Exhausted

We had more drama last night. We all woke up worn out.

I was thinking this morning that it is amazing I even survived living with my ex.  Just dealing with him now in small doses takes all the life out of me. My back is causing excruciating pain again. My body feels tired and lifeless. It is no wonder I was accomplishing so little during that time. There was no energy left to do anything. Just get by.

Life is so much more than just getting by. I wonder how many women are living this same nightmare. It makes me feel very sad for all of us.

I have much to do now, so there is no time to dwell. But it saddens me that still after all this time, and so many positive changes in my own life, that this one person has the power to suck so much energy from all three of us.

I hope that one day, soon, this will no longer be the case.

Adjusting to Reality

Every single time I see or talk to my ex, I have to remind myself of what the truth is.

I pondered this today as I walked to my kids' school (just in case, he did not pick them up.)

Yes, even after years apart, I still have to do this.

Yesterday, I put a firm boundary down.

Since the school year began 5 months ago, he has never once picked the kids up from school on time. Every week, he has an excuse; usually that he has to "work."

I reminded him yesterday that all parents have to work, including me. The $988 he pays in child support does not allow me to be flexible anymore.

As usual, it is me who is the unreasonable one.

As I walked to make sure he actually showed up, I heard his words in my head again.  The same words he has said to me so many times.

"You are a TERRIBLE person."

I know these words are not true. And yet, they still sting.

And I thought, I have never been the one who did not pick my kids up.

I have never been the one who no-showed while my kids waited for me by the door.

I am never the one who cheated, or didn't come home all night.

I have not lied. I have not cheated financially. I have not destructively destroyed my spouse, my-self or my kids.

And yet, I have never told him he is a terrible person.

My priority has always been my kids. Even when it hurt me to put them first.  I remembered a quote my friend sent me.

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." ~Anais Nin

My refusal to see my ex as he is has hurt both me and my kids for a long time.

His view of me is only a reflection of his terrible self.

Power of Yoga to Kick Addictions and Change your Life

Christy Turlington Burns and Nikki Myers talk about  Y12SR.

"I stayed “out there” a while before I got back into 12-steps and back into yoga. I originally tried yoga in the 70s and a seed was planted then, but men, sex, drugs, alcohol and money diverted my attention and I let yoga go. After this relapse though, I did some deep study and practice. I let the 12-step program go and put everything into yoga. That worked for four years until I relapsed again. That’s when I reached the WTF point and asked myself, “I’m an intelligent woman. Why can’t I do this?” Every time, the consequences of too much drinking, drugging and living outside my value system, outside of integrity with myself, digs me deeper and deeper. It was after that relapse I believed the problem was I was separating 12-steps and yoga and they don’t really belong separate.

The 12-step program talks about addiction as a physical, mental and spiritual disease. They address the cognitive piece pretty well and I love that it’s free and accessible. What’s lacking is a deep connection to the spiritual. They talk about having a God of your understanding and about prayer and meditation but it’s this cursory mention without any depth. They also don’t address the physical piece except at detox. Putting those things together was how the Yoga of 12-step Recovery program came about, out of my own need for a relapse recovery program. It’s been almost 13 years now since my last relapse so for an addict like me (and there are a lot of addicts like me) I’m finding there’s a lot of value. It’s not meant to replace a 12-step meeting. It’s meant to be something that only compliments it and provides an additional tool to support recovery." ~ Nikki Myers

"What happens at Y12SR meetings? Modeled from 12-step programs, Y12SR is a group sharing circle plus an intentional, themed yoga class intended to deepen or jumpstart the journey of self-discovery. The Y12SR foundation has trained 300 teachers and currently conducts 50-plus meetings through out the country."

See the full article at http://everymothercounts.org/blog/201301/christy-turlington-burns-and-nikki-myers-talk-about-power-yoga-kick-addictions-and

Acceptance

This is one of the few passages that stayed with me from The Big Book and it is speaking to me tonight.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could no stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes. "

The Tao

The person of superior integrity does not insist upon her integrity;

For this reason, s/he has integrity.

The person of inferior integrity never loses sight of her integrity;

For this reason, s/he lacks integrity.

The person of superior integrity takes no action,

nor has s/he a purpose for acting.

The person of superior humanness takes action,

but has no purpose for acting.

The person of superior righteousness takes action,

and has a purpose for acting.

The person of superior etiquette takes action,

but others do not respond to her;

Whereupon she rolls up her sleeves

and coerces them.

Therefore,

When the Way is lost,

afterward comes integrity.

When integrity is lost,

afterward comes humanness

When humanness is lost,

afterward comes righteousness.

When righteousness is lost,

afterward comes etiquette.

Now,

Etiquette is the attenuation of trustworthiness,

and the source of disorder.

