What Am I Learning?

In the post Listening to Pain Part I I mentioned that pain is my friend. Physical pain can tell me, "Don't touch that," or "Don't bend that way," or "Stop eating." A dull physical pain tells me that my muscles are tight and need movement. A dull psychic pain, like I've been experiencing lately, tell me that I'm out of alignment - that my thinking, or my actions, or both are not in alignment with who I am and my purpose here.

I used to react to this psychic pain by drinking alcohol or taking drugs, or engaging in behaviors that took my mind away from the pain, like eating or spending money, or spending hours mindlessly surfing the internet. Then I learned more constructive ways to deal with the pain - I could go to support group meetings and exercise. These drugs and actions are called palliatives.  Palliatives do not cure or fix what's going on; they give the person comfort. Palliatives really aren't for living; they're for giving a person who is at the end of their life a little bit of comfort to make the transition easier.

I'm not dead yet, and not even really close, I think. So it occurs to me that to cover up the pain I've been feeling lately is not the best option. It's the first option that comes up in my mind because covering up the pain one way or another is what I've done most of my life. This practice has gotten me by, but it hasn't gotten me too far. So maybe it's time for me to put on my big boy pants and face the music, whatever the tune is.

Let me state here that I am not denigrating myself or anybody else. Painkillers, in all their glorious forms, exist for a reason. There is a process by which a person awakens to themselves, and it rarely happens overnight. 

But after a while, the still small voice inside chides that the things I've been using to get by don't work so well anymore. And that's the signal that it's time to do something different.

I've been off of the medication that was prescribed to me 3 years ago for 6 weeks or a month now. I've been slowly weaning off of it for about a year. I've noticed that I am more sensitive now, and my moods go a little lower than they have over the past 3 years. I am grateful for the medication - it got me to a point where I could learn and practice helpful recovery tools. I've gotten a lot stronger, smarter, and wiser over the past 3 years, and I have medication to thank for the mood stability I needed to learn how to live in recovery. 

The psychic pain I've been experiencing lately has been similar to the pain that use to drive me to self-destructive behaviors. The difference now is that it is not as intense, overwhelming, or debilitating. I'm sensing it more as a signal that change is needed. The pain I'm experiencing now is my friend - it's not going to kill me.

One great thing I've learned over the past 3 years - when I accept and embrace those things I call hardships (life), those hardships turn into great blessings. I have consistent evidence that, if treated in the proper way, all the things that come my way make me stronger and better. I no longer feel like the next thing that comes my way is going to ruin me.

So, the next step is to ask and to listen - "What do I need to let go of now?" "Who shall I go to to learn from?" I know that when I ask, the answers are provided, and I'm grateful today for the willingness to listen and the courage to act.

Namasté,

Ken

Don't Believe Everything You Think

I'm not firing on all cylinders right now. That's actually a very accurate description - at this moment, some of the synapses in my brain are not firing, and as a result, I have lost my desire to engage in life - temporarily. Now, before you go calling 911, let me say that I am not in any danger, and I will do what I have to do and hang in there until things return to a good operating condition.

But this episode presents an excellent educational opportunity, at least for me, and possibly for someone who might read this. You see, there's nothing 'bad' going on in my life right now. I'm sober, I'm working, I have friends, I have a home - life is good. And there's the first problem - my brain right now is telling me that life sucks, this is pointless, why am I even here, yet there's nothing 'out there' wrong - there's gotta be something terribly wrong about me! And that's the shame of mental illness - "what's wrong with me that I feel so crappy?" By the way, my current state is clinically called anhedonia - the inability to experience pleasure. 

I understand what's going on. That's my advantage. My other advantage is that I have support that understands. In the past if I felt this way I would have taken alcohol or drugs - doing that would have made me feel again. Today that's a pretty drastic thing to do, because, for me, using alcohol or drugs could be a permanent, self-destructive  solution to a temporary problem. As I mentioned earlier, I really have no problems outside of my head; if I used alcohol or drugs to alleviate the problem inside my head, there's a 99% probability that I'd have outside problems as well - financial, legal, health, social - the whole 9 yards. I don't own a car today, which makes it more difficult (but not impossible) to get a DUI, but there's more than that I'd have to worry about if I drank alcohol today.

