It's An Inside Job

Today I celebrated 1 full year of abstention from alcohol and other mood-altering substances. I am very grateful that I no longer have the compulsion to escape my experience through drugs and alcohol. A lot of really neat things have happened this year, as often happens to addicts and alcoholics when we put down the substance and begin working a program of recovery. I've chronicled these events over the past year in this blog, but the biggest thing that has happened this year is that I have been relieved of the habit of sabotaging my recovery, the symptoms of major depressive disorder, and have experienced more emotional healing than ever before. This past year has been the best year of my life so far.

As you might know, this isn't my first rodeo. I've been trying to recover, with various levels of effort, for 38 years. I've experienced many periods of sobriety, ranging from several months to a little more than 3 years. About 7 years ago, I began addressing my mental health disorder, major depressive disorder, in earnest. I've experienced this mood disorder for most of my life, and it was around before I started drinking. For a lot of reasons, I was in denial that I have a mood disorder, and this denial greatly diminished my chances of recovery - from anything. When I began to accept it and really start addressing it, I was able to attain 3 years of sobriety. Then the journey to relapse began again, and I began drinking again, with all the attendant problems of relationship damage, job loss, homelessness, and legal issues. I sought treatment yet again, and found out that I also have to learn to deal effectively with trauma. (Everybody who experiences trauma deals with it, one way or another - it's just that what I could come up with on my own did not work very well). So for the 6 months or so before my last relapse, I began to work on that as well. I didn't realize that I had begun making progress until after the last relapse, when I was able to stop suicidal ideation and the desire to die. I began to have enough ambition toward healing that I was able to begin to consistently apply to my life the tools I've been learning over the past 4 decades.

So here's the deal: I have a problem with sobriety 'birthdays'. I know that it's important to note milestones in recovery, but I think - well, I know, in my case - that the quantity (time) of sobriety does not necessarily have very much to do at all with the quality of sobriety. Yes, if I've been sober a year, I must be doing something right, but the same is true if I've been sober a day. Just putting the plug in the jug, as they used to say, does not reverse the psychological and emotional damage my addiction and my mental illness have done to me.

By the way, I didn't stay sober a year. I stayed sober each day that I woke up and desired another day of healing and recovery. So far, that's been the past 365 days.

There is a lot of outer evidence that my addiction is arrested: first of all, I haven't been (arrested)! But I've also managed to maintain good steady employment, I'm homeful again (as opposed to homeless), I have a valid driver's license again, and I haven't been broke in at least 9 months. Like time in sobriety, however, these things don't necessarily attest to what is going inside of me, and that's where I really live. 

I heard something a number of years ago that was a revelation to me - that when everybody in my life (family, employer, probation officer, counselor, doctor, banker, friends) said I had a problem with my drinking, they didn't know that drinking was not my problem - drinking was my solution. I won't begin to accept sobriety until I accept that my solution no longer works, and surrender to the fact that because of the damage my disease has done to me, I'm unable to come up with a better solution. I must have help on the journey of recovery.

And therein lies the problem of addiction recovery - eventually, hopefully more sooner than later, I have to take responsibility for my own recovery. Because I've stopped drinking, and because I've got people in my life encouraging me and supporting me in my recovery, my life gets better - alcoholics and addicts get their job back, their woman back, their truck back, their probation officer tells them they're doing great and puts them on the lowest level of supervision, their mama's stopped worrying, and on and on and on. They get congratulated on a year's sobriety. That's awesome! But if the alcoholic/addict in recovery is not aware, and has not assumed responsibility for their own recovery, relapse will happen. It's not the stuff on the outside that made us use; it's the stuff on the inside. And nobody but the person in recovery knows what's going on on their insides. A human being's subconscious, addict or not, drives 90% of the human's behavior, until they become aware or conscious. This is perfectly fine, unless there's stuff in the subconscious that is counterproductive to living a decent life and, again, because of the wounds we've inflicted upon ourselves through our addiction, there is inner stuff that needs to be healed in order to stay out of active addiction. And nobody, not even your closest girlfriend, can tell you what's going on in your subconscious. That's something each individual has to find out for themselves, through whatever means are available.

