Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Truth Shall make them flee

I was watching some people I know today and the biggest division comes down to some are into "truth" and some are in to anything BUT truth. Truth either inspires the truth in others,, or it causes them to run away like a monster is after them. The truth about me is simple, I'm a work in progress. I'm not what will be yet, but thank god I am not what I was.

Telling my story to inpatient legal treatment center tomorrow night. I'm just going to share what I know as being the truth and hope that someone hears something that helps one day.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Curious, this is from exactly 4 years ago and my goal is the same, to be a bigger human. This is my journal from January 2009,

I was on a backroad of sorts. It was a highway but not traveled that often. I passed a run down, rusted out , falling apart home place and there was a puppy about to leave the driveway and get on the highway. Thin would be an uderstatement. He was very clearly a puppy but to old to be counting on mother for food. He was black and filthy. He was the sort of dog that would be given bad odds at the dog shelter because he wasn't "cute".

I felt my heart breaking as I passed. The clear thought when my eyes went back to the road was. "I hope he finds someone to love. I hope he finds someone to love who can feel how good it is to have the unflappable love a dog can offer. Someone to see all the wonder and funny quirks he was born with.

It wasn't my own dog I was seeing on the roadside in my mind. It was myself I saw. It was me, with battle wounds and scars and knowing no stretch of the imagination would I be considered pretty enough to go in the front part of the dog pound.

Sometimes, when I get an extremely strong and moving example of what is capable for us to experience as humans and we don't, it really feels like a punch in the stomach. I have a full body, spirit and mind encounter with humanity about 6 or 7 times a year. They are very profound when they happen. When without trying I can experience the way things are for someone else from their point of view it is really overwhelming. When I see the now/truth without filter it scares me. I've done my best not to let feelings overwhelm me in my life because I thought they made you weak. Feelings give us humanity. I really do like "feeling" like I am part of the human race because for so long I thought I was denied at birth.

Even though I am a dirty, skinny puppy on the side of a backroad in front of a shack, I have had a taste of what is possible and that gives me hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Sometimes the least likley to leave the pound is the first to get a home. So I stay open, don't make things worse, and look for as many new ideas as possible.

My January goal for 2009 is living bigger. Bigger ideas and bigger possibilities, because trying to stay small and inconspicuous hurt alot and nearly killed me.

ClintonUnplugged.

Monday, January 23, 2012

What are you soaking in?

I think part of the reason so many people are angry is because they sit around watching gruesome try crime shows with brutal reenactments then top it off with hideous dysfunction on Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, Steve Wilkos, Jerry Springer , Judge Janine 3 other "judge" shows. Combine these hours of bad for you TV with endless loops of purposely fear inducing new pieces on CNN and misinformation on Foxnews, and you have someone who easily spend an entire quarter or two of their waking moments marinating in soul and spirit killing tv waste. Why be a vegan or a health nut if you are going to create disease in your spirit or body by inviting poisonous ideas into your mind. "I think, therefore I am"... Fred Neitzche. I don't think for a second I can watch that stuff and get away unscathed. What you put in, you get out. What am I feeding my spirit/mind/body today? On another note, through out the history of time, the easiest way to control the masses is to whip them up into immeasurable fear. Just for today, I am not a cow and will not be herded by means of ball busting fear. Fear causes anxiety, and anxiety causes inflammation of the cells int he human body and inflammation causes disease like arthritis and cancer. Just throwing something out there to think about on a Monday , Monday.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The next first day of the rest of my life.