Days like today are why I harp on others who want to recover from mental health conditions and alcoholism/addiction about having a multi-faceted recovery, which includes medication, where indicated, support, self-care habits, and education. In recovery we aren't guaranteed that every day is going to be unicorns and rainbows. Some days are tough. So, if when I'm feeling better, I stop doing the things that got me feeling better, I'm setting myself up for a big fall. The things I do when I'm feeling good and normal and sane are insurance for days like today. I've got to pay attention to the long run, as well as today.

I'm not yet sure what I will do today to deal with the way things are in my brain, but I commit to only do things that are neutral to constructive. I will abstain from doing what I know doesn't work in the long run. And I commit to writing about what worked in the next few days.

Namasté,

Ken 

What's Right

Following is a post I made to a Facebook group to which I belong called the Gratitude Circle:

I am grateful that I know how to raise my vibe w/out the use of alcohol or drugs. Sometimes I still have trouble feeling 'grateful', and today was one of those days. I felt stuck in 'what's wrong'. So I wrote a list about what's right:
I am alive
I am sober and sane
I am healthy
I am employed
I have a nice home
I have friends
I have choices
I am in charge of my focus
I have tools I can use to uplift me and others...
and the list goes on. So after I wrote the list and realized all the things that are right with me, I realized that I felt gratitude again, and, the the things that are 'wrong' fell into the background.

The Gratitude Circle is a daily opportunity to share and expand gratitude with others around the world. Today, and maybe lately, I found it difficult to post because I wasn't feeling gratitude. My mind was focused on what's 'wrong' with the world and my seeming powerlessness to affect anything.

I know from my own experience that when the gratitude cup is empty, it's empty! I knew I needed to raise my vibration (emotional state) up a few notches, but was finding it difficult. So I did just what I stated in the post - I didn't write a gratitude list, I wrote a What's Right list, with all the things that are going well in my life. By the time I got done with it, my vibe was raised, and I was feeling gratitude again.

The world didn't change, I did.

The ego can be a tricky thing - it likes to think that it has much more control over things than it actually does. I am a powerful being, as I believe we all are; however, when I put my focus on the things I can't change, rather than what I can, my power is wasted, and I feel discouraged and depleted. 

There is a great deal I can do to effect change in this world, but it begins with me. My strength comes from my relationship with my Higher Power, so I must put that relationship first. When I am peaceful inside, and grateful and receptive, I can allow my Higher Power to direct my actions where they will do the most good. 

I have the understanding today that each of us in our own way has the ability to make the world a better place to live. I also know that to the degree I allow healing to take place in me, the world has improved by that degree as well, because I am a part of this world. I can and do make a difference.

Namasté,

Ken

Healing Connections

I attended yoga class last night. I haven't been to a yoga class in years, even though I practice it at home. I had never met any of the attendees, but once class got going, I felt amazingly relaxed and at home. I really enjoyed the class, and I got much more out of doing yoga with others than I get out of it when I practice by myself. It was a great experience.

I am an introvert. I like being alone. I like doing stuff alone. I rarely feel lonely. When I'm healthy, I feel fine being alone. I don't have the desire to seek companionship with others. I don't particularly like parties or social events, and often I have to overcome some fear before engaging with others. I don't look forward to meeting new people, yet I've got some really awesome good people in my life, all of whom I met for the first time once. I don't crave human contact, but, I know from experience, I would get very sick and possibly die without it. 

I have a friend who has been a friend of mine for 16 years. That's some kind of record, for me. We are close in age, like to talk about the same things, and at one time we worked for the same company. He has supported me through thick and thin, and has taught me a lot about accepting people where they're at, and how to be supportive. I have a connection with him, and I trust that connection. We haven't gotten together in a while - it might be around a year - but we have stayed somewhat in touch. The other night I was thinking about him, and I thought I had better call him. I called him, and his voicemail was full, which concerned me, so I texted him. I found out that one of his parents is going through a rough time right now. My friend is going to be out of town for a week, but we'll get together when he returns. He's a person with whom I feel totally comfortable and at home. There's only maybe 3? people like that in my life, and I'm good with that. I think everyone needs someone with whom they can totally be themselves.

I've learned a great deal about the value of friendships and connections over the past few years. I value friendships and connections much more now than I have in the past, and I value people in general much more than I ever had before. Friendship and connection is something I have to practice. In fact, everything that's good for me I have to practice; the unhealthy stuff seems to come quite naturally to me. I do believe that at my very core I understand and value connection, but I still have a lot of work to do in letting go of those things which tell me that I'm fine all by myself. 