This is why I mentioned earlier that the biggest miracle in my life has not been that I've been able to abstain for a year, but that I have stopped experiencing the symptoms of major depressive disorder. My recovery from depression fuels my sobriety, because when I don't hate myself, when I don't think I'm a piece of shit, when I don't want to die - in other words, when I like myself enough - I have no desire to drink, and I know how to stay away from drinking. I do understand that, as an alcoholic in recovery, I will need to work a program of recovery for the rest of my life in order to stay sober. I've been around long enough to see what happens to people who stop working their program, no matter how much 'time' they have in. But, by the same token, if I want to stay in recovery from alcoholism, I also need to learn what I need to do to stay in recovery from depression, and that's what I've been doing this past year. And, for me, recovery from depression involves a whole lot more than "taking my medication." That's what makes my psychiatrist happy when I talk to her every 3 months, but it's not what necessarily makes me happy.

In conclusion, dear friends, it's nice to enjoy the outer rewards of recovery, and to be recognized as being in recovery. Recovery wouldn't look too attractive if there weren't some hope that someone or Something could pull us out of the gutter. I know how to put the pieces back together and how to get approval from others, but this year I've been learning something I never learned before in this lifetime - how to approve of and respect myself, and how to like myself and love myself and love life. That's something nobody else can give me, no matter what I do or how hard I try. It can only come from inside.

Namasté,

Ken

Greetings from Prescott Valley, Arizona

On or about December 18th, 2019, I moved from Wisconsin and landed in Flagstaff, Arizona. From there, I spent some time in Holbrook, AZ, and from there moved to Prescott (prounounced presskit) Valley, AZ. The reasons for the move are still unclear, but I've wanted to live in Arizona for some time now. So here I am.

I haven't written here lately. It's difficult for me to write when times are tough, and times have been tough. I decided to move rather abruptly, so I landed here without a plan. Additionally, I found it necessary to drink alcohol on the way down here. So, I'm basically a homeless drunk in Arizona. Actually, I was only drinking for about a week, so the consequences weren't too severe. However, the drinking caused me to be suicidal, so I landed in the psychiatric hospital and then off for a 30-day treatment. After treatment, I came to a sober living house in Prescott Valley.

It's also difficult for me to write when I feel unsure of what I'm writing about. If I only wrote about that which I knew for sure, I would write, "Moved to Arizona - sober again." I know there's much more to the story, I just don't know what it is yet.

And that's going to have to be ok. I am grateful for a friend who wrote to me, "It will all work out." My ego wants to defend, rationalize, justify, but I can't - I can only say, "It just is," and go from there. And going from here means learning to trust in and rely upon Source that it will lead me to the next right step; building my recovery support network here in Prescott Valley and Prescott, working vigilantly on learning how to manage depression and keep it from informing my choices, and being of service wherever and whenever I can. Same schtick, different state.

So I think that's about it for now. Pretty sketchy, but I needed to break the ice on the latest leg of my journey. I hope you'll continue to travel with me!

Namasté,

Ken

Keeping My Chin Up (I'm Still Here)

Since my last post, I've stayed sober (and relatively sane), let my Certified Peer Specialist certification lapse, gotten a job in a plastics factory as an inspector, re-connected with my therapist and begun work on discovering those subconscious tidbits that continually trip me up, successfully completed treatment, and moved into sober living.  Other than that, it's been kind of slow.

Today I'm going to write about what's foremost in my mind, which isn't (at this point, anyway) a happy topic. I like to put things nicely, but I don't know how in this instance - so, here it is: there has been a lot of relapse and death around me lately.  First, my roommate from the halfway house moved into sober living - we were going to be roommates there as well - and he relapsed in a big way about the time I was moving into sober living. He's not doing well. Some other people with whom I shared the treatment journey have relapsed as well. Two people I know in recovery have passed recently. I also found out one of my cousins' sons passed away two years ago at age 25. I didn't know him, but it's one of those things that makes me wonder and makes me sad. And I found out today from the person with whom I've been riding to work that their oldest child died some years ago from a heroin overdose. And then today at work, the person I was working with today told me that his sister passed away 2 weeks ago, and my coworker is now raising their niece and nephew, and they found out today that a friend of theirs died by suicide two days ago.