Foreknowledge is but the blossomy ornament of the Way,

and the source of ignorance.

For this reason,

The great wo/man resides in substance,

not in attenuation.

S/he resides in fruitful reality,

not in blossomy ornament.

Therefore,

S/he rejects the one and adopts the other.

-Tao Te Ching 1 (38) (adapted)

Lady Liquor: The Racial Implications of the "Disease" Model of Alcoholism

People drink for a lot of reasons: to celebrate, to grieve, to relax and, I would argue, we sometimes drink, too much, too heavily, to bear the unbearable, including systematic racism (not just on the part of indigenous peoples, but other racial minorities as well). While removing moral judgment from that coping mechanism is a step in the right direction, treating alcoholism as a disease separate from the social and historic factors that brought it about in the first place gives societies license to continue not addressing those factors. It gives dominant groups a pass to perpetuate the racist status quo, rather than helping to improve the living conditions and economic prospects of Native people. Where alcohol dependence and ongoing marginalizing intersect is where the discourse—and the treatment—should be centered.

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/lady-liquor-the-racial-implications-of-the-disease-model-Native-Americans-alcohol-stereotypes#comment-63131

Recipes for Recovery

Allie O'Conner works in the addiction-recovery field and has made special formulas to treat conditions that often accompany addiction. She preserves her medicine in vegetable glycerin rather than brandy, which is the basis of Bach's medicine. Some of her formulas include:

Morning glory for healing addiction

Blackberry for relieving grief, depression, fear of dying

Forget-me-not for calming anxiety

Zinnia for laughter as a healing medicine

Sunflower for opening the heart for giving and receiving

Bells of Ireland, cedar and chamomile for relieving stress (as well as lifestyle changes)

Comfrey for security

Jasmine for spiritual attunement


From Women's Spirituality Power & Grace by Mary Faulkner

Dr. Gabor Maté’s alternative view of addiction

Maté is a compelling speaker, as his agile phraseology and hard-earned authority bear out—regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions. And some people don't. In Vancouver he’s worked at Insite, the only supervised injection site on the continent. There, people bring illegal drugs and inject them with clean needles in a a safe space under medical supervision.

It's a harm-reduction technique, says Maté. Overdoses can be prevented this way, as well as the spread of disease. "Giving somebody clean needles does not stop their addiction, but ... it means there isn’t HIV being transmitted from one person to the other.” Maté says providing sterile swabs for addicts to clean their arms doesn’t treat addiction, but it also doesn’t promote it. “It just makes it less likely that that person will be sick and suffer more, and consequently cost society a lot of money in terms of health care costs.”

“It’s all about getting something from the outside to make you more complete, make you more satisfied.”

Critics say Insite equates to government facilitation of drug abuse and does nothing to deter dependence or treat it. They suggest it could send a mixed message to young people. Conservatives in Canada’s government have made attempts to shut Insite down.

Data out of Vancouver seems to confirm the efficacy of the harm-reduction approach. According to the Sept. 6 issue of The Province, the 1996 life expectancy for people in the downtown Eastside area was nine years below that of other British Columbians. In 2011, the life expectancy was just two years short. However, other factors, such as gentrification, might have played a role in those statistics.

KC Quirk, executive director of Crossroads for Women, has seen the fallout firsthand while helping people who are coping with mental health issues, homelessness and the transition out of incarceration. The organization is bringing Maté to speak in Albuquerque because his humanistic philosophy is in line with Crossroads’ mission.

"We're coming to that from a really, I believe, much more humane and much more realistic perspective,” Quirk says. “Most people don’t, you know, decide to quit using drugs and alcohol and adapt perfectly.”

The Albuquerque seminar on drug abuse takes its name from Dr. Maté’s book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Within its pages, he candidly exposes his own issues with shopping addiction. Though it doesn’t damage his life in the same way as drugs and alcohol, Maté’s dependency has adversely affected his relationships and self-esteem. But it also allows him to better relate to drug addicts. The title includes a reference to the bhavacakra, or “wheel of life,” in Buddhist mythology.

There are six realms people cycle through, Maté says: The human realm is where we are our ordinary selves. In the animal realm live our appetites and passions. The god realm is home to our spiritual sense of peace and satisfaction. The hell realm encompasses raging emotions, terror and fear. The titan realm is marked by envy. Finally, in the hungry ghosts realm, the creatures are shown with scrawny necks, small mouths and empty stomachs. “They’re never able to fill their bellies sufficiently to feel satisfied,” says Mate, “so they keep going around trying to get satisfaction and fulfillment from the outside, and that’s the realm of addictions.”