The past couple of years I've become a lot more involved in social media. That's an area where I'm learning what's healthy for me and what isn't. I've joined some spiritual and recovery groups on Facebook, and that's been a good experience. I now have friends on 6 of the 7 continents of the world! But it's really neat to see that humans from other cultures have the same basic needs as I do. I can have a tendency to spend too much time with the social media - it's good, and it's fun, but it doesn't replace face-to-face human contact. (I avoid calling it 'real' human contact, as I believe the people I contact on Facebook are real, too). Social media is a great tool, but, like anything, too much reliance upon it is not a good thing.

Finally, I'd like to write about support groups. I've been going to one particular support group for years and years, but it wasn't until I began attending support groups through NAMI Waukesha that I began to fully appreciate what support groups can do. I began to get a lot better when I started attending mental health peer support groups, and I couldn't figure out why - NAMI support groups don't have a formal program or any steps or anything like that. You show up, talk about what's going on (or not, if you don't want to), get support and suggestions. 

What I've learned (and I couldn't just accept, I had to break it down and analyze things) is that support groups give me:

• A safe place to be me. A place where I can let my guard down for a little while.
• Normalization - those of us who live with mental health conditions and/or addictions have things going on in our heads that we don't discuss with the general public, because most people wouldn't understand. So we walk around feeling abnormal and alone, because almost everyone else we run into looks like they have their stuff together. In a support group, we find out that appearances can be deceiving - we find people that look normal, yet have the same stuff going on in their heads that we do. This decreases our shame and self-stigma.
• Trust - when I speak my truth, and listen to others speaking their truth - allowing ourselves to be vulnerable - we begin to trust again. It's important to human beings to have others that we can trust.
• A place to share - I've got lots of good within me. So does everybody. Support groups are a great place to share that with others.
• I begin to care about others. I gain compassion.

There's more, but those are the top benefits for me. 

I think there's a big need for more real connection nowadays. I recently gave up my car to the salvage yard, so I'm back to my feet, my bicycle, and the bus as my 3 main forms of transportation. I was walking to a destination a few days ago, and I noticed people driving by - when we're in our cars, we are alone. Lots of us feel anonymous in our vehicles, which isn't always a good thing. But we're alone, and we're protected. The more alone and protected I am, the less healthy I get. I think it's easier to dislike and judge other humans when I'm not around them very much, and that's definitely not healthy. 

I'm fortunate that my work throws me right in the middle of others' lives. I'm reminded daily how important my connection with others is. I really am healed by this thing called connectedness. I think it's really how Spirit moves among us.

Namasté,

Ken

Letting Go of More Fear

I’ve written before about letting go of fear. I’m fairly certain I’ll find cause to write about it again. I’ve lived most of this lifetime out of fear. I’m so used to it that I don’t really very often experience the emotion of being afraid. Fear was ingrained in me, and nowadays I only recognize it as irrational thinking that may be getting in the way of me attaining my dreams. It’s still fear, and, in order to proceed in a forward direction, it must be dealt with.

Some have told me that fear is a lack of faith. I know it’s not – fear is faith – faith that something’s going to go wrong. Faith that not only will I be picked last for the team, there’s even a chance I won’t get picked at all. Faith that I will say something stupid or uncool. Faith that I’ll be rejected. Faith that I won’t measure up. Faith that I won’t be able to handle life, and that I’ll end up a miserable failure. Faith that that person over there won’t like me. Faith that whatever decision I make, it’ll be the wrong one. So, you see, I’m not lacking in faith at all – I just have it pointed in the wrong direction. I’ll talk about that in a moment. But first…

Because I never really talked about the way I felt inside to anyone – the way I felt about myself, and life in general – until recently (the last 3-5 years), because I basically relied upon my own thinking and twisted logic to reason things through, I never heard any arguments about the way I thought and felt. I was pretty certain I was correct. I could make a list here of all the things I assumed about others and about life that were incorrect, but it’d be too long. So I went along thinking in a very negative, loserly way, and even when I got around positive people with positive vibes who liked life and seemed to be mastering it, I couldn’t get it – I couldn’t get what they had, because I couldn’t talk about what it was like inside of me. I was too afraid to do so.

