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Voices
Posted On 09/01/2008 13:32:32
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We began to understand that an attitude or behaivior born out of a shortcoming would never give us the peace of mind we sought, o matter what those "voices-in-our-head" said.
Voices disturbed:
So, whats up, I wonder why
Do you listen to me
Im gonna make you do some freaky sh*t now
Insane, youre gonna die
When you listen to me
Let the living die, let the living die
So, cant you imagine how good going through this will make you feel
I promise, no one will ever know
There will be no chance of you getting caught
They never loved you anyway
So come on, be a man
And do what you are compelled to do
F*ck this voices also told us what to do in order to get rewarded with attention, and love, “I should…clean up my room, eat my vegetables, be quiet, stay in line and get good grades.” Do these things and people will like you, accept you, and love you. Do these things and you will be happy. The Voice echoed all the right rules based on the punishments and rewards stored in memory.
Freud formulated a theory about this in An outline of phsycoanalisis:
A portion of the external world has, at least partially, been abandoned as an object and has instead, by identification, been taken into ego and thus become an integral part of the internal world, this mental agency continues to to carry the funtion which have hitherto been performed by the parents...the ego, gives ordes, judges it and threatens it with punisment, exactly like the parents whose place it has taken...we call this agency the superego and are aware of it in its judicial funtions as our conscience"
This make some sense to a person like me, coming from a dysfuntional family, the need to stop sending those messages that keep me from growing emotionally, those scripts i have in my head about how i belived life should be for me and for others. Ideas, feelings, belifes, ways of thinking, attitudes, opinions, or values with which I was raised, need to stop using them when faced with problems.
How I do this, recovering the child within me, learning to love and accept myself.
Take care of this inerchild who needs to be nurtured, cared for, and loved.
I'm sorry hurt you, negelted you, I forgot about you, ignored you, I made you grow up so fast, but I love you, I'm proud of you, I accept you, we will work to get the help we need.
I promise we will have the fun, and play, go places we alway wanted to go and do all those things we always wanted to to, we will recover those lost years.
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HALT
Posted On 07/03/2008 11:47:37
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HALT
H. Hungry: McDonalds, burger king, Mexican (love Mexican)
Feeling tired, irritable and unfocused? Eating healthy, OK I think I need a newcomer chip for this one, and this is very serious, I realize that I automatically; by instinct, as soon I got hungry the ritual is very simple, the first Drive-Thru in my way, proceeding to eat in my car, Nope not only at dinner time, but all my meals. Junk food You have to hate it but how? So many good moments together…
A. Anger: God grant me the serenity… Let go and let God… Live life on life's terms… Turn it over
OK recovery it's about changing our attitudes and learning new ways to live…I allow myself to be angry, not act on it, but I know isn't healthy to repress my feelings, there’s not such thing as good feelings or bad feelings, feelings are feelings and they have a propose, some times to let me know I need balance in my life, or something…
L. Loneliness: God, sponsor, meetings, magazines under my bed…
I believe that loneliness is a choice, I need time be by myself to recharge my battery, to look for a conscious Contact with my HP, to reconnect with the divine. But some times I do feel lonely, I been told that in order to recover I needed to change my toys, playmates and playgrounds; build new relationship with “Normies” is very difficult, and with recovery fellows every conversation is just a monologue, me, me, me!!! but we have 13th step… sweet!
T. Tired: I’m tired writing this…
How I deal with my low energy, naps, and then more naps, what a gift, laying down in my bed and just feel the freshness of clean sheets…priceless.
When I’m having a hard time or feeling overwhelmed by life's demands, it helps to remember my most important priority ME. I mean my relationship with my HP. Seriously God is my number one.
Thanks for letting me share
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Step 3
Posted On 05/19/2008 21:15:25
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Recovery literature reminds me that in my dependency illness, "we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of reason" (Alcoholics Anonymous p.54). I contrast, wise King solomon wrote:" Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding". Although intelligence and reason are precious gifts from God, my most important human relationships and spiritual issues are matters primarily of the heart and not the head.
If only I got a penny every time I tried to think my way out of chronically painful emotions? Or tried to reson my way out of the emptiness of spiritual bankruptcy?
"to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God" involves different forms of surrender. I have to surrender the inflated sense of my own intelligence, and beging to lean, not in my own understanding, but on the God of my understanding
In my last blog I wrote about Sigmund Freud perception of happiness, with the risk of taking his words out of context he concluded" …one feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation." C. S. Lewis believes the plan of creation did indeed provide for our happiness. But something went wrong with the plan. Because must our suffering comes from other human beings. He explains: "God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had not possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. The more intelligent and more gifted the person God creates the greater the capacity to love and to be positive force in the universe, but also. If that person rebels, the greater capacity to cause evil, to inflict pain and to cause unhappiness. Our remote ancestors rebelled and used their free will to transgress the moral law… and to become their own masters… to invent some sort of happiness for themselves, apart from God." Lewis asks: " why, then did God give them free will? Why in the world would God give us freedom to choose if He knew people would use that freedom to cause so much frustration in themselves and so much misery in others?" Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." Lewis asserts that" the happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntary united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight. And for that they must be free" For more on C. S. Lewis read "God in the dock".
