I Want to Understand Points of View Other Than My Own

I've been puzzling for days over Mike Huckabee's comment that Democrats are trying to make women think we need the help of the government to regulate our libidos.  I'm completely lost.  Since he said it in terms of birth control, I guess it must mean that if women could regulate our libidos, we wouldn't need birth control.  I guess if I would have been able to regulate my libido, I would never have become pregnant accidentally. 

I guess unwanted pregnancies are a function of women's unregulated libido rather than lack of birth control.  Which adds up to:  don't have sex unless you want to get pregnant - which would be about twice in a lifetime for most women.  Not only would we women have to have tight control on our libido, that would pretty much mean a whole lot less sex for men - except and unless they paid for it or got it from women who wanted endless numbers of kids. 

Well, I can't really figure this out.  Was he serious?  Is that really what a lot of conservative men think? 

I'm Censoring Myself

Sometimes my mental censorship is a good thing.  Sometimes it's not.  A lot of what I think is not necessarily a good thing to share.  I used to believe that my thoughts were the truth and that they represented me - who I am.  I've learned - and a fabulously helpful lesson it was - that a great many of my thoughts are pretty meaningless.

One of the spiritual journeys I've taken and am still on, is the practice of watching my thoughts.  Some of what I observe might be useful to someone else even though I would probably get quite a bit of disagreement from a number of people.  When I'm watching my thoughts, I try to set aside those things that might be useful from just the random stuff that wanders through my mind.

It occurs to me from time to time that all of us seem to be focusing on a bunch of things that are pretty irrelevant to our quality of life and ignoring things that might really help us live our best lives.  I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when I'm ignoring stuff that could really be in my best interests to pay attention to, I'm usually unconsciously trying to protect myself from noticing that I am the one who could stand to make some changes!

Here are some things I tend to censor:

Nutrition - It's clear from all the scientific research that the quality of our lives is hugely dependent on what we put in our mouths.  In relation to how massively important it is, the amount of attention I pay to what I eat is pretty small.

Exercise - I have many, many excuses for why this item isn't near the top of my priority list.  After all, I'm kind of old, kind of disabled, and what do you expect of poor little old me?  Oh, come on:  once again exercise is at the top of the researchers' list for creating quality of life.

Meditation - Many amazing things have been discovered by studying regular meditators.  It doesn't seem to matter what religion they are or if they even have one, but spending some time being quiet and still for a few minutes every day seems to make a huge difference in their stress levels, their ability to get along with other people, etc. etc. 

Okay, okay.  I'll stop censoring the thoughts about these obvious priorities and put some more effort into them instead of the bologna I usually pay attention to and report back.

Responsibilities I Believe I Must Take Seriously

I recently had a conversation with a friend who was very upset with a couple of people whom she's close to in her life.  Being a very talented problem solver, I started trying to share some ideas about ways to solve the conflicts without trying to change the other person.

She got even more upset - probably because she was venting not problem solving and I was wrecking her vent with solutions.  The thing is, she had already told me about these problems multiple times and in my mind the venting wasn't doing either of us any good. 

My responsibility that I lost track of in that conversation because I was trying to please her, was my responsibility to myself.  Once I realized she wasn't in a problem-solving mood, I could have just excused myself politely from the conversation.  But because I care about her and knew there were some easy solutions that would take her out of her upset, I foolishly tried to convince her to problem solve.

What a waste of time that was!  I ended by apologizing for my foolishness and made a mental note to at least remember to ask people who are venting, if they want me to help them problem-solve or not. 

A Life Centered Around Self-Love and Self-Caring

I was taught that a "good person" always put other people ahead of him/herself.  Of course, I was also taught that this was supposed to be even more true for women.  That putting yourself first, loving yourself, and self-care were bad - selfish attitudes that made you a bad person.

Those lessons led me to a place where I never got enough sleep, enough nutritious food, dental and medical care.  Funny thing - living like that created chronic anger without my really being aware of why I was so angry (and sad and fearful and totally overwhelmed).  I had nothing to give to anybody.  All I really wanted was a day off!

