Recovery

Abstention. Just for today.

by Rebirth Your Life

Abstention is the act or habit of deliberate self-denial. Twenty eight years ago this week I gave up Alcohol, nicotine, sugar in my tea and all recreational mood altering drugs. I had no choice really for they gave ME up, white flag . . end of.

I tried giving up 14 months before in 1981 when Professor Macintyre, leading world authority on Liver disease at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School London, said I had less than 4 months to live if I carried on drinking. It took 8 relapses over a 14 month period to see finally that I had a DRUG PROBLEM. Even in running away to Saudi Arabia a few months after the Royal Free warning did not deter me from smuggling half bottles of whiskey into Jeddah, alongside amyl nitrate crystals. No worries when it came to my 17 year habit of scoffing valium unprescribed, I just bought them over the counter in Saudi pharmacies like buying chocolate bars. The same happens in India now, with the over 50’s stocking up on Valium & Viagra at giveaway prices, some buy boxes and boxes to sell back home to fund their winter break.

Always nudge a pensioner in a supermarket for a drug drop.

Looking back it was dope, hash, cannabis, weed that did me in. I couldn’t smoke a joint without seeing a fresh rack in front of me. I wasn’t that keen on smoking dope either, convincing myself that smoking it caused time delays and feelings of being in blackout, so I learnt to grate it onto buttered Ritz Crackers, woofing it down in one. Awful things happened when I danced with dope, often waking to a sea of frantic faces ” do you know what you have done? “.

Eventually I surrendered the lot when I went to self help anonymous recovery meetings around addiction and I have been clean since that first meeting in October 1982.

Previously I thought giving up would make me a social pariah, that I didn’t like people telling me what to do, that I knew best. I also had to rid myself of the notion that something, some avenue of escape was being ” snatched ” from me. In the end as an act of surrender I quietly put my toys on the table and began the walk into adulthood, responsibility and eventual spiritual direction.

Yes we do recover, but it is not a given or a gift. The gift is to be aware that addiction lurks in the deepest pockets of the ego, the misplaced self that thinks it knows best. Could I safely use again? Some Breathworkers have suggested that if I find the right affirmation, or the wrong core of my being to be challenged then I would master it. The truth is I have mastered it, just for today and the 28 years before it, to be conscious at all times, fully alive and free from active addiction.

As for tomorrow, I work the same spiritual request as TAV SPARKS, Stanislav Grof Holotropic Breathwork Trainer, as suggested in his book THE WIDE OPEN DOOR : The Twelve Steps, Spiritual Tradition & the New Psychology.

It works – if you work it.

_________________

” The 12 Step Programmes are a brilliant and effective path to healing oneself. I feel they are a major spiritual path in the world today and will end up bringing more people to their own inner Spiritual connection than any other source ” – SHAKTI GAWAIN

– author of  Creative Visualisation, Return To the Garden, Living In the Light, and Path of Transformation: How Healing Ourselves Can Change the World.

 


Sondra Ray

by Rebirth Your Life

Sondra Ray was one of the early pioneers of Rebirthing Breathwork in the mid 1970’s and creator of The Loving Relationship Training ( LRT ). I joined LRT in 1988 and began a 3 year adventure with Diana Robert’s London Rebirthing 2000 Training in London assisting Sondra in London & Madrid. Diana brought Rebirthing to the UK in 1980, was Sondra’s organiser in London for over 20 years and as LRT Trainer supported Europe in creating LRT Centres. She has remained an avid supporter of my work and style of teaching, especially around codependency and relationship recovery.

. . . but this is, in Sondra’s words, how REBIRTHING . . . is for everyone.

”  Rebirthing is Sacred. Once I thought it was a scientific process. Once I thought it was therapy just to heal my birth trauma. I did not understand it all then. But one thing for sure, I NEVER thought it was silly. I always knew it was the hottest thing on the planet. That is how I always felt about it, right from the beginning.

