Repress-able Joy

I woke up in a happy mood this morning. This has been so for two or three of the last three or four days. I've just been waking up happy, joyous. Briefly.

I have a few theories about why this is happening. First, my wife and I made love last night and it was passionate and intimate. It felt good in all the ways I aspire to feel good about sex in my life in recovery. So, that's a factor in feeling good. But I also think the positive sexual experience grew out of other positive experiences lately.

I've started a new creative endeavor. I'm going back and being creative in the way I used to as a young man. It's very free and goofy and I'm really enjoying it. There are opportunities to control in everything I do, but this time I'm doing it with an intention to let go and to have fun.

Another positive development is that I've been very productive at work. On the suggestion of a friend, I've been doing the thing I think is most difficult in the day first, even when I don't want to. I usually don't want to do the difficult thing, usually don't want to do it at all. But I've just been doing it despite my fear and reservations. I've been taking care of the hard things first, and the rest of work has been taking care of itself. I've been able to accomplish some things that have been on my list for a while, in one case, five months.

Concurrent with all this, I've been taking the time to meditate the full 20 minutes every day. I always meditate some, but if I'm tired or rushed or stressed, I might just do 10 minutes, or even 5. And then I take a nap or something. The last week, I've committed to the whole time. And I think that has helped.

So, all of those positive things, I believe, have contributed to a feeling of well-being. And I've been feeling it throughout the day.

But....

But....

This morning, after I awoke in a good mood, feeling some joy, I realized as I brushed my teeth and prepared to meditate that I actually have a habit of building a barrier around my feelings. I feel like I intentionally distract myself, or create busy-ness to disconnect from feeling.

It was like I was telling my joy to just go away.

That doesn't make a lot of sense, right? While I was meditating, I had an intuition that my habit to do this comes from my tendency to feel bad about myself. Stuffing my feelings is a defensive reaction against both the hostile environment of the world, and more seriously, from the hostile environment of my own mind.

So, I've quite naturally held my feelings at arms' length because my feelings tend to be negative.

They weren't negative this morning. They aren't right now. Yet still, my impulse is to escape them, to minimize them, to distrust or demean my feelings.

That's a hard way to live. It's a little adventurous, maybe even heroic to do this if you are actually living a life of terrible events and emotions. But I'm not right now. Things are going pretty well for me. And so it's just pathetic. How good does it have to get before I can be free?

I don't need my environment to get any better today for me to be better. I need to change my attitude. The greatest gift I've received in my recovery is not my sobriety. The greatest gift is knowing that I can change. I have experienced it, and I can change fundamentally with God's help.

So, today, I am mindful of my negative tendencies. I hold them gently as I examine them. I forgive myself for my shortcomings. And I becoming willing to let them go. God, you may take away my negative self-talk. I don't need it any more.

Three seconds

One of the first tools of recovery I learned in SAA was the Three Second Rule (TSR). The subject recently came up in a meeting, and I've had a chance to think and meditate on it and I'd like to share my thoughts.

Ogling or leering at women was a big issue for me when I first got into recovery. Check-out clerks, waitresses, co-workers, movie characters, stage actors, relatives at a family reunion, there really weren't many situations when I wasn't trying to check people out, to get some small thrill that I could relish in the moment and also take home for later.

I really wasn't all that conscious of it. It was just a part of my life, like breathing air.

Recovery opened my eyes. I learned that my ogling was part of my addiction. It was very painful and shameful to be out of control all the time. I started feeling like a creep and I wanted it to end.

The TSR allows a short look. It doesn't expect you to be perfect. It doesn't expect you not to notice that another person is attractive. Ideally, it encourages you to "notice" and no more. It sets boundaries around my behavior. Ultimately, the TSR is a mindfulness practice.

It does have its drawbacks, or rather I have my drawbacks that make the TSR less than ideal. I can get a pretty deep scoop of objectifying in three seconds. If my attitude is "I get my three seconds", the boundary-testing addict in me will take advantage of that. I was with a struggling member once at a coffee shop who was looking out the window, meticulously taking only three seconds to leer at each woman that walked by. For a full hour. I've never -- by the grace of God -- been as bad as that, but I have to admit I'm in the same ballpark.

So, if my intention, my desire is to get a sexual charge out of looking at people, the TSR is meaningless. It's just a brief shot of insanity. There's no recovery there. I need something more elemental than the TSR.

I have three possible states of mind when I come into contact with an attractive person.

1. Obsess over their attractiveness, stare at body parts, fall into fantasy, etc.
2. Obsess over their attractiveness, don't look at body parts, try to control my thoughts, etc.
3. Accept their attractiveness, let it go, and move on to being in true contact with them.

Whichever state of mind I'm in is completely dependent on my spiritual health at the time. If I am in poor spiritual condition, in denial, I fall into #1. If I want to be a better person, but am not working my program, not attentive to all my needs, I am in mode #2. If I'm spiritually fit, accepting life on life's terms, I can live free in mode #3.

I'm not in control of my state of mind, but I am in control of my spiritual practice.