I mistakenly thought that the solution was for other people to take better care of me.  Then I landed in a recovery program because I was truly at the end of my rope.  They told me that well-intentioned people had simply taught me things that weren't true.  And that I was the one who was supposed to be taking care of myself. 

Since then I've been on a long, long, journey of learning how to take care of myself.  I began by doing the obvious things - food, rest, medical and dental care etc. 

Then I realized that I had developed a disdain for fun - that I believed that in deadly serious world with problems galore to be solved, taking any time for fun was just plain evil.  So I tentatively started to explore what I thought might be fun.  I discovered that as an adult I still liked to swing.  It's kind of embarrassing to go to the park and wait your turn with all the kids, but it was totally worth it.

So, now years later, I'm still practicing.  I'm not an expert at this yet.  But I can say that I continue to discover what, for me, a life centered around self-love and self-caring looks like. 

The basics of food, rest, exercise and medical and dental care continue to get better and better as I learn more.  I see the dentist four times a year and by so doing, my gum disease has been arrested.  I go for my annual check ups.  I get a flu shot.  I've studied nutrition tailored to a woman of my age with the health issues I have and I work at creating food that I love and that meets my needs.  With research and expert help, I have an exercise program that also meets my particular needs - a little bit of seated aerobics, modified yoga, strength training, and a lot of exercises to keep my core muscles strong. 

I've learned that treating other people the way I want to be treated usually causes other people to treat me well.  Even when it doesn't turn out that way, I'm okay because I've learned that people treat other people the way they treat themselves.  If they treat me badly, it's usually because their own self-care isn't good.  I've learned to listen better although I still need a lot of work in that area.  I've stopped trying to change people (usually) and just ask for what I want.  If they don't want to, I work on acceptance.  If people treat me badly, I ask them not to.  If they don't change, I put distance between us. 

I realized too that part of a life centered around self-care and self-love is to use my talents.  That's been a lot harder because I ran right up against my fear of being judged.  So now I'm working on growing a thicker skin.  I've taken classes and try to do something with my talents every day.

There was a little piece of the truth in what I was taught about giving to others.  It turns out that sharing with other people is also a way for me to take care of myself.  The thing is, it's important for me to give from a place of plenty - which I can do when I've taken care of my own needs first. 

A Retreat Arranged by God

Snow days weren't a big deal when I was a kid.  Unless there was a sheet of ice on the roads, we just carried on.  Since I was an only child and we lived in the country, getting time off from school wasn't that exciting.  There weren't any other kids nearby and it was a time before television.

Later when my kids were home from school because of snow, I either had to go to work anyway or we found ways to entertain ourselves.  But it didn't really seem like a vacation.

In most recent years, I usually just carry on.  Unless there's a bunch of ice.  In my mind, it's more than a little bit wimpy to let snow scare you.  I've got front wheel drive on my car and I just carry on.

Last week when we had the blizzard of 2013, and the local stations were going on and on about the snow (we had four whole inches), it suddenly occurred to me that I could take a snow day.  I hadn't realized it before but God was giving me a gift - I could just check out of life until a melt!

It's probably just the stage of life I'm in, but I've been noticing that I enjoy quiet more than I ever have in my life.  Sometimes I feel like I'm recovering from a lifetime of scurrying around from this to that, in a noisy world, trying to stay out of trouble with other people. 

A blanket of white silence outside, the bright white light from the white outside coming through my windows had the unusual effect of quieting my mind and body.  I ate, slept, prayed, sat and thought, listened to music and read Winnie the Pooh.  When the melt came, I wasn't quite ready and so pretended to be snowed in for a couple more days.

There is No Situation too Difficult to be Bettered and No Unhappines too Great to be Lessened

The closing that's read at the end of one of the recovery program meetings I attend contains the above sentence.  I love it because of its unfailing truth!

When I came into recovery I was in many, many very difficult situations and was extremely unhappy.  I felt hopeless and helpless.

Very gradually the people of the program showed me how my situations could be bettered and my unhappiness lessened.  That sounds like it was a lovely, delightful process.  But it wasn't.