Rebirthing is like a sacrament because you are partaking of the Holy Spirit. Rebirthing is more than just breathwork. It is taking in Divine Energy into your body in such a way that God is making love to you.

Rebirthing is Life-giving. It can even bring Youthing of the body. It brings spontaneous healings. It brings joy. It brought me everything I ever wanted.

That is why I became one of the first Rebirthers in the world.

I wanted to spread the news to everyone. The only reason someone might not want all of that would have to be fear; fear of letting go, fear of danger, fear of death, or in general fear of slaying the ego. People may fear rebirthing because of these ideas in their heads, and yet the irony is that Rebirthing will REMOVE those very fears. You pump them out on the exhale. Rebirthing continues to take away my fears and the fears of my clients and friends who have stuck with it. We consider it a wonderful life long spiritual path.

To me, it is one of the ultimate gifts from God. Rebirthing is Drinking the Divine. It is also drinking the everlasting nectar of Immortality. When I took Rebirthing to Russia, the doctors there scientifically proved that it produces rejuvenation of the body. So Rebirthing is like discovering the Fountain of Youth. It is having the gentle breath of bliss and the power of vitality charging the body.. It is the thrill of thrills and the serenity of peace at the same time. In this simple breathing process, one can permanently release tensions in the body, symptoms of pain and disease, fears of failure, fears of success, fears of love, fears of death and the beliefs and programming of old age. It will wash out misery . It is the ultimate Cosmic Bath!

Rebirthing is for everyone. No matter who you are or where you are on the path or on the planet. It will take you higher than you ever thought you could go. You will enter the Banquet Hall of Eternity. You will wonder how you ever lived without it. You will drink the everlasting nectar of joy and your heart will awaken to eternal passion. Rebirthing is something you will want to do for life. Eventually , after your rebirther says you are ready, you can learn to rebirth yourself. Initially you should plan to have ten sessions with a rebirther of your choice. You will hear people talk about dry rebirthing and group rebirthing. Dry rebirthing is done lying down on the bed or floor (clothed) next to your rebirther who guides your session.

Group rebirthing is done in a large room where a group of people (who have been well prepared) lie down together with the guidance of a very experienced set of rebirthers. This is best done during a two day workshop. You should continue dry rebirthing until you have worked out the bulk of your birth trauma and a breath release has occurred. Then you can learn to rebirth yourself.

Barbara Marciniak says that awareness and use of the breath are the essential KEYS for understanding and developing the higher mind during this astounding spiritual evolution. She states that we can use the breath to stabilize ourselves to have more energy to enhance our immune systemto create beneficial brain waves to activeate transcendental knowledge from the Source to reach higher frequencies

Besides all that one must add to heal ones body to release tension to have better relationships to rejuvinate. “

Love Sondra

www.sondraray.com

The starburst group breathe (above) was part of The Australian Academy of Rebirthing & Breathwork 10th Anniversary Conference in South Australia 2010, where I was invited to be Guest Speaker. All participants were experienced and completed a Rebirther Training with the Academy. However, you do not need to know about Rebirthing in order to experience it in a group, or connect with Sondra’s descriptive language. I am inclined to avoid her style of vernacular, preferring a more earthy approach, but hey . . . we can’t all ride the same bike. As my work is often confrontational – flowery language is curtailed – but generosity of experience, strength and hope is not.

Control Freak!!

by Rebirth Your Life

In order to explore the breath fully you need to learn to let GO. Christina Thomas in her book SECRETS, published 1989 describes the following conundrum :

” ARE YOU CONTROLLING or IN CONTROL?

This is a very important distinction! Whether you are controlling or in control of your life will make a very major difference in the quality of your health, your business affairs and all your relationships. If you have a thought that you must control your life or anything in it, then you are working very hard. And there is no reason to attempt to control anything! Think about that for a moment. Can you control anything? do you have the power to control that your heart will be beating even two minutes from now? Of course not! But if you have not examined this subject, you may have a thought that you must control things.