So, at best, the TSR is a technical stop-gag until my spirituality catches up. The TSR is not an end in itself. It just keeps you safe until you're no longer a danger to others.

Now, in my own experience, I find myself in all three states from time to time. Most of the time, I'm in mode #2, "wanting to be better". I'd like to live more of my life in mode #3, and that is actually how I'm living. To be honest, which is also to be kind, I do have my #1 moments. Or days. These are also the days when I'm not asking God to be a part of my life.

Here are a few suggestions to append a spiritual component to the Three Second Rule:

Daily Prayer. I ask God every morning to remove my desire to look at women's breasts. Every day.

Preemptive Prayer. When I know I'm going to be in a challenging situation, say, going into Target, I say a prayer along the lines of "God, please let me be just a shopper" or "God, please let me let women be people in this store today." That tends to level me out and deflates whatever addictive anticipation I might have built up.

Prayer of Gratitude. When I leave the store, or leave work, I thank God for helping me through a difficult environment. This acts as a bookend to the preemptive prayer.

Pray for the Person. I learned this one from a very spiritual member. He believes that his addictive sexual desire is a perversion of his strong and healthy desire to feel connected to other people. So, he says a prayer for the person he is attracted to, something along the line of "Please, God, help this person towards their true heart's desire." He doesn't say it to the person, it's a personal moment, not an evangelical moment. I think. Praying for the other person puts you in a God-centered mindset, and it also turns a negative into a positive. I have used this, altho I must admit I don't often have the awareness or the willingness to do so.

Any Old Prayer. Any prayer at any moment helps to take me out of my addictive mindset. Prayer makes me right-sized. My standard prayer is "thank you, God, for bringing me to this place." It's a nice, neutral prayer that covers however I feel and whatever is happening.

Now, you might note that all of the suggestions are spiritual, and all of them are prayer. Yep. The practical way to be free of our addictive tendencies is turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God. It works.

Concentric circles

I woke up this morning with a message from my Higher Power: the spiritual life is like the field of a magnet. The energy flows out from one end of the magnet into the air, and then curves around and flows back into the other end. The energy isn't held; it flows through. If the magnetic field comes in contact with another conductive object -- like a refrigerator -- the waves of the magnet flow with and within the other object.

It's a good message for me today. The last few days I've been thinking of life as give and take. I need something, and I go and get it. Or I need something and I have to give something up to get it. It's a dead-end street mindset. It's a zero-sum game. It's greedy and it's needy.

I haven't been feeling good about myself. I've felt cut off and isolated.

I had a wonderful talk last night with my wife. We took the time to open up and to be honest about how we're feeling about one another and how we're relating. It was emotionally challenging, but we stayed with it, gently. After that, I got into a wonderful conversation with my neighbor about creativity and creativity coaching. So, I was set up for a good change of spiritual weather.

So when I woke up with this magnet idea, I realized that everything is not mine and not not mine. There's a sharing, a mingling of my life with everything else. And that's the truth of the matter. That's the reality. My delusion is that I am alone and cut off. It only feels like reality because that's what I've been lead to believe and have accepted.

I'm working on a new belief system. That's the purpose of my recovery. What I'm walking towards is an acceptance of my connectedness to everything: God, the world, and all people, including you.

I attended a meeting this morning, and I kept the image of the circles -- the sharing -- in my mind and I was able to connect to everyone with compassion. There's a deep yearning for connection in me that I've buried. I think my sexual addiction is a damaged attempt to meet that yearning.

Like every day, I've felt challenged this morning and a little needy and disturbed. In that, I've remembered that I am connected, that what I'm having trouble with is not unique and it's not just my problem. Also, I've remembered that what I like is not all mine, and that I have much to give. I've been feeling more open to other people, with more willingness to look at the possibilities of connection, rather than the opportunities for rejection. And today I have a willingness to live in the reality of connection.

It's making for a good day.

Emotional sobriety

The topic of today's meeting was emotional sobriety.

The way I picture my emotional sobriety is that I seem very together on the outside, but on the insides I'm feeling like there are monsters at war with heroes. Sometimes I'm the hero, sometimes I'm the monster. Sometimes I'm the frightened villager cowering beneath their massive feet.

And that seems real. The quiet everyday-ness of life seems like an emotional pretense for the all-too-real emotional warfare happening in my head. And my heart. And the base of my neck.

The other thing that comes to mind with emotional sobriety is boundaries. My boundaries are so poor, I don't know where I end and where someone else begins. If I care about you, your problem becomes my problem. And if you care about me, my problem becomes your problem. And then we live in the muck.

Someone in the meeting said something I found very profound. I only hurt the people I feel I have power over. I don't rage against my boss and I don't rage against strangers. But know me well enough, and I'll tell you what I really feel about you. And some of that will be hurtful.

I remember as a child never closing my bedroom door. I always felt, I guess, that that would be interpreted as hiding something, of holding back. I never looked at my room as a refuge from anyone or anything. I never had my own safe place. I always felt like I needed to be around and available.

People were never barred from my room. But no one ever came into my room either.