No aspect of life is more desired, more elusive, and more perplexing than happiness. We strive for what we believe will make us happy- good health, attractive looks, an ideal marriage, children, a comfortable home, success, fame, financial independence… But not everyone, who attains these goals, finds happiness. People who possesses everything- youth, health, intelligence, abundant food, clothes, a comfortable place to live, education, a promising future, etc. What in the world causes this unhappiness? What is happiness? How does one define it? Philosopher Arthur Schonpenhauer: “happiness is an illusive goal that one never reaches. A man is never happy, but spends his whole life striving after something he thinks will make him so” Nietzsche” happiness: the feeling that power increases- that resistance is overcome.” If you turn to modern dictionaries, the concept is anything but clear. One common definition implies that happiness is a state determined by external circumstances-“ characterized by luck or good fortune”. Others as an emotional state, a feeling, a positive mood. Synonymous of happy: glad, cheerful, lighthearted, joyful and joyous. These dictionaries tell us that the opposite of happiness is sadness. Freud writes that when you observe what people “show by their behavior to be the purpose and intention of their lives…the answer to this can hardly be in doubt. They strive after happiness. They want to become happy and to remain so.” Freud also observes that ”unhappiness is much less difficult to experience” than happiness. Freud equates happiness with pleasure, specifically the pleasure that comes from satisfying our sexual needs. Quote “ happiness … is a problem of satisfying a person’s instinctual wishes”. He gives several reasons why it is so difficult to be happy. First, the many sources of pain: illness, aging, the destructive forces of nature, and, must painful of all, our relation to other people. He gives another reason for our unhappiness. Because sexual love “has given us our must intense experience of an overwhelming sensation of pleasure and has thus furnished us with a pattern for our search for happiness,” people tend to seek happiness primarily in love relationships. But Freud warn that when someone succeeds in finding his main source of happiness in a love relationship, he has “made himself dependent in a most dangerous way on a portion of external world, and exposed himself to extreme suffering if he should be rejected by that object or should lose it through unfaithfulness or death”.
I’m going to post more tomorrow, if you like you can check Freud’s work “ civilization and its discontents.”
I find this article in the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS NETWORK Gifts With Recovery By Stephanie Abbott
Sometimes the best way to measure the distance between today and “back then” is to remember the way it used to be when someone else’s drinking or behavior was the most important thing in the world. Here are my gift ideas for any one affected by someone else’s problems, either now or in the past: The gift of forgiveness. One of the most difficult things in life is to drop membership in “Our Brothers and Sisters of Perpetual Vengeance.” Those who have forgiven others and themselves for the way it used to be report a good feeling of completion, an ability to close the door on the past. The gift of separateness. Codependents tend to get confused about where they end and another person begins. One woman told me she could never forgive herself if her husband hurt someone when he was driving drunk. Recovery means you have figured out emotionally what’s you and what isn’t you. The gift of letting go. This one is wonderful. You can allow others to be wrong, you can enjoy life even when someone else isn’t living the way you think they should. It means saving energy for your own improvement. The gift of choice. When all bogged down with managing someone else’s behavior, you begin to feel that this is all there is to life, and you have no options but to go on with it, or that any alternatives that you have thought of are unworkable. With the gift of choice, you let other people help you brainstorm solutions, either in a self-help group or in therapy. You begin to get creative about problem solving. You can have your way more often if you have more than one way. The gift of sharing. Recovery means we break the rule of keeping everything to ourselves. You no longer have to pretend that your life is perfect, or that you don’t need anyone. Now you can let some people see you as you truly are. The gift of limitation. What a relief to accept that no one can do it all or have it all. Sometimes we want things that are opposite of each other. We have some control over our lives and feelings, but no one manages everything even when they pretend they do. The gift of intimacy. One of the most precious aspects of a relationship is trust and sharing, but it is only possible between two equals. Addiction by its nature means there is game-playing and power struggles, with one up and one down. It is also impossible to be emotionally close to a practicing addict, since feelings and thoughts are distorted by drugs, and so much play-acting by everyone is necessary to maintain the alcoholic life style. The gift of self respect. Freedom from the delusion that you should be able to change someone else by the strength of your will and cleverness means you can now see yourself in a much more positive light. A more reasonable assessment of reality makes self respect possible. The gift of balance. In the hectic atmosphere of family reaction, there is a tendency toward extremism. There is undue euphoria or exaggerated depression based on what happened today, or intense closeness followed by intense alienation. Recovery brings a balance of feelings and behavior. The gift of equality. When the family is thoroughly upset by addiction, managing alcoholism is the main event. This means the family revolves around the behavior of the addict and he or she is the star of the show. The spouse or parent or child closest to the “star” is extremely important in the manager role, and all others become secondary. In recovery everyone in the family is of equal importance; every one's needs are considered in a healthy family. Awareness of how far you have come gives you gratitude and zest for the recovery rewards still ahead. Thankfulness is the best gift for us all, and the most potent remedy for resentment.