I actually hated every minute of that process.  What I wanted was for them to tell me how to make the people change that I thought were causing my problems.  I had very detailed stories about how wrong those other people were.  But they didn't listen - they just pointed out that I had many possible solutions that did not involve anyone else changing but me.  I felt accused of being at fault.  I felt as if I was being told I should have already thought of the ideas they offered to me.  I was sure they just really didn't understand how innocent I was and how guilty those other people were.

I didn't begin to open my mind until I had truly had all the pain I could stand and then I thought I might try some suggestions even though I still felt as if they really just didn't understand.

Lo and behold!  Their suggestions worked.  Over time I've realized that my resistance was really my ego wanting to always be right and wanting to blame somebody else for my problems.

I've come to understand that whenever I'm blaming and complaining, it's my ego trying to shield me from my own harsh self-judgments.  I've forgotten that I am a child of God, with flaws but still a divine creation and that it's not my job to live in self-hate.

When I can (with the help of mentors) turn my attention to the question, "What can I do (with the help of God) to make my situation better," I find that I have many, many options for solutions and partial solutions. 

The unexpected outcome for me is that I actually have a good time solving problems now.  It's great entertainment.  Thanks to things like "Google" I have a world of ideas open to me!

"Solicitous Domination"

Eeew!  A very creepy phrase: solicitous domination." I read this in a recent reading in one of my meditation books.  It was referring to the pattern of behavior that's common to folks taking care of someone who needs care. 

I noticed when I worked for the Alzheimer's Association and talked to a lot of family members who were caring for someone with Alzheimer's that it was very common for the caregiver to speak to the person as though he or she was not all there.

Of course, the person actually wasn't "all there," but he or she didn't know that and usually became very angry about being spoken to in a way that seemed very disrespectful to him or her.  Solicitous domination. 

Then I began to notice that that "solicitous domination" was very common with all caregivers.  I used to say that it seemed to be a human thing to become obnoxiously bossy when someone needed help. 

Then I noticed that I was that way with my husband when he was ill.  I seemed to think that I should tell him what to do all the time.  I eventually apologized to him and, for the most part, was able to give him enough respect to let him decide for himself how he was going to live his life.

Of course, I had good motives:  I loved him and I wanted him to feel better and I wanted him to live for a long time.  However, good motives didn't excuse obnoxious bossiness (solicitous domination). 

After the 2005 wreck when the love of my life died and I was seriously injured, the awareness of the common behavior pattern in caregivers came in handy.  For quite awhile I was completely dependent on the people around me and had the experience of being bossed.  Because I knew it was a common behavior in caregivers, I didn't get my feelings hurt or get angry.

Not everyone was like that and the ones that were probably had the same good motives as I had when I was like that.  They loved me and wanted me to get better and thought they knew what I should do.  Sometimes they were right.  A lot of the time they were wrong. 

I didn't say much because I didn't want to piss anyone off.  I just ignored as much of it as I could and when it was necessary, I called in expert opinions to be sure what was right.  In my heart, I had to know that this was a case of "what goes around, comes around."  I gave my husband several years of bossiness (solicitous domination), and I only had to deal with a much shorter time. 

I am still learning that although I might be very very sure that I know what someone ought to do about whatever problem is going on in his/her life, I actually cannot be sure at all.  Plus I am way out of line by telling them what to do when I haven't even been asked because their lives are theirs.

Of course, I think I'm pretty smart so it's often been hard to shut up.  I've collected some lovely rolls of masking tape that I keep around to remind me that I will never regret keeping my mouth shut!

Living from Intention and Intuition

I've been listening to Oprah and Deepak Chopra's 21 day meditation challenge.  One of the recent ones reminded me of some old, old lessons I've learned.

By old I mean that one of them was first taught to me over 30 years ago before I even got into recovery and the other one I learned very early in recovery.

The concept of "intention" was something I learned in some pretty off-the-wall seminars I took in the 70s.  Off-the-wall or not, I got some information that really helped me navigate some very difficult times. 