And now I suffer under this same open boundary in my primary relationship. I can't seem to ask for my own space. I can't seem to find my own emotional space. I'm always dragged in, and I feel no power to stay within myself. My wife is similarly wired. It's like standing in a pool of gasoline asking each other for a light some of time.

I don't have any answers today. I don't have a clue, really. Search... Search... Nope, nothing.

Perhaps... there's probably an amend to make to myself. An amend to take care of myself, to nurture myself. And an amend to all other people to let them be responsible for their own feelings. That's the best I can do today.

Someone shared that they have every intention -- on entering a difficult conversation -- of staying rational, staying balanced. But for them, before ten minutes are out, they are dragged in and part of the havoc. That's how it feels for me. I can have all the best plans and the best intentions, but when the clock starts, when things actually get going, I revert to my patterns with people.

I like the metaphor of the budding sapling. All great trees start as a little twig. Emotional sobriety is a gentle twig I mow down every day.

I'm not a doctor, but I play one in my life

The subject of today's meeting was Step Two. Two is key for me, because my Step One was very sincere, a very low bottom. I was disgusted by my behavior and I couldn't stop. Desperate. Step Three was fairly easy for me, because I've always been one to jump on the bandwagon. Very willing. Recovery has been a very good thing to commit to.

Step Two is hard, harder for me. I like to entertain the notion that I'm special, especially damned and beyond hope. I'm really not all that hard a case, but I feel incurable. I think this arises from my experience of not being able to fix myself. I can be so hard-headed that I think "If I can't fix it, no one can".

I'm such an expert. I am also an expert on most other people.

Step Two tells me that there is something out there that can make me whole. It also tells me that that power is not me. From this, I understand that the best thing I can do is get out of the way. The doctor (God) wants to work on me, but I need to get out of the way first.

That is really, really hard for me. For some reason, I am always searching, always reaching. I think my mind is completely devoted to being a problem-solver. There is no bigger problem than me. How is that for grandiosity?

Thinking about it more as I drove from the meeting, there is only one Step where I fix anything, and that is Step 9. I fix -- or at least try to fix -- the messes I have made along the way. And even that is a humble task, because I do not really fix the issue, I do my best to mend the issue. I treat the problems of the past, I do not ultimately correct them.

But the other Steps, the other actions of recovery, none of them are about me fixing anything. None. It is just not part of the program. What is a part? Accepting. Accepting. Always, always I want things to be different. I guess I am afraid that if I accept things, things will not change. That is my fear. That is the little "truth" that keeps me in a state of personal meddling.

God, I am afraid of letting go. I am afraid that I am not going to be taken care of. I am afraid that letting go means giving up. I am a fighter. I am a fighter. Man, am I beat up.

So, I have a lot to learn. Luckily, I do not have to go anywhere to, catch anything, hold anything to learn it. I just need to be here now. I need to let go.

Please God, you are welcome to my sorrow, you know how to sooth it.
You are welcome to my pain, you know how to treat it gently,
God, you are welcome to mistakes, you know which step lead me astray,
You are welcome to my plans, you know better than I.

May I accept what is happening now
May I move forward with simplicity
May I look backward with equanimity
May I be grateful for all that happens

A visitor

This blog finally had a visitor who is neither a close recovery friend or someone looking for fake Confucius quotes. I linked to Confucius quotes once, and now I am apparently a top resource for Consucius quotes on the web.

The visitor was a blogger I've been following and apparently she found this blog through her traffic statistics.

This inspires me to write again. The completely lack of attention had discouraged me.

Shoulds

I was driving to work today and I was thinking "I should be thinking this way." The "way" I was hoping to be was some tuned-in Buddhist practice, I suppose. I don't completely remember. What did catch my attention is that I'm constantly thinking that I should be thinking in some other way.

Monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Judging, judging, judging. Where does it let off?

I don't think it lets off. I think my mind is set up to trap myself again and again in thinking. And the end point of that thinking is that I don't measure up. I'm not a half-empty kind of guy. I'm a completely empty kind of guy. Except when I'm completely full of myself. The more I think about a thing, the more certain I am that I'm not right in some way.

There's a certain attitude in recovery that I recognized long ago, but I keep forgetting and forgetting. So much of the life of recovery is working through pain. If you want to be free of pain, you must become very intimate with it. The problem, of course, is that I am very sensitive to pain and really, really want to avoid it. That is the root, trunk, branch, leaf and fruit of my addiction. Fear of pain keeps me from working through it.

But let's say I take a real honest first step and realize that I can't take it any more, that I am really, truly introduced to my pain in such a way that I want to do something about it. Then I take a really honest third step and agree to do whatever it takes to come into agreement with God's will. In that situation, I am living with pain and it's okay.

I am living with pain and it's okay.

I think that is the ultimate attitude to have in recovery. To deny pain, either the pain of the past or the pain that comes in every day is not serenity. It's a deep denial. Pain is real. That is unavoidable. That pain is unavoidable is a first step issue, I believe.

I believe the piece that I am missing in my recover to day is the acceptance of all that is good in my life. I'm missing the gratitude. I'm afraid my attitude towards life and recovery right now is:

I am living with pain and I need to end that by doing something.

