not just good for the soul; it has a healing effect that helps alcoholics and other addicts become and stay sober, a researcher from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine reports and published in a review article of Vol. 29 of Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. 
In a review article published in the Volume 29 issue of Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, Maria E. Pagano, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, sheds light on the role of helping in addiction recovery, using the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a prime example. She cites a growing body of research as supporting evidence.

“The research indicates that getting active in service helps alcoholics and other addicts become sober and stay sober, and suggests this approach is applicable to all treatment-seeking individuals with a desire to not drink or use drugs,” Dr. Pagano says. “Helping others in the program of AA has forged a therapy based on the kinship of common suffering and has vast potential.”

Dr. Pagano's reserch  focuses on  the helper therapy principle (or HTP),  a concept that is one of the fundamentalmental beliefs and practices of the A.A.  Program, as well as other 12 Step Recovery Programs ograms such as Narcotics Anonymous (N.A.), Sexual Addicts Anonymous (S.A.), Overeaters Anonymous (O.A.) and all the rest of them.  She points out that in A.A. it is seen  as an opportunity to diminishi egocentrism or selfishness, a root cause of addiction to some minds.  The HTP is based on the theory that, when a person helps another individual with a similar condition, they help themselves.

Well,  I had to laugh.  Not at the good doctor who 
Things To Do To Change The World:

1. Become a mindful entrepreneur.  Get a free copy of a life-changing book on being mindful that comes with an offer of free telephone counseling by a mindful counselor.  Take the program on mindful entrepreneurship for a few hundred dollars, or just read what's offered for free on the websites at: Be sure to get your mindfulness entrepreneurship  toolkit for free.  And be sure to read all about the "something remarkable" in holistic business coaching. 

If you don't have a business, don't worry about it.  Part of the coaching program is finding your life's purpose so you can be doing what the author of these free materials is doing:  wrapping  up your personal gifts, the bliss you want to follow as your life's work, and giving it to the world.  This is one way of certaintly being the change you want to see in the world.

2. A Shortcut to Awakening For People In A Hurry.  Create your own awakening from Zen Habits.  I particularly relish the inclusion of reading Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" as a  method of awakening.

3.  Read the "Daily Word."  I love the "Daily Word."  It is a simple positive, law of attraction sort of life-affirming thought for each day that often hits right on what you needed to hear for that very day.  It has themes such as let go and let God, forgiveness, divine order, and affirming wellness.  It is put out by Unity Village affiliated with the very positive and non-dogmatic  Unity Church.  Here is today's thought:


Today's Daily Word
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Becoming
I am a spiritual being, evolving and growing every day, in every way.
I am continually evolving as a spiritual being. This evolutionary process includes trials and errors as well as joys and opportunities. Each experience I encounter, each relationship I share, each insight I receive offers me the opportunity to grow.
From the moment my life began, I have been evolving and growing. As an infant, through trial and error, I learned to crawl, walk and speak. From there, I moved on to more advanced learning experiences. As an adult, day by day, I grow in harmony with the unfoldment of Spirit in me.
It gives me great peace to know that I am a work in progress, growing and evolving to become the person I am meant to be.
Clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.--Ephesians 4:24
Daily Word officially launched in 1924 and included daily messages of hope, spiritual poetry and feature articles—all primarily written by Whitney. Daily Word began with a subscription list of 16,000 people, but within a year, the list had grown to 43,000. Today, Daily Word is mailed to approximately 600,000 subscribers in more than 150 countries, and is translated into seven languages. Daily Word in Braille began in 1934, and is now sent for free to the blind through Message of Hope®. Daily Word in Spanish, La Palabra Diaria, was first published in March of 1955. Daily Word in Large Type was introduced in 1978.
In 2009, Daily Word celebrated its 85th anniversary. With the July/August 2009 anniversary issue, the magazine went “green” by including two months of messages in every issue rather than one.
Additionally in 2009, a digital edition of the magazine became available. It offers subscribers a new way to enjoy the magazine. Explore the digital issue here.
Laura Harvey is the current editor of Daily Word. You may follow her on Twitter.


