Getting Back to the Basics That Saved My Life and Can Change Yours

I am reading a  life-altering book in terms of spiritual growth.  I haven't been this excited since I discovered Marianne Williamson.  Now I've read Julia Cameron before, particularly, "The Artist's Way," and some of her other books on creativity.  I always gain a lot from her sharing her experience, hope and strength of her recovery.  But I recently read an interview with her in a writing magazine, and I learned she had written a book called "Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives," which you can get in hardcover from Amazon (here) new copy for $2.56 and used for $1.70.  It speaks about what happens when you are left wondering where your higher power has gone to.  You're just not feeling that old connection.  You'd like to do His will, but He's not letting you know what it is as far as you know.
          There are clues as to why this might be other than the old standard, "Who moved?" when God is
          missing.  She writes, "Most of us are too hurried to know God.  And yet we act as if God is too
          hurried to know us."  She's right of course.  It's not God, our Higher Power, or the Creator who
          is afraid of missing Pilates at the health club at 2:00 so you can get in the step workout at 3:00.
         "It is we who have abandoned God."  She adds, "It is easy to be addicted to anxiety.  It is easy
         to make worry our home vibration."  "Just for today, I am going to reach out toward God.  Just for
         today, I am going to act as if I am a believer."

         
         Just as love, I know,  is a decision, Cameron writes here that faith is a decision.

       
        Just remember that we are right where we are supposed to be in the here and now.  God, the world,
        your significant other, aren't going to finally love you in a few years when you are a perfect human
        being.  They love you as you are, right now, this minute, and never forget it.


        
        I need people--writers and teachers--like Julia Cameron to bring me back and help me remember
        what's important. Like only worrying about taking the next right step.  That's all I have to worry about.
        After that I don't know what happens.  I'll know when I get there. 


   
        Cameron suggests we reunite with our H.P. by praying something like this, "Dear God, I want to be
         united with you.  Here's where I am at right now:  (List what you're doing that doesn't feel good.  You
         won't shock God.  He's heard it all.  List your failings you need to have removed.  Ask for help to
         forgive yourself and others and to be forgiven.  Ask for guidance and follow it.


--------------------

I have been caught up in arts and crafts suddenly.  I decoupaged a flowerpot, and now want to decoupage either fish or stars on my coffee table.  I am art journaling up a storm and releasing so much it's like writing my memoirs.  I am even scrapbooking.  I've been reading about why you should do scrapmoir as a form of memoir and I'm sold.  Listen to this insightful quote I didn't just come across at the same time: 








                                 "No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly
                                  where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present
                                  place." --Maya Angelou

I am learning so much about my healed and still healing places.  I am putting together a newer, stronger, more flexible version of me and I feel open, free and joyful while I shape the pieces and figure out where each goes. Last night I did a lot of scrapbook pages on some people who have made a difference on the journey of my life.  It was good to stop and recall and write a few words.  I still love many of them.  I even made a tiny beaded necklace to wear among a certain group of groovy peace, love and good drugs old pals. It's amazing the creativity that comes out once you get going. 

I'm cheating on my scrapmoirs and I'm glad.  I started it some time ago and then let it collect dust because I lost interest in it.  No wonder I lost interest.  It was a very boring project that went from my birth to preschool, grade school, and quit just when things were going to get good as a teenager.  But then I had to think about my first husband, getting married at 18, being so poor, a miscarriage--just so many sad things I didn't feel like jazzing on.  Instead I did a page on a few of my lifetime jobs and then went into adult friends, which is where I still am.  It won't be a normal scrapbook or scrapmoir.  I have the feeling I'd be utterly bored if I were to take a class in it--same for art journaling.  It conflicts with one of my new favorite quotes that I hung up on my desk over my monitor: 

              "Don't play what's there.  Play what's not there."  Solid advice from Mr. Miles Davis, who knew.

So go do the next right thing.  I hope for the benefit of your inner child it's something creative.  I just bought some fingerpaints, and they felt good.  I felt five again.






 
     

    

The Trash to Treasure Seed I Buzzed Tonight




  • I had to choose this seed to buzz.  This week alone I have decoupaged an old flowerpot I got for a buck at a rummage sale and I painted my TV table and am getting ready to decoupage it.  I can't wait to come back and see the finished "treasure" of what you do with these trashy finds.


    This is the seed I buzzed through the Buzz Program.  I was very impressed with how popular this blog is, and how much they fix up and send back into the world beautified.  

