Consider the ways in which suffering can help uplift us. Suffering can teach us compassion, and can inspire us to look deeply at out thoughts and actions, while opening us to the suffering of others. Suffering can create space and motivation for personal renewal and compassion for our selves. It can also provide us with opportunity to endure the risk of vulnerability and be available to our own and others' pain. In short, suffering can be a potent force for spiritual transformation and awakening.
In opening ourselves to the process of healing, we can, by employing spiritual principles, transmute our suffering into spiritual and emotional growth. This kind of growth enhances our ability to be present to the process of our own healing and help others who are also suffering.
In our lives, each of us has suffered in our own way. How has your own uniquely personal suffering prepared you to be of service to others? What insight, spiriual awareness or skill has your suffering endowed you with? What specific kinds of pain do you feel especially qualified to help others deal with?"
I found this while making up some packettes at work and thought it was an interesting and very true topic....I know for myself, that what ever I have endured in my life and worked through or am working toward recovering from can be used as a tool to help the next person. I don't believe that any of us go through things just for the sake of going through them. I do believe that our HIgher Power allows us to go through things in order to teach one another, give one another hope, or simply show someone else that they too can get through suffering or pain and stay sober. I also believe that our pain is where most of our internal growth comes from...without knowing suffering I would never know true joy or happiness or freedom.
I know my own pains of addiction and abuse have helped and continue to help those around me. I also know that these two areas in particular are where I am most qualified to help. Those experiences have shown me that I am courageous, that I have strength, that I can perservere, that I can love, that I have a God of my understanding who allowed me to survive it all to help someone else, that there is a God, because if there was not, there is NO WAY IN HELL I'D STILL BE ALIVE, that losing it all, my homelessness in particular has given me compassion towards others in similar situations, and that due to much of my own suffering in life that I can have compassion for others.
There are so many positive internal gifts that my suffering in life can be attributed to..once I started looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty I could see it.....if I continued to look at the glass as half empty I'd still be using my lifes suffering as an excuse to drink/drug, or at the very least as a reason to remain a victim of life.....I am no victim today....today I have a choice.
Wishing you all a day of freedom from the bondage of our sometimes demented thinking! Have a great weekend everyone!!!
Hi everyone! I haven't been on here since the end of last week or so...I just wanted to let you all know that life is awesome! I am doing well, just busy right now. The kids and I are finally in our new home! I absolutely LOVE IT!!! When I am pulling down the driveway and looking towards the house I just smile:) It feels like home and it finally feels like I am just where I am supposed to be. It is cozy and comfy and I am making is nice for the kids and I and any one who enters into our casa.
The Holiday was great and I am hoping to get up more pics from the parade in the next week or so. I won't have my internet up and running til the beginning of next week, so I get on when I can at my moms which is where I am currently as I type.
Julie I will call you later today or tomorrow~I hope you had a great time with your kids and grandkids over Thanksgiving! To all of you if you didn't know it was Dave's Birthday on Sunday!!!! I didn't get the chance to come on and put up a blog so if you have the chance please stop by his page and wish him a Happy Birthday!!!!!
And finally God is just sooooo good......I got a call from my boss at the woman's halfway house that i work at...she is giving me more hours up there!!!!!! YAY!!! The ironic thing was that I had just commented to a friend of mine how much I love being there and working with the girls...not long after that my boss calls and says "God works in mysterious ways Donna, I have some extra days I'd like to give you up here!!"(she knows about my job loss at Habitat and due to some crazy circumstances more time has opened up for me up there)...Again, I am where I feel like I am supposed to be...Dave says God knows I'm finally ready for more good stuff.....I think maybe he's right:):):):):)
I hope you all are well~ I love you guys and gals!!! Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, hope, joy and love:)
Good morning everyone:) I want to start off by first saying that I hope you all had a wonderful sober Holiday! Thank you to any of you who sent emails, messages, or comments wishing me a wonderful Holiday as well:)
My day started out great! My mother and I awoke at 4am and took my daughter ane one of her friends to NYC to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade! It was sooo much fun! I usually try and get over there, especially around the Holidays because there is a different kind of feeling in the air around this time. I love the city, I grew up just over the bridge and spent a lot of time there as a teen. I am hoping to take another trip over just before Christmas to do our annual dinner in Little Italy, Rockafellar Center, Saint Patricks Cathedral and Times Square event.
We returned home to our entire Thanksgiving Dinner cooked by my father with a little help from my son! Yes ladies, us girls had a blast and the men cooked! We had a lovely dinner and later on I attended the Thursday night Step mtg. I've been going to. I was Happy about that too...it was small, peaceful and Dave came up to attend it as well. That was nice considering he had to work all day. I was grateful to still be able to spend some time with him on this Holiday (our second Thanksgiving together!).
I got home, got relaxed and started to really think about what I was grateful for this year....Wow! There is so much I'm not sure where to start....first and foremost there is my sobriety~without that I have nothing else.
There is a lot that I am grateful for over this past year as well...specifically the ability to change, to stay open and willing, for the relationships in my life, especiallyt those that continue to grow:), the fact that in the midst of any changes I stay sober, my trust in my Higher Power and the growth I have seen in my self and in those around me over this past year. Sobriety continues to amaze me more and more each day...I see things that otherwise I would shove to the way side.
I watched a man during the parade help a family out who really needed it...very unselfishly, he tried to get the crowd to move because this womans child was getting trammpled and she couldn't breath...he kept screaming for everyone to back up and move aside and no one was listening. He tried this for about 15 min. Finally he picks up the little girl above the crowd so she could get some fresh air. Her face was red and flushed and she was trying to catch her breath.
