Denial

The Language of Letting Go... Owning Our Energy

Monday, August 29, 2011

let go of

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Owning Our Energy

Learn to keep your energy inside.
—From Women, Sex, and Addiction, Charlotte Davis Kasl, Ph.D.

For many reasons, we may have mastered the art of giving away our energy. We may have learned it when we were young because the feelings we had were too overwhelming to feel, and we did not know how to process them.

Much of our obsessing, our intense focus on others, is done to facilitate this "out of body" experience we call codependency.

We obsess, we babble, we become anxious. We try to control, care take, and fuss over others. Our energy spills out of us on to whomever.

Our energy is our energy. Our feelings, thoughts, issues, love, sexuality; our mental, physical, spiritual, sexual, creative, and emotional energy is ours.

We can learn to have healthy boundaries - healthy parameters - around our energy and ourselves. We can learn to keep our energy within ourselves and deal with our issues.

If we are trying to escape from our body, if our energy is spilling out of us in unhealthy ways, we can ask ourselves what is going on, what is hurting us, what we are avoiding, what we need to face, what we need to deal with.

Then, we can do that. We can come back home to live - in ourselves.

Today, I will keep my energy in my body. I will stay focused and within my boundaries. God, help me my need to escape myself. Help me face my issues so I am comfortable living in my

body.

communication

Spirit Struggle, oil on canvas by Kwhimsical420
Do you often plan out conversations in your head before you have them? Do you go to multiple people for advice on what to say? Do you “backpedal” in your communication meaning you think first about the end result you want and then script a conversation to create that result? Are you being strategic in your conversations more than you are being present and authentic? ~ Christine Hassler

Be Still

Be Still...Acryllic on canvas

The Spirit of Crazy Horse
charcoal on canvas

Emotion

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Recognizing Feelings

Experiencing feelings can be a challenge if we've had no previous experience or permission to do that. Learning to identify what we're feeling is a challenge we can meet, but we will not become experts overnight. Nor do we have to deal with our feelings perfectly.

Here are some ideas that might be helpful as you learn to recognize and deal with feelings:

Take out a sheet of paper. On the top of it write, "If it was okay to feel whatever I'm feeling, and I wouldn't be judged as bad or wrong, what would I be feeling?" Then write whatever comes to mind. You can also use the favorite standby of many people in discovering their feelings: writing or journaling. You can keep a diary, write letters you don't intend to send, or just scribble thoughts onto a note pad.

Watch and listen to yourself as an objective third person might. Listen to your tone of voice and the words you use. What do you hear? Sadness, fear, anger, happiness?

What is your body telling you? Is it tense and rigid with anger? Running with fear? Heavy with sadness and grief? Dancing with joy?

Talking to people in recovery helps too. Going to meetings helps. Once we feel safe, many of us find that we open up naturally and with ease to our feelings.

We are on a continual treasure hunt in recovery. One of the treasures we're seeking is the emotional part of ourselves. We don't have to do it perfectly. We need only be honest, open, and willing to try. Our emotions are there, waiting to share themselves with us.

Today, I will watch myself and listen to myself as I go through my day. I will not judge myself for what I'm feeling; I will accept myself.

From Co Dependence the dance of wounded souls

"In order to start be-ing in the moment in a healthy, age-appropriate way it is necessary to heal our "inner child." The inner child we need to heal is actually our "inner children" who have been running our lives because we have been unconsciously reacting to life out of the emotional wounds and attitudes, the old tapes, of our childhoods."

Thought for the day from Todays Gift ~ from Inner Harvest by Elizabeth L

Hurts do heal.

Time has a wonderful way of erasing bad feelings and leaving us with good ones. Our memories are selective, and fortunately, the pleasant ones seem to have more staying power. Whatever has been real and meaningful for us tends to remain with us - the rest gradually fades away. We can assist this selective process of memory by consciously letting go of the thoughts and feelings that disturb our serenity.

You might imagine yourself making a package out of a disappointment, your hostility, some hurt feelings, or whatever is hampering your spirit. Wrap the package tightly and ship it off to a Higher Power. Send it airmail, if you like.

Refusing to dwell on our wounds allows them to heal more quickly. In our program, there is no place for self-pity. The reprieve we have is a daily one, and it depends on our spiritual condition. Gratitude for all the good fortune that comes our way keeps us healthy.

I will remember that what hurts today will pass in time. I can speed its departure by refusing to indulge in self-pity.

Sensitive souls

Sensitive Souls

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. -James Thurber

In a college psychology class, I was required to read a book subtitled The Mental Institution as a Last Resort. The book's thesis

was that many people in mental institutions are not crazy, but just more sensitive than most people in the society. The authors suggested that many mental patents are simply too finely strung to fit into the mainstream, and an institution is a safe place-similar to an ashram or monasterywhere they can be who they are without having to adapt to a society that is in many ways more insane than they are.

Hilda Charlton noted that souls who are particularly fine-tuned emotionally, artistically, or spiritually are often unable to cope with the heaviness of the world, and so they turn to various addictions to escape. Alcoholics, drug addicts, and many mental patients are highly evolved souls who cannot find comfort, acceptance, or a forum for expression in their worldly circles, so they sedate their sense of homelessness with chemicals or insanity. Indeed, many great artists, musicians, thinkers, inventors, and visionaries have sought to take refuge in addiction or illusion.

A Course in Miracles confirms that we do need to escape from the world we see, for it is not a place of truth or Godliness. But, the Course asserts, we will not find refuge if we follow the promptings of fear; if you must escape, then escape into truth.

