Stay in Your Lane

“Stay in Your Lane.” I’ve been saying that to myself a lot recently. It’s a great mantra and a reminder, and it comes with an easy visual.

We know, as drivers, that it’s dangerous to weave back and forth lane to lane, and even more dangerous to drift into an oncoming lane. It’s also true—though maybe not quite as life-threatening, that it’s dangerous to drift into someone else’s lane—at work, at home, in friendships and in romantic relationships.

Staying in your own lane is a combination of boundaries and discernment: What is my business? What is not my business? It’s not always clear. But—continuing the metaphor—that’s what the broken line on the highway is for.

A couple things can help us stay in our lane. One is watching for the red flags.

One tool is listening carefully to what you are saying, especially how you preface any comments.

If you hear yourself saying, “It may not be my business, but…” You are correct. Stop right there and get back in your lane. Ditto, for “I’ve never been (a parent, married, seriously ill, faced with infidelity, a boss, laid off…etc.) but I know that I would….(Insert unsubstantiated advice here.)”  No, you wouldn’t. And, you have no idea so cruise back to your own lane. 

Anytime we say things like, “If my husband ever..” or  “If my kid ever…” we’re blowing hot air. We might fantasize about what we’d do, but in reality there are so many ways to live thru hard things that none of us actually knows what we’d do. Turn that wheel.

Another red flag to tell you that you are drifting is to pay attention to your body. Is your heart racing, breathing accelerating, temperature rising, voice raising? You have left your lane and what you say next is 99% most likely to be a mistake or an over-reaction. Gently bring your lips together and take a seat, get a glass of water. Wait a minute or 30. 

We almost never regret what we did not say. If it turns out that you have had a related experience (You directly, not your sister-in-law) then maybe share that privately, one-on-one. 

A good friend of mine likes to remind me: “Diane, if the other person did not specifically say, “Diane, I want your advice”, then you have not been asked for your advice so don’t offer any. At all.”

Most days, I count myself good if I feel myself drifting out of my lane and pull back just in time. 

Using The Examen for Discernment

Yesterday I gave a workshop on Surrender and Discernment. They are related because often we get stuck on our surrenders or when “turning things over” because we haven’t done the work of drilling down to see what—exactly—our needs are, and therefore what it is that we need to surrender or “turn over” to our Higher Power.

There is a spiritual practice called The Examen that comes from the Jesuit tradition that helps us sort out what’s good for us and less good for us. The Examen is a kind of daily inventory and gratitude list combined.

The suggestion for how to do The Examen goes like this: Each evening you take a few minutes of quiet time, maybe light a candle, and sit with your journal and write down the answers to these questions:

*What gave me energy today? What lifted me up?

*What drained my energy today?

OR

*What was I grateful for today?

*What was I not grateful for today?

The idea of doing The Examen is that over time (you do this for 21 to 30 days) a pattern will be revealed that shows you where your truest and best energy and gifts lie. It’s a practice of following your own energy, even your own pleasure.

We sometimes assume that what is pleasurable to us is also a joy to others but actually not. One of my great pleasures is reading three newspapers every day. That would be a chore or a bore to many people. And their love of cooking would feel like torture to me. You get the idea.

This idea of following one’s pleasure or best energy to discern one’s passions and talents is also described in Marion Milner’s book, “A Life of One’s Own.” Each night Milner looked over her day and asked herself what truly gave her pleasure. A key insight that she shares in her book is that so often she—and we--try to enjoy something because others enjoy it rather than finding out what we ourselves really enjoy.

It strikes me that for women in recovery this may be a new kind of inventory and also a way to find where God is working in our lives.

It also reminds me of a fear I had early in recovery of turning my will over to God. I thought that if I did completely surrender my life to God, that he/she would want me to be a missionary in Africa.

Where did I get that idea? Probably too many Sunday School stories as a kid, that missionaries in Africa were especially godly people. 

When I admitted that worry to my sponsor she pointed out that God would probably not want me to be a missionary because I was too fussy about my hair and clothes, and that even though I liked camping, being a missionary wasn’t at all like a camping trip and, she said, God was smarter than that.