When I became desperate enough, I became open to suggestion. After I became open to suggestion, I got connected with a really good therapist. (I’ve had good therapists before, but I didn’t utilize them very well. I usually tried to convince them how well I was doing. That was another big fear – admitting to someone that I’m not doing well, or that I’m hurting inside). Through my last therapist, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I learned how to question what my mind and my brain were telling me, and that has truly been a Godsend. And that’s what I’ve been doing the past three years – questioning what my brain is telling me, and, when in doubt, checking in with others whom I trust.

One might think that when one has the key, or at least one of the keys, that one would now progress rapidly into the superstar pro at living that I was always meant to be. Alas, that hasn’t been the case. It seems that I must work a lot on my false conclusions. The work is a lot easier now, but it’s still work I have to do. And, since my thinking has long been habitual, it doesn’t change until it’s starting to interfere with my progress. I first had to get the big stuff out of the way first – the stuff that was threatening my very existence. Then I became able to work on the things that threaten my happiness, peace of mind, and success. I’m better able to spot my fear today – it’s anything that keeps me from accepting my highest good. Additionally, my job exposes me to the fears, mostly irrational, that others are harboring, and when I see it in others, it’s easier to see fear in me.

One of the fears that I began working on around 5 years ago is the fear of others’ opinions of me. I worked on that in two ways – I used a self-hypnosis recording that implanted the idea that “other people’s opinions of me are none of my business,” and I started doing things that were in my heart to do, but left the door open to being judged. Two of the notable things I’ve done are this blog, where I expose innermost thoughts and feelings to anybody who’d care to read about them, and the year that I spent being self-employed. These were both huge leaps for me. The blog is still going on; not the self-employment. I absolutely loved being self-employed, but I love eating and living indoors more. Someday when I can marry some sound business practices with doing the things I love, I’ll be self-employed again; for now, I love the companies that are employing me and I love what I’m doing, and that’s enough.

The reason I mention this is that I find myself facing this fear again – “What will people think of me?” As I move further along in life, I discover more and more of the real Ken, and I let that guy out. In certain circumstances this is scary for me. I’ve got a couple of things going for me – today, I’m beginning to feel when I’m fearful, which is very helpful. Emotions are very good for telling me what’s going on inside, but I had shut mine down to almost nothing so that I could rely upon my ‘logic’. So I’ve found myself having to deal with the obstacle of caring what other people think of me (even though the truth is that other people probably don’t care about what I do or don’t do nearly as much as I think they care). And how am I dealing with this today? Back to the self-hypnosis, and back to taking chances, and there’s one more thing that’s very important: I’m putting my faith into what can go right.

Through the years I’ve learned a lot of helpful things about the nature of my Higher Power (and for simplicity I’ll refer to It from here on out as God). I understand today that God wants me to succeed, and provides me with an abundance of blessings in order for me to succeed. So, and this is from experience, when something comes in front of me that at first glance doesn’t look too good, and that I feel like shying away from, I now have a Second Voice, that of God, saying, “Why don’t you give it a try? What have you got to lose?” That’s why I’m here today – I went ahead and accepted things into my life even when I didn’t want to or didn’t see how they would work. And, surprise, surprise, surprise, some of the things that I thought wouldn’t work for me did, and still do today. I’m very grateful that I recognize the difference between what I come up with out of my own, fear-based self, and the things God has in store for me.

Today, my faith is turned in the right direction much more of the time. I don’t believe anymore that disgrace and disaster lurk just around the corner. I’m just beginning on the journey of allowing God to guide me, and so far it’s really turning out well.

Namasté,

Ken

The Power of Gratitude

As I've mentioned once or twice before, alcoholism, addiction, depression, and probably all mental illnesses are mind-narrowing conditions. My experience has been that when I'm in the depths of my illness, the world turns gray and looks very bleak. Where my head goes when I'm not in recovery is that there are only two options for me - drink myself to death or kill myself by some other method. The brain is a resilient organ; however, it doesn't spring back to healthy life after years of less-than-optimal functioning. This means that even after I stop drinking, and even after I get on anti-depressant medication, the world still looks bleak to me, and I still have to deal with frequent feelings of hopelessness and despair. This is what makes early recovery so challenging - often, we feel worse before we begin to feel better. If you are reading this and don't have an addiction or other mental health concern, try this - sit down on a comfy sofa with your right foot underneath your left buttock. Watch TV or read a book for a half-hour. When a half-hour is up, stand up. Your right foot has probably fallen asleep, and is tingly and maybe sore upon standing. It's uncomfortable, and you might have trouble walking or even standing. This is what happens to the brain with mental illness and/or addiction - the brain is your right foot, and your left buttock is active addiction or mental illness. Even though the offending agent (your butt) has been lifted from the brain (your foot), your foot is still feeling the effects. And, unfortunately, it can take the brain much longer to recover than it does your foot.