    Here's what my 300 characters I was limited to said:
    The best thing I have found was in my very own apartment dumpster.  I believe my personal recovery from alcohol and drugs has transformed me from a cocoon to a butterfly.  One day I was feeling in need of a sign to remind me of what a miracle I am.  Right there, clean and pristine, on top of the garbage, was an iridescently beautiful, sparkly, huge butterfly from legs and antenna to wings.  I knew it was right where it was just for me to find and bring home and put up on my wall where I could see it and be reminded of just what a miracle I am.  I cried when I found that. 



    Well I'm happy to say The Pink Flamingo has reached the 100 mark on our Facebook page and like I said after reaching 100 fans I would do a Give Away. So here ya go.It's simple and easy and that's ohhh so how I like things. All you have to do is tell your friends that you are tryi

Time for Renewal and Rebirth?

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good people to do nothing."--Edmond Burke.


 I saw this symbol of rebirth (above)  flying over my head one day this week and I knew I had just been visited.  In case I wasn't being mindful enough, I "happened" (synchronicity at work)  to come across a blurb on the Internet saying the Monarch was the symbol of rebirth. It's also a symbol for the soul and some cultures like the Chinese believe your soul comes back as a butterfly.
"Oh Lord, I feel like a change is gonna come."
♫ ♪ ♫

There are signs, symbols, books opened to pages about rebirth and change, and intuitive feelings afloat.  Here's how it is, "Every morning, we have a choice:  Will I seek out God's plan today or will I go about my day as a slave to my ego's agenda?"  (from: "The Gift of Change," by Marianne Williamson--Subtitle: "Spiritual Guidance for Living Your Best Life," also 0.1 cent used).

I had an epiphany this morning, and now I am setting aside my top ten priorities, my 40 some goals, my day's activities that I have posted, and my to-do list.  It is time to become a "conduit for the miraculous" and let God use me for His plan. (or Her plan, but actually there is no pronoun that fits).

Marianne Williamson writes that as soon as we start asking how we can help with God's plan, rather than asking for help with our plan, things get better.  Miracles happen.  Am I willing to put my own plans aside in favor of supporting God's plan for me and for the world?  I do believe I am. .

My own plans haven't been working out.  In fact, they are mostly stalled.  I rarely get more than one or two things done on my long, 20-30 items to-do list.  I've been beating my spirit, mind and heart with guilt, regret, remorse and frustration, and today the light dawned:  I'm not supposed to do the ego's bidding.  I need to focus on what God wants me to do in a larger plan designed by God.

God wants me to stay sober--I'm sure of that.  God wants me to practice love, forgiveness and compassion  I believe.  Does God care if I write a bestseller or even have a book published?  I have my doubts.  God doesn't seem to care all that much about our "needs" for security, prestige and romance as much as whether we love and forgive.
I think my newest plan is something God wants for my life.  I "happened" (synchronicity) to see an intriguingly titled book at the library called "Stick Your Neck Out," by John Graham.  It is subtitled, "Street-Smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond:  Service As A Path of A Meaningful Life."  I am right now ordering a copy of this must-have book for 0.1 cent from Amazon.  It has everything you need to get started making the change in the world that  you want to see by beginning by being that change, as the bumper stickers say.  This book includes: how to choose your issue(s), the meaningful life path, deciding on the form of your participation and so on including making your plan, building your team, giving persuasive speeches, getting institutions to do what you want, and public testimony and legal action.  I need to own this book so I can refer to it along the way of changing one small corner of my world. 

Don't know what issue to choose to work towards?  Start with progressive publications like AlterNet.com and their section on activism and vision or Op-Ed News.com.  Or just read your local newspaper or a copy of a news magazine.  Pick something that really turns you on, that you can be excited about, because you want this to be for the long haul. It will take your time and your energy.

  
One of my issues is going to be safe food, food that is free of cancer-causing pesticides and herbicides.  There are already organizations in existence working on this issue, and I can check them out.  I probably don't need to reinvent the wheel unless I want to for some reason.
  
Decide on your issue(s) and/or order "Stick Your Neck Out," and make a difference in your life and in the world.  We do because we love.  Isn't that every soul's mission on Plant Earth: Bootcamp for Souls, as I call it?
           
