Speaking at a Meeting

Tonight I will speak at a meeting for a friend. She is celebrating 31 years and has asked me to speak. All week she has emailed to say thanks, and looking forward to it and that she is inviting this one who needs to hear a powerful message and she is inviting that one who cannot stay sober and won’t it be good to hear my story.

The pressure is on.

I think—of course—that I want to say it all and be it all for all of them: to inspire the reluctant one, encourage the struggling one and praise the celebrating one. But what I will really do is pray this afternoon and again tonight before the meeting. I will say, “Please let me carry your message and not my ego. Please use me as your channel, please let others hear what they need to hear whether I say it or not. God, I surrender this meeting to you.”

After the meeting I will try very hard to remember that I said and meant that prayer.

Thinking About God

I talk to my therapist about how these “schema” or old beliefs intersect to create a perfect storm: I believe I am defective so I will be abandoned, to prevent that I subjugate myself to be “better” hoping that by pleasing you I can assure that you will like me. But I know I’m not being real so that reinforces the deprivation belief that no one would ever love the real me. And on and on. I have seen this play out in my 4th step inventories. When we talk about using the 4th and 5th steps to get at “the exact nature of our wrongs” we really are talking about these schema or old beliefs. We have that recovering person’s dilemma: I didn’t cause it, much was implanted and reinforced in childhood and I played it out over and over in my behavior and choices before—and yes, into, recovery. But I am responsible now. I wish it was as easy as that sounds. Knowing these are old beliefs, that these are errors in my thinking. But they are strong and deep and they fight for their own survival.

But there is another place these old beliefs trap me. I ask for help. I pray. I surrender to my Higher Power—God. “Do you believe in a loving God? I am asked. I always say yes and on a conscious level I think, yes. But when I am quiet and when I let my mind settle in prayer then I see. Even here, even with God, I think, “Not me, everyone else but not me.” Even with God—the one I am asking to restore me to sanity, I have the sinking feeling that miracles are for the good people, the loved ones.

So I back up and begin again. Before I ask God to restore me to sanity we have to have a talk about our relationship. Like the child in me I have to ask, again and again: Do you love me, as I am, now, here, with this very life, with these very “defects of character”—the antiquated language of trying to describe the schema. Like a child to a parent: “I broke everything; do you still love me?”

Thinking about Thinking

I begin this day in fear. The old “free floating anxiety”, though in truth there is enough real stuff to trigger these fears: the cold, the economy, people at work, health worries, my man, his health worries. The menu of middle age captures all of it.

But I do my Pilates and feel the fear.

Is there anything in this messy mix I can do anything about?

Anything in this one, specific day?

Then I remember reading this:

“You feel the way you do right now because of the thoughts you are thinking right now.”

That’s from David Burns.

So I review my thoughts since waking: he will die, I’ll get sick, I’m getting old, she is mad at me, she probably doesn’t like me anymore, I’ll lose my job, his family doesn’t approve, my writing will fail, God wants me to be better too. And the grand finale: I’ll be alone.

Hmmmmm…..Wonder why I feel bad?

Am I willing to work against those thoughts? It’s not as easy as changing my mind. This is like Pilates. I have to retrain my thinking muscles.

A Partner with God

In my 20’s I returned to college as an older student. I had no money, and I lived on school loans. I sold my car, clothes, stereo and records to be able to go back to school. I was awarded an internship in Washington, DC. and I said yes even though I had no money. I borrowed some money for housing and ate as cheaply as possible. Every week I would measure out my peanut butter and crackers and instant oatmeal packets. Other women in my dorm who had family support and paid internships would bring me doggie bags from the Georgetown restaurants they went to at night. I was scared and hungry but I was happy. I was happy to be in school, happy to have an exciting internship, happy to be in DC and to be able to visit all the free museums and go to free lectures and concerts every weekend.

What sustained me in those months was a series of pamphlets from Norman Vincent Peale. They were the positive thinking, faith in God, personal story pamphlets. I hung onto them for dear life.

In some ways my recovery and my faith in a higher power were beginning then even as my addictions were still sending up their first shoots.

There was one message that I copied from one of the pamphlets. I carried this in my wallet and sometimes cried reading it when I got really scared because I was almost out of rent money or when I didn’t know how I’d get back to Pennsylvania. I had to change the word “man” to “woman” and “him” to “her” but here it is. I keep this in my daily meditation book and I need to read it today:

“A woman who works in partnership with her God becomes self-reliant, positive and optimistic and undertakes her work with the constant assurance of success. She therefore magnetizes her conditions. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.”

Trust Your Gut

I had to make a work decision yesterday that came from pure gut. I wish I could say, “And then I felt great relief and knew I had made the right decision”. But it was not that. It was the nagging sense that going in a certain direction was not good. It was also the memory of another time that I did not listen to that small voice that said, “Wait.”

In the self-help, best-seller version of this story I should be getting a call that clarifies the wisdom of my decision. Or I should see a sign from God on my way to work today. Or the call offering me the perfect job should come later today. But alas, no.

Years ago I heard a speaker say, “If it’s not a YES!!!!, then it’s a no.”

That is my only consolation today.

Fear or Fatigue?

After a long weekend I headed out to a series of meetings today and I could feel the anxiety begin. It hit me that part of the fear is really fatigue…I’m tired from the weekend so I can’t be sure I have my best self on. I don’t feel mentally sharp enough, and the part of me that wants to turn around and go home really wants to go home to sit in the big chair with hot chocolate.

I’m tired!

Why does it take so long to accurately diagnose that?

How often does fear mask fatigue?

Ted Shawn Modern Dance

Mark Nepo, poet and teacher, told this story at a writing retreat:

A man was in Divinity School when he was diagnosed with polio. He had this idea –an intuition--that if he moved more it would help him with his polio. He decided to learn how to dance. He took some classes and slowly began to integrate dance into his life. He danced every day. Through dance he cured himself of polio. Ted Shawn left Divinity School to dance and to choreograph. He became the “father of modern dance” and he founded Jacob’s Pillow.