So what's the point? Well, the point is that removing the major symptom(s) of our distress does not cure us. We have to consciously help the brain along. Back to my experience:

I had the advantage when I began recovery 3 years ago of knowing the tools of recovery. Life did look bleak when I began recovery - I didn't see many options for myself. I knew I needed to again practice gratitude, and I started to practice gratitude again by keeping a gratitude journal. Now, it is important to note here that I wasn't feeling very grateful. One does not need to be grateful to begin to practice gratitude. So, in my gratitude journal, I wrote down the things I had that I thought most other people were grateful for, but for which I was not yet grateful.  I wrote:

• I am grateful that I am alive.
• I am grateful that I am breathing.
• I am grateful that I am sober.
• I am grateful that I have a roof over my head.
• I am grateful that I am healthy.

And each day I would endeavor to expand this list. Note that there aren't any qualifiers - for instance, the roof over my head belonged to the Salvation Army. It's still a roof, and better than the tree I had been sleeping under! So, I started with those 5 things and I began to expand, and I gradually found more and more for which to be grateful. I got up into my head and consciously pushed my narrowed walls of perception.

Eventually I began to feel grateful. When good things happen to us, we naturally feel good! Duh! My part in this is that I don't wait for the good, I look for the good. That's practicing gratitude. Additionally, I get to define what is good! Say, for instance, I get run over by a car. I get rushed to the hospital, where an angel in scrubs gives me the most compassionate, loving care I've ever experienced, and we fall in love. I'm going to be grateful that I got run over by that car, because that event was the 'vehicle' for me meeting the love of my life. Now, that's just a fictitious example. But the fact is that one event leads to another event which leads to another event, all culminating in a life. If I can look at the events in my life with gratitude, I'll have a life for which I'm grateful.

It's important to allow the feelings of gratitude to come, because feelings are really what give our gratitude power. And, once I understand this, I can get back in the helm and direct my gratitude to determine how my day is going to be - I can be grateful in advance for the good things that are coming my way today!

The real deal is this: I (we) live in an abundant Universe, an abundant world. Blessings abound - they are all around us! But if I don't have my mind, and eventually my feelings, attuned to this abundance, I'll never see it. I'll never experience it.

Let's take health, for example. Say that I'm 95% healthy, but I have allergies, so when the weather is a certain way I'm sneezing and wheezing like I have a cold. Anything that is less than optimal health-wise grabs my complete attention. Even though having allergies detracts in a minor way from my health (my heart rate, bp, breathing, etc. are all normal), it can be a major event for me. So, when something, like allergies or a minor cold come up, I don't ignore that this is happening, but I do note at the same time that I'm still functioning pretty well. It lessens the amount of suffering for me, and increases my gratitude. What I focus on increases.

So the power of gratitude is just that - I get to create my own experience, my own reality, by learning to look at what is in a way that creates good, rather than creating more of the stuff I don't want. After I got my own place in recovery, I lived there for over a year. It was a rathole - insect and addict infested, it was cramped, it was unpleasant, it was nasty-dirty, and I was extremely grateful for it. I was grateful that I was housed, I was grateful that I was paying for it, I was grateful that I was getting stronger and building character, I was grateful it was close to downtown, etc. Eventually I got a better place, for which I was grateful, and then I got my present 2 bedroom spacious apartment with my own bathroom and with a lovely park and a river for a backyard. I'm fairly certain that if I had focused on the rattiness of the rathole in which I originally lived, I'd still be living in a similar position today. I kept looking for the good, and I found it.

I'm very grateful for a number of things right now in this moment - I'm grateful for the awareness of the power I possess to lead a good life; I'm grateful that I lived long enough to begin to discover the power within me, and I'm grateful for the desire and ability to share my life with others. 

Namasté, 

Ken