It's sad. I feel sad about all the suffering going on. I also feel a bit dismayed - what the heck is going on? There have been a lot of deaths this past year by suicide and relapse. When I was still sick, in my active addiction and depression, I used this as an excuse to not get better. I was giving up. Now I recognize it as a part of the territory I'm in - I know a lot of people in recovery from addiction and a fair number of people living with mental health conditions. What's happening now is, unfortunately, not all that unusual; I'm simply acutely aware of it right now, 'it' being people suffering and sometimes dying.

My response today was to get a little down in the dumps about it all. Writing about it helps; talking to the right person about it would help, too, except that I don't have phone service again until the day after tomorrow and it's a bit difficult to get hold of the person with whom I'd like to talk. But whatever. My overall response is one of gratitude. I look at each individual that has relapsed and each individual that has passed away and say, "That could have been me." My gratitude is that I am still here to enjoy this life and contribute what I can. 

And then I focus on the living. I've been told, and I believe, that 'Why?' isn't a spiritual question - that when I ask 'Why?', I'm not looking for a reason, I'm looking for an argument. I can't do anything for those that have passed on. I can do little for those who have relapsed until they become ready again to get back into recovery. I can do a lot for the survivors.

I listen, and, when warranted, I share my experience. No, I can't bring your loved one back to life, nor can I make anyone recover. But I can listen and let you share your sadness, hurt, grief, and dismay with me. I can make myself available so your pain might ease for just a bit. I don't like the subjects of grief and loss and relapse anymore than most people; but I am equipped to walk with someone a little bit so that they aren't completely alone in their suffering. I can even give a little hope around the possibility that things will get better, because I've been where their loved one has been and I'm getting better. Recovery is possible so long as we're still breathing.

One thing I know today and pretty much accept is that I can't feel the joy of life if I avoid the suffering. I don't like that fact, but it seems to be true, so I work on accepting it. This means when suffering comes from my own thoughts and actions, I endeavor to embrace it, so I can learn from it and let it go. If I try to escape or avoid it, it just comes at me from a different route. Today I'd rather face stuff head-on. And I don't attempt to avoid the real suffering of others either. I figure that if it comes to me, it must be mine to deal with in some way, through listening, sharing, and prayer. 

Through it all, I'm still here, and I'm in a good place - I'm sane and sober, I've got everything I need materially today, and I have purpose. I can't tell you what next week will look like, but I can say that if I continue to do what's mine in front of me to do, I'll still be doing well.  And I'm grateful today for the journey.

By the way, thank you to Anonymous for the comment on my last post - I really appreciate it! And if anyone else feels like commenting, please do so.

Namasté,

Ken

Lessons from Relapse - Desiring a Better Me

In May of 2015 I was at the lowest point in my life. I didn't have a life - it was all gone - and I had no hope of ever having a life again. So I started working on me.

In previous stabs at recovery, and there have been plenty, I've always desired a better life. We all want a better life - it's the American way! In previous recovery attempts, I would go about piecing my life together again - the job, the car, the apartment, the girlfriend/wife whatever. The problem with that is that I'm bringing the same director (me) to a different situation. We, or at least I, have a tendency to think of our lives in terms of what we have, rather than what or who we are. It really doesn't work that way. Whatever we, or at least I, have in my life ultimately is an outpicturing of what is inside of me. 

Jesus spoke of putting new wine into old wineskins, which doesn't work - the wineskins burst, spilling the wine. This is exactly what Jesus, who taught the Laws of the Universe, was talking about - changing our situation does not change us. If my way of thinking and doing isn't working now, whatever I try bringing into my life to make my life better will soon be lost. If I continually screw up jobs, getting a new job isn't going to help. If I continually screw up relationships, the problem is me, not the women I marry.

So when I got to my lowest point, where I was out of ideas (and money, and a job, and a place to live), I wasn't thinking of Jesus' teachings, I was just alive, and had nothing else to do but work on me.

