Heaven is a Matter of Perspective
Guest blog by Shadoe Christine I’ve gone so long pretendingTrying to show everything is okayI’d rather not worry youWith the weight I carry each day.Its slowly getting harderTo hold all the emotions backPiece by piece, fragment by fragmentThe illusion is starting to crackYou’ve begun to notice silent tearsYou’re starting to realize the pain.Beginning to see…
Staying in The Moment
At my job, we teach staying in the present as a coping skill.The last few weeks and months seem to have a lot of minds busy with turbulence & unrest… One of the things I’ve learned most about helping people in duress is to bring them back to the moment. “Grounding” is the new term.…
Take What You Need
My job gives me the opportunity to intimately see into a person’s life…..in fact I see pretty much the whole spectrum from birth to death. I’ve had the opportunity to watch 100’s of births and maybe half as many deaths. After an emotional week at work which resulted in several awakenings, tonight my heart is full. Full of a sense of the struggles people face… Sometimes silently… Sometimes in the public eye. The sudden appearance of disease in your life; wrenching heartache & turmoil that you never dreamed of; or the pain of looking into the eyes of a lost…
RBF
That’s right. Those of you who know what this means probably have it yourself. Maybe not. These are questions to ask yourself if you want to know if you have it. Have you ever been asked what’s wrong when nothing is wrong?Have you ever been told you look soooooo tired? Have you ever sat in the hairdressers chair and looked at that person in the mirror not even recognizing the face? Have you ever turned on your phone camera and saw a giant, sad, scary face staring back? How many times can you count the instances where someone asked what…
Addicted to Drama
I read somewhere that we get a dopamine burst even in times of worry and pain. I thought, “How can this be? I thought dopamine was just for pleasure?” I found this Article in psychology today which helps explains it: “….in the moment, anger feels good; it feels like the thing to do. It overrides all other moral and rational brakes in the brain because it originates from our primordial, original limbic system: the brain center of our most automatic emotions like fear and desire.” And as far as the dopamine release: “What happens is that anger can lead to similar “rushes”…
“You Knew The Risk”
To those wonderful commenters on addiction/or an overdose post who say no one forced people with SUD to stick a pill down their throat or use a needle, I say to you: Thank God. Thank God, it wasn’t YOUR CHILD. Thank heavens you don’t know what it’s like to feel helpless when you find out your successful son; the hero of so many, the big hearted business owner who took his family on vacations and bought his workers new tires to get to work; is now homeless without a car or a suitcase to his name. Thank heavens you never…
Fighting Against Someone’s Free Agency
Way back in the 4th grade at Lincoln Elementary in small town America, some 40+ years ago; I remember seeing the anti smoking video of someone with a hole in their throat who didn’t let that stop them from smoking. It horrified me so much I ran home in tears begging my Mom to PLEASE STOP SMOKING. “Do It For Me! Please, Mom. Can’t you see I need you? Can’t you see I’m scared you will leave me then who will take care of me? Because if you leave me I will have a lifetime of fear of loss and…
Rainy Day Morsels of Thought
From Matt Kahn Aside from it being how spirit lives in its highest form, one reason an empath is encouraged to always be the bigger person, no matter how anyone else behaves, is because they are more able to grow compared to the collective mentality of the world. Through their awareness alone, they haven’t placed a lid on their expansion, other than the empowered choices they refuse to embrace. Being the bigger person may initially seem unfair to an empath when surrounded by family or a society still asleep in the conditioning still playing out. And yet, the more often…
The Merry-Go-Round of Conversing With an Addicted Loved One
Connection. You KNOW it’s important. From toddlers to teens, we’re told to try to truly connect with our children. So we do. We try constantly to let them know we are here, and we care. As adults, the dynamic changes into trying to not being so motherly and being just friends, in a way. We thrive in being connected to our adult children. It gives us a feeling of all those little ducklings in a row, not necessarily behind us crossing the street, but out in the world, doing their thing. When those children become dependant on a substance it…
Happy Independence Day🇺🇸
I’ve been camping this weekend away from the traditional fourth of July celebrations that I’m used to. It’s been a somewhat peaceful, but very hot get-away. We’ve went boating on the beautiful clear waters of Strawberry reservoir, picnicking on the sandy driftwood beach and four-wheeling to a beautiful mountain vista with wildflowers galore. The Fourth of July always makes me miss my parents and especially my dad. when I see Smokey the bear in the parades it reminds me of my dad’s last days working for the forest service as a part of the forest service senior citizen program. How…
Arachnophobia