My sponsor pointed out that God had other plans for me that more likely included the skills and preferences he designed into this model. It did take a while to get that, and even harder to believe it. But later it clicked; my ministry involves language: speaking, teaching, writing etc.  

So, what is yours? Trying the Examen for 30 days can tease that out.

Practicing Discernment

One friend asks, “Should she change jobs?” Another thinks about changing her whole career. A coworker debates, “Should she buy a house or continue to rent?” Someone else talks about graduate school versus yoga teacher training. 

“A choice between goods” is one definition of discernment. Not right or wrong, good or bad, but a choice between goods.

But how do you “do” discernment? 

Years ago my spiritual director gave me this list of tools for discernment:

Prayer

Quiet

Sitting still

Asking God

Listening

Get quiet and listen for the subtle

Think and feel

Wait

Then use your gut, your courage and your integrity.

Another good discernment practice, if you have time, is this:

Fully describe option A to yourself: the graduate program, the classes, location, books, homework, money, and benefits, people. Declare (to yourself) that this is the choice you have made. Live as if that is the final choice—that and only that for two weeks. Pretend to yourself it’s a done deal and go about your life as if that is true. Pay attention to your body, energy, heart and head.

After two weeks again fully commit yourself, but now to option B. Again, make full mental commitment—two whole weeks. Now what do you notice or sense in your body, mind, heart, energy? Write about what you notice and sense. What messages do you get?

Talk to people who have chosen either options –or similar ones—and then pray for a sign.

How to make a Good Decision

I love the word discernment. It reminds me that decision-making is a spiritual practice. And as women in recovery the spiritual weaves through everything that we do.

We have been told, over these years, that what we really want is God’s Will. We all have stories—both sad and hilarious—about the times that we tried to insist on our will rather than a Higher Power’s. We did it at work, in relationships, with money, and yes we survived to share our hard won experience. No matter how far down the road…applies to life in recovery as well as life before recovery.

But sometimes those decisions are hard, and the choices are not easy. I think that is even more true the longer we stay in recovery. A teacher of mine says, “Discernment is a choice between goods.” It’s no longer like we are choosing between buying drugs and going to school. No, now our choices are more like, “Which school?” or “Which good career move?” These are, yes, our luxury problems.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t struggle, and we have to be mindful of our egos and our savings and our responsibilities. So how do we make decisions keeping while the spiritual at the center?

I was in one of those dilemmas recently. I was considering some new training. It was going to be expensive in both time and money. What was the right thing? I had to decide. There was a deadline. I said, “Yes” and then a few days later my gut said, “No”. It was making me crazy. So I went to one of the wisest recovering women I know and laid out my situation.

Now here is how you’ll know she is wise: She didn’t tell me what she thought I should do. She listened and she asked a few questions and then she said, “There is a prayer from the Ignatian tradition that might be helpful.” And she laid it out for me.

Here is her suggestion: When you have a dilemma or can’t decide what you want you can ask in prayer—or be in the presence of your Higher Power --and say, “If this is your will for me please increase my desire, and if this is not your will for me please decrease my desire.”

Isn’t that incredibly powerful and simple? “God, please increase my desire or please decrease my desire.”

I did not wake up the next day with an answer but as I used the prayer over a few days I noticed that my desire for this class had clearly decreased. It was enough to know it was not a YES!!! and as I have also learned in recovery: If something is not a YES!!!, then it is definitely a no.

Here is more on discernment--in fact, perhaps the most spiritual approach there is, finding God and falling in love. This beautiful poem/prayer below was written by Fr. Pedro Arupe, SJ. 

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is,

than falling in love in a quite absolute final way.

What you are in love with,

what seizes your imagination,

will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,

what you do with your evenings,

how you spend your weekend,

what you read, who you know,

what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love,

stay in love,

and it will decide everything.

The Practice of Discernment

One friend asks, “Should she change jobs?” Another thinks about changing her whole career. A coworker describes her internal debate: “Should she buy a house or continue to rent?” Someone else talks about graduate school versus yoga teacher training.

“A choice between goods” is one definition of discernment. Not right or wrong, good or bad, but a choice between goods.

But how do you “do” discernment?

Years ago a spiritual director gave me this list of tools for discernment:

Prayer

Quiet

Sitting still (several times a day)

Asking God

Listening

Get quiet and listen for the subtle

Think and feel

Wait

Then use your gut, your courage and your integrity.

