Sharing and Caring

[MajestyJo]

Keep It Simple

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is broken winged bird that cannot fly.
--Langston Hughes

Many of our dreams died as our addiction got worse. We felt the loss but couldn't speak it. With recovery, we regain our ability to dream. Dreams of sharing our lives with family and friends return. They push out thoughts of getting high. Dreams of pride and self-respect reappear. They replace the awful feeling of shame. Like the quote above says, "Hold fast to dreams...." Our dreams are our wishes for the future.
They hold a picture of who we want to be. In our dreams, we let our spirits soar. Often, we fell close to God, others and ourselves. Thanks God, we can dream again.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, thanks to you, my wings have been mended. Guide me as I fly.

Action for the Day: Today, I'll take time out to dream and share my dream with those I love.

When I came into recovery, I didn't dare to dream. I was an empty vessel, totally fragmented and had to be put back together and made whole. It was a long process and it was the Twelve Promises of AA that gave me Hope and I saw the program working in others that gave me hope that it would work for me too. I went back to school and took a computer course that allows me to do what I do today. At two years sober, I wanted to stand on the top of a newly built Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building and say, "Hey People, I have found a new way of living, let me tell you all about it."

A short time later, he put a young later he put a sponsee in my life, who knew a young man who couldn't read or write, but he could build computers. He made me a computer for $100. It had a one gig hard drive and I got on line on went on Matchmaker Recover and still share with a friend in Texas from that site in today. A few years later, my God put a man in my life who bought me a reconditioned computer, and the rest was history.

[MajestyJo]

What makes you happy? When I was asked in treatment, I did not know.

I had lived my life through others and did not know that I had a right to my own happiness.

I had been self-medicated for so many years, that I didn't have much of a sense of self or what I was feeling, and didn't know what to call it if I was aware of a one. I certainly had no awareness of happiness, I became Ms. Doom and Gloom. Fear and anger, maybe if I allowed myself the luxury.

What makes me happy in today? Being with friends and sharing with others. Listening to music. Playing bridge when I was able, haven't been able to play the last few years. A good book, especially a J. D. Robb, a Fern Michaels, a Catherine Coulter, a Lee Child, a James Patterson, and so many more, every changing as I change. Being out in nature. Meditation and prayer and connecting to my Higher Power. The inner peace that I find as a result of this program. The freedom from active addiction.

The gift of having family and friends, even though they can test my Serenity, and I have to practice my program when I am with them, they are a blessing.

The greatest gift of all is the gift of myself. The freedom to be me. Not only the freedom from addiction, one day at a time (always have to work on that emotional sobriety), but the freedom of choice. As a long-timer put it so nicely so many years ago, "I choose not to let bad moments in my day, spoil a whole day."

Just for today, I choose not to use. Just for today, I choose not to abuse myself or others. Anything that I pick up and put between me and my God, becomes my drug of choice in today. It is up to me to choose sobriety (soundness of mind) or allow myself to slip back into old patterns, behaviours, and habits.

Just for today, I choose to live clean. I choose to be a clean clear channel. Some days I pick up thinks, like over the holidays (chocolates, pies, etc.) that have left my body toxic, and I have had to do a cleanse to clear my body of the toxins, not only because of my diabetes, but because of my spiritual sobriety. Knowing and doing anyway, isn't right!

Food can be a happy occasion as long as I choose healthy and what is good for me. If I don't, I end up with guilt and resentment that I can't eat the way I use to.

A lot is my attitude. I know there are alternatives. I can eat dark chocolate.

In a way, it reads like a gratitude list. As long as I remember to be grateful, I will find lots of things that will grant me happiness.

Happiness is a feeling and isn't always there but is something we can cultivate. It is a choice.

What makes you happy today?

[MajestyJo]

Haven't been feeling well, not sure what the problem is, I think I have a virus. Just aching all over, and not feeling up to par. Not much physical pain that I normally have, just one big ache, no appetite, no energy, feeling blah, and hopefully my words don't sound the way I feel. I have been surfing old posts trying to lift my spirits, heal, and find some new awareness. It is always good to go back and read old posts, not only to see where I was at, but to just get some food for the body, mind, and spirit. To fill up and top myself up when I am not feeling good.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

[MajestyJo]

It has been a quiet holiday. My son has been with my, not always by choice, but out of necessity, no money to go out and party. He talked about detox, but has been detoxing here and hasn't been feeling all that great and has been cutting back on cigarettes as well.