As you begin to trust your unconscious self more, you will be able to begin surrendering, willing to do your best and give it to the God energies. It’s okay to be ” in control ” meaning centred, poised, balanced and using your intelligence to achieve optimum results. ” CONTROLLING ” is when you have a thought that you have to do it by yourself or that you have to MAKE something happen or not happen. Control is a form of fear and is the opposite of love. if you have any doubt about this, just look around in your life and locate a person who is very controlling and see if you feel loved thereby. People turn to controlling instead of trusting life; somewhere along the line such people have made a decision that they are unsafe unless they control everything. Although that decision may have been forgotten, it is running the life of that person and demeaning the quality of his or her life experience.

If you honestly investigate this, you will realise that it is not possible to control anything. Just shifting the way you think about this will help you to relax and become more effectively in control.

EVERYTHING IS ALREADY PERFECT . . . . There is a vast and orderly intelligence at work in the Universe; it is functioning perfectly in your life, the chances are that you are controlling something – which is a way to keep the perfection away. You are, then, literally holding the perfection OUT! While it works to have a preference for a certain outcome, being ” attached ” to or insisting on having only a certain outcome is the way to disadvantage yourself.

Allow these concepts enough room to notice how they are working in your life!

Expert Witness

by Rebirth Your Life

Workshops are full of people who think they are experts, they think they know what’s best for us when they often hardly know what’s best for themselves. Such is life, and we eventually forgive those steeped in codependent armour, as well as ourselves for not speaking up while spoken too. I think that the only expert that works longterm is our OWN experience, and since we are often dismissive of ourselves, we dismiss the value of our input. When we witness honesty and emotion from deep sharing of others it can provoke vibrative memory of buried treasure, and help us to dig further within our psyche in order to achieve forgiveness. This is the real energy behind workshops and seminar probing.

Robin Norwood who wrote Women Who Love Too Much, set herself up as expert and ten years after forgave herself by writing WHY ME, WHY THIS, WHY NOW – A Guide to Answering Life’s Toughest Questions, when her life car crashed. She experienced true humility by going public and sharing this experience of falling off ivory towers. Within my 20 year journey of leading workshops I have heard amazing truths revealed, including incest, which plugs in the whole training.

She writes the following about an abuser.

” To truly forgive requires that we truly understand. We must be able to look clearly at the whole picture, recoil from none of it, deny none of it, accept it all. In a way this means that we must become EXPERTS regarding which that we must forgive, seeing all sides, not just our own.

An example : I was in a workshop on the treatment of incest many years ago when, halfway through the morning, one of the participants identified himself as an aggressor who had sexually abused his daughter. For a long moment there was a stunned silence. Then he went on to describe his incarceration, the therapy he and his family had received, and his recovery of many years duration.

He now counseled male offenders incarcerated for the same offences he had committed. With his wife and daughter, he participated in group discussions for the families of these men. His honesty created an environment that allowed other workshop participants to talk about their own experiences with sexual abuse.

Because he modeled courage and dignity and humility as well as honesty, he made it easier for some of the therapists in the room who were also incest victims to gain more understanding of the person who had violated them. We stopped interacting as professionals and became EXPERTS instead, drawing on our EXPERIENCE as we struggled to understand this human problem. Such understanding, when achieved, leads eventually to forgiveness – and forgiveness is the final step in our healing.

Through forgiveness we are forgiven. “

In sharing our deepest shames we dissolve the pain of holding on. I have attracted many women and men over two decades who are adult survivors of child abuse and used Rebirthing Breathwork to gently bring them back to feelings without overwhelm, recovery without self loathing, hope without silence. In 1992 my brother went to prison for pleading guilty to abusing his step daughter for 5 years. I had to forgive him, but closed the door on future contact as he was not ready to take responsibility for his actions. I left a contact number but no call has been dialed. Not my stuff.

I sometimes wonder where he is, whether his alcoholism rebirthed his life or whether amends have been made. Sometimes we don’t need to know.