Shoulds. I should do this. It should be this way.

The truth is, things are not too bad for me right now. I am doing as well as I ever have and in many respects better than I have ever done. And yet, am I "happier" now than before? No, I'm just about at happy as I've ever been. Yet my "shoulds" and my attitude of scarcity obscure this goodness at all times.

I think the issue is my attitude. I am just looking at the situation as 1) bad and 2) intractable. The truth is that things are 1) good and 2) solvable. Perhaps I find the various solutions distasteful, but they are real and they work.

So, I'm committed to living today (just today, one day at a time) in gratitude. The attitude of gratitude. I think this attitude can work where the shoulds cannot. This feels right in me right now. Right.

Encasing my suffering ... in ice

I promised to post again about yesterday. I promised to post again last night, but today will have to do.

I didn't stay with my suffering yesterday. About an hour after I wrote the previous post, I opened up my browser and started reading about Iran. I don't live in Iran, I'm not of Iranian descent, I'm not a diplomat, I'm not a politician. But I decided that it was important that I know just what was going on there.

There's something admirable about staying on top of important news stories; staying informed. But that is not what I was doing.

What I was doing was avoiding. I was in turmoil and I reached out for something that would help me forget. I equate it to putting my emotions on ice. Television is my traditional numbing device. In recent years, the Internet has taken that position. What's yours?

So, there were a couple of hours there where I knew a lot about the pain of Iranian disenfranchisement, but not a lot about my pain. And then, of course, I started to "gently" berate myself for being lazy, for wasting time, for not living up to my word, for not taking care of myself. Do you know this trap?

I realized I was in that trap and started taking better care of myself. I called a friend in recovery, actually two. I made and ate lunch. Then I went to a 12-step meeting after work. These things all brought me back to reality.

Recovery is sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. If you work on it, you'll make progress. If you just leave it there on the card table, you won't. So, I actually had an opportunity to process some of the pain that was lying within me, but I took a pass. It wasn't that the pain was too much, it's just that I decided to go another way. I'm conditioned to avoid. That's just how I am.

This is an example of taking the 2d Step without taking the 3d Step.

I have made a decision to live differently, to feeling my feelings straight through. I didn't do that, not completely. I have a little bit of a raw feeling about that, like I let myself down. I did. But I'm also aware that I am learning, slowly, how to take care of myself. I need to both recognize my shortcomings without shame while acknowledging what progress I have made.

And, all things considered, yesterday was a good day. I took one step forward and no steps back.

Embracing my suffering

I woke up this morning really suffering. I was away for the weekend visiting family. It was a good time, but I was really in comparison mode, especially with my younger relatives. They seem so happy, they seem so accomplished. They're on the cusp of doing wonderful things.

And I feel like life has passed me by.

So, much negative self-talk this morning. I meditate each morning, 20 minutes. On days like this my meditation can be a string of negative thoughts. Those thoughts reinforce negative attitudes and lead to negative actions. And I go lower and lower.

So, I am suffering today. And I write that to acknowledge it. I'm not acknowledging it to "move on". "Moving on" from suffering is the way I do business. It's part and parcel of my addiction.

Instead, today, I am grateful to write that I am embracing my suffering. During my meditation and since I have silently thought:

"May this suffering awaken my compassion."

It is an affirmation I have learned from Tara Brach. Accepting the bad feeling and gently examining it helps me to experience it right now. It actually stops me from judging "it" or judging me. I'm merely aware of my sadness, and the way it is manifested in my body.

It is not fun. I am very sad, sad as I type this. I am near tears. But these are the tears that are like a spring rain. I am comforted. I am feeling compassion for myself.

My biggest decision so far today is to take things very, very slowly. I took my time driving to work. I have no anxiety about getting done what needs to be done and being content with that. I am dedicated to not losing myself in businesses and not lashing myself for not getting more done.

I am going to take my time and live in my emotions. I will post again this evening. Can I live like this? Can I truly live otherwise?

Invested in life

I had coffee yesterday with a friend in recovery. He told me that he had a difficult conversation with his partner on Sunday, but that on Monday he felt better and has been feeling good all week. I think that's a parable of recovery.

Recovery involves courage and hard work today. It's not something to put off for tomorrow. Courage is nothing more than doing the thing that your fear tells you not to do. Every Step of recovery is an assault on your fear. And every assault on your fear is a step in recovery, no matter if it involves making amends to your wife or merely thanking God for another day of life.

The upside is that I think my life today is the product of what I did yesterday. My recovery work puts a deposit in my bank that I enjoy tomorrow. Much of the benefit of recovery is seen down the road. When you're in the mindset of tomorrow, you start to listen more to God, because when you're invested, you want to make sure your effort goes towards something of real value.

Unfortunately, I'm not set up to think and act like that. I'm an addict and my addiction is all about feeling good RIGHT NOW. My life in addiction was a string of "live for the moment" days that really didn't add up to much. And each day I'd wake a little less happy with myself and a little more sure that I didn't have what it took to get better.

