Sometimes it’s not until things become unmanageable that we surrender. We may have no idea what the future holds, but we know we can’t go on the way things are and we need to make some big changes.
We just can’t keep living this way.
“It is always possible to begin again.”
A Course In Miracles
It can come for us in many different forms and disguises, and usually remains undetected even by us for a period of time until we suffer the eventual consequences, but the essence is always the same. A deep disconnection or separation from our true self that leads us further away from the primal simplicity of our deeper knowing.
We can reclaim ourselves in the truth of our being without fear.
Last week we looked at the effects of our disconnection on a macro or global scale, this week let’s see if we can make peace by speaking directly to our innocence, our divine centre to find our own clarity and to re-align with integrity.
It may be the effects of a loss or grief that doesn’t seem to want to end, a broken promise in a marriage, financial issues, a health scare, or an addiction or compulsion we’re hiding that is silently destroying our lives.
Maybe we’re losing our patience with our kids, we’re angry at work, annoyed with traffic and we are spending too much time on our phones scrolling, wanting relief or seeking escape from our perceived overwhelm.
We’re off track and we’re not just not exactly sure how to get back on a new one, but deep down we desperately want to.
“Knowing oneself comes from attending with compassionate
curiosity to what is happening within.”
Dr. Gabor Mate
We may rationalize this part of our life or tell ourselves that it’s not really that bad so we keep on. Living in denial and harming ourselves, doing something that may even be socially acceptable to help us cope with our perceived overwhelm that is having a negative impact on us and even our loved ones.
Maybe we have even tried and failed so many times to change before that we have begun to doubt ourselves. Can we muster up the courage to try again when a part of us wonders if maybe we’ll be stuck this way forever?
In my experience, there is nothing more humbling than being brought to our knees with something out of our control.
Can we have a clean slate? Start over and be different?
“Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do. It is already happening. Don’t you see it? I will make a way in the wilderness and a river in the dessert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)
God
When we’re in this place where we’re feeling stuck, change can feel impossible.
And yet change, growth, expansion and evolution is the reason you and I are here.
In fact, it’s the basis of all of life.
I find it helpful to zoom out sometimes to help put things in perspective. Our true nature is that we are a part of a larger ecosystem that’s self-organizing, self-correcting and constantly evolving.
We’re a part of a shared experience that is in a constant experience of renewal and rebirth.
This might surprise you, but did you know that there are more than 10 million species of plants and animals alive on our planet today and yet they are just 1% of ALL the species that have ever existed?
Yes. 99% of ALL of the species that have ever existed have gone extinct.
We are a part of that 1% that have survived by adapting to ALL of the threats to our wellbeing.
This statistic may be the greatest proof that we need to know that we can survive and adapt to just about anything.
The divine story of life and evolution on our planet is truly astounding and it’s OUR shared history.
We’ve tried and failed over and over, but if there is something you want to change or shift in your life, what if it just took ONE more try?
What is the first step to having a fresh start?
COMING CLEAN.
We need allow ourselves to see it and admit WHERE we are off course.
Tell the truth.
Surrender.
Wave our white flags and ask for help.
Easier said than done.
No matter what is in your way or how far gone you feel, recovery is possible for everybody.
My friend and recovery coach Tommy Rosen has built an online addiction recovery platform called Recovery 2.0 and I found him online about ten years ago before he even had a website when I was hitting my own rock bottom and his group was invaluable to me.
It was about 11 years ago and it was the beginning of me turning my own life around in a sobriety that continues to this day, but I still have things to tackle and that has led me to this post.
In particular, my body struggles.
I am what would be categorized as “morbidly obese” and I’ve been immersing myself in a body positivity and rejecting dieting culture for a decade and while I have found peace with food and no longer use food to self medicate, my body is telling me that it wants to release the extra weight I’ve been carrying and I’m ready to listen before I become a statistic of a preventable chronic disease.
I’d like to find a loving way forward. I’m not sure exactly what that will look like yet, or how it will unfold over the next 12 months, but that is my intention, my prayer and I am asking to be guided.
I understand how important not judging other bodies or even my own is. I feel happy with myself and not longer identify or objectify any bodies for their size, colour, ability or age, but today I admit that I’m ready to feel better. To give up what needs to be, or to do what I need to do to get strong, lean and find the physical power and freedom to live however many years I have left to my best ability and to enjoy the gift of my body and physicality in a new way. To nourish my body and refocus on it in a new more empowering way. Healthism and fatphobia are problematic in our society and becoming aware of the deeper issues of our beauty culture has healed my disordered eating and compulsivity with food, but having the chance to feel powerful in my body, to have more energy and move freely is my new healing intention.
What is your truth?
Telling the truth may be as simple as admitting you are unhappy or that you’re feeling overwhelmed.