Time Waster

by Rebirth Your Life

You may find you spend hours each day, or lie awake at night, worrying about your situation. You may torture yourself worrying where a certain person is and with whom.

You may go over and over the past, reminding yourself of the pain, or recounting every detail in an episode or project you have on-going, projecting a problem before it appears. Living this way is addictive for many – it’s called OBSESSION. There are all kinds of obsessive fixations, using WORK as the only way to feel good about oneself is one example, needing peoples approval is another or continuously thinking you are right is not an obvious fixation, but we all know someone who refuses to be wrong. In fact they are obsessively RIGHT.

An athlete can be obsessed about winning but this may not be an unhealthy fixation because the obsession holds a positive destination. Worrying about a friends health holds no purpose at all except to show them that you care at the cost of losing your own marbles. ” I was worried sick “, what’s the point of that? A total time waster. Showing you care holds many a stance, and can often be a subconscious game of manipulation and control. Caring for a sick friend healthily can mean just being available, or telling it like it is, tough love if required. I was told in my early days of recovery by a woman who genuinely cared for me, enough to say ” stop whining looking for sympathy “. It wont work. If that’s what you want look in the dictionary between shit and syphilis, that’s where you will find sympathy, and she was not wrong.

But Obsession does serve a purpose, even if it gives an illusion of power and control over life. Some people even see worry as an essential task and a visible sign of consideration. Scheming revenge, planning punishment and holding onto pain and resentment is a full time career for some people we know. The purpose of obsession is to be worn out by it, in final surrender of this futile practice. Letting go is not natural to the serial wounded. Fear of loss of control and the rise of omnipotence delivers compulsive behaviour, because the ego insists you ” do something ” rather than feel helpless, yet helplessness is the path to forgiveness and peace. Victimhood of the past or present moment stops you from solving the past or present moment simply because we have been trained to fight and struggle. Even the first sentence of Scott Peck’s THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED says ” Life is difficult”. It goes on to further : This is the great truth, one of the greatest truths ( The first of the “Four Noble Truths” which Buddha taught was ” Life is suffering “. ) Peck goes on to say : It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact of life is difficult no longer matters. And worrying about it – even less.

So the purpose of obsession is to transcend it.

Rehab will tell you that you can’t get well until you realise how sick you are. To paraphrase Peck : Once you let go of the problem, you find solution, which is why we need to let go of obsessional time-wasting demands that serve no purpose at all – like worry. Pecks conclusion to life as a series of problems is DISCIPLINE. Not the cold shower treatment or a scarcity diet but simply the simple adage that ” discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems “. Discipline simply means “to focus”.

In order to run the race of our life many think we need to be tarnished with an obsession, the obsession to get in the driving seat to tackle the Life Road head on, driving like a lunatic until we crash. It may be a minor scrape or a complete turnaround of the vehicle, no matter, the fact is that you have survived the journey to eventually become a back seat driver. Never to get in the front seat again.This is the magnificent obsession, the one to hold and cherish as a spiritual athlete, no longer needing to be in charge of the steering wheel. Yes we need to do footwork, which includes trust, but the destination is irrelevant.

Marianne Williamson wrote in her book A RETURN TO LOVE : ” Gods plan works, yours doesn’t “. This is why it’s wise to focus on the moment and not a goal in 5 years time.  It doesn’t stop me creating goals, it’s good to focus on a project, but it does stop me worrying about the destination. When I look back over the mind blowing moments of my life they were never of MY creation – a phone call, a social connection, an opportunity all ” came my way ” while I was doing something else. On one level I created it, but only because I was willing to receive without demand.

My favourite lesson in A Course In Miracles is “I will stand back and let Him lead the way”.

“Him” can be any spiritual energy you choose, I choose Haidakhan Babaji as my Master influence, my business manager, my mentor. He drives, I sit and witness the journey free of worry, free of timespan and free of anxiety. But it does require discipline to banish the ego and its mischief to avoid spiritual demand. This is the real work.