Whatever good things might come into my life would be quickly consumed. I was always living just on what was available right at that moment. Worse, I "sold off" whatever credit I had in good will with everyone I knew: burning my furniture for heat until I didn't have a chair to sit on.

Things have taken a different turn in recovery.

I woke up this morning feeling okay about being me. I didn't feel that way because I'm suddenly a good person now. I feel that way because I've slowly become a good person.

The theme for this week for me is giving up the obsession with things being "right" right now.

I didn't wake up wanting to be someone else. I didn't have regrets about yesterday, or any yesterday back and back and back. I'm reconciled with life. There was a lot of work to get where I am and there's still work today. The task was and is a lot lighter because of the people in recovery who came before me and those who have directly guided me with their example and words.

My life is precious now, because I'm invested in it. I thank God that I was able to learn how to live through 12-step recovery.

Permiable boundaries

We discussed boundaries at a meeting the other day. It was a good discussion.

Boundaries work both ways: they let things in and they let things out. Boundaries protect, but they also allow. Healthy boundaries keep bad things out and let good things in. And maybe they let good things out and keep bad things in?

One boundary difficulty I have is that I let negative criticism in too easily and fail to let in positive criticism. Say something bad about me, and I believe that. Say something good about me, and I discount it. It's a strange thing; a sad thing. I do believe good things about myself, but maybe I don't believe that other people really believe those things?

There are good reasons to have defensive boundaries, but I tend to maintain defenses long after they are needed. I'm over-insured.

There's a bit of a sphinx about me. I don't share enough of myself with people. That's confusing to people, because they don't know where I stand. And also, I am very likely to let my hostilities show to people and that's off-putting.

Then there are just the normal, human interactions that don't make their way into my heart. How often do I stand perplexed while others laugh? Or cry? Or even get angry? My boundaries make me aloof.

How do I loosen my boundaries? My hard boundaries were all built as a defense, so I think renovating them is a matter of trust:

1. Trust that people like me.
2. Trust that people want the best for me.
3. Trust that the occasional injury is outweighed by the continual benefit of openness.
4. Trust that I won't be destroyed by my vulnerabilities.

I guess it all comes down to a trust in God, in the universe of caring love, support and understanding. It's out there. It's truer than my fears. And it's better too.

Today.





There are valves in our arteries and veins that only allow the blood to flow one way. This seems to be the way

One year

Yesterday was one year of continuous abstinence from my bottom-line behaviors. I've had the date in mind of course all year. But I've not been too attentive to it.

It passed without notice.

I remembered it this morning at the meeting.

I'm ambivalent about it. I suppose it's because I don't feel very good these days. Too often I don't feel good. Too often when I do feel good it seems to be followed by a fall.

I don't have the slightest interest in celebrating.

I take too much for granted. I am very grateful to be sober today, even if I don't feel very good. I wouldn't feel any better if I had only one day right now.

Expectations. Impatience. Trying to force outcomes. Please God, help me to let go.

Gradual or lightning-bolt awakening?

I was discussing progressive versus immediate spiritual awakening with a friend in recovery the other day. Apparently it's also an issue of enlightenment in Buddhism.

Can a person evolve into a different way of being and living? Or does everything happen all at once?

Bill W. is the classic lightning-bolt recipient. He had a light-in-the-sky experience and from that point on was in communion with his Higher Power and was able to build his life around God's will without reservation.

"Without reservation." Actually, I don't know if that is true of Bill W. That's probably my projection of what I would be like if I were to have an inexplicably strong feeling of the presence of God.

I have not had that experience. I feel I am progressing gradually in my relationship with my Higher Power. There's still the need for a lot of faith.

The question is, am I am really building, or am I just spinning my wheels? Is there some cosmic scale being tipped slowly by each spiritual action, so that eventually I will be in communion with God? Should I be waiting? Or should I be working?

Of course, Bill himself -- despite having been a lightning-bolt recipient -- believed in gradual spiritual awakening. The 12 Steps as a metaphor is an inclined plane. It assumes that one step takes you higher than the next and so on. Having worked all twelve steps, however, I can say that my spiritual awakening is still pretty groggy. There is a lot about my day-to-day actions that are not in concert with a Higher Power who is outside of me.

I am on a spiritual quest. I act when I believe I should act. I let go when I believe I should let go. Why am I not feeling better?

The terrible spiritual truth I'm dealing with today is that my expectation of feeling better may be the primary obstacle to my further spiritual growth. "It's a selfish program", I have heard. We get in this to get better. And I have gotten a lot better. But I haven't found peace or serenity or whatever it is I hope to get out of the program, out of a spiritual life.

Perhaps my expectations of serenity are premature. I think there may be a lot more pain I need to pains-take before I feel consistent serenity. Perhaps I will not reach a spiritual serenity until I discard the hope that I will attain serenity. Wouldn't that be just like me?

But back to the subject, I think the difference between progressive or immediate awakening is merely one of perspective. Bill W. didn't know he was close to a dramatic spiritual awakening the day before it happened. It just happened. He did his spiritual work and then it happened.

