Yesterday I wrote a little about the spiritual principles supporting recovery. In that little essay, I also wrote that none of them can be practiced perfectly.
Entry into recovery is a traumatic event. Often, to the people outside of us, the traumatic event is what precipitates the necessity for recovery - the overdose, or the suicide attempt, the drunk driving arrest. However, those events are simply the culmination of the way we've been living for the past however long it's been. Entry into recovery is often an awakening, and the awakening is the traumatic event. Waking up in the morning for me has been traumatic much of my life - in sleep, I am usually somewhere else. I'm often warm and comfy, not experiencing physical pain, and usually experiencing a nice dream that I do not wish to leave. Then BAM! I rudely awaken to the new day, with all of it's physical and emotional discomfort. (The way I'm transitioning from sleep to wakefulness is changing, but that's a different post). Entry into recovery is a lot like that - like someone throwing cold water into my face, zapping me back to the grim reality of my life.
In recovery, be it from addiction or from mental health conditions, we are asked to do things which at first we don't necessarily believe in. "Take this medicine - it will help you." "Go to this support group - it will help you." My thoughts tell me, "This won't do any good," but I try it anyway, because I'm at the point of desperation. I will grab onto anything offered in hopes that I'll begin to feel better.
And this is where the journey from the head to the heart begins - it is the point where I leave the known world of my own thinking into the unknown world in the search for a better life experience. If my mind is open, I notice things. Little differences. For instance, around 3 years ago I went to my very first mental health peer support group meeting. My thinking was that it would be a bunch of depressed people sitting around talking about their depressing lives. That's the image I carried of mental health support groups for years and years. So, against my better judgment, I attended that first meeting, and a few things happened there - I noticed that there were people there that were happy and friendly and welcoming (those three things are not signs of depressive behavior). As the meeting got going, I felt a glimmer of connection with others as they shared their stories. I didn't feel so alone in my condition. And when I left, I had a little more hope than when I came in.
Doubt! Maybe doubt can be considered a spiritual principle. In that first peer support group meeting, I shed a little bit of doubt on my own thinking, my own preconceived notions. My own assumptions were incorrect, or, at the very least, not 100% correct. As I continued to go to these support group meetings, I began to get better. I began to hear ideas about recovery that I hadn't heard before. I began to share my experience, strength, and hope, and it was well received. My analytical brain was confounded - it could not figure out what was going on. It couldn't see what was happening. Yet, bit by bit, I continued to get better. There must be something here that I can't see that's very, very healing - and I became ok with that. I became ok with not having to have all the answers. So there were a couple more steps on the journey from the head to the heart.
I think the challenge in this journey from head to heart is that each step I take takes me further away from something I love - my own thinking, and my own interpretation of life. It's really all that I have. I've lost everything in life, except life itself, a few times. I've had my freedom taken from me. But nobody can pry from me my own thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs. If I guard them well enough, nobody can touch them. I have to willingly give up my way of thinking in order to lose it, and that's a scary thought, because, I think (and there's the rub) that my own thinking is what makes me me! "I think, therefore I am." (René Descartes) Who am I without my thinking? What am I?
I'm going to interject here because I just thought of something again that I remind myself of from time to time. All of the 'problems' I have today are a result of recovery. I would not have them if I were not in recovery. So, they're really not problems at all, they are challenges, or opportunities. But I never forget this: Right now, all of my challenges and opportunities are things to look forward to - an exciting adventure; if I pour alcohol onto them, they are transformed into insurmountable problems, 'permanent' failures. That is the nature of my relationship with alcohol - it turns anything positive into something very, very negative. It pays to always keep this in mind on my journey of discovery, because sometimes the brain (not me, but the brain) thinks, "I'm a lot better now. Maybe I can drink or use again successfully." A good thing for me to remember is that the overwhelming evidence in my life (and the lives of others I know) is that alcohol and living well do not mix. My brain still latches on to the very brief time in my life when alcohol seemed to be my solution; it forgets all the times it almost killed me. This is a good reminder for me that my brain is not always looking out for my best interests. It also points to another very important fact to be aware of on my journey from the head to the heart: I am not my brain.
And therein lies one of the mysteries, if not the mystery, of life for me. If I am not my brain, if I am not my thinking, then who or what am I? And this is not a question that logical brain can wrap itself around.
For now, this question is satisfied best by the statement, "We are spiritual beings having a human experience." And this is what this blog is all about, isn't it? Isn't the whole journey about reconciling that dichotomy?
So, for today, this is the deal, I think: This whole journey is about remembering who I really am while having this human experience, and I remember who I really am by endeavoring to put into practice the aforementioned spiritual principles into my daily human existence. And the really fun thing is that each day is a new beginning! Meaning if I think I have it down pat today, tomorrow is going to show me something different! On this journey I get glimpses of who I really am. It's like those blurry shots of Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest. So I'm chasing that vision, while at the same time knowing that in this lifetime I will never catch it. I will not completely know who I really am until I leave this human experience, but every experience I have in this existence can bring me closer to knowing. And trying to leave this existence early is cheating and will not be tolerated! My vision hopefully gets clear enough to want to stay engaged in this journey. It was touch and go for a while, but it feels like today that I'm really beginning to enjoy the experience. For that, I am supremely grateful.
I wish all of you (my two readers) all the best on your journey.
Namasté,
Ken
No comments:
Post a Comment