It has been thank God for wrestling and movies, along with a marathon of The Big Bank Theory. I have been grateful that I have two TVs, even though I live in a one bedroom apartment. Life can be made up of little things which bring us small pleasures. For me it has been a James Patterson book, my music, Master Chef Junior, the Food Network, and The Taste this evening and last night I brought the year in with Keith Urban and the rest of the evening, I channel surfed.

We have been enjoying good food along with the opportunity of going to bed and sleeping when I felt like I needed to be there, no matter what time of day it was.

Today's thoughts have been about freedom of choice. I can choose to be happy or sad. Someone keeps telling me that I am not happy. Why should I not be happy? Am I not happy, just because I am not jumping up and down in the middle of the floor? I don't have the energy!

Even if there is a part of me that is feeling sad, that is okay too. It is a feeling and I have to accept that part of me too. There is a part of me that would like to move out of Hamilton, and then I ask myself, if I move out of Hamilton, "Where would I go?" There is no answer. Where ever I go, I take me with me. If I can't be happy here, I can't be happy any where, so place has nothing to do with happiness, although I would like to be in a place close to nature. Then I say to myself, "Why?" You can't drive. You are close to downtown. You are close to the library. You have a view of Hamilton Bay and an see the trees and the beauty of the city, hop on a bus or go for a walk and go to a park, so why are you trying to make your life difficult. Be happy where you are at, be in the moment and make the most of it. What aren't you doing? You aren't walking in the right direction? The park is the other way.

As they say, "What needs to be changed within me and with my attitude? What do I need to change to bring about a spiritual awakening?

[MajestyJo]

Have found that by sharing with others, it helps me. The other day, a friend came to mind and I picked up the phone and called her. She said, "Have had you on my mind and when dinner was over and my kids had gone out I was going to give you a call." She said, "I guess it is our spiritual connection." We have known each other for about 26 years, before I came into recovery. She told me about a new Dual Recovery Anonymous women's group not far from me that I may be able to walk to when the snow is gone. I spoke at a DRA meeting for her husband's 3 year anniversary about 10 years ago. He started a new meeting. It is for people who are dual addicted, especially for those who are on medication for mental disorders for depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress, and other mental disorders.

They use AA literature, and the meeting is 10 a.m. on Thursday mornings, so hope to check it out once the weather cooperates and the sidewalks are clear. Doors open when the time is right. The meeting is about a 5 to 6 block walk from my place.

[MajestyJo]

Have found it difficult adjusting to having a link that take me to all the readings. I am use to copying them out and sharing on certain ones daily. I need to broaden my horizons.

The following is a good example. There is so much more on the new link than what I use to read and I would have missed out on the blessings and the food for thought.

“Silence is one of the hardest things to refute.”
–Josh Billings

For so many years, I had trouble being alone with silence, always had to fill it up. Even if I was alone, I had to have that noise. When I was with someone else, heaven forbid, one of us had to be talking, there was none of that 'comfortable' silence. Never thought of it as 'refuting' it, yet in a way I can see it as a way of controlling, rebelling, fear, insecurities, and a lot of other things, that an alcoholic/addict goes through emotionally and mentally. Not too sure about Earthlings, but I think those are pretty common feelings for everyone.

I like to think of it is God Space in today. As it says in Step Three, listen for the quiet and talk to God.

I also need to look at what kind of thoughts I use to fill that empty space.

Found this on one of my sites while I was looking for some food to calm the soul as I could not sleep.

I am a firm believer in what goes around comes around. What I think, let alone what I say, is put out there and projected onto others and what goes around comes around.

It is so important to be honest and open. It is even more important to think good thoughts!

I am where I am in today as a result of choices made. That is why I try to make healthy choices in today.

Posted in 2010. The site Star Choices is gone.

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_...me/261280.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfK7D1FyGY4

Is it loving, sharing, and caring?