4. Inner Awakening 21 days to Enlightenment.  April 2011.

5. Consult the I Ching in all matters great and small.  Tonight I got Hexagram 49, Radical Change, and it sounds exciting.  See what's in store for you  or what is currently happening:  Clarity's Free Online I Ching Reading.

6.  Keep up with news and activities in consciousness raising at Noetic.org.

7. A problem to work on:  Find out how much pollution is in your zipcode: (and everything else you ever wondered about your zipcode.  You'll also find out who the worst polluters are so you can start protesting against them.

8. Share what you believe in.  Write an essay for "This I Believe."  Get guidelines here. "Start a public discourse one essay at a time."

And that should keep you busy until around supper time.  See you  next time,

Ms.Refusenik, "Let it begin with me."
Last November I started a novel for the NaNovWriMo contest--write a novel in November.  Meanwhile my son came to live with me out of the blue, one thing and another thing happened, and I ended up having to drop out.  But I always planned to write that novel. The characters came to me one morning when I was journaling.  They told me their full names, what they looked like, their birth dates, their interests and hobbies, their fears--everything.  I was attached to them and promised I would write a novel for them to be in. 

Well I am doing it now in  January.  I got a second chance to get the novel-writing adrenaline going, there's a deadline and a three-month time limit (It started Jan. 1, so I missed the first four weeks).  I can't seem to write a novel without a fire of some kind lit under me.  Then I spied a novel writing contest on FanStory.com.  Same deal as  NaNovWriMo--3 months, 50,000 words.  I started a few days ago and I'm more than halfway there.  As of tonight, I have 28,709  words.  It's going well.  All my characters showed up ready for action.  Some readers might say they do more talking than anything, but I've been getting reviews that say my characters are loveable.  I certainly love them.  If you want to see what I've been doing instead of blogging, check out my novel

I try to do my morning journaling and I end up writing this novel in longhand.  It's all I want to do.  My Great God, what fun writing is. 

If  you've always wanted to write a novel, screenplay, play, memoir, e-book, print book or whatever it is, just begin and it will come.  It really is like that Field of Dreams--Build it and they will come.  The ideas will pop into your head as though they are being dictated by another person.    Synchronicity will see to it that you run into just the right webpage, word,  idea...  It's magic.  And immediately you see where and how it goes into what you're working on. 

Make a goal for yourself and decide how many words you'll write per day.  This contest says I'd be in good shape to meet the deadline if I wrote 400 words per day.  I have been trying to catch up so I have been writing more like 10,000 with no problem.  Of course it's all I do.  I don't blog, visit Facebook, read my e-mail and all that, but this is temporary, and I am doing some of that now.

I really do recommend FanStory for anyone who writes or wants to write.  I believe it is one of the better writers' communities.  I have been  a member for a few years.  In fact, I won first place in a contest they had with my first novel.  The people on the website, your peers and fellow writers, are amazing.  I have found friends and mentors from whom I have learned a great deal and continue to learn.  I am in awe of their work.  Everyone reviews  your work honestly but is never negative.  An honest criticism will be pointed out so you can fix it. 

There are so many contests you can enter it keeps things interesting and fun.  The ones where you can win $100 are free to enter.  Others  may cost you a few member dollars which is the monopoly type currency we play with and receive when we win contests or review the work of others.  Oh yeah, and you use member dollars to promote your writing.  It needs to have a certificate, and you can add banners and other things to make it worth more to reviewers. 

If you're a poet, it's the place to come.  FS writers know more poetry forms and styles than I ever dreamt were invented and I studied poetry as an English major in college.  They are currently collecting the best of the various poetry forms from poets to use as samples to help others know how to write the form.

There's playwriting, novels, of course, flash fiction, essays, short stories...  And on the other side of the partition is Fan Story Art.  There are some super artistists working there, very original, fresh creations.  The artists will lend you their work to go with your writing when it's posted if you ask. 

I hope to see you over there.  There's a whole large contingent of FS writers on my Facebook pages.  In fact FB has a FS  page. 

Now start writing that novel you always wanted to write.  It's just one word, one line, one sentence, one paragraph, one page at a time and before you know it you're a novelist.