 

Take all of me . . .

by Rebirth Your Life

People seem to have got it into their heads that it’s a divine right to find a soulmate or lifetime partner, often feeling cheated by the world if they don’t turn up. Not so many decades ago a woman ” left on the shelf ” was a visible sin. A man who hadn’t married was deemed sad, gay or both. A son or daughter who stayed home looking after a parent was seen giving up the chance for love – for duty, and thus praised.

This romantic vision of being snatched by love, held tightly hostage is fueled by books, movies and musical lyrics. This illusion of wholeness is as rancid as old butter. Anne Wilson Schaef, the most progressive exponent of relationship recovery in the ’80s & ’90s said ” The realization of the extent of our relationship addictions, both individually and as a society, is shocking. However, there is no need to get depressed, because we can do something about it.” This following quote from her book When Society Becomes an Addict : Understanding The Social System, Reclaiming Our Personal Power – is food for recovering serial relationship addicts. You know who they are.

”    Dependent relationships are the norm within the addictive system of society. Addicts of any kind are invariably dependent or counter-dependent. Counter-dependency has been described in psychological circles as a reaction against extreme dependency. Counter-dependent people feel so dependent on others that they must convince them ( and the self ) that they do not need anyone at all and, hence, act so as to say : I don’t need anybody “. An addict , to recover, must recognize the need to rely on oneself and take care of oneself. Recovery is the realization that one has the ability to do this AND the ability to stay close to others without being dependent.This realization contradicts everything we are taught. From an early age we are told that dependency is the road to intimacy, and that two people cannot get close to each other unless they become mutually dependent. Two people are deemed intimate when they have reached the stage at which neither can function without each other. We call this the perfect union, the perfect marriage.

What I have observed, however, is that dependency DESTROYS intimacy.

The person being depended upon feels sucked dry, and the person doing the depending comes to resent the other. The relationship that once made both of them feel important and needed and secure eventually leaves them drained and exhausted. Over time they may even come to hate each other. In other words, the mechanism does not work the way we are taught it will work. “

What struck me re-reading these words from my bookshelf is that we have only just recognised that our banking and financial system no longer works. We have allowed our lives to be run by addicts in suits and we are paying the price. How long will it take for society to realise that old relationship demands no longer work either. Do you wish for a dream of lifetime hostage or prefer to be set free to explore interdependent relationships where two people exchange intimacies while setting each other free,to experience wholeness and authenticity not entrapment and dependency?

Whole interdependent relationships are possible but you need to address the issues that hold you back from receiving TRUE LOVE, the love for self and another human being without conditions – including staying. Unconditional love means nothing less.

Discuss at leisure.


I vont to be alone.

by Rebirth Your Life

There is some debate as to whether Greta Garbo actually said ‘I want to be alone’ in the MGM film GRAND HOTEL. She is famously quoted as saying : I never said, ” I want to be alone”. I only said ” I want to be left alone . There is all difference”. Pedantic or not, Garbo knew that the devil was in the detail. Being alone, being lonely and being isolated are all different strands of the seemingly same string. Tried and tested recovery material states that an addict alone is bad company. I guess that is because the ego as companion can weave many tales from the committee in the head, while convincing you of the value of self-sufficiency.

Corinne Sweet in her book OVERCOMING ADDICTION writes an excellent piece on this.

” Isolation is the root of all addiction. We can feel that nobody understands us, nobody really cares and that we have to fight our corner on our own. Isolation means retreating into ourselves, not believing that anyone is out there for us, and that everyone else had it easy. When you give up your addictions, for good, you necessarily have to give up isolation. This means looking around yourself and asking for help. This can be terrifying, especially if you have always done everything for yourself and don’t believe other people are there for you. You may feel that other people could not cope with your needs ( or deny them altogether ) because you don’t want to risk being disappointed. You will only stay free for good if you decide to give up your isolation – no matter how desirable it seems to hang on to it – if you ask for, seek out, even demand, continuing positive support. “

