(((((Alanuts)))))

I felt a bit misunderstood but moreso kind of frustrated in a recent post. As I mulled it over I thought my frustration might be because I couldn't find the words I needed. I think what the book, "Happier Than God"  has to say in terms of our choosing our personal truths has much merit and can be a real boost in recovery.

I've mentioned before that having "choices was one of my greatest "Aha! moments." Alanon gave me that gift. For some reason before Alanon I assumed that I just had to deal with what life was dishing out and there was little I could do about it. I guess it was because that was what I had been taught since childhood. "Life isn't a bed of roses, deal with it as best you can, cuz that's just how it is".
I'm still truly amazed that not until Alanon did I understand that I didn't have to play the victim role I was stuck in. I was one of those people that showed a lot of strength outside but I hated how my marriage had turned out and how my life ended up. Lots and lots of resentments. I believed everyone else was at fault because of their actions and I was totally a victim of circumstance.

So, I did as Alanon suggested and began to keep myself busy, doing things that I found pleasure in. Previous to that, when my husband would spend nights and weekends at the bar I would sit home alone feeling sure I had no other options but to feel sad, alone and deserted. Well... I knew I did have options but if I sought happiness I couldn't be on the pity pot, playing martyr where I was most comfortable.
Getting busy did help tremendously but I still had the sh*tty committee going on in my head. If I was busy I wasn't thinking of everything else, yet the everything else still remained in the background, not resolved.
Forward a year or so in Alanon to 2006 ..

I have a cousin that I have always been very close to, to the point of (dare I say?) telepathy. One day I felt an urgency to call her and I had a feeling something was very wrong. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she had just been told by law officials that her husband of 15 yrs. committed suicide in a local motel.
I left for Kansas City to be with her that day. What I found was not a terrified widowed mother of 3 in total breakdown mode as I expected, but a calm and grounded spiritually evolved soul. She very much believes in the way of American Indians in that HP is a spiritial energy of love that permiates every living thing and everything that has life is part of that same single energy, making all of us ONE with everything and eachother. There's also new age belief although she was far ahead of recent books and movies, (ie: The Secret and Law of Attraction). She is very much a spiritual teacher/leader by action, word and deed.
Though she was very saddened by the death of her husband she found solace in her belief that no one ever dies. Energy cannot die, only change form. It continues to be part of all ONEness. I watched her deal with what I would consider big problems. To her, they were only problems if she saw them that way.
I stayed with her for a week, through the funeral, held on her 22 acres of land with rolling hills. Every evening we were outside appreciating the beautiful sunsets (something I didn't really appreciate unless they were spectacular) and the way the hawks and eagles circled her house.
Her husband had an eagle tatoo and had shared that he loved them because of what they stood for. My cousin was sure he had sent them to make her smile and give a sign that all is well.
We'd sit outside for hours discussing the meaning of life, karma, how the Law of Attraction works, great spiritual teachers etc. We'd discuss life changing books, mainly Conversations With God (she'd read it 6 yrs. earlier) and how because of that series of books she saw things from a totally different perspective and explained them to me as best she could.
Once I read it, I was also changed forever. I believe there is a universal shift in spiritual consciousness happening, (this is where I lose some people..lol) an awakening of sorts.. You can see it everywhere, if you are aware. Many, many books on the subject, Movies, even Oprah. In fact my favorite church is called The Soul Esteem Center. That's not a church you'd hear of even 10 yrs ago. I still have a Higher Power, mine just doesn't sit on a throne and label who and what is a sin and condemn them for eternity. Nuff said about that without getting in trouble :)
There's no possible way to simplify or explain what I have come to believe in the last few years. It's something that each individual will persue if and when they feel "the shift".
Anyway, this is a small part of where I'm at. Alanon was a key stepping stone in opening up my mind.
I do conceive the notion that some just won't "get" my meaning or intent, but ALWAYS my intent is to help in some way. Even if you don't understand a word I say...LOL!

Below are some statements and a little explanation of things that are true for me and everyone else if they so choose... (as always, take what you like, leave the rest):

The meaning of everything is the meaning I give it.
Only I determine what meaning to give to a happening, a statement or someone's actions. I have many choices and I will choose my best possible meaning for the highest good.

I am who I say I am, and my experience is what I say it is.
Only I can have my experience. "I" choose how I see it, not what anyone else thinks I should see, learned, taken or become because of a particular experience.

"If you think that what you are experiencing during times of difficulty is real, you will quite literally make it real in terms of the effect that it has in your life."
We can "choose" how we feel and deal, it is not a "must" to feel a certain way. Life does not dictate to us what is happening, we dictate what is happening by how we choose to percieve it...whew!!!!). I feel I need to explain this one better...
We can see a situation however we choose to see it.
Here's an example in my life: As some of you know I lost a daughter due to tragic circumstances. Many times people have said to me "I could NEVER have survived that." I wondered if they thought their pain would be greater then mine if it happened to them. I could never quite figure out what that comment was intended to mean. I always thought to myself "What were my options?"
I guess they may have been as follows:

(A) I could let that event dictate who I am and how I forever looked at the world. I could carry the hurt with me and keep a tight grip on it, be hateful, bitter, angry, think life was unfair, make misery my mantra, try to figure out why, blame...on and on.
OR
(B) (this is after much evolution on my part) I could see the event for what it was, a tragic period in my life, that just was. I have the rest of my life to live without my child. I had to ask myself "how do I "choose" to live it?" I chose to live without option A and did my best to move forward and not let that instance define who I am.
This is what is meant by "the illusion". One option was not cut in stone and dictated to me by life. I was not under life's control unless I chose it to be so. My option remained an illusion, hanging in the air until I chose what was going to be my reality.
I could have chosen either one, but until I chose my option , my truth didn't exist.


"What you resist persists, and what you look at disappears."
This one is easy. It's akin to 4th step thinking. You can't run or ignore the things you don't like about yourself or anything else because it will follow you. Not until you face it can you look at it and choose to change it.

"You decide, and you alone decide, what something means to you, and how you are going to respond to it."

"stay in the moment, don't futurize and don't past-eurize"
To me this means don't hang on to old stuff and drag it in to the present and don't carve a nitch in your shoulder to carry it in to the future. For instance, there are those of us that have been abused in one form or another, but again, it's not necessary to allow it to define who we are. You are not the sum of someone elses violent act...unless you choose that option, then it certainly will be true for you.

That's all I got. My brain hurts from attempting to make myself clear and being certain I'm not..lol. I'm sure there will be those that read this (if they even made it this far) that will wonder what the heck that whacko was trying to convey. Others will "click" with what I'm sharing and have an "Aha moment" as I did and start absorbing more info..
Luckily Alanon taught me "what others think of me is none of my business"
I always understood that, I couldn't always hold on to it though. Now, I feel a bit sad for those people because no matter what they say or think of me it is theirs to keep and digest somehow...unless I choose to take it on and worry about it... and that's just not gonna happen :)

love
Christy



-- Edited by Christy at 23:30, 2008-03-06