The concept is that we can either have unconscious or conscious intentions.  Either way our intentions guide our behavior and therefore create our lives.  It's a whole lot better to have intentions that we choose because otherwise we are kind of driven by whatever our brains come up with at the spur of the moment - which may or may not be what we actually want.  Impulses are not always healthy or positive!

I learned early in recovery from my spiritual mother that rational thinking has it's place but intuition often trumps it for inspiration, God connection, and living from a spirit of love. 

Intention was relatively easy for me to grasp how to use it.  I understood that I could have a vision and intention for my life, for each day of my life and for each moment of my life.  By consciously choosing my purpose/intention, my life grew more and more satisfying.

Intuition was much, much harder.  All the explanations and definitions just seemed kind of lofty and full of air - nothing to get hold of; nothing real.  My spiritual mother suggested I just look back through my life for situations when I had had understanding or knowledge that didn't come from my rational mind. 

Sure enough I could remember many of them and how when I ignored the knowledge, I paid a price.  She said she thought that God and our hearts spoke to us through our intuition, and that by following that guidance we would be able to steer through difficulties that used to have us stumped. 

I'm still practicing choosing intention and daily practicing connection with my intuition.  It's easier but still pretty mysterious.  It has paid off in so many ways.

Struggle, Struggle, Struggle

Periodically I read back through my journals.  I've been journaling pretty much every day since 1996 so I have piles of them.  (I've requested that my oldest daughter gather them up and trash them as the first thing she does after my death since there's not a thing in them worth reading by anyone else.  No secrets, no dramatic revelations.)

What's in all those piles of paper is a long history of struggling to use my time and energy in the way I most want to.  I'm pretty much always writing about the war I'm having with myself to lose weight, eat right, exercise, keep tight track of my finances, get done for my kids with disabilities what I think needs to be done, and last but hardly least, finish the writing projects I start.

In little teeny, tiny inches forward, I can see by reading back that I make progress and that it is worth the struggle. 

Powerlessness does not Equal Helpless nor Hopeless

I am so amazingly powerless.  I thought that was a terrible thing when I first admitted it.

Turns out it's just the first step to real power.

I have an infinite number of options in every situation of powerlessness.  I just don't have to power to overcome addiction, other people, remove my own character defects, etc.

I can always ask God for direction and the power to carry out that direction. 

What is absolutely certain:  God's ideas are always for the absolute good for everyone and I would never have thought of them by myself.

Surrender is a Wonderful Thing

I am pretty sure that surrender to God's will was the first thing I did in recovery.  I didn't know what that even meant since I didn't believe in God.  But desperation is a really useful thing.

When I get in a tight spot now, I conveniently (or inconveniently) forget about surrender. But in order to have radical acceptance where I accept myself and everything else in the universe as being exactly the way it is supposed to be, I have to first surrender - to the truth - that God is the boss and not me.

Why Accept Everything?
Well, for starters, fighting reality, fighting things that I'm powerless to change, complaining incessantly about the way things are, got me absolutely nowhere in my life.  With the spiritual practice of acceptance, I've gained huge amounts of peace of mind.

How is it possible to accept EVERYTHING?
I think it's possible because of God's grace.  I believe I am in God's care and I remind myself of this every day.  My dear spiritual mother used to ask me, "Did you turn your life and your will over to the care of God this morning?"  When I said, "yes," she would say, "Then everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be." 

Of course, the first several times she said that, I got really angry because things were happening that I did not like and that I thought were WRONG!  After awhile I began to suspect that she might be right.  After some more time passed, I realized that the more I acceptance I had, the more joy and peace I had. 

Commitment to Happiness

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." 
Abraham Lincoln

I for sure thought that happiness was not something you could just decide to be.  What about when things happen that I don't like?  What about all those times when the people around me didn't treat me right?  What about all those problems with my job?  What about all those natural disasters?  What about when my beloved children were not happy and I couldn't fix it?  What about when people that I loved with all my heart died?  You have got to be kidding me!  There's no way I can be happy anyway.  That would make me crazy or inhuman.