“There is a way through every block.”
Tommy Rosen
There is a stigma that surrounds things like addiction and obesity in particular that keeps a lot of us stuck and suffering alone. It seems like the longer we wait to ask for help, the harder it becomes to find freedom.
It is only activated by our ego or what Jung called the “personal self”, never your authentic self and that is the part of us that denies and wants to keep secrets. Jung once said when asked about self sabotage that we all have both Jesus and the Devil in us. There is the part of us that tells us that it’s okay to break a promise to ourselves just this once, that will allow us to rationalize having an affair, it’s the part of us that wouldn’t be caught dead in a church basement at a 12 step meeting with total strangers admitting the truth of our experience. It’s the part that will gamble away a lifetime of savings and our kids college funds.
Letting go of an old story, harmful behaviours, grief, trauma or suffering that is no longer serving us is one of the greatest things we can decide to do.
We’re not alone, there are NO exceptions, we ALL share this human experience.
The challenge is for us to decide to make lasting changes for our wellbeing.
“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.”
C.S. Lewis
It’s never the loving, rational or connected part of us that would ever do or keep those behaviours, it’s the disconnected fearful part that is in self preservation mode.
Call it a disease. A distance from ease.
The problem I have with the DSM-5 or calling ourself addicts instead of a person in recovery or discovery or is that when we name our diseases it gives us the impression that IT is ultimate, that we can manage it but that it can never be fully healed which has not been my personal experience. We unconsciously plan that seed of belief inside of us that we can’t heal and so it is.
Getting sober or losing and keeping weight off are good examples. It’s not our fault. We experience a trauma or something that has us reaching our for something outside ourselves to feel better, it is nothing to feel ashamed about. We’re simply doing our best to feel better. Sure, there may be healthier ways to do that, and we can learn about them and try some out, but it’s so tempting to just hit the easy button because those buttons seem to be ALL around us at every turn. I feel that way whenever I pick up my phone or plop down on the couch to “relax”.
What begins innocently as having a gummy or a glass of wine to relax in the evening can evolve into something that is harder for us to change. It seems like our culture has taken full economic advantage of this part of us that is seeking pleasure to avoid pain.
I was driving in our small town with my husband Scott yesterday and noticed that the old Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner of one of our main streets through town that had closed down last year and has been sitting unoccupied has been newly renovated. I noticed a new sign being put up and I saw the word “Buds”. ANOTHER weed shop? We have 26,563 permanent residents and now about 10 weed shops. We only have 4 1/2 Tim Horton’s (one is a tiny drive thru) so how can we possibly keep 10 weed shops in business?
Sadly, it’s not a problem.
While the process to quit a socially acceptable (and even encouraged) behaviour isn’t always easy, anyone who has successfully stopped smoking, removed alcohol from their lives, weed, prescription drugs, the compulsion to over work, shop, gamble, binge on food, sex & porn to feel better or numb out their feelings that has pursued a path of recovery will tell you that it is very, very worth it.
Brené Brown is 26 years sober and describes it as a superpower:
About a year ago, I was talking to a dear friend who was newly sober, and our conversation shifted something in me. For the first time in my life, I realized that my sobriety isn’t a limitation. Sobriety isn’t even a “have to”—it’s a superpower.
In fact, right after the Netflix special launched, someone asked me about the “secret to my success,” and the first thing that came to my mind was my sobriety. Of course Steve, Ellen, and Charlie are huge factors, but I’m not sure Steve and I would have made it long enough to have Ellen and Charlie had I not been sober and trying to live an authentic, honest life rather than trying to outrun, outsmart, and numb vulnerability.
Brené Brown
Our minds can become addicted to anything.
Even romance and love. The string of reality TV shows about love and finding someone special is no coincidence. We may wish we had more time to do what we really want, but just one quick honest look at our time spent online and watching TV would suggest otherwise.
I always liked Tommy’s definition that it’s ANY behaviour you continue to do despite the fact that it brings negative consequences into your life."
To me, the sheer agony of being in that in-between place of toggling back and forth and seem like an impossible place to exist.
It’s important that we leave all judgement OUT of the conversation, that is ego speaking first and loudest and it’s what keeps us stuck.
And here’s the thing. We’re all addicted to something. Every single one of us.
Mostly to our way of thinking.
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our beautiful creative brains wire and fire to want to repeat exactly what happened yesterday in our minds. Research has shown that we mostly think the same thoughts so even our habits of the routes we take to work become addictive to us.
We make up narratives about what happened to us and tell those same sad stories over and over preventing our minds and intuition from being able to open to something new.
We get stuck in our old ways and ruts.
We write down goals and resolutions year after year we find ourselves RIGHT back in our old routines by February.
