The Valley of Decision

Comfort Spiral Blog quoted some old testament and got me going . . . I'm too lazy to check the wording but there is a verse in Joel that goes 'multitudes and multitudes in the valley of decision, the sun and the moon are gone and the stars hve withdrawn their light'.

Hauntingly contemporary, written over 2000 years ago. I hated studying old testament last year for the first few months of EfM until I realized that life is filled with old testament truth.

This year three of us are looking at the new testament. The class hasn't jelled, yet but I have ***faith**** that it will.

And the Dance Begins

Despite all my good intentions, I have felt lousy the last three days. Friday night I invited myself along to a new meeting. It was a nice size, had brief readings, met for an hour, no break. All meat and good to go, my kind of meeting.

The subject grew to be about honesty and I sat there wondering what is my truth. I sat in my morning meeting the next day and wondered if I could get to my truth in a meeting where I've attended under a different context. Nothing feels simple or knowable to me and I will never be able to sort it out by myself or in random conversations with others. Nope, this calls for the assistance of a professional!

So, I asked and she said yes and she said 'this is what we're going to do'. And she was pleased to be asked to dance.

My new sponsor. Just in time for advent.

The 'It Doesn't Matter' Club

I went to the alkathon on Wednesday night and heard several speakers who had relapsed and I heard them use the words 'it didn't matter'. It resonated because it has been in my thoughts this week.

What I had to do was talk about it out loud in the meeting.

There is no doubt in my mind that if it weren't for my meeting membership and involvement, I would have drank. Not because life is hard, yadda, yadda. Simply because I don't care that much, it doesn't matter. It's the club that I belonged to before I ever took a drink. If I had no group to look in the eye, I would have drank but, the thing is that I made a public pledge, I picked up a chip awhile back and each month, I have picked up another chip. I have to believe that it matters because if I put them to a vote, they would vote that it does. So, I suspend my own disbelief and follow the wisdom of the group. They carry me on the days or weeks that I don't care.

And I know one thing which is, whether I reach long term sobriety or not is not of interest to me. Today, just for today, a drink is not going to benefit me. Each day, that is the truth for me.

Glory Be!

Transformative Weekend still having it's effects. Three days in a row of moving, personal conversations with patients at work. Still soft around the edges where there used to be bristling. What I realize is that if I really look into people's eyes and speak from spiritual place, just say the words that come to my mind, I make personal connection that I never have before.
And it's me speaking. Not platitudes.

And . . . interesting thing . . . for whatever reason, this morning at the meeting I had to come clean and say that I didn't think that I was going to drink because I'm getting a chip on Friday but that I'm thinking about it a lot. Drinking, not the chip.

Thinking things like 'it doesn't matter', past holiday/winter drinks floating through my brain. Last winter, I discovered adding brandy (or anything!) to eggnog to cut the sweetness. How adult of me. It was really good. It's not fair that I just discovered it last year and I have to give it up so soon.

So, I took the risk of opening up to the group. Some of them have seen me through the whole 4 years that I've been going there. The years that I identified myself as Carol, Alanon-CoDA.

I have one thing in common with the old timer. It's a day at a time. Today, I have no real interest or plan to imbibe any substance, it would not add anything good to my day. Beyond that, I can't commit to any pledges, it still an experiment to me. One worth continuing.

With that said, I have to leave you. It's time to slap some food together and take it to the St Lucy's Alkathon, I'll be a little late for the kick off but there will be a seat for me no matter what time I arrive.

Transformative Weekend

For the past couple months I've been under the care of a body worker that does mind/body/soul work. Shift your energy-get it out-pray it up kind of stuff. She recommended a local weekend retreat co-lead by her in association with the Shalom Mountain organization in the Catskills.

Wow. It was an overwhelming, head-spinning, get me out of here, I love you/I hate you, give me more kind of time. All I can really say is that the changes keep rolling out. My heart is softer, my attitude has lost it's edge (please God, keep it lost, one day at a time) and I love and thoroughly appreciate my life.

A work friend pulled me aside today and asked me if I was seeing someone because I seemed so vibrant and happy. For the first time in years, I would actually welcome that happening.

Relief, joy and radical acceptance a day at a time.

Nano Heads--see my Blog Roll for Help

This is me, the non-NaNoWriMo member with a Kool-aid stand handing out refreshment at mile 21. A great blogger, generous woman, now published author, seasoned NaNo writer blogged on revision tips. First rule, complete your novel no matter what. You can't revise thin air. She is on my Blog Roll as Yarn a Gogo.