It turns out that I can be happy and sad at the same time.  I can even wish things were different and still be happy.  It doesn't make me inhuman.  I will still have all my normal human emotions.  AND I will still have my commitment to be happy, in general, in my life.

What else is there really?  I've been given a wonderful gift - a life to live on this beautiful earth.  I really have little to no control of what happens around me.  So, in honor of the gift I've been given - in spite of the fact that I have no power to arrange everything the way I want it - I choose to be happy, accepting and grateful.  All I have to do is remember every day that that's my commitment to God and to myself.

I Love My Country

I never used to think about whether I loved my country or not.  I knew that I was supposed to, but I never really thought about it one way or another. 

In my 20s I woke up to the fact that things in my country weren't really like I had been taught, and so for awhile I didn't feel a lot of love for my country.  It worried me that it seemed to be the land of the free for only some people, and that our prosperity seemed to be founded on slavery and our good luck to have a lot of oil under our property.

After awhile I mellowed and realized that I live in a geographically fabulously beautiful country.  I realized that although the citizens of my country were very flawed individually and collectively, we had pretty good intentions over all.  I also learned that in a democracy I had all kinds of opportunities to have input into decisions made on my behalf and I was so grateful for that. 

The election in 2008 of an African American president proved to me that the majority of citizens in my country really wanted to move forward into an era of equality for everyone.  I already knew about backlash, so I was kind of prepared for the efforts of the opposition to trash the efforts of those who voted for equality.

But now I'm worried again.  For the first time in my long life, I am afraid that those who believe our country should be about every man for himself, and that force is the way to settle everything are getting an upper hand.  Politics seems more like war than a democracy right now.

Now I'm hearing that my country is not supposed to be a democracy but is supposed to be a republic.  I'm hearing that people who need help to have a decent life should just be on their own - older people, children, people with disabilities.  People who are not white are to be automatically thought of as less capable and less worthy.  Women need to be kept under control and stay in their place.  Those who have money want to keep it and will only pay taxes for roads and police and military, etc. because those things benefit them.  They want to never have their tax money spent for anything that doesn't benefit them.

A perfect example is that one of the candidates for president in the last election said he thought instead of letting poor children have free lunches they should be made to do the janitor work to pay for them.  Hmmm.  Scary.

It seems to me that the opposition is saying, "If you don't agree with me, I will play dirty and make your life so miserable that you will have to give in and give me my way even if the majority of people disagree with me."

I didn't vote in the last presidential election for the first time in my life.  I knew it wouldn't matter how I voted in my state since I am in the minority.  My elected federal officials are quite sure they have nothing to worry about because they are from a state that is heavily in favor of their point of view.  They usually do not even bother to respond to any of my letters.  I am feeling very cut off from having any input for my point of view and am searching for another way. 

I still love my country.

My Inner Roommate

Sometime in 1995 I listened to some CDs in the car that were recordings of a class a gal taught on how to work the 12 Steps on just our spirituality.  She said that we should start listening and paying close attention to our thoughts because our thinking was the source of our troubles. Now I had certainly heard a bunch of times that "stinkin thinkin" was a huge source of trouble, but I hadn't ever heard it described in just that way before. 

So I suddenly became aware that my thoughts were what was causing me so much emotional pain. Those thoughts were almost always telling me that I should be worrying about an enormous number of things, and that I should be judging myself harshly for all my mistakes, and it always predicted that I was going to fail miserably at everything I attempted. The point was that most of what my thoughts were telling me were lies.  It was a huge awakening.

Then one of my mentors invited me to a book study of a book called, "Soul Without Shame."  It was a kind of odd book but very useful.  It described something the author called, "The Judge" that constantly criticized us in our minds.  I equated "The Judge" with what I had heard about "stinkin thinkin."

Sometime later the same mentor invited me to a book study of "The Four Agreements."  Lo and behold, this book described "The Parasite" which is composed of a judge and a victim.  Of course, the description was of the "stinkin thinkin" that goes on in our heads. 