Life lessons from the pool This is the conversation I just heard at the pool: “Honey come get this dead spider out of the water, HURRY! OMG!!!! It’s alive!!! How can that be? Get it! Wait how is that even a thing?? How can it be ALIVE in the water? OMG it’s MORE than NOT dead! it’s booking it! Hurry! How Is that possible??” To which the guy said: Chill, Quit screeching.. You’re gonna be ok….” You’re gonna be ok. I tell myself this all the time. Do I believe it? Spiders are a bit scary, I admit, but when…
Beligerence
bel·lig·er·ent/bəˈlijərənt/adjective Hostile and aggressive.”a bull-necked, belligerent old man” He (or she) doesn’t have to be old though. Or Green. Or Lou Ferrigno. It can be anyone who verbally attacks us. Those of us who love a person with a substance use problem, know all too well the turmoil and drama of an angry, frustrated person. If you’ve ever been the recipient of anger AND you are over 40, you will understand this meme. The Incredible Hulk Chris Snoe on Quora, explained the Hulk’s anger like this: “Essentially the state of rage the Hulk requires at first initializes his transformation. But…
BaNaNaS
What an odd thing to write about, right? But every single time my bananas start to look like this, it takes me back 20 years. I had this thing with bananas. They were touted as soooo nutritious, which led me to buy them a̲l̲l̲ t̲h̲e̲ t̲i̲m̲e̲. I mean ALL THE TIME. Even though…… They always ended up looking like this….or worse I know, I don’t understand it. I think they were liked ok by my family. I mean it’s not like anyone ever said, “I hate bananas.” So I just kept buying them. Vacations were the worst. I’d pack the…
Constraining Beliefs
ł₣ Ø₦ⱠɎ After a week or 2 of disappointing events, and a sucky work week, I was destined to a restless and worrisome night – replaying a conversation with a coworker over and over. This morning when I jumped in my car for an eye appointment, This Talk by Wendy Watson was playing on the radio. I heard the words “Constraining Beliefs”. In my despairing state of mind, I resorted back to my default thinking that has probably held me back my entire life.If I had an argument or misunderstanding with someone, I would think “If ONLY they would DO…
LoSe BIG
I see it all the time. People acting the way they do strictly out of ғᴇᴀʀ. Think about it. Would there be ĂŃŶ office politics if people were not fearful for their job? Would there be ĂŃŶ fights in relationships if people were not fearful of LOSS? Would there be ĂŃŶ addicted gamblers if they were not fearful of being βŘØҜ€? I swear everything that anyone does is out of fear of losing something. Either their identity (which they have attached to their job, their relationship or their material things) or their lifestyle. I’m not a psychologist but I believe…
Trauma Blocking
What the heck? Never heard this term before but when I came across a local recovery group Addict to Athlete’s IG Checklist for it, it sounded vaguely familiar. It sounds like stress. Life, ya know? Trying to get through the day. Or the week. Don’t we all mindlessly scroll on social media and the next thing you know it’s been an hour? Some of us celebrate Friday with a glass of wine.🍷 Boredom eating, the feeling that you SHOULD be doing something when you have a few minutes free time. It really comes down to what expectations have groomed us…
Lines In The Sand
I’m only 53 but I’ve saw a few things in my life. I saw the dust gather on the little black Atari box to make way for the big donkey Kong arcade game at the local dairy Queen. I watched the excitement of of the neighborhood kids gathered around having asteroid contests. I watched the birth of Xbox, the internet and cell phones. I watched the cars get smaller while the pricetag got bigger. I saw houses get bigger while families got smaller. I watched parents work more & more hours while kids did more activities. I watched the same…
4 years ago
Four years ago on Election day. ☑️🗳️☑️ YOU were the one who taught me to care about truth and standing up 4🇺🇲 AMERICA🇺🇲 YOU are the one who explained to me until 2am how evil works..🦹How it entices by promises shiney💎 things with slick talk and comforting words. With fake promises and easy political tag lines🧹🧙🕷️YOU were the perfect example, the passionate 🏇Messenger of all things life. You, my first born son, were / are one of the most influential people to ANYone who’s ever met you.. With your knowledge, your humor….So it makes sense that you were attacked hard….🤺…
Why Can’t we Respect Differing Opinions?
It’s sad that we think we can only like or be friends with people who believe what we do. It’s strange to think that the old debate rules we learned in High School are nonexistent anymore. Yet history has shown us that it’s easier to divide and conquer if we want a certain policy passed or a way of life to be accepted. Theres a video called hidden agendas (which btw won’t load-but it was originally on Amazon prime), is classified as conspiracy theory, and is now unavailable with all the censoring. This only furthers the narrative to make us…
How to Deal with Internet Criticism
As I’m trying my hand at writing with this blog site AND starting my first book, I really needed to strengthen my armor and battle my extra sensitive innerds to withstand future haters. So I was thrilled to read a fellow bloggers advice. I came across THIS article on internet criticism. In it they state to “Accept that someone else’s opinion is NOT your problem.” Duh. I mean in theory it’s true. Why DO we care what Jim Bob from timbuck2 says? Why does it seem like a direct hit to our gut. Is this all stemming from the era…