For those who can afford to be alone without self harming, eating slabs of chocolate in one go or risking boredom might suggest that recovering obsessives & compulsives aren’t safe to be left alone, when in fact the recovery process teaches the difference between being alone, feeling lonely or teenage bedroom isolation. If only the rest of society has access to such learned material we would all benefit. In a relationship men are often accused of ” being moody ” when half the time they want to be left alone, need space to be alone and can’t express it so they just clam up. The most healthy relationships have a holiday period built in so each partner can holiday alone, be it a week or a weekend. To most people that’s not ” being in a relationship “. What’s the point of giving your ALL to someone and they want to lie on a beach ALONE. It’s not what they signed up for.

Well the point of this interdependent arrangement is that we do need space alone to re-find ourselves, to create courage sometimes to tell our truth to ourselves first, and then the partner. Every relationship needs air in it, but many are in a unsteady relationship because of fear of being alone, which is another kettle of fish – a kettle called codependency. This misguided vision of romantic love works well until they leave you, then you have to play the hunting game all over again to feel whole. So the prospect of traveling alone, living alone or working alone is as fearful as a gambler missing the bet..

So the thread of today’s blog is to recall the last time you went somewhere on your own.

It took me ages to go to the cinema or theatre alone. It’s essential to get rid of the johnny no mates concept, people are so absorbed in their own self obsession that they aren’t interested in who is sitting in row D. Trust me. Learning to be with yourself alone, to give yourself attention, to use the space for solitude or meditation of any kind will serve you well in future. Taking a train ride to the nearest stretch of water, kicking stones on a beach or witnessing ducks play is all part of your further education.

Now if you will excuse me, I vont to be alone.

Open Your Eyes To Happiness

by Rebirth Your Life

Like poverty happiness is relative, so create your own scale. I used to think that ” loving too much ” was intimacy & true happiness until I found drugs further up the ladder. Now drug free for a few decades and then some, HAPPINESS is whatever I choose it to be, like the freedom to make mistakes without beating myself up afterwards, freedom to make clearer choices and waking up on clean sheets without a hangover or comedown makes me very happy, I can tell you. Small things count.

They say that RESENTMENT kills the container it’s kept in, and my fuselage was well corroded when I was in a coma of drug use all those years ago – counting up all the things I did for people and the people that gave nothing back.

Maybe you think this :  I will be happy WHEN I get a new job, flatmate, partner and lose weight.

A Course In Miracles states that ” everything is temporary “, and once you get that notion and accept that happiness can’t be captured, freedom arrives quickly, as freedom is intrinsically linked to happiness. Freedom to be who you are, to be authentic without editing, to be open about lifestyle and character defects.

Losing past and present resentments is a key to Happiness. What works to anyone’s advantage is to write down 5 resentments about past or present, and be prepared to drop the hurts that burn inside. The Great Escape of drink and drugs are great tools to employ relaxation, release and realizations, long may that continue, but not so hot when the returning resentments capture your happiness and take you back to prison camp. I heard someone say that they drank to drown their sorrows then their sorrows learn’t to swim. Well, it was true for me.

Ironically, one of the happiest periods for me was 1994-96 just before the arrival of combination therapy for those HIV Positive. I worked soley with people living and dying from AIDS, as it was then, all with CD4 counts below 10. A healthy person has over a thousand. I took one guy to Turkey with a CD4 of 2, he was determined to have a holiday before he died. He was so happy to have made it ( and he lasted another 3 years with combination therapy ). Another wanted to be wheeled in a wheelchair to see David Hockney’s Mr & Mrs Ossie Clark & Percy at the Tate Gallery for the last time, while another decided to die on crisp white French linen so off we went to Peter Jones with cash in hand. Humour in times of darkness is an essential breeder of joy. With these guys I assisted them to complete their life, releasing resentments before they passed into light but anyone can lift the luggage they hold without the threat of death, though I do accept that fear is a great motivator. Try being motivated by joy instead.