Just in the last few months I came across another book that describes the phenomenon as "your inner roommate."  I like that term the best.  The other descriptions are awfully negative.  I believe this "voice inside my head" that I used to call my thinking, is actually something that evolved to help me.  It tries to think of everything that might be dangerous and warn me.  It tries to improve my character with its criticism.  The trouble is it's run completely off the tracks and instead of preventing or solving problems, it has turned into the problem.

The problem stems from the fact that I believe my inner roommate is ME...  that it's me that says all the stuff it says and that what it says is TRUE!  It turns out that it's actually NOT me.  It's just a voice in my head.  And if it were an actual person sitting at my kitchen table saying the stuff it says to me, I would never believe what it says. 

My inner roommate is incredibly neurotic, obnoxious and negative.  In fact, it's mean and cruel and mean- spirited.  I wouldn't even be willing to have it for a friend, let alone acknowledge it as ME.  And yet I have listened to this horrible crap day in and day out for my whole life.

So...what's the solution.  Well, for starters, being aware of the actual truth.  Everybody has an inner roommate and I suspect that theirs are as much a pain in the ass as mine is.  If it were an actual person, I could just kick it out of my life.  But since it lives in my head, I'm stuck with it.  So I am gradually learning to just not believe what it says - its criticisms and judgments of me, its predictions of future horrors, and its painful, mean-spirited judgments of my past behavior.  I thank it for trying to be helpful and turn my attention elsewhere. 

Little by little my inner roommate is becoming quieter and less cruel.  It has even stopped bringing up the time when I was in second grade and stole a pencil off Miss Edison's desk.  That was one it used to like to remind me of when it couldn't think of anything else. 
I'm looking forward to the time when it falls asleep from lack of an audience. 

Expectations = Pain

I've been taught that expectations are premeditated resentments.  Reality is that I am a terrible predictor of the future - which is where expectations lie.  (I'm pretty sure everybody else is too.)  So, it is inevitable that I will be disappointed at least 50% of the time, maybe even more than that.

Somehow I must have grown up believing that there was a way to make things happen the way I want them to happen.  I do believe that I have an influence on what happens in my life, of course.  The thing is, there are other people around, there's weather, there are all kinds of other influences.  None of that may be influencing things the way I want.

So, if I want to have peace of mind, I must let go of expectations.  I can certainly hope and influence - just not expect.

Some of the Stuff I used to Believe but Don't Believe Anymore

Some of the stuff I used to believe I just picked up unconsciously from the culture (media, etc.) and some was taught to me (parents, school, church, etc.).  I really did my best to live by what I believed.  I worked at making myself conform by torturing myself with inner criticism and blame - which was what I had been taught would work.

What makes you a worthwhile person is:

•  If lots of people like you (popularity)
•  You get good grades in school but not really good grades because that makes you too smart to be popular(if teachers like you, that doesn't count either).
• You are reasonably decent looking although it makes a huge difference if you are really, really, really nice looking.
• You must NEVER be overweight.
• You need to have some kind of talent that you can be admired for.
• It's a good idea to be entertaining - funny.
• Getting a lot of money is a great way to be a worthwhile person. 
• Getting a high class job is essential to being a worthwhile person.
• If you're a girl, never, ever have sex unless you're married to the person (or at least don't get caught), because no one will ever think you're a nice person again if anyone finds out.  This doesn't apply to boys, by the way.  Having a lot of sex is admired.
• Having boyfriends/spouse that are very good looking, educated, from a high class family and who have jobs like doctors, lawyers, or other professional jobs plus lots of money is almost essential to being a worthwhile person. (For guys, all the girlfriends/spouses have to be is very good looking.)
• Have good looking, very smart, well-behaved kids.  If your kids don't measure up, neither do you.
• If you're a woman, you must always put your significant others' needs and wants ahead of your own.
• If you're a women, it doesn't matter what your talents, interests or desires are.  Your first priority is to be a good cook, housekeeper, etc. It doesn't count if you don't want to or don't have the ability.  You have to learn and do it anyway.  You were born to serve men and children - it's your destiny.  No sick leave, paid vacations, or retirement.  You must crank out those meals and keep the house immaculate, etc. until you keel over.
• You must keep your emotions under control.  Nice people don't cry, yell, or curse.
• Dressing according to the fashion is essential.  The goal is to dress so well that you look better than everyone else. 
• Go to church.