Think of a bowl on a kitchen table. A child pushes it inch by inch towards the edge. Eventually there is one push that sends it over. I am a blind bowl. I don't know if I'm a millimeter from the edge or a foot. But I can still push. And when enough of me is over the edge, the rest of me will fall off the table.

Unfortunately, I don't know if my pushes are pushing me towards the edge, or away from the edge. Yikes! That's the conundrum of effort. I also don't know if the table is slanted away from the edge. My one-inch push may be immediately followed by a two-inch backslide.

Perhaps I should just wait for the Child.

The border between Me and the Universe

I had a spiritual experience Wednesday morning. I was laying in bed before my alarm, or perhaps between snoozes. My feet hurt and I probably had to go to the bathroom. I was aware of the different sensations of my body. I've been practicing this lately in my meditation: just being aware of my body.

I was aware of sensations all over my body and I realized that these pains, tightnesses, pressures, etc., they were all happening independently of each other and independently of me -- or should I say Me, the self. What I realized is that I was not directing these sensations, I was not controlling these sensations. They didn't radiate out from a central me. I was just observing them. They didn't need me to exist. I -- the self -- was almost outside of them. There were processes in my body that were independent of my controlling self.

I have this tendency to believe that the border between me and the rest of the universe is my skin. Along with this, I believe that I am in control of myself and not in control of what is outside of myself.

The observation of these independent sensations made me realize that the me I think of as Me is really a bundle of sensations that doesn't have a consistent center. The center is something that I, the observer has constructed. A lot of me and my experience of me is outside of my control.

Sorry if I'm boring you. Many of my deepest realizations are pretty elementary. I have a tendency to skip over the obvious.

So if what is going on inside my skin is not all Me, then maybe everything happening outside of my skin is not all not-Me. How do I experience "the rest" of the world? Through my senses. How do I experience my interior physical sensations? Through my senses. Why is one more me than the other?

The world outside my skin seems separate because my mind is always separating things. The main thing it separates is me from the universe. And maybe this separation is not real. Maybe the separation is not only not real, but is a lie I tell myself.

This encourages me to be more intuitive. It gives me a sense of integrity with all other things. This is what I need.

I am vulnerable

I was home alone this morning, just about to leave for work. I had taken some laundry down to the basement and was passing by the television set. I briefly wondered if we still had the DVD of the movie my wife and I had watched a few days ago. It had a brief scene of nudity.

And I thought, "I could look at that again."

Fortunately, I was actually moving, walking across the den carpet, when I had the thought and I just kept moving.

As I walked, I said "No." It was a gentle no, a soft no. I don't like to scold my addictive impulses, but I can't coddle them either.

My second thought was "I am vulnerable." I don't have that many impulses to act out, but when I do, I try to acknowledge them. Denial of my addiction is the strongest part of my addiction. The last time I acted out, I know that I had this suspended sense of reality, where I was actively trying to skirt around the truth of what I was up to.

The other thing I remember about the last time I acted out was that it wasn't the worst day of my life. I wasn't overwhelmed or anything. I was just vulnerable and I was downstairs in my den. A lot like this morning.

So I avoided a wreck. I am grateful for my awareness that helped me through that. I am grateful that I see more hope in the solution than returning to the problem.

And now I've recognized that I'm vulnerable and I need to get some help. I think I'll call my sponsor or another friend in recovery. Right now.

In the meantime, thank you God, for bringing me to this place.

Meditation opens the basement door

I've had an unexpectedly bad experience with meditation lately. When I say unexpected, I mean that I expect meditation to make me feel good, serene, you know? I don't expect it open a door to my pain.

But that is what it has done.

I have a pretty poor record as a meditator. I have a very chatty mind. I'm usually in two modes, I'm either just off in some thought about some something or I'm sitting there critiquing my meditation technique. "If I sat up straighter, my mind would be more clear" or "My mind is too chatty to be able to do meditation."

So I've been stalled. For years. But I've had some recent breakthroughs. There have been several things, but one thing was just to actually devote more time to it. I used to do 10 minutes, then I upped it to 15 and quickly up again to 20. I've been holding steady at 20. It's made a difference. I think the extra time allows me to just settle in.

Another factor is that I've been listening to Tara Brach's weekly podcast. Tara is a Buddhist teacher and a counseling psychologist. She's a very gentle lady and I get a lot out of listening to her podcasts. She also fancies herself a commedian, and I forgive her for that.

The message I'm getting from Tara, and the meditation I'm practicing is simple awareness. I just try to be present to what is going on. This is what is going on in my mind, but also what is going on in my body and emotions. Just being present. My tendency in life is to experience it as an opportunity to judge. I judge everything. Being present is just being there with living.

I practice when I'm meditating, but I also try to practice it the rest of the day. I drive when I'm driving. I fold laundry and just observe the tee shirt. And when I'm feeling something, when there's an emotion, I experience the emotion. My emotions are the most important medium for communication with God right now. These messages are coming in very strongly.

My standard reaction to emotions is to control them. I don't feel my feelings. I don't let them get very far along before I stuff them down. Good or bad, happy or sad, I don't let them play out very long. This is a bit of an overstatement. I've actually become so skilled at stuffing my emotions that they don't often even get to the surface. They come pre-stuffed.