I've been afraid to admit out loud that my idea of a power greater than myself is evolving. I have fought, tooth and nail the whole "God" thing because it I do not want to be linked to the crazy "God People" that have caused so much hurt in the world. I am in contact just by being alive and awake but I heard someone mentioning the comfort of prayer the other day and I felt something stir inside. I want to have a have a new way of communicating with the power out there and I am thinking that some form of prayer based on what I have heard others say may be it.  I don't want a Santa in the sky or a magic "gimme" go to offer up a list of things I want. I accidentally said "God" last night when I was introducing my friend at an NA celebration and I realized that I wasn't using the word to just relay my thought, I realized as soon as the word left my lips I had connected to the word and concept in a way that I never have before. I have suspected I was evolving for a week or more and my "slip" at the podium kind of solidified it for me. In the area of spirituality I am changing. I've been the guy who rails about to much religion in AA and NA meetings since I cleaned up. I've used a nebulous life force as my power greater than me and I don't know if as I evolve I am ready to. I'm going to let this become what it becomes. I still hate religion, the practice of relating to a god. So I am going to try some sort of way to communicate with the power and try to continue to make it my own unique way. I am really afraid if I use the term "God", it would appear that I too have decided to "Drink The Koolaide".

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Why do we do the things we do?

Why do we attach stories to things and dates? Is it because we are afraid we will forget and the things we attach to some how make the memory or story more tangible? Dates, the odd dates I hear mentioned in meetings that have had sad and painful things attached to that keep the person forever looped into losing or hurting the thing the story tells.

Why is a death date important? Why do I see so many rear windows with decals of faceless storiliess strangers birth  and death date on it. I heard a parent say once, regarding their dead child that they lose their daughter/son every morning when they first wake up and then they remember their child is dead. What function does decal window displays to total strangers play in the process of grieving and healing from a death of a loved one. I hear you, I am sorry for your loss, but get that fucking decal off you window or you will be lost in pain forever.

In recovery meetings I hear people say this is the 4 months death of a relationship, my dad was diagnosed with cancer on this date 4 years ago, I was dumped 7 months ago today. It's endless the tragedy and pain that can be tracked by attaching a meaning to a fucking date on the calender.

Is it part of how we humans are driven to pick at the scabs of our wounds. Does it makes us feel more alive to constantly resurrect the bloodiness of personal disasters?  My thinking is they would feel some freedom if they let go of attaching a story to the date and not give a random number on the calender power to emotionally level them.

People get so freaked out over holidays. A story has been attached to a "random date on the calender" and we suddenly are compelled to have big feelings over it. Scholars say The Jesus was born in the summer, so why get so bent out of shape over a "dummy" birth date in December. Thanksgivings, seriously, have more stories been attatched in America to them than any other Calendar date. It's full face family and no presents to act as a buffer from the insanity we bring as we "gather together".

Feel free to tell me why you pay attention to odd and useless dates in your life. Enlighten me. Tell me why reliving a painful story is so tantalizing you must  celebrate loss on a monthly date, every month. Do you ever quit noting and feeling the date you were dumped by someone who clearly didn't know what they were throwing away.

I don't need any reason manufactured by myself to feel bad. It is the most natural feeling in the world to me. If I don't actively choose to feel good and look for reasons to feel good, I fall into a hopeless state of mind and body and no bottom is low enough to satisfy my desire for destruction.

I have learned that I can feel a feeling, let's say ,,"Sad". I don't have to attach a tale to the feeling I can simply notice I am sad and function through it. If I tag dates on a fucking calendar of especially hard or painful moments I am stacking the deck against myself.

Don't attach a story from your history on your current moment. You never taste freedom that way.

I say this with love, Mary, it's time to let that shit go.


Saturday, January 7, 2012

I'm simple

I am very aware right now that I am a simple man. I'm not driven to distraction with careers and cars and homes in the right neighborhood. Periodically I go through my things and throw the excess away,  Sometimes I feel a little shame that I am on driven the way I see others driven. I can't even fake it. What is wrong with being simple? Why do I think something is wrong with being simple?

Friday, January 6, 2012

The tale of an artic blast, or how Michelle Kwan saved my Life.

