What a sweet surprise.

You know that warm rush of compassion and love you get when you watch a baby learning to walk and it falls and gets up. Do you know the swelling of connectedness I feel when I look into the soulful eyes of the dog I adopted. When you see an expression on an athletes face on tv who has just done what he had always dream of doing, the feeling of identification, love, compassion , empathy and recognition.

Yesterday I got in the car and the rear view mirror was adjusted to the wrong angle. The only the that appeared in it was car interior and my right eye. I started to reach to adjust it when something caught my attention. I realized it looked like I had my first real line forming underneath my eye. As I looked at it I was swept with the feelings of pride and compassion. Gratitude came out of no where I knew I earned that line. I had nothing but love, respect and compassion for the person behind that brown eyeball and for a moment I fully realized that not only loving and forgiving my self was possible, it had begun.

Just For Today Meditation and my response

Living In The Moment

"We regretted the past, dreaded the future, and weren't too thrilled about the present." Basic Text, p. 7

Until we experience the healing that happens when we work the Twelve Steps, it is doubtful that we can find a statement more true than the quote above. Most of us come to NA hanging our heads in shame, thinking about the past and wishing we could go back and change it. Our fantasies and expectations about the future may be so extreme that, on our first date with someone, we find ourselves wondering which lawyer we'll use for the divorce. Almost every experience causes us to remember something from the past or begin projecting into the future.

At first, it's difficult to stay in the moment. It seems as though our minds won't stop. We have a hard time just enjoying ourselves. Each time we realize that our thoughts are not focused on what's happening right now, we can pray and ask a loving God to help us get out of ourselves. If we regret the past, we make amends by living differently today; if we dread the future, we work on living responsibly today.

I've done a lot , a LOT of studying about the "Moment' even in addiction I was reading and talking with some very spiritual people. What I have found for me, is, the reason the moment is so important is because it is the only place where we can instigate change. The steps, the program, the friendships all allow me to monitor the chatter and misdirection in my head and act on it accordingly. It brings me PRESENCE of mind. I am present in my mind. I can see old behavior patterns trying to cycle, I can see that this tiny thing I am about to rage at, isn't what I am mad about at all. In recovery my thoughts MUST be monitored by me. I have to catch it in the act to correct it.

I tell myself things when I think I am not listening, recovery helps me listen to what pain, hurt, anger or disease is telling me and it lets me detect, direct it or deflect it. The moment also is the only place that I may experience joy, beauty and love. Sometimes someone's touch or hug can bring me back into my body and my moment.

Every single morning I get a diet Coke, a smoke and turn my computer on. I go to NA.Org and I scan the literature chapter list or the IP list and I click on something I am directed to. I read and smoke and drink my Diet Coke until something I read connects me to myself again. The process of remembering who I am in the program of NA puts me directly in the center of my moment. That sets me up in the only spot that I can feel, love, learn, correct behavior patterns and my favorite , see beauty. I spent my life running from the moment because that was where the pain lived. Now I know it is where my capacity to love, forgive and change is-in the moment.

I've read a very book on NOW and if anyone wants to check it out just email. It's isn't NA literature but it has certainly enabled me to let go of old ideas and guide me to the place I am teachable.......

Have a great weekend everyone. I just bought a new fridge online. LOL How glad am I that I live in the internet millennium and that Home Depot Delivers.

We may be loved tomorrow but we can only feel it right now.

Clinton

Wow, huge huge understand shift tonight at meeting.

The topic was respect. I shared that it is one of those things that when I give you respect , I in turn gain self respect and that it was one of the many many paradoxes of the program, the more I love you , the more I love myself. The more I understand you the more I understand myself.

I commented that since these paradoxes were so plentiful in recovery it shows me the we are all way more closely connected than we think. Then just as I finished sharing the shift occurred. There is no separation between us. We are fucking ONE. That is why the jail I plan for you would be the jail that I myself rotted in. Loving you IS loving myself. What fucking trip.

The day that you put in the work for.

Maybe it was the sunshine that finally came out and illuminated the world that began reappearing as the day grew on , or maybe it was the meeting I got to make at lunch yesterday. I am in full peace mode and it is ridiculously sublime. I got in two meetings yesterday and I had an early and extended meal with 3 of the men I am just crazy about. There all three professionals with much longer clean time and they totally let me play their reindeer games. I spoke once and I realized that all three had their eyes on me and they all 3 gave me their attention. It was thrilling, because I was raised with a dad who said "Children are to be seen and not heard'. So to hold the attention of these professional, smart men made me feel like I might actually be someone and that I had thoughts and things of value to share"

One of the most valuable things we can do to heal one another is listen to each other’s stories.

— Rebecca Falls

I slept great and I went to the grocery store and sort of floated through the isles taking in the colors and checking out new products. I saw a couple from my 12 step group and they were just miserable. The lady had no light in her eyes and she looked like a corpse. Like she forgot she was alive. It just made me all the more grateful for the string of peaceful moments I've strung together.

Why so desperate to Label?

As much talk as made about being yourself and being and individual every time I turn around someone is offering me up another label to slip on. Like a girl scout that can't resist a good merit badge for herself, we just keep labeling ourselves.

I don't believe in the same understanding of god that my cohorts do, yet I am NOT an atheist and I am not agnostic. Frankly and thankfully there isn't a word for my understanding. I know someone who is neither gay nor straight but wouldn't say she was bisexual either. We like to find our niches and others love to know what cubby in the shadow box to place us.

In Longview you are either a Lobo or the other one. Democrat, Rebublican, Libertarian seriously why would anyone want to claim one of those labels they are all pretty vile most of the time.