[MajestyJo]

Keep It Simple
February 25

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
—William James

Step Two speaks of believing. For many years, we had given up believing in ourselves, in a Higher Power, and in others. We believed in getting high. Now our program tells us to believe in love. We are lovable, and we can love others without hurting them. Of course, believing is an important part of recovery.

To believe means to put aside our doubts. To believe means to have hope. Believing makes the road a little smoother. So, believing lets the healing happen a little faster. All of this is how we get ready to let in the care of our Higher Power.

Today I was talking to my hairdresser about this, how sometimes I don't always care how I look and how I create my day by my attitude toward myself. We are Co-Creators of our own universe. If I don't feel good about myself, I won't feel good.

So often we miss the goodness in others because we judge the book by the cover. We don't see the whole person because we turn a blind eye because we don't like the person doesn't mean our expectations or our vision of who we feel they should be or who we feel they look, act, think, etc., often forgetting that they are a reflection of our inner self and it takes one to know one.

[MajestyJo]

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT -- IT WILL BE GONE AND YOU WON'T KNOW WHERE IT WENT!

So many times, we think we will quit when we have obtained what we want or some other excuse, especially the only about not wanting to quit while we are still having a good time.

The price gets higher. It takes more drug and alcohol to get that normal high we use to get when we first start out. Things stopped working and we had to look for other things. Through it all we lost ourselves.

We think of all we had and wonder where it went.

When is enough going to be enough?

This is a quote from a post made in 2009.

In this world everything changes except good deeds and bad deeds; these follow you as the shadows follow the body.
--Ruth Benedict

It reminded me of geographical cures. Where ever I go, I take me with me.

[MajestyJo]

Happy Easter everyone. Sorry my posts are late today. Spring is here in Canada. We have had a lot of rain for two days and my arthritis is slowing me down and making posting difficult.
I am having problems concentrating and thinking through the pain so have to take a break. Will check back in later.

They say we are going to get snow on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I don't need to walk anywhere and my niece will take me to my sister's on Sunday, so my days of busy and stocking up were for a good reason, although unknown at the time.

[MajestyJo]

April 17

Resolve to be thyself; and know that who finds himself, loses his misery.
--Matthew Arnold

Our need for approval compels us to try to look good - no matter what's going on. We imagine that somehow everything will be okay as long as it looks okay. Our hearts may be breaking from fear, disillusionment, and rejection, real or imagined, but we keep smiling so that no one will guess. Why do we do this to ourselves? Is it so hard to turn to a friend and say, "Hey, I'm hurting. I've been having a bad time and I need help"? Would the earth tremble if we said it right out, just like that?

We're not likely to get what we don't ask for. Instead of denying that our knees are shaking, our hands are sweating, and our stomachs are in torment, we can admit and share the truth. We don't have to say "Fine!" when someone in the program asks us how we're doing. Our real friends aren't impressed by stiff upper lips; they're impressed by personal honesty.

Today, I will tell someone the truth about how I feel. If I'm not fine I won't say that I am.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

Really liked this reading today. How often when asked how we are, we say, "Oh, I am just fine." We minimize how we feel or discount our feelings. Most of us know that fine means: Frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and emotions or enjoying it. Some say totally flocked up, but I prefer to say frustrated, but that is generally the true feeling along with fear. To get in this stage, it is because I have let go of faith, and not only lost faith in myself, but blocked out God because I have blocked out the negative and therefore, blocked out out any goodness from getting in too.

I need to look at how to change the negative into a positive. If I feel crappy, acknowledge it and then look at how I can change it; instead of ignoring it and hoping it will go away.

[MajestyJo]

Days of Healing Days of Joy

When I grow up, I want to be a child. - D. H.

Some of us adult children need to grow up before we can be the children we never were. It may take years to grow old and wise enough to be young, but it's possible. With enough insight, determination, and change we can regain our lost childhood.

What does it take to do that? First, it takes a decision, and then it takes the willingness to build the necessary skills. How much is it worth to reclaim that childhood? Is it worth everything? That's how much commitment needs to be behind the decision. No wistful "wouldn't it be wonderful if" will do it.

