Recognize Your Rights of Passage and Say Yes.

The biggest shift in my life and sobriety to date has arrived.  I’ll set up what I am about to say by saying that I have a major propensity to RUN!  Most of the time my running is geographic but not always – I have noticed the powerful instinct to run in almost every way. Now, as currently face situation after situation which triggers my run response, I finally find myself diving right into the pain, right into the fear, facing it head-on and what I have found is the most the amazing thing – when you dive into it – you dive through it – it doesn’t last forever and what’s on the other side is an experience of Truth – of me and of life that is an indescribable blessing.  I believe( a word that is stronger than to know) that God is tailoring a series of “rights of passage” for me.  How grateful I am to be not only honored with these “rights of passages” but to be in a place spiritually to re-cognize them as such with my entire heart, mind and being.  From this place of trusting that there are no mistakes in God, I settle into the knowing that no matter how much my heart hurts in moments, that this too not only shall pass but it is for me!  In the last three days I crossed a personal threshold that I did not even know existed – a genuine breakthrough within my consciousness – a complete transcendence of a limitation, which I now see has been limiting me my whole life.  I trust myself and more importantly, I trust God in all of Its workings.  Letting Go has a whole new meaning and embracing the mystery is all that I have got – and it’s everything that I have ever wanted.  Slowly, slowly in my sobriety, I am learning to let go of all of it and be here now, nurturing and caring for myself in a way that is sweet and powerfully loving.  I am genuinely excited and grateful for life.  This is my dominant experience and yet there are gut-wrenching, heart-expanding moments each day where I am called a little bit deeper and each time I dive into the fear and nurture myself, I find myself rising into a greater trust in God.  The Good that I am seeking is within me, the Source of that Good is my God, Life evolves Forward, there is nothing from the past that belongs to this moment now that is not here.  Life in Its fullness is dynamically and powerfully for me.  There is nothing I could have ever done to separate myself from an experience of Good that belongs to me.  I am refreshed in this knowing.  I accept my “rights of passage” with a big YES, God!  And So It Is.

In Love with the Mystery

It’s happening NOW in real-time.  For the first several months of my sobriety I felt tugged into the future or the past and now I feel like I have been warped into the present time – it is happening NOW and I feel slightly more empowered to make decisions from the powerful place of being present in this NOW moment.  It’s not going to help to run from things any longer – it’s best to dive straight in – the harder the situation the deeper I should dive.  I have been playing small, deathly afraid of the resistance I feel, mistaking it for truth instead of the fear that it is.  Perhaps it’s the un-layering of the cloaks of doubt and shame and fear that are occurring in the 9^th step that are allowing me to center more fully in the NOW.  But just because I find myself centered here doesn’t mean that it’s not scary, there are things from my past and my future that I wish to cling to so badly but those that are meant to be a part of me now will simply be here NOW.  If they are still embedded in my heart NOW than they belong.  I’m not really sure exactly what I am talking about when I say this – but it’s that inner guidance that is revealing itself through this Spiritual Practice of writing and as it always does – it will inform me throughout the coming days.  I have come to trust that still small voice within me – “the occasional hunch or inspiration is gradually becoming a working part of the mind.(BB, P. 87)”  Being present and watching thoughts fly through my mind and deciding & knowing which are my disease, which are my thoughts and yet always remembering that my thoughts are not me.  I am not my thoughts, I do not have to identify with them…. I can simply let them be a separate entity from me.  So can you, drawing yourself into the present moment through actively working the steps and committed to being here now you will find yourself increasingly empowered to make choices that serve you and to do so with Ease, Grace & Dignity. Being here NOW is about embracing the beautiful mystery of the Universe.  As your practice deepens you will fall in love with the mystery of the Universe as I sometimes am :)

Change Is Possible If You Change It Within

Today I wake feeling empowered, alive and filled with hope.  I used to shy away from the word “hope” as it somehow implied to this New Thought persons mind, that my good was outside myself.  Nope, I feel that hope right there deep down inside of me and it is rising to the surface of my being and it feels good.  A couple of my spiritual mentors have so lovingly pointed out to me lately that perhaps in an area or two of my life, I am still seeking my good outside of myself.  This was the case with drugs and alcohol and now after almost 17 months of sobriety I am discovering this to be true in other areas of my life.  I have come to understand that we are endogenous beings – meaning our life unfolds from within us outward and not vice versa so as I explore my desires for life and begin to look at them with an eye of “is this something outside of me that I am seeking” I begin to have a deeper clarity and freedom than I am used to in certain areas of my life.  SO today I am going to share my practice with you.  My practice is an affirmation that I repeat 15X a day and it is this.  There is no lack of Spiritual Integrity in Universal Good, therefore there is no lack of Spiritual Integrity in me, My Good is %100 alignment and expression in and of Spiritual Integrity.  Any Good that I am seeking is within me.  I stop reaching for that which is outside of me and turn my attention and intention inward to the Source of All Life.  Happy Trails in your sobriety today.  If today is a dark one, grab a mentor, a friend and share your pain openly and honestly.  Tomorrow is a new day and chances are you will wake feeling completely different than today.  This too shall pass.  Many Blessings.

9th Step has Promises for A Reason - Keep Going

Yesss – there is a reason that the 9^th step has promises – isn’t there?  I’m in the midst of my 9^th step and my excuses of business has seen it’s day.  More deeply than ever I am sensing in my depths that there is a link between the stuff that is hiding deep down inside of me that the 9^th step is intended to heal and my prosperity is awaiting the clear reflection of right alignment that comes as a result.  I’ve been so busy fooling myself all of these years with false pride but when it comes down to really knowing what I believe at my core, one may look to my life to find out – I spoke of this on Sunday at our service.  As vulnerable as this feels to put it out there, I know that I must, in faith that there will be another chapter to the story to share with you if I am honest about this stage of my journey -  a chapter which reflects great financial abundance and prosperity in my life and as my life.  There must be some part of me which really believes that “I am not good enough to be supported freely and consistently” because that is what continues to reflect in my world.  I know that God does not punish but that I have the capacity to punish myself through holding a belief, which is absolutely creative and operative in my life.  These beliefs could very well have been adopted from all of the “bad stuff” that I was up to in my addiction.  I think I am harder on myself that almost anyone I have ever met and I have to remember that we all make mistakes and addiction has a particularly messy and destructive nature to it.  Living my amends is the most powerful restitution for the damage caused but getting in there and making amends whereby not only is it possible that others will forgive me but more importantly that I forgive myself.  You see my inner self critic or as Julia Cameron calls her “my Censor” has rich and fertile soil to grow and live in the “stuff” that happened in my life around my disease.  The 9^th step is about clearing this so that my inner Critic can just relax already.  Eventually as I continue to work these steps I hope to see my inner critic fade into the nothingness from whence it came and to feel the abundant nature of my soul expressed in my attitudes of being more than enough for the fact that I am a Divine emanation of “the One” as is each and every soul on this planet.  Beliefs rooted in Truth unlike the false beliefs I picked up in my addiction have nothing to do but shine health into every area of my life including my financial health and well-being.  Today, I pursue the next section of my 9^th step with vigor for I am ready for, accept and expect my freedom.  I liken this experience to standing at the door knocking, expecting the door to be opened and the God of my soul to welcome me home to the Truth of my being which has never changed – I just temporarily forgot.  Thank you 9^th step for being the roadmap for remembering the Truth about me.