Saint Augustine:
"What is that I love in loving You? Not physical beauty, not the splendor of time. It's not the radiance of the light, which is so pleasant to our eyes, or the sweet melodies of various kinds of music. Nor is the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices, it's not manna and honey or the limbs embraced in physical love. It's not these that I love when I love You, my God.
Nevertheless, it's true that I love a certain kind of light and sound, fragrance and food, and embrace in loving my God. For You are the light and sound and fragrance and food and embracement of my inner man. You are the light that shines into my soul which no physical place can contain, where time does not snatch away the lovely sound, where no breeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where no eating diminishes the food, and where there is an embrace that can't be torn asunder. This is what I love when I love my God.
What is this God? I asked the earth, and it answered, " I am not He." Everything in the earth made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things, and they replied, "We are not your God; seek above us." I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars; and they answered, " Neither are we the God whom you seek."
I replied to all these things that surround me: " You have told me about my God, that you are not He. Tell me something about Him" With a loud voice they all cried out, "He made us." My question had come from observing them, and their reply came from their beauty of order.
I then turned my thoughts inward to myself and said, "who are You?"...
Negative thinking is one of the most pervasive and universal problems of humankind. I didn't realized the power this habit have over our lives.
How do we think determines our reality. If our first inclination is to see the world darkly, we are going to live in a dark world. If our habit is to zoom in on what is wrong with a person, an idea or a thing, he world is not going to be a satisfying place to live. We may think we are simply being realistic, intelligent or discriminating, but we are actually stuck with a wrapped view of the world. Negative thinking is bad for our health, our relationships and spiritual life.
I found this meditation and it has been really helpful to realize that all beings, want to be happy. We are simply tying to find happiness for ourselves, we may be deluded in our thinking, and in the grip of fear and anger, but at the end we may find out our motivations are identical as the rest of the world. Peace can only spread though individuals who have peaceful minds.
1 For one full day, refrain from saying or thinking anything negative. Note when you had the urge to make negative or sarcastic comment or you had a negative thoughts about someone or something. As you witness your negative thoughts arise, you will be amazed at the level of negativity in your mind.
2 Be gentle with yourself and simply note the negativity. Don't punish yourself for it. Have a few laughs at how negative your mind can be.
If you like use this meditation to begin to be more positive and supportive in your thoughts and words.
Thank you.
I was reading Luke 15:4-7 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'
And a sense of thankfulness fills my heart, such a wonderful journey, and so many wonderful people. How I found a new way to introduce myself " Hi my name is Alejandro and I'm a recovery drug addict", How can be such love. How can I explain when You went in my search, remember the first time we talk, I was in such a big desperation of been loved, I was defeated, full of sadness and shame, do You remember that day I was hungry and it was so cold, yes I know is not fun been homeless, I remember saying" God I give up, I can't do this any more my life is yours", wow how you do that, how in just an instant You give me such much peace,
You came to me when I was broken, thank you father for taking the time to build me up, piece by piece with such love that it is so hard to understand.
Do you remember my baptism? I do, none of my family came but there You show me my new family, when I was call to the water and confess, that You are my Lord and savior, one by one, friend after friend around me, each one of them putting another piece, my sponsor, the one that give a hug when I need it the must, those who prayed for me, those who love me, suddenly thirty some people around me, and when I got out of the water and pastor Joel said to me "I love You" and then he give me a big hug, It was You! It was you father, who use all of them to show me how much you love me, and I'm so thankful for that.
You know Joel, and you where there when he first talk to me about You, he didn't saw a drug addict but one of your children, remember when he say to me how much you love me and forgive me, and that you care for me; some times is really hard to understand that you the must beautiful wanted to have a relationship with me.
Father I don't have much but you know that I'm yours, thank you, than you for show me your love in so many ways, In knowing you, you change me. Now I'm able to have a relationship with my parents, brothers and sisters, now I have friend, THANK YOU PAPA. I LOVE you such much.
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