I've had problems with depression since the 4th grade. No one knew what it was back in the late 70's, or that a child could suffer from it but I did. I woke up one morning in grade four and I was unable to get out of bed. I was consumed with sadness and fatigue. I believe I came to the planet a hyper sensitive soul and I had consumed all the unpleasantness I could and I just shut down.
In the 8th or 9th grade I discovered that alcohol could make you feel good. I had no coping mechanisms or tools at all. At home , my family was a mess and at school I was the constant target of hatred. It started in third grade being called "sissy" and as we all grew older the words became uglier and uglier and . I turned to food and alcohol to give myself breaks in the tension. I never felt safe, emotionally I wasn't safe at home and school was a nightmare.

I had years and years of depression that resisted treatment, and I learned to self medicate . I got to a point where I could not generate any positive or good feelings on my own. Then a curious thing happened,  In the very early nineties I saw by accident a Asian girl skate on tv. She was so tiny  her skating costume actually sunk in where she should have had hips. I made a note to myself to watch for this Michelle Kwan. The next year was the hideous Tonya Harding clubbing and it brought skating to a national forefront. After the Olympics, Nancy Kerrigan passed on worlds and that left this tiny, unadorned Chinese girl  as the sole chance for the U.S.A to finish in the 8 at the World Championships in order to be able to send two girls then next year. She delivered a great set of skates and secured two spots for the ladies the next year.

The next year she underwent a very dramatic Hollywood style makeover for her skating. She came out in full makeup and dazzling costumes. She was suddenly the champion.

Because of years and years of being dead on the inside, I was surprised when I watched Michelle skate that I felt feelings of life inside me. There was something about the art and movement she created and delivered with her full heart that allowed me to feel, feelings I couldn't feel on my own.

I think it was in 97 she had a couple of bad skates at the worst possible times, a year before the Olympics. She fell in competition at Worlds and when she got up there was a look on her face that betrayed her. She was lost, in fear and couldn't not get her bearings for a second. I was kind of devasted for her because I know with atheletes, was them mental game wavers, sometimes they never come back.

But she did come back, and in 1998, she skated in a fashion forward icy blue lavender slip dress to "Lyra Angelica". It was the first time in history I had seen someone literally burn the fucking barn down with brilliance. It wasn't the string of perfect scores that moved me, or her incredible artistry. It was the fact that she came back from the worst competition year she ever  had and triumphed in the face of all the people that said she was finished. She won the battle with self doubt and she was simply fantastic.

From that point on, when I could muster no hope of my own, when my soul had gone dark. I would pull out the VHS of The National Figure skating Championships 1998. I  would feel moved in my soul because of the performance and then I would hang on to the fact that if she beat her doubt that I could too. My tape broke so i bought one from some stranger on the internet. It's a gift of spirit for a human to do something musical or artistic and actually stir the feelings of the dead like I was. When I could find no peace and no hope I pulled out Michelle Kwan VHS tapes and could feel something lovely in a very ugly place I lived in.

For every disappointment she had on the ice, she was never anything but beautiful and courteous. She never tried to make her loss, over shadow the one that won. She was always kind in the face of turmoil.

I would love to tell her thank her one day, although it is a long story and I don't come off that well in it.

I found successful treatment for my depression and my substance abuse problems and I am proud to say that today I self-generate my own good feelings and I got rid of all but one of my Michelle Kwan clunky VhS plus there is YOUTUBE.  Just moments ago I watched her 2003 Dallas Championship win and was moved to misty eyes and a tightness in my chest. Partly because it was so perfect and so beautiful and partly because her skating days are over and she will not be creating anymore ice magic for me me to lose myself in. Whatever spiritual ideas you subscribe to, I know that the girl from Torrence was a gift to the world and I will forever be grateful that she participated in the opportunities that came her way.

When I had no loveliness of my own, she shared hers with me and all the people lucky enough to watch that Thorough Bred Run. Thanks M.K. Thank you for reminding me that when you get knocked down, you just get up again and start over, and that there is beauty available to us on this planet when we look for it.