For me happiness is a pile of freshly ironed and folded shirts. I get great satisfaction from that. Babaji said Karma Yoga (work) breeds happiness. Happiness is knowing that you have cleared the wreckage of the past. Happiness is turning the phone off. Happiness is being silent in a persons arms. Write your own list each day as an antidote to losing the plot and start running your life with a new set of rules to fuel happy thinking. You can get this through therapy, coaching or flicking through inspirational or self -help books. But deciding not to bother with the exercises mentioned is likely to end in a half-measured result.

In Rehabs like the Priory for a 6 week stay, people often do 16 hours a day of individual writing, group sessions, individual counseling and emotional management including the suggestion to LET GO OF CONTROL. Just think about how your sense of happiness is determined by the behavior of other people. Learning to detach from fixing others, pleasing others and then fixing and pleasing yourself is perhaps the ultimate shift in contentment and codependency recovery.

David Weeks scientific study, the first on the subject of Eccentrics, found them to be the happiest people and they live longer purely because they gave up taking notice of what people thought of them. Happy people are happy from within – not unhappy to be without the latest label. So remember that you don’t have to have a fit body to workout from the INSIDE, and once you start to focus on solutions you will realize that a perfect waist is not the key to a perfect life. Happiness is there for the taking if you open your eyes to seek it.

The Elephant In the Room

by Rebirth Your Life

It’s easy to think that we need to ” go away ” in order to find ourselves, to sort ourselves out, to find solace. This kind of thinking has kept the Holistic Spa industry going for years. Glossy pics on internet travel sites are one click away from serenity, such is the lure for escape and instant gratification when exhaustion strikes. These commercial dealers offering hot stones, soft white towels and silence by the pool are as enticing for work addicts as a dealer is for junkies and we fall for it every time.

The problem is not where we are running ” to” but what we are running ” from ” but when the going gets tough the quick fix trip hits the vein of relief.

Treatment Centres call this ” doing a geographical “. In fairness it usually applies to people who winge about where they are now, and up-sticks for a new start elsewhere, taking themselves and their problems with them.

Drunks, as example, are very good at this, not that they have ” a problem ” of course – they just ” enjoy ” a drink and everyone’s on their back. They just chose the wrong job, wrong partner or wrong flatmate so you can understand why taking a massive leap of anger somewhere is so thrilling after all that victimhood. Been there – done it myself – until the blame game had to stop. For people who use alcohol or substances moderately this may not make sense but replace alcohol with WORK and you get the gist. More people are addicted to a work identity than drunks to alcohol. It becomes who they are.

Getting away from work pressure is easy when you know how, but you may not know that YOU could be the elephant in the room, the problem no one talks about to your face. Our own defects of character pale into comparison with everyone else’s but until we check out OUR emotional obstacles we shall forever remain the bitch in Accounts, the boss that doesn’t listen and the loner at lunch. Like a man in a bad wig it’s unlikely anyone will tell you.

It is so very wrong to consider therapy in a CRISIS – you don’t rush to the gym in a crisis, you have a routine for it and so it is with life management. Finding time out for self repair is essential in this fast moving internet age. When no-one wants to socialise with you after work it’s either because you are still at work and can’t leave or your workaholicism is breeding more personality defects, the ones all can see except the culprit. The problem may be that you ” enjoy ” work too much. Fear is a great leveller when it comes to job loss projection, even more so now in world recession, so all the more reason to ” get away ” to a space of strength, to recover lost positivity and end fearful projections. Office life is like a zoo and elephants abound. Don’t bring domestic issues into the workplace, don’t tell anyone about your salary rise, don’t take too long for lunch and don’t  . .

Rules and secrets abound so the urge to OM in India, to be draped in toweled robes after a mud bath is soothingly attractive after a shit week but a crap day can be turned around in 10 minutes if you seek it. TRY THIS.

