My higher power is not a GOD

My higher power is not a god. When it is referred to in text or meeting I automatically switch it out with the great energy or Indian's call it Spirit. The reason that I am passionate about the fact I don't believe in "God" is because I tried it every way I could and I just got sicker. When people come in to 12 steps and they hear "God as you understand him" they instantly go back to the understanding they had while growing up and using. Someone brought that idea of God to them so when they hear "God" in meetings they revert to default setting. It isn't a god of their understanding. It's a god they think is their understanding because it was the only one they knew. I have seen so many tortured people die or harm themselves because no one told them something different is available. I'm propelled to tell people I do not believe in the "God, string-puller in the sky" exist. My "prayer" is more like plugging in a rechargeable battery. I rejoin the original power that makes everything when I meditate and I get my cells and spirit replenished.

I've been in AA where the middle aged white business men say "God of your own understanding' wink wink" in other words til you get well enough for jesus and sunday school. I never made it back to Sunday school thankfully because it would have just confused me more.

If you want to have a god, GREAT! But just make sure it is a God of YOUR understanding, not your fathers, or Aunt Pearlines or Jimmy Swaggers or Mr. Osteens.

The only way that the spiritual power that is available to us all can be utilized is when we find our own way there to it.

DO NOT LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHO OR WHAT to believe in. Listen to your inner voice and you will be able to detect the markers to get you back from where you came. Your own concept is the only concept that matters and your life absolutely depends on it. I am talking about your life, here and now, not the one religion tells you that will be won or lost depending on you play the game of humanity in your life on earth.

My friend Gary said his higher power was whatever the power was the could take a brown bulb that looked like a poodle turd and pull those pink and green leaves of caladiums out of it was enough of a high power for him. I pretty much agree. It just lets me know there is a force that even at the stage of the planting season I am in, can pull something beautiful out of me.

The only moment that matters.

I had a pretty big day for understanding and new ideas. I was on the way to Longview, which is the closest city to me. I was driving the backroads and picturing the thrift store I was going to and wondering if I had enough time to hit it, then go to a noon meeting. I had one of those moments of clarity that don't come often enough. I was spending all of my thought energy on future events and places I was headed to and none focused on the moment I was in, and the moment I was wasting. I had wasted 15 minutes of solo car time, with satellite radio. I pulled myself back into my body and turned the radio to an oldies/disco station and lost myself in the feel of the moving car, the feel of the leather seat underneath me, the cool air blowing the straight part of my air around. I was in my body, in that car, and in the moment. It felt great.

I remember when I was little and started to avoid living in the moment because that meant feeling the feelings of that moment which weren't good feeling feelings. I learned to sneak away where I could be myself, eat my chocolate contraband. I would sneak in the kitchen when everyone was asleep and graze by the GE Light Bulb in the fridge. Little by little I completely moved out of living in the moment. The moment is where you get hurt pain can only swallow you up in the moment. Even as a 42 year old semi-grown man, I get warm thinking about disappearing with a pizza or bucket of chicken or ice cream and just eat by myself. The hormones that are released in my brain at the smell or site of food is as overwhelmingly addictive as nicotine or heroin.

I'm not sure I can explain so a stranger would understand, but I feel like this is one of the big key chunks of the lose and gain cycle that has been my life for 25 years or so. I don't want to be eating lunch and thinking about what i can eat for dinner. It's addiction it is slavery to the refrigerator and it will kill me. Starve off 50 pounds gain back 65lbs.

I want to have plenty of space in my life for delicious food. I just don't want to try to use it as a coping tool. lol This issue is completely tied in with my prescription drug addiction and alcohol issues. My brain thinks it needs medication for me to handle living in the present. Something to cut the edge, or calm my anxious feelings. So I'm practicing noticing when I am NOT in the moment and practicing getting back to it as soon as I see I am future tripping or picking through some painful event from my past.

I think about to those unfortunate bastards who have gone through the hell of gastric bypass then become alcoholics or sex addicts. Until those lucky men and women, and myself get to the core of "what's eating us" the pain will continue to have us finding other ways to dull our ache. In the 70's people I knew of actually wired their jaws shut surgically. My mouth isn't my issue. My issue is my issue, and that is hideously low self esteem and the inability to be present in the moment. I do want to say, that when I mention living in the moment, it is living in the moment without the ghost of the past trying to shape my perception of it. To let the present unfold in front of me with painful specters trying to convince me that something bad is going to happen if I open up and try to enjoy my life.

That is a really hard one for me guys. lol

I think this stuff is fascinating. If you see yourself in any of this craziness let me know. If it bored you to tears, DON"T LET ME KNOW> lol

Tuesday is a good day to begin a whole new me.

I'm enjoying one of those mornings that you that are to foreign to even hope for when you start making a change in your life. In four months I have gone for prescription medication abuser, to clean recovering addict. In 2 months and one week I have gone for career smoker, to non-smoker. In 5 weeks I have gone from out of control eating machine to someone that is way more careful with calories and portions and someone that is looking forward to weighing in at the doctors. The time between changes and effects is called "The Meantime". By coming here, and my 12 step group, not to mention the counselors I have that support change, my "meantime" hasn't been all that MEAN. I take my eating just like I do my on going recovery for prescriptions, one day at a time. The only difference is I have to learn to coexist with food. I've been thinking about something I read many moons ago that all people who want change should begin to envision who they want to be and even what they will look like. I've been letting go some of the things I have always associated with the mental image of who I am. My new image of Clinton isn't a smoker. It may sound silly but when I picture who I am, I've always had a cigarette in my hand. My new vision is me with long silver hair. It isn't the most stylish look but it really is a reflection of who I want to be, sort of a "crunchy granola laid back hippy". My new vision of myself does not include a skinny me. My days of chasing skinny...OVAH! I just want to look healthy, wear a waist size I can get at any store, and move without losing my breath. I want to be grateful for my body. I need to be fit for the second act of the Clinton Gandy story. Regardless of anything I have just written, I want to have a peace inside me, where I have ceased fighting any thing/anyone that keeps me from being of real service to others. I've grown past the vanity years and I know beyond all doubt that substance trumps style every time in the end. lol

Any loss on the scale today is a victory in the sense that I had to battle my greatest foe to get the pound off -myself and my small thinking, and years years years of using food as medication. I no longer Starve a cold and Feed a feeling.

Having some fun with photos on photofunia.com if you want to use it on your own pics.