In the Hindu culture, holy men and women are revered and cared for by the society. Saints and mystics are not tested, prodded, poked, crossexamined, rationalized, written off, and shunned as they are in the West. In that culture, genuine visionaries are supported to do their spiritual work while people care for their worldly needs and responsibilities.

Let us honor our sensitivity and create a supportive space for talented souls to express our true self.

I pray to create a world in which the gifts of God are respected and empowered.

I express my artistic nature with courage and confidence.~Alan Cohen A Deep Breath Of Life

Daily Meditation

Connect with Source

Anyone who is too busy to pray is too busy. -Anonymous

Imagine a deep-sea diver in a diving suit with a long lifeline connected to his boat at the surface of the ocean. As the diver walks the ocean floor exploring the marvels of the deep, his life-support tube delivers a steady flow of vital oxygen to him. If his air tube becomes clogged or cut off, the diver will be unable to function; he will probably panic, flail, try to return to the surface, or expire.

We are like divers in earth suits, exploring the wonders of life on this planet. The earth is not our home; we are visitors here. Our true nature is not physical, but spiritual. We, too, have a life-support tube, and that is prayer, meditation, or any other form of communion with our Source. If our supply of spirit is cut off, we will not live well or long. Our connection to God is as important to our soul as the diver's supply of air to his body.

Each day, take time to feed your soul. Make your first priority any activity that nourishes your inner being. Pray or meditate, practice tai chi or yoga, walk in nature, play music, dance, read uplifting words, or share meaningful talks with friends. Any activity that renews your spirit is a form of prayer.

Commit to your spiritual practice first. Devote the beginning of your day to self-renewal. Your day will go better, and the time that you invest will pay for itself a thousandfold. Again, before you close your eyes to go to sleep, be with God. Feed your soul; it is your most important meal of the day.

You are my first priority. Knowing You makes all the difference in my life and my world. Knowing You is knowing myself. Be with me today, that I may be with You always.

Nourished by the spirit of love, my heart is whole.~ A Deep Breath of Life by Alan Cohen

Be Who you Are, if you don't ...who then? will be you?

Friday, October 1, 2010

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Be Who You Are

In recovery; we're learning a new behavior. It's called Be Who You Are.

For some of us, this can be frightening. What would happen if we felt what we felt, said what we wanted, became firm about our beliefs, and valued what we needed? What would happen if we let go of our camouflage of adaptation? What would happen if we owned our power to be ourselves?

Would people still like us? Would they go away? Would they become angry?

There comes a time when we become willing and ready to take that risk. To continue growing, and living with ourselves, we realize we must liberate ourselves. It becomes time to stop allowing ourselves to be so controlled by others and their expectations and be true to ourselves - regardless of the reaction of others.

Before long, we begin to understand. Some people may go away, but the relationship would have ended anyway. Some people stay and love and respect us more for taking the risk of being whom we are. We begin to achieve intimacy, and relationships that work.

We discover that who we are has always been good enough. It is who we were intended to be.

Today, I will own my power to be myself.

A 3 Dimensional Painting

I Had a really beautiful experience I want to share......Sunday after church and it had been a very powerful sacrament meeting, sunday school studying Isaiah and wonderful lesson in Relief Society which is the women's hour......... and as the sun was going down I was out in the yard still in my church dress and there were beautiful breezes the ones that are so soft on your skin...and nature was calling..come look over here.......I went to get not a camera but a chair.....I immersed myself in the beauty of the sky as if it were a movie......The pink clouds had sunlit edges and were drifting and floating slowly across the sky carried by the soft southern breezes.... everything, the sky, the clouds, were all in layers just like a painting!!!!! as I sat there in total peace and blissfully content, one lone bird flew across my magnificent picture!! tying it all together in a 3 dimensional sort of way!!!!! It was a beautiful catch your breath moment, and only for a moment, if I were not still and waiting I would have missed it!!!!!! there was no other birds as my next thought was oh there will be many birds fly across but no there were not.... only this one.....A gift From Heavenly Father to me, this painting. oh how thankful I am ♥

Thought for the Day -- Hazelden

Sunday, September 26, 2010

You are reading from the book Twenty Four Hours a Day Hardcover (24 Hours)

A.A. Thought for the Day

Continuing the consideration of the term spiritual experience: "The acquiring of an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, resulting in a dramatic transformation, though frequent, is by no means the rule. Most of our spiritual experiences are of the educational variety, and they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often friends of newcomers are aware of the difference long before they are themselves. They finally realize that they have undergone a profound alteration in their reaction to life and that such a change could hardly have been brought about by themselves alone." Is my outlook on life changing for the better?

Meditation for the Day

Look at the world as your Father's house. Think of all people you meet as guests in your Father's house, to be treated with love and consideration. Look at yourself as a servant in your Father's house, as a servant of all. Think of no work as beneath you. Be ever ready to do all you can for others who need your help. There is gladness in God's service. There is much satisfaction in serving the highest that you know. Express your love for God in service to all who are living with you in your Father's house.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may serve others out of gratitude to God. I pray that my work may be a small repayment for His grace so freely given me.

A whisper soft kiss felt amidst a conversational gathering. yet not their lips but their spirits embrace.....this one eternal moment of reaching deeply..... into the heart of a far away place....they who have lost their way are found in this dance.... and have yet still a glimpse... of one more chance.... her eyes looked lovingly up from a dream...your soul tells the story from the depths of your blue..... the aching longing the pleadings of you............... A yearning to believe.... they are not wrong.... they are different ..........change.......KJB

The Giving Tree step stool

First done digitally ...how I saw it on the stool
and then the actual painting on the stool, I really
like the tree digitally and had more space to give it that giving leaning look than I did on the actual stool

Dreaming. A Distraction Painting

Dreaming. A Distraction Painting