I have a quote posted in a prominent place on my desk that is another Marianne Williamson quote: "We need to remember this: If God has given you a job to do, she will provide the means by which to accomplish it.  All we have to do is ask what she wants us to do and be willing to do it."  Don't worry if you are a semi-hermit and can't imagine getting out among others to work for your cause.  The courage will come. Don't worry if you are not the best writer, organizer, speaker or publicist.  Let God mind those details.  Just choose an issue and get started by doing research on the history of the problem, what has been tried with what results, organizations that work for this issue, etc. Then start signing up, volunteering, reading more about where and what help is needed for that cause, getting people in your community or even nationally to work for the answer to the problem, guiding and directing others who want to help, raising money if necessary, and so on.

Wear yourself out on this. "Better to burn out than to rust," as Neil Young sang.  You will be happier if living a more meaningful life of accomplishment.  Ask any volunteer or someone who works in the social services for starters.  They will tell you the work that you do to create positive change will bring joy into your life.  It will wake you up if you're sleeping, make you mindful if you're not paying attention to what's going on.  It may stir controversy, but you will find courage.

Here's a prayer or mindful meditation from A Course In Miracles:

"Where would you have me go?
What would you have me do?
What would you have me say and to whom?"

How wonderful to be used, of some use to yourself and others!  Everyone knows that kind of fulfillment brings joy into the most desolate, self-pitying, wasteful life or even your average busy life.

"We look to God to give us new life when the old one has begun to die," (Change).  There could be a wonderful reason your current life plan is failing or just not working out the way you had hoped.  Dreams only die if you let them.  Transform.  Become new.  Be reborn.  Put a photo or painting of a Monarch Butterfly somewhere where you'll be reminded that you are being reborn in the spirit.  (No, I am not talking about reborn Christians.)

When everything seems blah, boring, and you feel worthless or just over the hill, then you are ready for rebirth.

Buddhism says it's not so much what we achieve that gives meaning to our existence, but we at least die trying to do. Jump in.  The water will feel exhilarating, fresh.

I'll leave you with this perfect prayer for this purpose: the purpose of your life:

Dear God, (or Universe, or Higher Power, or Cosmo...whatever you're comfortable with),

"If left to my own devices, my perceptions will be skewed.
I surrender to you everything I think and feel.
Please take my past, and plan my future.
Send your Spirit to redeem my mind,
That I might be set free.
May I be Your vessel
And serve the world.
May I become who You would have me be,
That I might do what you would have me do.
And I will, dear God." (Change)

Amen

Take even a baby step towards being part of the solution today while you're thinking about it.





















A Superiority Complex Combined with An Inferiority Complex and A.A.

Painting:  The Man On the Bed
Famous in A.A. Program and frequently hung on meeting room walls
It is picture of first two A.A. members in a hospital trying to help number three find sobriety.

It's official.  I have the personality and thinking patterns of an alcoholic.  I haven't wet my whistle in some time,  but I found out today that I fit right in with the other misfit sober drunks in  Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.).  Doctors and psychologists have described alcoholics as suffering with a superiority complex coupled with an inferiority complexes..  The result is a desperate grandiosity to prove self-worth.  We want to show the world we're better than they thought we were, and they didn't think much of us.  We want to do big, important things that will give us more than our fair share of fame, wealth, prestige, security and romance.  Some of us once wanted to be King of the World.  After being sober a while many will settle for prince or princess of the world unless the honesty required to stay sober has taught them some humility.

Take me, for example.  I am now willing to give up the notion of writing the greatest American novel everl, and becoming a literary giant.  I will "settle" for having a stable of bestsellers and being interviewed on TV by  David Letterman and Charlie Rose. Naturally,   I  hope that the right publications will give my books glowing reviews, and fill my fat head with far-fetched tribute phrases to keep me warm on cold nights.  But enough about me for now.

This is a true story of the Pandora's box of wet dreams, greedy, self-important, delusional thinking that some early A.A. members opened after Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) became internationally famous and respected for its ability to get even lost causes sober.    A.A. helped restore these early members to a functional place in society, business and family life that they had long given up hope of ever seeing again. They were amazed at this miracle, and some figured there had to be a way to cash in on this great success, especially after Jack Alexander's March 1, 1941 article "Alcoholics Anonymous" (http://www.aa.org/catalog.cfm?origpage=180&product=35)
in the Saturday Evening Post.  This very positive article about just how successful the A.A. program was in getting drunks sober became hugely popular.  Their was a national and international surge of interest in the A.A. program.

In 1941 A.A. was six years old and there were approximately 2,000 men and women who belonged to it, as compared to the 2,000,000 recovering people in A.A. worldwide today.  The article stressed how A.A. seemed to work because one drunk, now sober, helped another.  Service was and is the foundation of the fellowship.  (Meanwhile, some 70 years later there is new research proving have  what makes A.A. work: helping others.)