I did not realize what was happening until after it was happening. I went to treatment, and I listened and talked honestly. I went to therapy, and learned CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) which showed me where my thinking was flawed. I began to take different actions than I did in the past. I began to look at myself and life in different ways than I had in the past. I began to realize what was happening when good things started coming into my life without me going after them as I had in the past. I got a place to live rather than being homeless. I got a job, then I got a decent job, and then I got two even better jobs that I didn't even apply for - all because I was paying attention to what was going on with me, what was happening in my head, and what was coming out of me.

I began to learn to live life from the inside out rather than the outside in. I began to judge my life not by what I had, but by what was going on inside of me. And the outside began looking better pretty much by itself. I of course took the actions I needed to take - paying my rent, paying my bills, going to work - but I was no longer attempting to direct what when on outside of me. I was learning to direct what was going on inside.

So, in order to change my life, which is again nothing more than a mirror of what's going on within, I work on changing me, instead of figuring out how to manipulate what's going on around me. It's actually much simpler.

I used to run my life like a person who drives a car while looking only at the rearview mirror. As you might expect, I had lots of crashes. So I must understand that if I have crashed, or ended up in a place that I really didn't want to be, then I must have had my attention directed to a place that wasn't serving me well.

This relapse has shown me that I still have work to do inside of me. In order to find out what that might be, I will open myself to accepting more help, and more guidance. I will get back to a beginner's mind, so that I can see more possibilities than I saw before.

Each day is a new opportunity to become a more skillful, mindful, conscious person than the person I was yesterday. When I set that as my primary goal, a good life naturally follows.

Namasté,

Ken

Progress, not Perfection

I have recently been experiencing the turbulence of change. For me, change usually shows up, or begins with, an inner discontent. I've written before that I'm not a person who is easily satisfied, and this is a trait I've only recently identified as something I like about myself. What it means for me is that I continue to seek a more satisfactory experience of life. What it also means is that I'll never find it. I'll never get to the point where everything is perfect, at least for more than a moment. 

Last year around this time I posted a Happy New Year post because my birthday is in July, and it makes sense to me to mark the years as they began for me. I read that post today, and noted that there were 4 things I'd like to work on in the coming year:

• Treating my body more respectfully and lovingly by consistently eating healthier and continuing to gain physical strength;
• Continuing to treat my mind better by becoming more choosy with the thoughts I allow to reside there;
• Continuing to grow in the self-discipline area, with emphasis on vocational training and fiscal responsibility;
• Continuing to release fear and become more open to giving and receiving love from my fellow human beings.

So I read those things, and realized that those are still the things I'd like to work on (with possibly the exception of formal vocational training - not interested right now). These are all areas in which I've made progress, but there's more progress to be made.

Up until now, I've had a tendency to compare the way I do things today with the way I used to do things. This has been a good way for me to begin to trust that I really am on a good path, and I really am in recovery. 

Life really does seem to operate on a spiral - I come around to the meet the same basic lessons, yet they're given in different situations often with different people, and, most importantly, they're deeper. Each time I come around to something, I receive a deeper experience of self and the Universe and of my relationship with life. You really can't buy the kind of education I'm getting (which may be why I'm not much interested in any kind of vocational training a local institution can provide right now). 

But anyway, getting back to comparing today to one year or five years ago, or whatever - I think I'm getting past that. I think that for perhaps the first time in this lifetime, I am beginning to feel secure that I exist - that I am a part of life, a part of the Universe, and that I have value and purpose. My life has value and purpose. Trust me, for the longest time that was something I could not claim. I think today I can, without qualifiers - in other words, I know I have value whether or not I currently have a job, a home, a friend, some money in my wallet, whatever. That's actually a pretty neat feeling. It means this: because I have value, whatever I'm doing or experiencing has value as well. 

I've expressed it before in writing, and I think I'm beginning to express it now in living - I'm experiencing what it's like to live life from the inside out - to be living my purpose, and through living it discovering more and more of who I am. Life for life's sake. 

So, back to the title of this post - my motivation for living has changed from trying to find the perfect formula for everything to endeavoring to be, day by day, moment by moment, a more honest and real version of Ken. And the really neat thing for me is that today, that's enough. And I'm more happy to be me than I've ever been before, and that's a miracle.

Namasté,

Ken

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

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 Longest Journey

“The longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart.” —Andrew Bennett

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