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.

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?

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.

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.

My Daily Practice

I'd like to share my daily practice and some thoughts about each practice.

Morning Practice

Eight Pieces of Silk. This is a set of simple Chinese exercises I learned as a young man. The instructor said I would live a healthy life if I did these twice a day. In typical fashion, I do them once a day. Here is a description I found in this PDF from a Google search. The instructions are very similar to the eight I was taught.

Greeting the Sun. Another Chinese exercise, a basic yoga move, I believe. I breathe in while raising my hands together up the center of my body. When my hands get to my face and my lungs are full, I exhale and push up and out with my hands in a big circle. When my hands come down to my sides and my lungs are empty, I start another inhale and bring my hands slowly up again. I do this eight times to clear my mind and get my breathing right.

Mindfulness Meditation. I sit in a half lotus for 20 minutes. On my best days I spend the first couple of minutes putting my attention on relaxing each part of my body from head to toe. Then, I try to concentrate on my breath, the breathing in and breathing out. It's best for me to concentrate on the air as is comes in and out of my mouth. Other people concentrate on the belly expanding and contracting. When a thought comes into my mind, I try to let it go. If a feeling comes into my body, I try to stay with the emotion, to just live it without judging it. If my cat passes by and rubs against my leg, I will pet her a while. On many days I sit there and worry about my life. I'm not very good at meditation, but I'm willing to be bad at it for as long as it takes. An interesting note: for a few years I did only 10 minutes and did not see a lot of benefit in meditation. Recently I upped it to 20 minutes and I've noticed a big difference. The spiritual lesson is that half measures really do avail us nothing.

Then I get on my knees and say my prayers:

"God I'm an addict and I need help." This is my first prayer of the day. It's pretty basic. This is my first affirmation of the day and it's all about humility.

"God, I can't do this on my own." There's a distinction between needing help and thinking I need someone else's help. It's also an invitation for God to join me today. God is very hands-off if you haven't noticed. God doesn't show up unless you ask him.

The Serenity Prayer. Of course.

The Third Step Prayer. It's from the Big Book, but it's written in King James English! I think Bill and Bob were getting a little grandiose there. I recite it, "God, I offer myself to you..."

The Seventh Step Prayer. This prayer says a lot about the purpose of the Seventh Step that is not in the actual text of the Seventh Step.

List of character defects to be removed. "God please remove from me my grandiosity, my arrogance, my patronizing and my hostility. Please remove my hostility, anger and resentment towards my wife, whom I love." Funny how I've never really had to update that list.

Prayers and affirmations specifically for my addiction. "Dear God, please remove my breast fetish. I don't need to control women to be okay. Dear God, please remove my desire to look at pictures of women's breasts. Sex is a part of my life, it's not my whole life." These are remarkably effective for me.

Any other prayer that comes to mind. I should probably look forward to what is coming up in the day, but I don't.

Daytime Practice

Spot Check. If anything is upsetting me, I do a 10th Step spot check. I ask myself, "What is my part in this?" I ask myself if there's any amends that need to be made. And then I do them. Promptly admitting my wrongs is very effective.

Spot Prayers. The Serenity Prayer is a good one to throw in at any time. A favorite daytime prayer for me is "Thank you, God, for bringing me to this place." This works for whatever situation I find myself it, "good" or "bad". A prayer I use just before doing something that I'm worried about is "God, I don't know how to do this." It's a great prayer especially when I think I know damn well what to do. Finally, "Thanks" is just a great, quick prayer.

Calling an addict. I try to get a call in to my sponsor or another addict every day. It grounds me.

Bedtime Practice

Gratitude list. I fill out a little list of things I'm grateful for. I actually just started this about a month ago after eight years of thinking it was "not for me". It's been a great month. This one you should try especially if you think it's a stupid idea.

Tenth Step inventory. I have an actual form I've created, a scoresheet. It's good for me to quantify things. I list positive behaviors and negative behaviors and tally which ones I've done during the day. I'll write a whole post on this some other time.

Recovery Reading. I read a little from a recovery book every night. My commitment is to merely open the book and close it. Occassionally that's all I do. Usually I read about a page. The book I'm opening right now is Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Spiritual Reading. This is the Bible or some other spiritual, non-recovery text. Right now I'm reading Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance.

There are other things, of course, I do throughout the day (attending meetings, step work, etc.), but these are the things I do every day.