What are the skills of a child? Openness, lightheartedness, trust, the ability to expect wonderful surprises. Those of us who didn't learn these attitudes effortlessly and naturally will have to practice. But if we choose to, we can learn. We can learn to build sand castles, to wonder about mysterious possibilities, and to expect the good in each new day. The world surrounding little children is the same world
surrounding us. The viewpoint is the crucial difference. For us, a merry heart is a matter of choice.

Today, I will pray for young eyes and a young heart.

A good reminder. One person told me that I was a child that never grew up. Another said that I never learned to play and have fun because I took life so seriously and had so much fear of doing things wrong. I was told I was responsible and I carried the world on my shoulders and thought that if something went wrong, no matter what, it was my fault, I caused it. It was so freeing to learn 3 Cs. I didn't cause it, couldn't cure it, and couldn't change it. All I could change was me. I could go back and learn to have fun. I could go back and give that Inner Child the fun she missed out on. I could let go of the fear that restricted her for years. I can't change others, I can't change my past, put I can change things in today.

I don't remember a lot of things from my childhood. It is ironic that the words that often played in my head were my mom saying, "Look at what you made me do." I think she only said it once. I don't know why she said it; and yet I replayed those words many times over. It is long past time to let them go and recognize them for what they are. For one thing, I didn't have the power to make her do anything. It was not my fault and I couldn't make her do anything. It was a falsehood. That in itself was hard to believe and accept. My mother was a good Christian woman who didn't drink, smoke, and cuss you out. She did have a food addiction, a husband who was an alcoholic and she didn't know about Al-Anon and she had no way of dealing with her emotions and feelings. He left her with three girls and went off to work or to carouse with no transportation on a farm in the country, 3 miles from the highway and a mile from her nearest neighbor. She was a very brave and courageous woman. She died as a result of her disease at the age of 40 when I was 20. She didn't have the tools to pass on to me. She did the best that she could with what she had, the same as I did.

I firmly believe she had Fibromyalgia the same as I have. I also have an eating disorder. On my journey, I was put on Valium at 16 and qualified as an alcoholic many times over, perhaps when I stole that first glass of communion wine when I was 10 years old. It might not have been until I was 26 when I went out with this salesman who drank so much that I worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up to him. At the end of my second marriage, it was "God help his soul if he had one more drink than I did." It was a disease of progression. A family disease that affected everyone who came in contact with the dis-ease of alcoholism.

[MajestyJo]

Sorry that I have gotten behind in some of the sections, I haven't been feeling too well. Today was a good example, I laid down just after 3 p.m. and woke up just before 6, rolled over and didn't wake up until the alarm went off at 7 p.m. I fell asleep twice last night in my chair watching TV.

I just haven't had the head to go into my books and files to get new material and seem to have a mental block. Things aren't speaking to me and if they are, I am not hearing them.

I am not sure if I am on time out or in transition. I just know that more will be revealed.

I think it is a health issue with my blood pressure being up and down, and yet that only means more prayer and meditation. I have had pressure in my head and a ringing in my ears which has been disturbing. My doctor ordered strong narcotic medication which I don't want to take, I don't see him until the 20th. The pain in my head doesn't warrant taking them.

I just can't do as much as I have been, so just do what I can when I can. It bothers me to be posting at night instead of the morning, and it has taken a lot of acceptance to get there, but it is either that or not at all.

Thank you for being a part of my journey.

[MajestyJo]

The spiritual enlightenment for me was the phrase, "If you have to control it, it is alreadyout of control!"

I had heard this phrase around the rooms for several years and it mean nothing to me. I kept coming, I didn't think I was an alcoholic, but I wanted what the people in the rooms had. I knew I didn't want to go back to where I came from, so I just kept coming.

I thought maybe if just kept coming, some of what you head would rub off onto me. So I came, and said, "Hi, my name is JoAnne, and I am an alcoholic" and was in total rebellion, with the attitude, "I'll say it if I have to, and went through the alcoholic/addict stage. Ironically, I knew I was an addict, and I think it was because I knew the meaning of the word. Or I could relate it to chips, or cookies, and the feeling of more, but couldn't identify the alcoholism. I knew I misused and abused my medication, but it wasn't until many years later that I came to know it as dried-up alcohol.