John D. Rockefeller took an interest in A.A. when it was new and struggling. He did contribute to the group's early support.  But Rockefeller stressed to group members the importance of A.A.'s paying their own way, and not looking to be supported in their endeavors by outside contributions  A.A. took this advice to heart and created Tradition Seven: "Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions."  This tradition, as well as is one of the 12 traditions or principles of A.A. are still followed today.

 The A.A. members learned the hard way that they needed Tradition Six: "An A.A. group ought never to endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose."  Getting back to the Pandora's box that was opened and the results which eventually led to the inclusion of this tradition, all hell broke loose after the Alexander article hit the streets.

At this time there were some 2,000 members, mostly all former falling down drunks and some skid row bums who had achieved sobriety through the program.  They were back behind their executive desks, driving their trucks and taxis, waiting on customers and generally succeeding at earning an income. Their families loved them again, and most forgave them, especially as the disease concept of alcoholism became well known.   Alexander did point out the theory of some that alcoholism could be compared to having an allergy.  An alcoholic had a similar negative reaction to their allergen, alcohol. Or, as the old joke heard around the church basements of A.A. meetings goes, "Yeah, I had an allergy to alcohol. If I drank I would break out.  I broke out in bars, clubs, restaurants, at home and even at work."

A great many of these sobered up drunks took A.A.'s new popularity and earned respect to heart.  They felt that A.A. could do more for the world than just get a few drunks sober here and there.   These recovering people got together and decided that now that A.A. was officially a success it could do more.   Why not unleash the full potential of A.A.?  They reasoned that they should go into business, and/or  finance any enterprise in the field of alcoholism,  They felt they had a responsibility to pay it forward cause whose time had come.

Some of the plans they came up with for how to get more deserving folks into the A.A. program were:

1.  They would build their own hospital chain.  (Don't we have some of those A.A.-based chains today?  A.A. itself might not finance or control these hospitals, but a person who went in for rehab would soon learn treatment was the A.A. way or go out and drink again.  They are offered no alternatives or choices.)

2.  They would educate the public about alcoholism, and rewrite school and medical textbooks.

3.  They would gather up the derelicts from Skid Rows, sort them out into groups of those who were losers and didn't have a chance and those they thought could get well.  They would make it possible for these chosen few to make their livelihood in a rarefied, if somewhat quarantined, confinement away from all temptation.  These new businesses would make large sums of money, and finance other good works for alcoholics.

4.  They quite seriously pontificated about changing the laws of the land in line with the view that alcoholics are not bad people, they are sick.  This would stop drunks from getting thrown in jails.  Judges would parole them into the custody of A.A. members and groups.  (This actually is the case, as anyone who has ever received a D.U.I. and been mandated to attend A.A. meetings can tell you.)

5. They further saw themselves branching out into dope addiction and criminality despite the stated and well-known to them "primary principle" of A.A. which was written in the A.A. preamble as, "Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety."  Pretty clear to many,  but not all, of the recovering people..

6. They reasoned that A.A. could cure anything.  Hadn't it turned their own lives around?  They would start A.A. groups for the depressives and paranoid mentally ill. . A.A. could handle misfits, crazies, those estranged from society and other misfits the sicker the better to prove the point. They reasoned, by God, if alcoholism could be licked, so could any problem if it used the A.A. program.

7.  Some of them envisioned an utopia where laborers and capitalists would love one another.

8.  The absolute honesty they must practice to remain sober, might even be applied to those in politics and a clean-up there.

9.  They enjoyed their newfound happiness and just knew they could teach others how to get and stay happy.

10.  They would endorse products and even take the opportunity to do P.R. for liquor companies that were requesting such representation to show the irresponsible drinker the virtues of moderate drinking.  Although most did not touch a drop of alcohol, and none would ever achieve moderate drinking status based on the well-known fact that you can't turn a pickle into a cucumber again, somehow the liquor companies thought they were the people to speak to the irresponsible imbibers. Being endorsed by A.A. and recommended by sober group members would build their company's reputation and esteem in the public's eyes they believed.