There are lots of other things too like going on glamorous vacations, going to a church that a lot of other worthwhile people go to, being known in your community, etc.  But those things aren't absolutely essential to being a worthwhile person. 

As I got older, I became suspicious that a lot of that stuff was not very believable.  I suspected that it was kind of impossible to live up to, for one thing, and that a lot of people just pretended to be those things and lived in shame and secrecy because they were not.  Most of all, I began to notice that all those rules were really about how OTHER people saw me.  And I began to think that I didn't want my life to just be about social convention and whether I was PERCEIVED to be worthwhile or not.

Taking Care of Myself in Relationships and with People in General

After learning to take care of myself physically and emotionally, my spiritual mother began to teach me about other people and how to be in relationships ranging from the person at the checkout counter to my spouse.  I'm pretty sure I will not be finished with this learning process in this lifetime.

I still attend meetings in both recovery programs.  I still especially need to get information and hear sharing from other people in order to continue to change my part in interactions with others.

Most of my trouble with people came from my fear that I would be hurt.  When others judged and criticized me, my feelings were hurt and I fought back.  Of course, there are other ways people could hurt me and I feared that possibility also. 

First of all I learned that there were a myriad of ways I could take care of myself around other people.  Up until that point I had believed that the only way to take care of myself was to make other people change.  It turns out that making other people change is completely impossible.  No wonder I was chronically upset!

I was taught that after I've prayed about a situation I have going on with another person and talked to a wise person, it's perfectly acceptable to ask for a change in the other person's behavior - if I ask in a way that has no elements of demand, criticism, or judgment.  (That can be difficult!)  I was also taught that asking once - or at the most twice - was the limit for the number of times to ask.  I was told that beyond twice was unhealthy; that I was trying to control the other person instead of taking responsibility for my own feelings and desires.

If I am truly being harmed, I must consider the possibility of ending the interaction with the other person - either temporarily or permanently.  But sometimes I wasn't really being harmed - I was just taking offense when I was misinterpreting the communication I was receiving.  I realized that sometimes I was unconsciously putting myself in a position to be hurt because I was so narrowly focused on what I wanted instead of caring about the other person's well being as well as my own.

My teacher also pointed out that everyone has their own rules.  One of the major problems human being have, she said, was that we all thought our own rules were the only right ones and that everyone knew what the right ones were.  When people were not behaving as we thought they should, we believed that we should straighten them out.  Actually, she said, no one's "rules" are exactly the same, and there are a lot of "good rules" that are different from other "good rules." 

The concept of solving my own problems without trying to change anyone else was totally new to me.  So my teacher had to remind me over and over again.  I had a lot of trouble with the "rules" thing.  I wanted people to follow mine and I was offended when they chastised me for not following theirs.  It was a hugely new concept that for most part, there were no universal rules.

She kept encouraging me to look within and discover what I believed the rules were and where I had learned them.  Then she encouraged me to explore what values and "rules" I really wanted.  For example, my self-searching and exploring eventually lead to my belief that I wanted love, peace and compassion for everyone as well as myself to guide my actions.  I began to feel deeply that I could live by those values more than I could arbitrary rules.

So, with those values in mind, I found it pretty hard to judge other people as "bad."  When they judged me, I reminded myself that they were just going by their rules. 

I have found that living by those values is complicated and requires lots of prayer and guidance from my spiritual community.  So far, though, I haven't accumulated any lasting resentments, I have very little shame, and I usually don't take offense when others judge me by their rules.  Boy, is it ever a lot more peaceful inside my head.

Taking Care of Myself: Letting Go of Guilt

By the time I had reached recovery, guilt was my middle name.  I felt like a total failure at everything.  I especially felt terrible about the harm I'd done other people.

I was well informed about the basics of the Christian religion - that God sent his Son to redeem us from our sins.  But when I went to church what I heard (even if that wasn't what was said) was condemnation.  So the concept of being forgiven was of no use to me in my heavy load of guilt.  There were quite a few people in my life who had judged and condemned me as well.  Although I didn't want to believe them, I was pretty sure they were right.