I came but I did all the wrong things, I compared instead of identifying. I don't like beer, I didn't have black outs, I didn't pass out after so many drink, I could drive the car after drinking all day and night and not get pulled over, I could walk a straight line (my son use to say he looked out the window and saw Mom bringing B**** home). I didn't go to jail, I didn't get tickets, I didn't get cut off at the bar, and the list went on, and on, and on.

After I heard the phrase above, I came to realize "Don't look at what you didn't do, but look at what you did do!"
That was a different story. I decided I would rather be an alcoholic.

It wasn't until God saw fit to give me a dream to let me see how others saw me when I was drinking. I was a first class, manipulating b**ch, who told everyone how to do it, what to do, when to do it, and was aggressive and a loud mouthed person that I wouldn't have wanted for a friend. I had assumed that the reason that people had back away from us because of my ex-husband's drinking, when it truth, it was probably my conroling, manipulating and nagging ways. Now that was a spiritual awakening, and I was two years in the program. I was sober but I can honestly say I didn't have true sobriety until then. Sobriety for me means soundness of mind. You can't have sobriety and be in denial and life of secrets and control. I was continually at war with myself, and often with those around me because I didn't have my own knowingness. I only knew what was told to me, and I had to find my own path and my own truth.

My spiritual adviser said, "You will learn two thing. 1) How to work your program. 2) How not to work your program.

Keep coming, so you won't have to come back.

Post from 2004

My life is unmanageable when managed by me. I didn't understand the word powerless until I put in the word control, and I saw that it was all an illusion. I was wrapped up in my own denial and not wanting to see what everyone else could see, and I was the last to know. I was looking outward, I compared instead of identifying, and my biggest fear was looking within. The old tapes told kept the door closed and I had to open the door and let the light in.

The only way I was able to do that was to go to meetings. I went to two meetings a day for two years, and a day at a time, I brought the body and the mind followed and the heart and soul healed. The people in the program loved me back to good health.

Today I come to the site, sometimes twice a day.

[MajestyJo]

Today in my meditation, I pulled the skunk card. It means respect. I not only need to respect others, I need to respect myself. To do that, I often have to set a boundary or reinstate one that I had allowed someone to cross.

It says, "If you ego is not your amigo, you know it stinks!"

If I think I am too good and better than, there is a good chance that I am not living a spiritual program. I felt guilty about not being able to post, and did a real number on myself. Yet in truth, I didn't feel like I had a lot to give and I was in so much pain, I had trouble thinking through it. The reality is, I know that if I come to the site and share, I feel better.

I did have to stay off the computer for physical reasons, but then when I started feeling better, I found it difficult to get back to posting. That just shows how much isolation can block the spirit and harm the soul.

Thanks for letting me share.

[MajestyJo]

Working on a resentment at the moment. Got back from my friend's 32 AA anniversary and feeling good. I am sitting here trying to post and the music from Hess Village with is about block from me, seems to be getting noisier and noisier. It is just after midnight and the music and noise will only continue to get louder from now until about 4 a.m.

Tonight it feels like an intrusion. Sometimes it is annoying and it is EVERY night, but the music just doesn't seem to fit the good space I am in. The words that came to mind was "Get over it!" It makes me laugh, just like I could "get over my disease," yea right! I couldn't do it on my own, which means I have to do some prayer and meditation and then when I want to go to bed, I will have to put in the ear plugs.

Weekends are worse of course because there are more people and they don't have to go to work tomorrow for the most part. I certain wasn't considerate of others when I was using. Pay back is a b*tch! Tonight I feel like I have paid my dues, but then when I think about it, I used for 39 years, and I am coming up on 24 years of sobriety on Friday of next week, so it looks like I still have some indirect amends to make, so I will let these people enjoy themselves, wish them health, luck, and prosperity and be grateful that I am not them and I won't wake up tomorrow with a hangover.

I do have a choice, I could wake up with a hangover too if I choose not to deal with my feelings. I would wake up with an emotional hangover.

God grant me the Serenity
To Accept the things I cannot Change
The Courage to Change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the Difference.
Amen.