Working too hard?  Go for a walk. Call a friend. Find a Park. Find a bench. Look up at the sky. Find trees. You don’t need to go far. Buy a bag of chips. Walk toward water. Sit with eyes closed and breathe deeply. This easy stuff gets buried in the mayhem.

Or go to the Zoo, find the Elephant House and ponder on what’s off-track.

Happy Endings

by Rebirth Your Life

Who knows what people will turn into once settled into marriage or civil union – will he wander, will she go off sex?

These fears are small beer indeed compared to the fear of finding another drunk, addict or gambler for someone who has the unhappy knack of fishing for fools. If Dad was a drunk, some women can have the inner magic of finding a drunk male substitute to love & marry. If Dad was a gambler it’s easy to find a man whose unpredictable behaviour feels ” just right “, after all it’s the excitement of not knowing what’s going to happen, that keeps your spirit alive.

If mum was depressive and snappy because her doctor stopped the prescription drugs it will be easy to find someone to spar with on the emotional front because it’s just what you are used to, and what you are used to becomes a blueprint for survival.

Take a look at any old school group photo of smiling kids. Can you guess who will turn out to have the longest marriage, the shortest life, the addictive personality? When a recovering person decides to check out their addictions, attachments and codependencies it’s easy to think that they are the ones having to work hard catching up with the rest of so-called respectable society. Many years ago I read a corporate report that stated “recovering alcoholics make better than average workers”. How can this be? A very small percentage of the population look at themselves, most spend time observing the habits of other people but drunks, drinking or in recovery, discovered that observing other people only made the situation worse. Resentments build and excuses flow to justify and enable a continuing addictive pattern, not exactly the route to personal responsibility, amends made and feelings checked, that is suggested for emotional balance. Learning to respond, rather than re-act to other peoples behaviour is vital for continued codependency recovery.

Recovering Alcoholics in a 12 Step Programme make better than average workers because they adhere to a new way of working after experiencing personal rock bottoms, act out gratitude on a daily basis, realise the need to demolish the ego and when they are wrong promptly admit it.

How many people in your life do that?

When the wedding pics are taken it’s hard to imagine the abuse that can follow or the fear of abuse returning. Robin Norwood’s book WOMEN WHO LOVE TOO MUCH way back in 1986 pioneered the realisation that good girls can choose bad guys, again & again. Recovering people also need to be aware of there own track record before they started observing themselves in detail. The reality is that no one knows whether you are going to get hitched to a drunk again, or find another person to rescue, someone who uses you as their own private bank but you can take steps to weed out the obvious candidates. In my experience it always pays to tell the truth FASTER. When selecting friends, lovers or future partners, always be clear about what you want ( by stating what you DON’T want sometimes ), and being upfront, rid yourself the desire to clam up about the past, buying into shame. Though focussing on the present moment can be taken too literally, if denial is companion. People who have grown up in a family where someone dominates the energy by anger, alcohol, depression, drug use, verbal, physical or sexual abuse need to be extra aware of relationship pitfalls. Being aware of a new friend or partners behaviour does not mean double checking everything they say and do, so lighten up, nor does it work to seek perfection. However as a recovering addict/alcoholic/codependent I would not want a relationship with anyone whose parents had similar backgrounds to my own addictive patterns. This is because I don’t want to be a teaching tool in a relationship, I would rather choose someone without an addictive background or be without a coupling. The whole point of fixing yourself is that eventually you find people who don’t need fixing.

I hear many people say ” we are working on our relationship ” as if the relationship is a therapy session. They say that love brings up everything unlike itself – I get this – but many relationships are simply a protection from the past, thus they remain in constant conflict in order to ” learn the lesson “. Maybe the lesson is GET OUT NOW. In most cases I would advise those people to fix themselves instead of the relationship, when this is done you put out a different vibration – one of interdependence – and start attracting totally different energies around people places and things. This is when REAL recovery begins and it starts with you saying NO more often, billing in time away from a partner and acting out frequent updates within the relationship.