I had given up on myself so I was pretty sure God had too, if there even was a God.  My dear sponsor and spiritual mother assured me that I was the only one who had given up on me.  She said God hadn't and she hadn't.  She explained that I hadn't had what I needed to live the life I was created to live, but that now I did have what I needed.  All that was necessary was to  put it into practice.

The missing piece, she explained, was that action was necessary to amend the harms I had done.  Of course, it's impossible to change the past, but it is possible to do our best to make up for our wrongs.  Amends are not the same as apologies either.  It's necessary for us to actually correct the mistakes to the best of our ability.

The process of making amends was and is a very complicated process.  The simplest ones are the financial ones - paying back what is owed. 

Of course, it's at least a beginning to express our regret to the people we have harmed, but that needs to be followed by a change in our behavior so that we don't do those things again to anyone.  Even if a person has left the earth, we can make amends to the world.  For example, if we owe that person money, we can give the amount we owe to a charity that we think the person would like.

The ultimate goal is to be able to look back at our lives and know that we have done and are doing every day, everything we can to amend our mistakes and that, therefore, we have no reason to condemn ourselves or to accept condemnation from anyone else.
What an amazing freedom that is.

Of course, it's necessary to keep up with current mistakes and correct those.  There's a step for that - continuing to take personal inventory (daily) and correct our mistakes.  That keeps resentments, fears and guilt from piling up again.

I've often wondered what purpose any of those negative emotions serve beyond alerting me to problems that need my attention.  I really believe now that that's really what they were created for.  They let me know to take care of things as they come up and then let those feeling go.  It's been a long time now since I've felt guilty for any length of time.  I believe if I have uncomfortable feelings for more than a day, it's time for me to solve (with the help of God and a wise person) the problem that's causing them.

Taking Care of Myself: Outgrowing Fear

When I first read about "outgrowing fear," I thought it was a crazy idea.  I believed that fear was more or less an instinct and had an important purpose in keeping me alive and out of trouble.  But my dear first sponsor in recovery assured me that letting go of fear by relying on God was essential to sobriety.

Of course, it's true that some fears do help me stay out of trouble.  I have a healthy fear of running red lights, for example.  But most of the fears that were running my life were actually just mental - ideas I had that I was scaring myself with.

I had a big fear of being judged by other people.  I don't know what I thought would happen to me if I were judged.  Of course, I thought people that loved me would stop loving me.  But the thing is, if I pretend to be something I'm not, I'm not actually being loved because those people don't even really know who I am.

So I learned that pretense would just create a life where I never really knew how I stood with anybody.  Little by little I learned to just be who I am.  I tell the truth about who I am, what I think and how I feel.  I don't hide my mistakes.  Every once in awhile I get mad because someone judges me, but I get over it pretty quickly.  I do my best.  If that's not okay with them...well, what can I do about that?

Most of my other fears were about what might happen in the future.  I didn't think good things were going to happen - just stuff I was sure was going to be terrible and cause me great emotional pain.  Some stuff like that did happen and sure enough I had pain.  But all the worry ahead of time didn't make it hurt less.  Besides, a lot of the things I feared never happened.

The bottom line was that fear was not all that useful.  So I was more willing to consider the possibility of outgrowing it in favor of reliance on God.  Stuff does happen that I don't like, but my job is to let go of my resistance and be willing to let God be in charge.

Dream Hangovers

I dreamed last night that my dearly departed husband had left me for another woman.  I was devastated and tried to talk him into coming back.  He was mad at me for refusing to do something he wanted me to do so I guess he found someone else to do it.  I really wanted to give in so that he would come back but I didn't.  I just tried to explain why I said, "no" and that I loved him very much.  He was hugging me but I got the impression he wasn't coming back when I woke up.  I remember feeling very, very sad that he was leaving but a little bit proud that I didn't sacrifice what I believed was right to keep him.

I've been up three hours now and I still feel really sad.  I hate dream hangovers.