So I've been experiencing my emotions. I've been saying "yes" to them. Acceptance is the lesson I must learn again and again. I'm saying "yes". Not "YEAH!!!". "Yes."

And here's the problem. The reason I've put some much effort, built so many walls against my emotions is that I have some very unpleasant emotions to deal with. I've had them a very, very long time. The big feeling, the big ugly feeling is: I'm not good enough. That is a feeling, a "truth" I believe about myself that is so ugly and so ingrained that I've convinced myself for most of my life that I actually don't feel this way.

I've thought my problem was arrogance. Now I see arrogance as a defense mechanism against my real problem.

Of all my denials, this is the biggest. I've spent most of my life thinking that I did not have issues with self-loathing. But the increased quality of my meditation has opened up this truth to me.

And it has not been pleasant. I wrote about it two weeks ago.

On top of the sadness of getting in touch with my feelings of inferiority, I am also somewhat saddened that I haven't recognized it before. Altho, that thought is along the path of more self-loathing. The healthy thing for me to do is to recognize what I'm learning and be grateful that I am at this point right here when it is safe for me to uncover this truth. To live with it.

Thank you, God, for bringing me to this place.

Confucius quotes

Save yourself some trouble and read these Confucius quotes.

There's a lot of recovery there.

The one quip that jumps out at me is:

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Experience is the first course of recovery, the bitter trudge that gets us in the door. Imitation is beginning recovery: "fake it 'til you make it", the sponsor/sponsee relationship, etc. Reflection comes with Step 11.

So, as is often the case, addicts get it all backwards. But we end up in the right place.

Honesty as antidote

Just got off the phone with a friend in recovery. He's having a hard time with middle circle behaviors, checking out women. At the same time, he shared with me how he is being honest with his partner about this, and that sharing his struggling helps to defang the obsession.

That gave me a lot of hope. In the last week I've been very miserable about my job, my creative life and even my service in the program. I feel powerless, but also very willful. This is a powerful admixture of negativity.

I seem to have three responses to these sorts of events: acting out, living in misery and letting go. I won't do the first. I can't seem to do the third, so I live in the second. The limbo. The dry, unhappy place.

But this morning, Monday morning, with so much to do and so much anxiety and bitterness around it, I decided to surrender. First off, I told my wife about my anxiety about work, about all the things I need to do today that I should have done last week and my keen sense of inferiority about this. I just told her how I felt.

Second, I came to work and admitted I needed help on my current project. That's equally tough for me, because I get a lot of self-satisfaction out of being capable at my job. I had to admit in a little way that I've not got my act together. I admitted it, asked for help and I'm getting help.

And then this friend called. I am getting a triple message of honesty today, and it is making things a lot more manageable.

I still have much to do, and I need to get back to it. But it's not as scary and not as triggering as it was an hour ago.

Why does God need me to do anything?

Most of the time we spend trying to understand the nature of God -- the way that God works -- is wasted time, at least in my opinion. I shouldn't say that. I should say that it is of very little use to me or to God for me to spend time trying to figure out God. It may be entirely valid for other people with greater knowledge and understanding to contemplate the nature of God. It's just not for me.

I have simpler needs and simpler goals.

The substance of my recovery is my decision to follow God's will and the actions that result from that decision. God has something that He wants me to do; some bit of work cut out for me each day. Through prayer, meditation and moment-to-moment mindfulness, I can get a sense of what that work is, and then I can go about doing it.

This is what helps me to grow. This is what keeps me healthy. All of my progress in recovery has come out of doing God's will. I didn't always understand it that way, but that's what it was and is.

Sometimes the assignment is pretty simple: don't act out, go to a meeting, call that person back. I don't have to know how my actions fit in to any grand scheme. I can just do my part. The great debilitating question of my life has always been "what should I do next?" Following God's will -- the simple things -- has meant more to me than all the exquisite reasoning that I've created, mulled over and discarded over the years.

But still there is a nagging question. I've struggled with this question since first working Step Three:

Why does God need me to do anything?

God is all-powerful, right? He can just make it so. Why does God need little old me? Part of my asking the question, I suppose is just my laziness. Maybe I'd rather not work and am griping about God asking me to do things. "Why did you call me over here if you could have done it yourself?" But setting aside my sloth, it's a fair question: why does God need me?

Is doing God's will just a make-work project? Some sort of celestial work-fare program? I hope not. Although my hopes don't amount to much in the grand scheme of things.

Thursday night I had a realization that helps me to answer this big question.

I'm not a theologian, and I apologize to any who might by some unfortunate accident stumble across this post. And again, I intentionally try not to ruminate on the nature of God, Man or myself too much. I do this because I have an aversion to religion, which is very concerned with defining God. I can't afford to dislike my own theology, so I have little.

The realization on Thursday is, "God needs my help because addicts don't listen to God."

The foundation of 12-Step recovery is addicts helping other addicts. Addicts tune out any right-minded person who wants to help them out.
The self-centered, long-suffering addict has been lectured to enough, thank you. But addicts will listen to this story "My life was miserable, completely out of control and then I found help through a program of recovery." That is the foundation story of AA and its subsequent spin-offs.

