Ugh why?

I have many shortcomings. One of which is being deep, about everything, all the time. It’s so hard for me to be light. To not spiral up or down about everything. I know that about myself. I scare people away with it sometimes, a lot of the time actually. It’s like with me it’s black or white. Like I can’t just let things be what they are and not think days, months or years ahead. Or I can’t not dissect every little thing and make permanent decisions based on temporary thoughts or feelings. Even after all this time of working on becoming self aware, there is still so much to learn! Someone asked me today why I completely turn my back and walk away from people I care about. She said life is short. We are only here for a minute so why would I do that?  She said it seems that I can’t deal directly with people to work things out, that I avoid. It’s so true. I ask God today to relieve me of this defect and free me from my never ending stream of thoughts, opinions and fears, so that I may have a different experience on the planet.

Help Me God

God help me forgive the man who stole my phone today.

A phone I had for less than a month, after losing my last one to a wave at the ocean.

He doesn’t see that by harming another he is really harming himself.

Help me let go of the anger, frustration and sadness felt from the senseless act at the hands of another.

It’s just a phone, contact numbers, pictures and writings.

It just happened a few weeks ago and I dealt with it then.

I can do it again.

It’s not really about the stolen phone though.

It triggered things much deeper, like these surface things always do.

It was just the wind that blew down my house of cards.

Help me let go of the violation I feel by this latest loss.

Thank you for helping me not stay a victim but have another experience of taking my power back.

Help me to accept this and learn what I must learn from this experience and not loose faith in human beings.

Thank you for keeping me in the light and allowing me the willingness to not stay in the darkness.

I cannot do this on my own.

I need your help.

Comfort me.

Be with me.

Keep me safe.

I trust in your will.

Mirrors Of Truth

The struggle ego drives against allowing truth to be heard can at times be much stronger than others, especially when off center.

Ego doesn’t have to win though.

Ego wants us alone, isolated. It wants us to view ourselves as separate, different. It wants to keep us afraid, especially of closeness to others.

There are people that come into our lives that encourage us to be and do better. They encourage us to continue to grow, even when our mind has us in its grip and fights it. They carry the light for us when we feel like we can’t.

As uncomfortable as it can be because ego always wants to be in charge, when someone speaks truth, our soul hears it.

We recognize truth not from the specific person speaking it but because it is already within us. They just are a mirror of the truth we already know.

But we need those mirrors so we can be reminded when we forget. Those people placed around us who work to raise consciousness are gifts of the universe to hold close.

Ego wants us anywhere but the present because everything we need is there. In the present moment there is nothing to fear. The people we love are in the present. God is in the present.  Yet ego refuses to look in right here and now for completeness because it can’t survive there.

There is nothing in future moments that will make us whole, yet we rush to them chasing that lie.  If we just get this thing, that amount of money, approval from “them”, job security, the right partner, ego says then we will feel complete.  

We get these things and sure enough, wholeness is not found.  

Ego just wants something more.

But we are only ever in the here and now.

Completeness and wholeness is right here, in this moment.

And that is the truth.

God Help Me

God please carry and protect me because I cannot do any of this on my own.

Help me to have strong roots to stay grounded and brilliant wings so I may fly free.

Survive

Getting sober is not for the faint at heart. A lot of times things come up from the past. Memories of events too painful for our psyche to deal with finally surface. We have shoved these events far down in our consciousness.

Sometimes these things that happen when we are children are so traumatic that it’s like we never knew they happened to us. It feels like remembering for the first time. It’s not an easy thing to confront.

I watch as women around me just can’t move past the pain. They just can’t face these traumas and they don’t make it.  I thank God for those lessons in what I don’t want to be.

So many of us women don’t make it.

As much as I don’t want these things to have happened to me, as much as I wish it would just go away, that it wasn’t THIS specific person, it doesn’t make it not true. It doesn’t make it go away. It can’t change what has already happened.

To try avoid going through this would be a death sentence.

Why has this come up now after all these months? I wish I understood.

My spiritual guide says that the timing of these memories surfacing is no mistake, that God doesn’t reveal things to us that we are not ready to handle. She says if it comes up, it’s time.

I made a decision a long time back that if I was going to get sober again that I was going to be one of the ones who make it. I see that this can be survived. I believe it to be true.

I know there are solutions if only I reach for them. Even when paralysed with sadness, sometimes if I can just lift a finger in that direction, I can see the horizon of hope.

All I have to do is be willing to try.

Fireside Sermon

Fireside Sermon

This is a story told by my dear friend Jay. I’m going to try my best to tell the story as close to how he told it as possible.

I love you Jay.

 

There was a girl who lived in Vermont who had stayed sober for a year in Alcoholics Anonymous. She had just taken her 1 year anniversary, as they call it in the north east.

After she completed a year she stopped participating in AA. She stopped going to meetings and drifted away.

One night she as she was sitting in front on the fire, she heard a knock at the door.

She hesitantly peered out to see who it was. There at the door stood her sponsor.

Surprised she opened the door and let her in. Her sponsor entered the house saying nothing. She just went at sat in front of the fireplace quietly and watched it burn.

Then her sponsor went over to the fire and with the tongs picked up a brightly burning, red hot log. This log was full of orange glowing color and was full of heat.

With the tongs she placed the log away from the center of the flames by itself over in the corner of the fireplace.

Quickly the log lost it’s color and heat. It turned gray and dark and lost it’s beautiful orange glow.

The girl watched her sponsor and the cooling log on the side of the fire.

They sat in silence.

Then her sponsor took the tongs and picked up the gray, darkened log and placed it back in the center of the roaring fire.

Almost immediately, the log light up again, glowing hot, just as bright as before.

The girl sat and watched.

Without a word, the girl’s sponsor put her hat and scarf on and headed for the door.

As the sponsor opened the door to leave, the girl stopped her and said, “Thank you for the fireside sermon.”

 

Standing In The Light

We cannot go into the darkness to save anyone.

We can only stand in the light and take the hand of those who are willing to step into the light with us.

That is truth.

It’s sad to see another human we love suffer. It’s hard when we have been granted freedom from our own suffering by taking action with the solution.

We know without a doubt that it works.

We want this for others.

But like a mother on an airplane who is instructed to place the oxygen mask first before placing it on the mouths of her children, we have to build within ourselves if we hope to be of any help to another human being.

If we were to offer to help place the oxygen mask on someone who can’t do it on their own and they were to refuse the oxygen mask, do we stay and struggle to force it while vital seconds of survival tick away?

There may be someone in another part of the plane crying for help, wanting the mask, willing to accept the gift of life.

We don’t get to choose who wants joy, freedom, happiness, love, connection and life.

It is true powerlessness.

By standing in the light, putting out goodness into the world, loving without conditions, we get to help create spiritual warriors on the planet.

Today I will stand in the light and look for those who are reaching up their hands for help.