Contrary to conventional medical thinking, Maté doesn't attribute addiction to genetics alone. "Neither does science back it up nor does experience prove it,” he says. Addicts are typically people who’ve experienced significant loss or trauma in their childhood, says Maté. The greater the degree of trauma or stress they’ve experienced, the more vulnerable they are to addiction. “In the population that I worked with, all the women had been sexually abused as kids, and the men were traumatized repeatedly, as well, in childhood."

Criminalization of drug use is a kind of cruelty, Maté argues. "You begin with an abused child: Society did not protect you, so you had those experiences growing up, no one to turn to. Then you turn to drugs to soothe the pain, and you’re a criminal.”

In a culture where people meet their needs via the acquisition of products, the achievement of status and the approval of others, addictive tendencies are widespread, he says. "It’s all about getting something from the outside to make you more complete, make you more satisfied. It’s a society like that—in which there’s also a lot of insecurities, which leads to a lot of stress—people find ways of distracting themselves from their internal problems.” And, says Maté, those methods tend to become addictive.

People don't like to look at this cultural issue, and a drug addict represents it to the highest degree, he says. "We say that they’re the ones with the problems. They’re the antisocial element. They should be excluded from society. But we’re not looking at ourselves or the nature of the society as it is.”


Dr. Gabor Maté’s alternative view of addiction

Taught to Fear

“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. The fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance. The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our own oppression as women.“ ~Audre Lorde

Courage

"Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage."

- Anais Nin

Hymn to the Goddess

You are the One within me,
star-bright in midnight dark,
who echoes in the ocean
and dances with the lark,
who smiles in the mirror moon
and on the tide of dreams,
rocks me soft and gentle
to the songs of mountain streams.

You brought me into being,
breathed life into my soul,
you birthed me to my body,
you knit me as a whole,
my mother, you embraced me,
your kiss upon my brow
sighed your spirit through me
and it fills me now.

I feel your spirit fill me,
you call from every star,
in whispers from within me,
in echoes from afar,
you pull upon my moonstruck mind,
you open out my soul
and like an unfurled sail, it fills
and I am whole.

~Ruth Calder Murphy

My Wasted Years as Princess of Nothing.

I remember being told I was “too pretty to work.” So on some level, I always held on to that and resented working when I had to. I resented it every time a man did not pick up the check. It was not part of the unspoken agreement of how a princess should be treated.

It also meant that any man who would treat me as an equal was off the table for most of my life.

Being a princess meant I didn’t know how to live without an enormous household budget or a huge diamond ring. Wasn’t that the ultimate goal? Did it matter that my husband was an alcoholic and didn’t come home at all when he wasn’t so inclined?

When I look back at the years of my life when I was playing this role, they were completely non-productive. Perhaps, I made a good income; perhaps I was a good mother. Perhaps I was at my most beautiful. But in terms of creativity and personal fulfillment, there was zilch.

I was only living the life I was supposed to be living, not examining what I wanted for myself.

My Wasted Years as Princess of Nothing.

Faded Memories

“Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.“ ~Adrienne Rich 

I am working on an article that I wanted to be exact on, so I started to look back through our family blog, which I started in 2006.  I was struck by how different it was from my memory, so I came back here, which tended to be a more honest assessment of where my life was at the time.

I have realized that I tend to try to make things better than they are. Whether that was for my own need or wanting to give my children a better life, I am not sure.

But one thing is for certain, my marriage with my ex was completely exhausting. I have a migraine just from reading about it. (And I NEVER get migraines anymore!!)

I don't often look back, and that is probably a good thing. But it made me both grateful that life is SO different now and angry that I wasted so many years banging my head against the wall.

Honesty: The Word Keeps Getting Lonelier.

It is our quirky uniqueness that endears us to others. The large crooked nose, the horrendous chuckle, the inability to put down the cookie jar. It is what makes us different from others that causes death to be painful for those left behind.

People remember the dead for their realness. Attend any funeral and you will know that to be fact. No one will remember which masks we wore to be appeasing.

Honesty: The Word Keeps Getting Lonelier.

A Room of Her Own

“You must have a room or a certain hour or so in a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are…you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is a place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something will eventually happen.” ~Joseph Campbell

Are We Doing The Best We Can?

"All I can do these days is think of myself as a little girl, and think of my friends who have little girls, and know I do not want another generation of girls preyed upon in any way.

(And that's ALL little girls - from Asia to America, Russia to Africa, all nations, all levels of income, all girls.)

I really want my brothers on this planet to hear me and feel the same. This is not the future I saw for myself as a woman or for the generations of women coming after me. This is not our best effort on their behalf." ~Melissa Ulto

Women: Think this Through

"The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable." ~Andrea Dworkin

Allowing

"You are as amazing as you let yourself be. Let me repeat that. You are as amazing as you let yourself be." ~ Elizabeth Alraune

I Believe in Love

"Always on Your Side"