He looked around for a path out and my mother and I guided him out to a path we could see over the crowd. The mother of the little girl clung to him and he pushed his way through holding that littel girl above his head the entire time. He lost his "good viewing spot" in a crowd of over 2 million to help this mother and her child. That's what Thanksgiving is about to me~it's about having the ability to get out of one's self to help another. It's about doing what's right even when we don't get anything in return (being unselfish). I was grateful to have experienced this on this Holiday. it showed me that there are people out there in the world who do care..who will help. It showed me once again what character traits I would like to possess myself. Unselfishness, being in the forefront.
I am hoping to get some pics up over the next couple of days of the parade. They seem to have come out prettty good! I hope you all had a day blessed with love, peace and hope:)
I used to think that having something to "say" was important. I thought my thinking or opinion on matters was ALWAYS needed, and selfishly I can spew from my lips so that my own wants or needs get met, never really taking time to think about how my words can impact those around me.
For most of my life I wasn't "allowed" to voice my thoughts or feelings...drugs and alcohol just enhanced that thinking or they gave me the false courage to do so althought back than it NEVER came out with any consideration for anyone else. I am learning in sobriety to stop before I speak, to just shut up at times when every part of me wants to scream something out. When it gets to the point of wanting to scream it out I call someone in my network and vent to them~Yes, it's important to get it out, but what I want to say isn't always appropriate to say to the person I'd like to say it to.
I can take an action without hurting someone else...I can vent, but not hurtfully to the person I may need to vent about. I can think things without running my mouth~restraint of pen and tougue has prooven to be a useful tool on MANY occasions. As I sit here this morning there is something I'd love to spew from my lips but I'm not....I'm going to vent to someone in my network when we meet up a little later this morning.
I find most of what gets me to the core is stuff concerning my ego...stuff that could impact my sense of pride, security, or trust. Those areas seem to be the most troubling for this alcoholic/addict...feeling like you're being made a fool of, being taken advantage of, or being just plain lied to~those things produce a feeling inside of me that can be described as "fire in my gut". I have a feeling it, like many issues, tend to go back to the abuse stuff~particularly the trust issue.
When I get feeling like this one of the first things I do is pray. I ask God to give me clairty, guidance and to help me keep my mouth shut until I can sort out what's real and what's just my own twisted thinking. IN a knee jerk reaction I regret my actions and later on get to feeling sad about my sometimes inappropriate behavior. So today, just for today, I am taking actions which would otherwise be unknown to me if it wasn't for the program of recovery I've been so blessed to come to know.
I feel fortunate to have people I can go to in my life who will help me sort this kind of stuff out. I am grateful to have a Higher Power whom I can turn to in times of disurbance~who always gives me direction when I ask. I can't imagine where I'd be today if it wasn't for AA and the 12 step program I've been so freely given.
Wishing you all a day of peace and contentment and restraint of pen and tongue when appropriate!
If I don't get the chance to do so after today I also want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I am hoping to take the kids over to the city to watch the Macy's Day Parade! It is one of my favorite things to do on this Holiday outside of spending time with my family.
"A RELUCTANCE TO ADMIT our weaknesses has several painful consequences. On the one hand, we often find ourselves living a lie. We hide behind masks of competence and self-sufficiency and pretend we are OK. We become actors in the drama of our lives, playing roles far removed from who we really are. People around us, especially those nearest and dearest to us, feel we have put up a barrier and that they cannot reach us or get close to us. This can isolate us from real contact and openness with others. Always pretending to have it together makes for lonely living, which can be very painful indeed."
WOW! This has always been me...even many times in sobriety...or atleast that is what I can portray to those around me. Being human and vulnerable, in my experience, had always lended me to being hurt. If I showed my humanness it was taken and twisted until there was nothing left except a hurting girl. Many people in my life would run with it, turn it around to hurt me and use it to their own advantage. I believe as a child, my own need to be loved was used in that way~ I believe that is what played so heavily into the abuse I endured. People could see the hurt (and humanness) in me and they ran with it...they used it to their advantage and I was left emptier than ever. I was left feeling like if I let people in, they would run with it too....they would hurt me and I would again be left with nothing except hurt inside.
I learned from all of this to "stand on my own two feet"...I took the attitude that "I don't need anyone"...I kept picking the same kind of hurtful people to surround myself with because that is all I knew. I never knew a genuine love from those around me because those around me, the ones I allowed to get close were hurtful. I thought that was all I was worth.
It has taken me a long time in sobriety to let those walls down...to trust my thinking/gut in regard to people....It has taken me a lot of time to just be human, to not live behind the masks of self sufficiency and competence....It has taken me time to say "I don't know, please help me here"...it has taken me time to trust, most especially my Higher Power, but I am finally doing so, A Day At A Time.
I found that in time I could trust in my gut and my thinking (most days LOL)...neither one is clouded with drugs/alcohol today. My Higher Power has placed some incredible people in my life today, along with a program of recovery. My need to be loved doesn't rule my life today so I don't choose the unhealthy ones any more. My needs are met through the God of my understanding and in turn through the incredible people He has placed in my life. Through worlking the 12 steps of AA I found I no longer had to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders....I could let people in, I could trust in them, and I could become part of the human race for once in my life.
The masks of self sufficiency/competence don't work today...they keep me lonely and isolated. They keep me feeling like I have to "do better, be better" and they don't allow me to just be me...they keep me in a place of unacceptance and judgement of myself. I no longer need them to "survive"...today I place them at the feet of my HP so that I can LIVE my life, not just survive it.
Wishing you all a day of the freedom from self sufficiency~WE can do together, what I could never do alone!