Good or bad. Things can exist and stand alone just fine without calling them good or bad because with our very short term vision, we don't know ultimately if the "good" with turn on us and the "bad" eventually save our asses.

I'm in a program that is about opening me up to an existance that is larger than labels. We in the program are in perpetual change and evolution. Something you might say I am or even I might think I am, may only be near the truth for a moment before I evolve.

Forest fires started by lightening look bad, but nature needs them to cleanse and start over. So they are neither bad or good. A young guy overdoses, goes to the ER, and is shipped off to a psych hospital. He get's introduced to a program that revolutionizes his way of life and he helps others do the same.

I am just going to practice the art , the fine art of "JUST BEING", no labels or judgement. Just for today and see what happens. I am neither a tragedy or a triumph, I am just a rather enigmatic fellow trying real hard to feel worthy of the breath I snatch and also tries real hard to be a positive impact on others.

I do see others who are able to get behind a label and work with it. They tap into an identity by being a part of something bigger than them. Remember when Saturn Cars had the Saturn Club for members to talk about how the "LUV their Saturns"? What I have found out me myself is , it is more important for my soul or spirit to identify that you to.

I would like to say the other way certainly looks easier from where I stand, but it never worked for me. I've never met a label that satisfied me for longer than a minute.

If Chanel or Prada or Ralph Lauren labels could change you and make you happy, we wouldn't have the number of Lindsay Lohans and Charlie Sheen's publicly spirally into madness.

I've even seen people in twelve steps programs get lost in the label of alcoholic or addict to the point they never really tried to live a big life outside the rooms.

Labels are deadly for me. If it fits, I slack off , if it hurts, I want to medicate the pain. BEING is freer and BEING is easier. Fuck the labels.

The greatest thing to happen when we want something so bad...

My all time favorite moment on tv was in 1999 when on her 19th nomination Susan Lucci won her first Emmy. For 18 years the swell of support for her grew and grew and her losing streak was legendary and widely talked about even by non-soap people. But at her 19th try when Shemar Moore announced "The Streak is over Susan Lucci". It suddenly was about much more than a trophy, the audience turned into screaming, weeping energy producers. People like me at home suddenly felt the overwhelming rush of emotion like we had just heard our name called out. She even mentions in her 5 minute acceptance speech that she was glad she didn't win because she would have had all the consolation cards and cakes her kids made her to feel better.

I just watched the U.S. Nation Men's Figure Skating finals where a great young guy who I have rooted for for 11 years, get past injury and self doubt, the changing of the sport to put it all together in a meet that he almost retired after last year. It was just thrilling and I felt like I had just won when he became the 2011 US. Men's Figure Skating Champion Ryan Bradley.

When you make Nestle Toll House Cookies, the recipe calls for like a quarter teaspoon of salt. Well, that is insane because you wouldn't put salt a sweet cookie. Preposterous! But the salt, makes the sweet and the chocolate even more delicious.

Time is the salt in my cookie recipe. Some things gain their most importance when you didn't get it right away. I know that I have been in/around 12 step programs for over 18 years and my recovery is very much sweeter because it has taken this long. And I have many people who are invested in my recovery because they have seen me flounder but they know I have to get this on my time, but your terms.

Maybe the next time I don't get the thing or result I want, I can recall this entry to my blog. If I don't, someone please remind me. The same thing that makes antiques valuable can make moments in life more valuable too.

Worry is not love and it steals your inner peace, bit by bit

I've been anxious most of the day regarding my sister and her substance abuse issues. I am well away that we all have to get to the point of wanting help on our own, but I can't help but wonder if there is anything I can do.

If you don't know I love you, if you can't hear the words or see all the actions that I take to show you, then at some point I have to admit to myself, I have done all I can do. I have to be ok with the fact I can't convince you of my love and all I can do is all I can do. There is an endless stream of hoops you can line up for me to jump through but today I know all I can do is all I can do. I wish I had the heart language to get through to yours, but I fear I never will.

It isn't the concept, it is the word "God" that I react badly too.

Straight people do not seem to understand that from the moment I knew I was different meaning gay, I have felt or seen little of anyone that claimed to be a follower of "God" to lead me to believe that I was in for nothing but pain and abuse by them. I hear "God" and my very cellular structures react by retreating and getting ready for another glancing blow from the team of the righteous.

I've been abused by theology , I've been bullied by people who claim to be "GOD?S" followers to the point that as soon as I hear GOD, I am ready to curl up into the fetal position to protect myself from the karate kicks.

We are talking 30 years of being pointed out, singled out, mocked, derided , castigated , casted out, bullied, and read for filth. Told repeatedly that I was not worth saving unless I did one thing. Deny who I am. Even when I tried doing that I never felt the relief that was promised. I did exactly as I was instructed to do and I still could not connection to "God" which made me think the things you said was true. There was no place for me in spirituality.

Saturday when I was so upset about the way the word "God" was invoked and was given credit for writing the literature in Narcotics Anonymous, all the old abuse issues came right back and suddenly I questioned how in the fuck did I let myself be vulnerable again.

I have a love concept of a Higher Power. If a Muslim, or a Jew or a Buddhist would have been speaking I would not have felt my body shut down and go into protect from abuse mode.

I do not know if I will EVER no associated the word GOD with anything that is approachable or connectable to any way of life I have. Nothing good has ever happened to me that is associated with that word-God.

I usually just sub in "Higher Power" when I hear the word God in a meeting but there was just to much mention Saturday and the whole gathering seem to take on the feel of an old camp revival.

Fun with Murray and Forrest pictures

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/yHj7wS3s7CPr9kUf