THE GOD THING-ME?

THE GOD THING-ME?

Had some great feedback over taking a first step, powerless and unmanageable! Thanks. I learn from hearing from others.

I sometimes wonder if I’m not addicted to golf. Played twice over the weekend. Each day, even on the occasions of playing very poor shots, I am amazed by how I don’t get angry. This is behavior that only started after I awoke spiritually. To boot, I am nearly 100% of the time I’m on the course aware of the beauty of nature that surrounds me, and the peace that is there when I quiet.

I play with some very interesting people. A man I call a friend, and who was terribly addicted, was a golf partner. He hit his bottom nearly a year ago, and has been free of his mood altering substance of choice for just about a year. The change in him and his relationship with those he loves the most is a miracle, and I truly enjoy his company.

His life is still terribly busy and filled with problems.

During our time together, we talked about finding a higher power who could restore us to sanity and who we were willing to lives and will over to. I always remember, my higher power gives me free will and allows me mistakes!

The “god” thing is often a tough concept for people new to recovery and self-discovery to deal with. For me, I had been badly let down by formal religion, and at 20, had closed my mind to the god that group of people followed. Many I run into have trouble with a god who will allow bad things to happen to people they love, or to them. What kind of god allows the natural disasters we frequently hear about? The whole higher power thing is more than they can handle.

For me, I came to understand that I did not run the world and everyone around me. In my own way, and in my own small world, I had tried, and ultimately failed. I always believed things happened for a reason, and my awakening started when I realized that there might be something outside of me and bigger than me that called the shots. And note, I said might.

There were a few people I knew who were more powerful than me, and initially they were my higher power. During a breakthrough conversation with a spiritual coach while I was in treatment, something happened to me that I to this day can’t explain, and I quit denying god and started to look. My eyes were open to a different world, and the small voice inside of me became stronger; I was listening better to it.

I saw others who had big addiction (sanity) issues, and were one day at a time free from them. A measure of sanity had returned to their lives. Yet others told me they could turn problems over to their higher power, and things got better. While I had real trouble for a while believing this could work, I at least became WILLING to give it a try.

From having no belief in anything bigger than my self for a very long time, and being angry at a god of my former church who had really dropped the ball and been consciously shut out and denied in my life, to a person who realized that there might be something bigger than me which could help my mental state and possibly I could turn to this source for help with living issues, was a quantum shift.

It was a shift I made much easier than I could have imagined because I became willing. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I didn’t get “religion” then, nor do I have it now in a text book way. While today I have nothing against any religion, I do not feel compelled to attend a church.

Over the last dozen plus years, I have found conscious contact with this higher power. For ease, I call this higher power god, we need a label for everything, but god to me is Good Orderly Direction.

Do not ask me to draw a picture of my higher power, but I can feel its presence whenever I make contact. I see and feel my higher power in all about me and within me. I hear my higher power through other people and in things I read. My higher power is alive in each and every living thing if I allow myself to see it! The relationship is in continuously more powerful state of evolution; it is the journey I’m on.

My first step was a tough one. Surrendering was not easy. The next steps, those which put a source of life itself back into my life were not easy, because I fought a truth. But I did come to believe and did become willing!

So, no religion per say today, but knowledge that there is a higher power at work in life today, yesterday, and in the today’s to come. I know this to be true, and am relieved I don’t have to run the show,

In my own way I have a god in my life today which is real to me, and who is always there a loves me, even if I hit bad golf shots!!

First Steps-Do You Remember?

First Steps-Do You Remember?

My parents and family have told me about my first steps. I certainly don’t remember them, but I am told I was an “early” walker.

Seems I was early at trying a lot of things-booze, girls, dope, motorcycles, lying, stealing, cheating! I was not early getting into a journey of recovery.

In many of my vices, I remember those first steps so well!

The first step on my journey to recovery I remember oh so well. The woman I loved announced she was leaving me, and in fact did so. This wasn’t the first step yet, but it sent me plummeting to a new bottom, a lower point in life than I’d ever been at.

I still had a house, still had cars, still had a job, still had some money, but had lost the person I cared most about. I went out of control emotionally. We sought a marriage coach because we loved each other, and it was this coach who led me to an addictions coach/mentor who got me to take that first step in the journey of recovery!!

Man, I remember that time in my life vividly!!

With a lot of help from others, I was introduced to a program of recovery, and worked with many others to take that first step; one of 12.

