To Journal

It's amazing how totally unaware of how disconnected we are of our own feelings. Caregivers are aware of everybody else's feelings around them and yet they have such a difficult time recognizing their own.

It is important to know that before you can come full cycle and heal it is imperative that you come back in contact with your feelings … not just theirs, knowing their feelings and thoughts is a defense strategy learned many years ago in a vain attempt to deal with something that over whelmed you. It is now a requirement of the process to get in touch with your own buried sadness, hurts and repressed feelings so that you can do your own grieving so that you can really come to remember who you are and what you were intended to be.

No one said it was simple and no one said it would not be painful. Doing this has been likened to root channel work of the soul except with no freezing, but it is necessary and we are all stuck with that as a fact of life. Our only choice is the time that you set aside to do it, this is all that is optional … and it is important to know that you understand that what you get out of it will be directly proportional to what you really put into it, and not just appear to put into it but actually but forth in real effort. That is simply the way it is. The deep grieving and pain will eventually set you free. The grief is part of the process that releases the past in the present and give you back your future .

The essence of the change and recovery process is the absolute necessity of seeing what it is that you have been “blind to” for most of your life. It is a two-fold process. First, one of the key ingredients to recovery is to have the individual process him or herself through a deeply introspection, in 12 steps this is reflected in steps Four and Five. This process can be summed up briefly as ‘who am I anyway’, or ‘the good the bad and the ugly’.

In reality this is a process of you searching for you by looking into yourself in a fashion that you may never have thought of. It is truly a look at you, warts and all, not just the carefully selected stuff that each of us uses to help us maintain either the particular false front that may be ‘in season’ or ‘in fashion’ that day or the stuff that supports some crappy self image we may have of ourselves.

The second aspect of this process is you sharing all of the above with someone, all of the things that you have come to realize yourself during the first phase. That someone you share with is actually someone who draws breath, someone who can be deeply trusted, and this is all done in the presence of what it is that you have come to believe in as your Higher Power, Creator or God.

The things that are shared are what you discovered about yourself. To be most specific what is being shared are those things or patterns that:

• I do or did on a regular basis that kept me stuck in this rut that some other anal aperture (just me being polite) pushed me into years ago.

• Or how am I my own worst enemy.

There are literally hundreds of phrases used to describe the nature of what is hidden away deep down inside the introspection process. You can use whatever phrase helps you.

I say this ‘being stuck in a rut’ with some reverence.

Here is why. I can’t be responsible for what was done to me, but one of my deeper discoveries I made was that I spent most of my life trying to do just that, but to heal, I have to become willing to be responsible for what I do and what I did and with where I am now and more importantly I have to become willing to be responsible for getting me out of that metaphorical rut that I got pushed into.

The Metaphor

Over and over, I have followed my own advice on what I think I should do and how I think I should do it and each time it came up the same, I have failed.

There are times when the desperation inside of me becomes so overwhelming; I don’t think I can go on another moment.

But as I quiet my mind and close my eyes I notice, for the first time in years, that there is a part of me that remembers the truth of whom I am. It speaks to me in a voice that is neither male nor female and reassures that all is not for not.

Imagine that, from deep inside me, a Voice of sanity, reassurance, comfort and truth. This is a voice that I recall from my childhood, soft and certain, it reminds me of my Maker and It tells me I am part of all that is. One with! I am part of the plan too and I belong, no longer left out.

"No Child of God, can be less than perfect."

There is warmth and a comfort that comes over me as I sense this presence deep within me. Oh, it is hard to discern at first, but each time I acknowledge it to be alive and well within me, I feel it grow and become more pronounced and defined, and more a part of my life.

I feel the pieces of me beginning to come home from their hiding places and take their rightful place within me.

The missing parts of me are beginning to fall into place, as if some giant hand is now beginning to put me, the jig saw puzzle, back together again.

. . . Experience Has Taught Me That . . .

I know that I have many avenues open to me and it really is a simple decision.

A or B.

Choose the new and unfamiliar, take the risks and begin to experiment with something that I have discovered within me, something totally new and unfamiliar or

Do it the old way and take one more step towards death.

Which will I choose?

So why is it a demand for this process to have such a deep introspective aspect as a perquisite to healing?