Another good discernment practice, if you have time, is this:

Fully describe option A to yourself: the graduate program, the classes, location, books, homework, money, and benefits, people. Declare (to yourself) that this is the choice you have made. Live as if that is the final choice—that and only that for two weeks. Pretend to yourself it’s a done deal and go about your life as if that is true. Pay attention to your body, energy, heart and head.

After two weeks again fully commit yourself, but now to option B. Again, make full mental commitment—two whole weeks. Now what do you notice or sense in your body, mind, heart, energy? Write about what you notice and sense. What messages do you get?

Talk to people who have chosen either of the options –or similar ones—and then pray for a sign.

Making Decisions

Today I talked with a sponsee and I shared with her some advice I learned a long time ago about decision-making. Not that I always follow it—or even remember it --but this is good stuff.  This is one of the benefits of sponsorship: you hear yourself say wise things and sometimes you use them yourself.

Here are two strategies to use when making a decision:

1. “The 10-10-10 Rule”: Imagine that you have to make a decision but you can feel yourself struggling. First imagine that you are going to say yes to the choice. Then sit down and ask yourself: Will this matter in ten minutes? In ten months? In ten years? Then imagine the opposite, that you are saying “no” to the choice, and again ask yourself will that matter in ten minutes? In ten months? In ten years?

 And here’s another way to discern what you really want to do. I call this one Yes!! or No.

2. “Yes!! or No” goes like this: When confronted with a choice you say to yourself,  “If it’s not a Yes!! then it’s a no”. What that means is that you should only honor choices, actions or decisions that are clearly Yes!! (With two exclamation points.)

If your internal response is just yes or a yeah, or maybe, or “I guess I could do that” then it is not really a Yes!! And anything less than a clear, strong Yes!! is really a no. We all know what a clear Yes!! feels like, so if you don’t feel that, your answer is no.

Black Belt Detatchment

This is a gift from Alanon. Detachment and “Detachment with Love”. That last one is the gold standard and not easy to accomplish. Years ago in Baltimore attending my first Alanon meetings I met weekly with a group of women who were “Black Belt Alanon”. They had worked the program a long time and many of them were still living with active alcoholics. They were tough. They talked a lot about detachment and working toward “detachment with love.”

I remember one of the examples they gave. It went like this: If you come home from your meeting and the drunk is passed out in the driveway—again—detachment is stepping over them and going into the house and going to bed. Detachment with love is rolling the drunken person on their side, covering them with a blanket and then going into the house and going to bed.

A pretty graphic example and one that stuck in my head. I found I could translate that driveway scenario into other situations and use it to sort out, “What would be the equivalent in this situation of providing the blanket and still going to bed?”

This week I am asking myself:

What would detachment look like? Sound like? Think like? And feel like?

Addiction is on the Menu

You have heard the jokes. Shopping addiction, chocolate addiction, TV addiction, shoes too. And they are jokes. But they are not. Twelve-step recovery has given the rest of the world and popular culture the idea of addiction and recovery, “ Hi, I’m Max and I’m a Shoe Addict."

But stay in AA long enough and you learn that there is truth in every joke.

I’m re-reading “When Society Becomes an Addict” by Anne Wilson Schaef. Her ideas and concepts permeate our self-help vocabulary. One of her bold moves in this 1987 book was to describe Substance addictions and Process addictions. Substance—something taken into the body that is mood changing and almost always leads to physical addiction. Process--behaviors or interactions that can be used to change our mood.

We know this. Bill Wilson knew it too.  In early recovery many of us read that little pamphlet from Hazelden called, “Transferring Addictions.” I remember being so mad when a sponsor gave me that one but it hit home.

Here are some of the things Schaef lists as substance addictions: alcohol, drugs, nicotine and caffeine, sugar, sometimes salt, (Betcha can’t eat just one.) and all food –which can be a substance and/or process addiction. And her list of process addictions includes eating, dieting, exercise, television, gambling, sex, work, religion, worry and spending or saving money. We can add Facebook, LinkedIn, IPhone, Words with Friends, Angry Birds and on and on and on….

