The Heart and Soul of the Matter

November 10, 2018November 9, 2018 / Tim / Leave a comment

“The mind is the last part of yourself to listen to. It thinks of everything you can lose. The heart thinks of everything you can give, and the soul thinks of everything you are.” Neale Donald Walsch

We all have that voice inside of us that we tend to ignore on a regular basis. I ‘know’ when I have done something I shouldn’t have done, that it goes against who I am trying to be, but I still do it. Why? Because I think that if I don’t, I’ll be missing out on something or I can ‘get’ something by doing it. My mind is analytical and it looks for things to flow logically, it looks for patterns, it looks for cost-benefits. If my mind says I should do it, then I often do, regardless of what my heart and soul might say. I know this is true because most often I would give into the temptation of my addiction even when, at the time, I was completely clean and sober. I wasn’t considering the negative consequences of taking a substance. I was allowing my mind focus on what I might miss out on rather than what probably would happen.

That’s probably why I was told that my thinking was no good when I came into recovery. It wasn’t trustworth. My mind could find a logical reason when it wanted to get loaded. E-VE-RY TIME! My addiction was my answer to my problems. That’s what my mind believed and why it won every time, until the last time.

I’m not quite sure why my heart and soul won out in the end. Graveyards, prisons and psych wards are full of those whose souls lost that battle. Call it a moment of clarity, gift of desperation, an open door that for some reason I espied being open and I walked through. I really don’t know why I’m living a life that’s happy, joyous and free and so many of my sisters and brothers are not. I do know that I have received a gift. And I intend to offer this gift to others because I know that by keeping it or trying to hold this gift to myself, I will lose it.

My mind, after seven years in recovery is now more conscious of what I would lose should I decide to return to my former way of life. My mind knows what happens to people who do. It’s seen, first hand, what happens. It knows that I am not an exception, that I would again head down that rabbit hole of addiction so fast it would make Alice think she’s having a hallucination.

I have had to train my mind to think in a different way. I continue to train it by working my program, by attending meetings, by doing service work. Step two told me in a nice way that I was insane when it said that a Power Greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And it has. I can trust more of what my mind has to tell me. However, I have learned to listen to my heart and soul because my mind can still try that trick: every once in a while my mind tells me that I’m missing out, that it would be okay, that this time it will be different.

So while in most areas sanity has returned, when it comes to addiction, I turn to my heart and soul. When the thought comes to mind that I can ‘try it’ this time, my heart and soul tell me through a very real feeling in the pit of my stomach that my thought are wrong. My heart reminds me that I have so much to share with others and my soul reminds me that I’m no longer that person I used to be. And for that, I am grateful.

white and red plastic heart balloon on sky during daytime

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Conscious Contact

November 6, 2018November 5, 2018 / Tim / Leave a comment

I still bristle when someone sends me a message on social media that tells me that God is blessing me this day, or that Jesus holds me in his arms. It brings back a past of rules, laws and feelings of guilt and shame. I am grateful for all I learned about religion and its practice but it is not my way of approaching my Higher Power now. There’s nothing wrong with the message. I hope to receive the blessings of my Higher Power and to feel the comfort of the Energy that surrounds and sustains us.

It’s the word God that bothers me, though I still say it. I use the word because it’s easier than explaining my concept of Higher Power. I use the word God and everyone understands that I am talking about something that is more than just me. At the same time, I would prefer that we had another word in English that conveys this concept. The image of an white haired, bearded man perched on a throne in a cloud is no longer my idea of what Source Consciousness is.

I am grateful that my recovery program allows me to choose my own concept of a Higher Power. It was a great relief when I came into the room that it wasn’t full of bible thumping proselytizers who were going to save me. I was able to find a ‘God of my own understanding’. This concept, though I didn’t understand it at the time, gave me an opening into developing a new and very different understanding of connecting to a power that had always been part of my life and brought me to recovery.

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I have pretty much given up on trying to define exactly what my Higher Power is. I believe that defining that power will limit it. It’s enough to know it’s here with me. What does continue to change as I live my program is my understanding of that Power. By looking at the faiths of the world and different spiritual practices, I am deepening in my knowledge of how everything seems to work and I am left awed and amazed at how everything fits together. One of the gifts of my past is through it I can follow how the events that happened along the twists and valleys of my path have brought me to where and who I am today. Sometimes, even as things are happening and circumstances are changing, I take a step back and wonder how all of it is going to fit together, because it will. It always does.

The Eleventh Step invites me to improve my conscious contact with this Power by means of prayer and mediation, talking and listening, seeking and reflecting. I open my day by sitting on the terrace and watch the growing light as it illuminates the trees that surround me and enjoy the birds and other creatures passing by. It’s a wonderful way to open to gratitude first thing in the morning. It might not be traditional meditation but it’s working for me at this time. I expect that in the future, as my understanding of this Higher Power grows, how I keep in consciously contact with that Power will also grow. Today I receive the gift and feel the peace of knowing that I am not alone. I am grateful.

Of Balloons and Balance

August 4, 2018 / Tim / Leave a comment

I’m discovering that my ‘self’ is a balloon and my ‘ego’ is the air in the balloon. I must constantly monitor the amount of air that I hold in my self. If I haven’t enough, I will lose my shape and be a wrinkled blob with no substance. Who wants a limp balloon? If I inflate it too much, then I can also deform it from the original shape and risk losing my ‘self’ in a terrific explosion. The trick is finding the balance that is right for me: just enough air to keep my shape. I think that when I find that point of equilibrium I discover humility.

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Whenever I run into problems, my character defects shoot the surface or I find myself on an emotional rollercoaster, I’m also discovering that it has ego at its source. I’m discovering that my ego is either underinflated or way over inflated. and I need to get it back in balance. I am who I am: no more and no less. That balance of who I am is difficult to maintain. Like a scale, it only takes a grain of sand to cause it to tip one way or the other. So I need to be constantly maintaining the balance of ego within myself.

Years ago I could solve the problems of the world all from the regal perch of a bar stool. Of course, nothing happened because I did nothing. I was an ego full of hot air. Life isn’t handed to us on the proverbial silver platter. We have to go out and make it. I was reminded this week that our Higher Power does for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. However, if we can do it ourselves, then it’s up to us to do it. (Thank you Terry) And there are a lot of challenges in this world that I am up to resolving if I get off my butt and do the work rather than pontificate and expect the results to magically appear.

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For me, it’s all part of knowing my ‘self’ and keeping my ego in check. I may not be able to move mountains with the wave of my hand, but I can still bring along a wheelbarrow and shovel. There are some things I can do to make my life, rather than waiting around for something to happen then complain when it doesn’t. I can’t do it all, but I can do my part. I don’t always get it right, but I don’t always get it wrong either and sometimes, I find the sweet spot of just the right amount of air in my balloon.