Here is the primary reason. Those people who work nearly exclusively with recovery in treatment centers have found that, before the individual is really stable enough to be placed back in the real world and make it, the individual must in some way come to terms with the hidden demons they carry. That does not necessarily mean coming to a resolution; simply acknowledging reality as it is, seems to be what is called for.

Working the deep introspection (the steps if you are following the Minnesota model) creates the opportunity to begin to notice the following:

(A) We have blind spots in our psyche;

(B) There is something hiding in those blind spots;

(C) And whatever is in those blind spots may be a major contributing factor to our experiencing life as unpleasant. (Please pardon the understatement.)

So, if it is true that the hidden demons are running the show, then it extends naturally to the assumption that any or all hope of change and/or recovery is lost on our own unhealthy dependence upon What We Know. This is where being your own worst enemy comes in … no matter how hard you try you, depending on you will bring you back to the beginning. If you can see into our blind spots then it follows that you cannot see the real monsters that control your life.

Journaling

Journaling is the facility that takes you into the process of you discovering you. It gently brings us to face ourselves; to look at our choices, clarify our feelings, thoughts and ideas. It brings you to a point of being able to see that you have choices and you can examine your choices and create options; it is the beginning of us building an intimate relationship with yourself, it is a deep soulful conversation you with yourself. It naturally leads to increased awareness by you of you.

Our journal becomes a reflection of our thought and our self-talk.

Exercise: Work Notes:

Over and over, I have followed my own advice on what I think I should do and how I think I should do it and each time it came up the same, I have failed.

There are times when the desperation inside of me becomes so overwhelming; I don’t think I can go on another moment.

From your own perspective give definition to the above: Line by line if you have to, just make it real for you. Allow yourself to come to terms with the reality about you.

Exercise: Work Notes:

But as I quiet my mind and close my eyes I notice, for the first time in years, that there is a part of me that remembers the truth of whom I am. It speaks to me in a voice that is neither male nor female and reassures that all is not for not.

Imagine that, from deep inside me, a Voice of sanity, reassurance, comfort and truth. This is a voice that I recall from my childhood, soft and certain, it reminds me of my Maker and It tells me I am part of all that is. One with! I am part of the plan too and I belong, no longer left out.

"No Child of God, can be less than perfect."

From your own perspective give definition to the above: Line by line if you have to, just make it real for you. Allow yourself to come to terms with the reality about you.

Exercise: Work Notes:

. . . Experience Has Taught Me That . . .

I know that I have many avenues open to me and it really is a simple decision.

A or B.

Choose the new and unfamiliar, take the risks and begin to experiment with something that I have discovered within me, something totally new and unfamiliar or

Do it the old way and take one more step towards death.

Which will I choose?

From your own perspective give definition to the above: Line by line if you have to, just make it real for you. Allow yourself to come to terms with the reality about you.

Next, simply start telling your story, develop your own autobiography, the story of your life, as you see and remember it, or as it was told to you by others. It can be a collage of story lines that describes you to you and it can include early childhood memories, preschool issues, those are important and what we know about our infancy. What was going on in our families and in the world at the time were children. Anything that may have impacted on you, what your early days at school were like, what and who your first friendships were made up of. Include patterns, problems, things you like, people that were important, abusive, friendly or supportive. Teachers, romantic relationships, early sexual experiences, recreational activities, sports, academics, family time, vacations and losses are all part or your history. This is simply you telling your story in front of you on a page so you can finally see it for yourself - coming to know yourself - slowly. Include your hopes and dreams, your successes and failures. Slowly you will begin to see the patterns in your life. You can see your early adulthood; trace your 'dis-ease’. You can see more of who you really are.

Know this, that as you do this process it slowly brings you back on track to becoming yourself and filling your destiny. It is important that you do this yourself, for yourself. Do not do this because I asked you to - do it for you.

This workbook/journal is designed-hopefully-to allow you to get past you being you, so that you can reach into the deep and perhaps darker areas or arenas of your own awareness to make 'affective change' possible.

You Can't Make Things Different By Keeping Them The Same

Exercise: Work Notes:

Describe: The hands that nurtured me: (several pages please)

Exercise: Work Notes:

Describe: The hands that betrayed me: several pages please

Exercise: Work Notes:

Describe the crimes that affected me: The ones I still carry to this day because of the betrayal.