We find ourselves breaking our promises to ourselves over and over and it’s affecting our wellbeing.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to NOT sit and watch TV at night or drink a glass of wine after a hard day if you’ve been doing that for years?
What would it take for us to finally move past our fear, to ask for help, to make any change we deeply desire??
Today, let’s simply pick one thing we’d like to change.
Let’s not worry about how…just the what and next week we’ll take the next step.
What is ONE thing if you started or stopped doing would significantly improve your life in some way?
Do you have it?
If not, just be patient and let it come to you this week when your guard is down and your ego is distracted, then respond directly to this email and share it with me in confidence or if you’re feeling brave in the comments below.
“No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.”
Buddha
This November lets all re-imagine something new for ourselves and FINALLY make the big change we’ve secretly longed for in our lives.
We’ll do it together. First we simply need to decide.
“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy,
not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
Socrates
My friend reminded me of the symbolic beauty of the fall leaves finally letting go so that something new can be born in the spring.
It’s not an end, it’s the beginning of a more connected life, a stronger body, improved familial relationships, peace of mind, mental and physical health, freedom from addiction, forgiveness, shame and guilt.
What stands before you today is not only an opportunity, but a new recognition of who you truly are in your innocence. There is a part of you seeking recognition, to be realized and to command the path you walk in the most perfect way you may ever know.
When we lose touch with this part of us we tend to reach outside of ourselves to feel better. It feels like a hole we can’t fill and for most of the first half of our lives we try to fill it with the approval of others, fame, success, being better, faster or stronger than others. We’re convicted that is the only way to feel fulfilled.
I heard the sad news going to bed last night that Canadian Actor Matthew Perry died.
While I never met him in person, I had a bit of a cry this morning in our kitchen and I found myself praying for him, something I seem to be doing a lot these days. He’s a total stranger, but he feels so familiar from watching him on “Friends”. He made me laugh and made my life feel a bit easier.
His own life wasn’t easy. He recently told his painful story about his private struggles with addiction that got so bad he was taking more than 55 Vicaden a day while he was filming Friends.
His addiction all began so innocently and casually. When he was a fussy baby (colic) his doctor gave his parents a barbiturate to help him sleep for an entire month. That seems to have set the scene because when he was 14 in Ottawa he felt like he was home with his first drink which was a bottle of Baby Duck. Right from that first time with his friends life seemed to make more sense to him. He felt calm and good. It was an escape and he remembers having the thought, “This is probably what normal people feel like all the time.” By 18 or 19 he was drinking in secret and it was no longer a choice. He didn’t want to have this problem. None of us do.
"Friends was huge. I couldn't jeopardize that. I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions, which only added to my sense of shame, I had a secret and no one could know.”
Matthew Perry
In the past year even after his book was released, he still struggled silently. He was proud that his book sold so many copies and he was sure it was because we’re ALL affected in some way by addiction. What moved him the most was how many people told him that they decided to go to rehab after reading it.
He wanted more than anything to help others.
He tells the story of praying to God in the book. He asked to be famous, “please God make me famous”. He thought being famous and having everything he always wanted and it wasn’t able to fill the holes. The great job, the house with a pool and he loved his house for 6 months but he didn’t feel fulfilled. He said it’s not the answer and it’s one of the reasons he wrote the book.
Let’s listen to his story today.
Read his book and learn from his life.
Let’s find better solutions for our uncomfortable feelings. It seems to be safe to feel badly, but it’s not safe for us to avoid or hide our feelings and keep our secrets.
In the end he said that the solution to this problem is a spiritual one. It’s about a light in us that he wishes he’d excavated sooner.
As long as we’re here, we can begin again.
In love.
On an interview online that I heard early this morning when he was asked how he’d like to be remembered and he said… “I’d like people to say that…”
“He lived well, he loved well and he was a seeker. He wanted to help people".
You have Matthew. Rest in Peace.
Bless you and thank you for being our friend.
With love,
Rev Nona
ps. I’m not sure if you’re a country music fan, but this song by Chris Stappleton "STARTING OVER" might be the best way to sign off today.
My favourite verse in the middle of the song..
This might not be an easy time
There's rivers to cross and hills to climb
And some days we might fall apart
And some nights might feel cold and dark
But nobody wins afraid of losing
And the hard roads are the ones worth choosing
Some day we'll look back and smile
And know it was worth every mile
Let’s not wait until January, let’s make this dark, grey month of November the BEST one of our lives by making a decision today to change something that we’ve wanted to stop or start for years. I can’t wait to hear from you!!
Beautiful, Nona. I love the idea of choosing just one thing. xo
Apologies for the typos - I'm learning that it's never a good idea to press publish when you've misplaced your "readers" and can't really see clearly :)