The first step told me that a group of people who had recovered, and many of whom were seemingly beyond help, had admitted that they were powerless over their addiction/or an addicted person, and their lives had become unmanageable.

Here I was a big shot in my own mind, seemingly reasonably successful to the outside world, all of the trappings. Me powerless? Me, the great manager, fixer, and controller of all around me, powerless?? My ego said no way, yet the small quiet voice said “Keith, it’s true, own it and move forward”.

That first step was real tough. Today I am properly proud that I had the courage to take the step, and follow the steps that gave me a spiritual awakening, a new purpose to life, and began a life long journey of loving life with no particular destination. As I’ve been taught, I’m trudging the road of happy destiny.

I’ve seen much discussion on the concept of powerlessness. Some say we are never powerless, and I can accept some of that logic. I have always had the power to make choices. When I made choices to take part in or use my mood altering “friends”, I was powerless over outcomes once I started. I had so many feelings stuffed inside of me that caused pain. I had no idea of how to identify these feelings and deal with them in a healthy way. My addictions were a temporary medication for the “soul” pain I felt, and at that first step, I was spiritually empty!

Unmanageable? Again, the outside world would look and think I had my “poop” together.

Few knew of the places I went late at night or the risks I took. I would hide my “dark side” and other life from people I knew. The love of my life was gone. I was crying a lot. My kids supported me the best they could, but were very concerned about my mental state and telling me I needed help. My good and loyal dog distanced himself from me (surprising how perceptive pets can be), I drove under the influence, people were pulling away from me, I suffered scrapes and bruises when I bumped into things; and more.

Unmanageable? My life?

In that first step, I remember accepting and then surrendering to the reality of the situation. It was humiliating and humbling, but the relief I got from that first step was indescribable. I didn’t have to lie and hide any more. Those who were coaching me and who had something I wanted told me that things would be OK, and that gave me hope!

I look back and remember each of my children, and now grand children, taking that first step. A little afraid, wobbly and uncertain, but knowing it was the time to do it and that they would be OK. Their first steps allowed them to explore a world bigger than anything they knew existed, and started them on a journey!

My first step in recovery began me on a journey to a life that I had not known as an adult, and I continue to walk this journey with determination, and humbled by the gifts of hope and serenity that I experience on a daily basis.

Is there a first step in an area of your life you need to take? I’m here to share and help.

Affirmations-Do You Love You?

Affirmations-Do You Love You?

Years ago I was introduced to the power of positive affirmations. Like those I introduce affirmations to today, at first I thought it was ridiculous.

At Homewood, a great treatment center I was at in 1994, they gave us not only a sheet of self-affirmations, but a list of qualities and asked us to rate ourselves against others in our group session.

Needless to say, myself, and most others, rated ourselves “less Than” those we compared ourselves against. What a surprise, most of us, although external egos in some still appeared large, felt inferior inside!

I truly wanted to change my life and get it back. So I was prepared to try whatever “they” told I might work.

On a daily basis, I stood in front of a mirror, looked myself in the eye, and read the positive things both staff and fellow patients had given to me. It was tough. I knew inside of me many of these things I was reading may be true about others, but were not true about me.

For a long time, well after my period in treatment was over, I kept up doing these affirmations. As I awoke spiritually, and stayed willing to change and worked daily to recover from my addictions, I could see truth in these affirmations and over time became comfortable in my own skin!

This was a miracle.

Well several of the people I coach today come in with a lot of bravado; they are stumped when I ask them to write down four personal characteristics about themselves in an “I am” statement. An example could be “I am able to love unconditionally”.

This is tough sledding for many!

For these people, I ask them to talk to others who love and care about them (spouse, children, parents, siblings, close friends) and come up with a list of 4 things others believe are great personal qualities of the client.

Then I ask them to start each day looking in a mirror and saying to themselves, with eye contact, 4 personal “I am “statements.

Funny, many can’t do it because their ego won’t let them. They can misrepresent themselves to others, and cannot accept themselves positively. Ask them for negatives, and they can rhyme them off!!

Those who do this simple practice, and work on the things we go through in coaching sessions, come back over time and tell me that they now know the “I am” statements are true. They begin to discover the good that is in all of us, and are now very “coachable”. They want to set and achieve life goals and live a balanced life.

No magic to this process and we all have good in us. I know from personal experience, and just like an athlete, coaching can help bring out the best of my talents.

Need coaching or need to discover the true and good you?

Write down four personal positive qualities about yourself. Get in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eye. Find out, do you love you??

Remember, you can’t give to others what you haven’t got inside of you!!