She's a knitter, what can you say? I started reading her years ago, she was my first and only for quite some time. She has many ideas, so if there is anything in her post that you can warm yourselves on, my day on this planet has not been in vain.

It has been a day. A wonderful day. An old man professed his love for his wife, thanked me for listening and then gave me an apple.

I am quite thankful for HeSheEverybodyGod and hishertheir tender mercies. That's what's good about today.

The Experiments Continue

Number One: The Friday after Thanksgiving will mark 5 months of no alcohol, no mind altering substances, prescription or otherwise. I still view it as an experiment. But I took my temperature today and, no, alcohol is still not a neutral subject and so the experiment continues.

Number Two: I returned home today from a local version of a Shalom Mountain retreat. It was awful, I feel wonderful. It moved me to send an email of gratitude to an old girlfriend who I haven't seen in a number of years.

I am convinced of magic.

Your Life is Your Art

Time for me to take a break for awhile. The feel of my life is changing for the better. The anxiety eases as I relax into my inner authority, my grounding in source. I'm still reading your posts but feel less of a need or energy to write.

Hasta la vista, talk soon!

Interconnected

Lately I've stumbled across this, thankfully so as it gives me hope. I tear up when I realize that everything I think or touch or hold came through someones hands.

The house I live in was someone's idea and hard work. The coffee I drink was picked by someone far away and ground somewhere else and fills up a mug that came from somewhere else. The music streamed to me on Pandora is decades old, done by men and women who have passed on to something else.

My fingerprint is in the world also. But how can I ever feel alone when I think of the string of biological DNA that connects me to the stream of humankind and the bolt of cloth that is spun out of you and me that is us.

Alone and being ungrounded in source is just a delusion. I was lost and now am found.

Prayer for the Day

Renewable each day.

Let me be kind to myself. Let me be kind to others.

Shy Girl

Even though I was feeling pretty cozy this morning, I could not quite bring myself to talk about how important the group has been to me. Well, I did say that but did not go into the scroll-openers/school of fish analogies that I posted yesterday.

Timing is everything and it wasn't the right time.

I'm doing some spiritual healing body work with someone that I have a lot of faith in and she wants me to go to retreat next weekend. I had briefly considered it, she mentioned a $100 off as a scholarship incentive. It's connected with Shalom Mountain in the Catskills. I will probably do it but am not ready to say yes to it yet. I've been down with a cold and feeling ragged. I have reservations against it which come down to one thing. Am I willing to risk being uncomfortable to change? Or am I attached to my own brand of misery with which I'm well acquainted.

At any rate, it's an honor to be asked, as they say. Everything in it's own time. They say that too.

Scroll Openers

The term was used in a religious reader this past reader in reference to a verse from the Book of Revelations in the Bible. Scroll Openers referring to person(s) who lead you to understand your own spirituality in connection to the bigger spiritual picture. Showed you the bigger world, so to speak.

I would have to say that my morning group has acted in that way for me. Steadfastly but always different players sliding into place, like a school of fish that swim with me, effortlessly guiding me and informing my every move.

That's what's good about today.

NaBloWriMo

That is supposed to be National Blog Writing Month, just someones idea to challenge us I guess. Barring more power outages, I can do that much.

I gave some thought to NaNo etc this month but I spend brain power trying NOT to get carried away by the story of life that I don't think it's fair for me to ask it to create a big one. So, today's post is just to claim my seat. I don't have much to say because I keep fighting with this cold that is gaining the upper hand today.

What's good about today is the bloggers who have the daily habit down cold. Thanks to DAave and Louisey and Cloudia who en-lighten and en-courage us daily with their views of the world. You all make mine a little bigger.

Acceptance

When all else fails, right? Seriously, I had a greeting card hanging up for the longest time before I ever knew that the message is from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Basically, the page instructs me that any kind of problem that I have can be simplified to a lack of acceptance on my part. Wherever there is pain in my life, irritation with others or despair, the chances are great that my suffering will ease once I let go of my willfulness and accept my circumstances or situation.

Any kind of relief seeking that I have, whether I am tempted to have a 'reward' drink, seek a pharmaceutical solution, eat a bag of good doughnuts, or seduce a perfect stranger results from my unrest with who I am or what I'm doing. It stems from wanting to 'change it up' because what is happening is not good enough.

Imagine just living with the moment, just the way it has transpired. That's what's good about today.

What's Good About Today

A good day to be sober, free of chemicals and obsession. Blessed Be.

Connected Again

Ah the amazement of it all. The water flows, the light is on and on and on, the abundance of choice surrounds me. Where are we without the cycle of have and have not and have. Rinse, repeat.

That's what is good about today.