God is talking to us all the time. The pain in my back is a message from God. So is a symphony, the price of a loaf of bread and the misery of my addiction. The clearest messages, the ones that say I should mend my ways and seek help for my worst deficiencies are many. But I ignored them. I discounted them. I resented them. God was speaking to me, and I ignored Him. I even cursed Him.

And then I started to attend meetings. My meetings weren't filled with wise, well-reasoned men and women, they were filled with addicts, young and old, happy and sad. These people spoke the words of God to me through their stories. I listened and learned and eventually made progress in living a life of recovery rather than misery.

And that's the key. We're all a bunch of knuckleheads. God can't get through to us. God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, does not force the solution on addicts or any other person. I think that's why religion or faith alone can't help us out of our mess. We need each other and the message of the program.

So, that is why God needs us. Through our spiritual practice and our service work, we carry the message to another addict. If we do not do this, the message will not get through.

This realization calls to me. It urges me to stay sober and help others. There is so much pain out there and I can help. I and others like me who have made that decision to help are the only ones who can. That is inspiring and it makes my life and my work seem valuable, even holy.

"Now matter how far down the scale you have gone, you will see how your experience can benefit others." That's a promise.

Emotional growth or emotional injury?

I was walking my dog through the neighborhood yesterday when I was suddenly overwhelmed by a dark, heavy feeling. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It was a feeling of heaviness, like great grief in my chest and stomach and it felt like there was a weight upon my shoulders. The air seemed close and quiet.

I can't say I've ever felt like that before.

As far as I know, it didn't start from some though, it was just a spontaneous sadness. The feeling came so suddenly, I couldn't do anything but just stand there on the sidewalk.

"What is this?"

Life has been a little different for me since the first of the year. I've been practicing less control really, which means that I feel like I've been open to things. Part of this is just taking the time -- a pause -- to feel my feelings. So I paused, even in the face of this dark wave.

What I experienced in that pause was unsettling. I'd never really felt that bad about just being before. The only equivalent feeling was when I learned my grandmother was dead when I was an adolescent. This was completely out-of-the-blue. Because I couldn't peg it on something made it more unsettling, I think.

So I stayed with it. The mystery of it helped me to stay with it, because my mind had nothing to latch onto. The first thought that came to my head was "I've never felt this bad before." And truly, I haven't. The second thought was, "Is this reality now?" There have been some unique moments of serenity and its opposite in these last few months. And I was wondering: "Is this what I have to put up with when I feel my feelings?"

It's an odd question for me, a deep question. My native inclination is to strenuously avoid negative feelings, to stuff them. Lately I've had a looser grip on my emotions; letting things play out. But really, do I really have to face that level of discomfort? Is that how it's going to be? And furthermore, is that normal? There's always been a fear that if I really let my guard down, if I really jumped into life and let it wash over me that I would be drowned. If I've been afraid of my feelings, I think this experience was just what I was trying to avoid.

Is yesterday the new normal for me? And if so, will I learn to adjust to it? Or will I eventually get well enough adjusted to living my emotions that I don't have those large waves? You know? When you damn yourself up, you can expect a few floods, right?

Or did I crack?

Did one of the supports that holds this whole wild carnival of me together just crack and give out and give way? And is that a good thing, or a bad thing? If my life were destroyed, broken and irreparable, would I cease to be? Or would a new me emerge from the wreckage, like a snake sloughing its skin? Or was it just a touch of the blues on Wednesday afternoon?

So much of my life in recovery is walking into the dark.

The next thought was, "Is this depression? Is this what depressed people feel like?" The blanket of sorrow would be pretty much what I would imagine depression to be. I certainly wouldn't want to work or do anything if that's how I actually felt all the time. I was very worried yesterday, early, that I might feel like that all the time.

I'm pretty proud of my response to it. First, I just stayed with it. I didn't reject the feeling and I didn't reject myself. I didn't panic and try to direct my mind to something -- anything else to forget the feeling. I stayed with it. I walked home, my dog as happy as ever, and let myself in. While I didn't have any thought of acting out (for which I'm grateful), I immediately called my sponsor. He was there and we talked. During the talk I recalled some news I got earlier in the day that may have contributed to the event.

I described it as a "panic attack" to my sponsor. He shared his experience with things like that. It was good to talk with him because I trust him and I know he cares about me. My wife came home at about the same time and we talked too. It was good to open up to her. I have a tendency when I'm sick to get very childish, demanding and pathetic. I didn't do that. I didn't resent her for not dropping everything and making poor me the center of her universe. The aspiration to be present has a lot of unintended positive outcomes.

So, am I going insane or am I maturing emotionally? Both? I guess I'll find out.

In the mean time, I'm feeling better today, definitely better, although I still don't feel very good. I lived. I feel like a shipwreck survivor today: groggy, on edge but very relieved. How many more of those will I experience? I don't know. But I guess I know that I can be okay during and after. That much I've learned.

And that's okay for now.