Dreams die hard, of course, and it took some very bad experiences to get these early A.A. members, some still a bit mentally and emotionally under the influence, to realize the error of their ways and end the grandiose plans.  They knew that the proposed A.A. liquor company reps could well end up drunk, resulting in an undesirable alteration in public opinion.  They ended up taking the name of A.A. off halfway houses and clubs where there had been a few too many relapses to continue without tarnishing A.A.'s good reputation.  Some members went to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of A.A., and asked about becoming alcoholism counselors in hospitals where they could receive a salary for their experience, strength and hope.  In fact, Bill himself had been invited by one hospital to work in this capacity. He had seriously considered it and was excited at the prospect until he realized he could not cash in on his A.A. experience without doing harm to the program.  (Many hospital A.A. counselors  today don't seem bothered by their consciences though.)

The honesty and humility that these early members of A.A. learned from the 12 steps, brought them to the realization that they were, as the kids say today, tripping with their crazy ideas and plans for A.A.  Recovering people didn't flock to become hospital founders or even sobriety counselors, and A.A. remained untarnished by greed and hubris.

A.A. members know they are all one drink or drug away from a total relapse.  Their sobriety, they learn in twelve step programs, is contingent on their spiritual condition.  The members of A.A. in 1941 finally accepted that they were tripping and that their ideas were based on character defects they needed to have removed.  One man who was invited by a distillery to represent the company went to Bill W. and asked if he should do it.  It was a case of merely having to hear one's self speak lunacy aloud to another and finally having the lights come on.  He didn't do it, of course.

I got a kick from this story of human weaknesses, character defects, greed and extravagant pride because I could relate.  I never wanted to be a worker among workers, or a cog in the wheel. I always wanted to be the star of the show and most of the production.  In his article, mostly a glowing tribute to A.A. and its members, Alexander felt compelled to mention the general emotional immaturity of the alcoholic until he begins to grow up by working A.A.'s 12 steps.

 I wanted to find the cure for cancer, but without taking all the tedious science and medial classes and doing painstaking research.  If the truth be told, I most wanted to be a literary lion with a long trail of bestsellers and appearances on David Letterman and Charlie Rose.  Writing was hard work though, and I wanted to find an easier way to become a famous, wealthy author that didn't involve so much time and energy, well, writing, for starters.  I wanted fame and wealth to come and strike me like a lightening bolt.  I thought about the interviews that enterprising reporters would do with my family, friends, former acquaintances and coworkers who all agreed that they just saw that flash of rare brilliance in me and knew I would shine someday.  I really liked imagining those interviews and the letters to the editors of book review publications about my early signs of extreme talent.But right now I needed to take a nap.

If I had been an A.A. member in the eaely days, I imagine I would give high-priced speeches on the secrets of finding sobriety despite the fact that I only learned the secret was to surrender when the shards of my life were down around my ankles and I wasn't fit for human companionship.  Who wouldn't surrender when it got bad enough?  Hitting bottom is a rude, rude wake-up call to either grow up or die.

I would have been chasing that A.A. gravy train though even if I had to do it still half in the bag and thinking pathetic mush.
I would have liked to educate the masses on how alcoholics should be treated in this society.  I'd rather teach than be a doer, that's for sure.

The ugly truth of this story is that I did once take that I also wanted to cash in on A.A.'s success by  working as a certified substance abuse counselor for ten years.  In this capacity I used little of what I learned about Counseling Psychology in graduate school, and mostly answered patient questions about the length of my sobriety, my personal story of losing all and regaining my life, and sharing humorous anecdotes about some of the insane things I did while high.  These conversations brought me a decent income and some status, even as the two hats I wore grew heavier and more cumbersome.  Finally, I decided I never drank or drugged as bad as most of my patients, and I could afford to have just one drink.  That led to my losing everything sobriety had given me.  I lost my husband, custody of my children, became homeless, unemployable and ill and lost the hope that I could ever return to the beautiful sober life I had enjoyed for 15 years.

These circa 1941 recovering alcoholics seem not to have had to ride their delusions into relapses, and I imagine that when they looked back at their thinking during that time they could only attribute this fact to the grace of God.

Many hospital treatment programs cash in or seem to on A.A.'s reputation by using their 12 step program as a treatment model and getting all patients, and clients into mandatory meetings as soon as they stop throwing up and shaking after detox.  But Alcoholics Anonymous is not responsible for this commercial abuse.  A.A. should not be regarded as greedy and money-seeking on this account.  They still only get the one dollar or two at most that members put in the basket at meetings to cover literature, and the expenses of keeping the thing going with paid staff workers who are non-A.A.  Who or what will next attempt to get rich quick on the 12 steps is only a matter of waiting to see.

I believe I have been restored to sanity and just want to leave this world a little better than I found it and I don't plan on getting any public accolades for doing so.