Here’s the tricky part, and why I continue to need ongoing discernment with other people in recovery: the process addictions are often things that have very good qualities. Think about exercise. We get in shape, we get a good habit of running or going to the gym, but what happens when we miss a day or can’t work out for an hour? Are we furious? In a bad mood? Change our behavior with others to get that workout back? Are we afraid? I’ve been there with exercise.

Shopping? Who doesn’t want to look nice or wear clothes that are becoming? But do we obsess? Spend money we don’t have? Wander the mall in a trance? I’ve done all that.

Ditto with food and work and worry. Does the behavior help me to not feel feelings I’d rather not feel? Feelings that, if I felt them all the way through, would help me to grow? Keeping very busy is my favorite and longest lasting addiction. My friend Brigid likes to remind me, “Feelings can’t hit a moving target.”

Here is something that helps me with this discernment: Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst and teacher said, “The natural gradient in us is toward growth. Whatever we use repeatedly and compulsively to stop that growth is our particular addiction."

At Dinner on the Titanic

This week a discussion with other woman who are past the 20 year mark in recovery. Whatever issue or substance brought us in we acknowledged that it wasn’t the only thing we had to face to have good recovery. Maybe it was alcohol that led us to our first bottom, or food that provided the gift of desperation. Maybe it was men or money or work. Inevitably we get to take a good look at all of them and get help for more than one addiction.

But there is also a time in later recovery where we might decide that some issues are black and white: drugs or alcohol or certain trigger foods for some of us, but that in other areas—different ones for each woman—we’ll endorse the grey of “progress not perfection”. In some cases it is accepting life on life’s terms: there is no perfect relationship or perfect partner. And with sex and food and work we practice discernment and self-honesty.

Anhedonic by nature, I have to be careful to not live too narrow a life in the name of good recovery.

I do not want to be one of the women who refused dessert at dinner that final night on the Titanic.

Making Decisions

Today I heard myself giving advice to a sponsee. And I thought, Hey, I could take my own advice. There is one of the benefits of sponsorship: you hear yourself say smart stuff and sometimes apply it to yourself.

The woman I talked to was struggling with a decision. She had made her list of pluses and minuses and had prayed but was still stuck so I offered her this that I learned earlier in recovery:

First: The 10-10-10 rule: Imagine that you have decided Yes to this particular decision and ask yourself will this matter in ten minutes? Ten months? Ten years? Then imagine the opposite, saying No to this choice and ask the 10-10-10 again.

Second: Yes!!!! Or no. This I learned ages ago from a tape called "Walking the Beauty Path, Native American Wisdom for Women": “If it’s not a YES!!!! then it’s a no. What it means is that only a clear absolute YES!!! (With the three exclamation points) is a yes, anything less than that is a no. We all know what a clear YES feels like, if you don’t feel that, your answer is no.


Good stuff, huh? The blessings of a long recovery.

Discernment

The teacher talks to us about discernment. She says that discernment is always a choice between goods. In true discernment either choice is for something good: Go to Mexico or Go to Italy. Marry him or remain on your own. Study art history or study theology. Each one is good but you cannot do both. How to discern?

Some discernment advice:

Get the facts: Are their financial implications? Health requirements? Prerequisites?

Talk to smart people: Talk to those who have done these things.

Then live for two weeks as if you are making Choice A: I will marry him.
How does that feel?
Then live for two weeks as if you are making Choice B: I will leave him.
How does that feel?

Get quiet. Very quiet. Listen for God’s still, small voice. Stay quiet and pray.

What do you really want?

Step Two Restored to Sanity

My prayer has been to be restored to sanity. Working the program and steps and getting outside help and still I see myself caught. Caught in a web. Fear of abandonment and a feeling of my own defectiveness are woven together and I fight to get free. It’s hard to know whether my fears led me to a relationship that is not good for me or is it that my fears conspire to drive me away from someone who loves me? How do I know what is fear and what is God or good for me?

The answer that I know is that quiet and stillness will allow me to hear God, and that if I avoid all compulsive behavior I will feel what I need to feel. “Sit still and feel.” Isn’t that a slogan too? “Trust the process” and “Don’t leave before the miracle happens.” are also slogans that come to my struggling mind this morning.