Friday, December 24, 2010

Here Is An Interesting Fact Of Life


For me to touch them … they had to be touching me.

Most people never notice this one.

For my life to be focused and centered in reality … and in reality is the key word phrase here … I had to be real. So it follows if I am to be real:

If I can come in contact with them … and conversely … they with me … I have to consider that I might not be destroyed by the contact with them.

My conundrum was that I was afraid … I was hiding … hiding deep inside my own skin, far below the surface of my metaphorical pond … the one that I hide in the depths of, while appearing to be somebody at the surface … but if I wanted to have the life I said I always wanted to have … I had to at least come to the surface and be present and accountable for a period of time.


Being Real Counts Anywhere It Happens

… But When It Happens Where The Skin Meets The Air...

Now That Is Profound

Thursday, December 16, 2010

This is not about who I am

This is not about who I am

This is about what happened to Me

An Open Mind

An Open Heart

And a Willingness to Change

Perfect 

Upright 

And Beautiful

Somedays My Behaviour Stinks

I'm Not My Behaviour 

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Fearfulness is An Idea

Fearfulness is an idea and so are you.

In perception, everything you experience is an idea.

As you begin to explore your life, it is important to free yourself from the ideas that burden you or inhibit you. There is no right way to free yourself, but in every case the first step is to be willing to look clearly at your perception of how you think things are.

When you can honestly see the effect of a habit, substance or concept, you can offer to the universe your willingness to eliminate it from your life.

Some have used the words "addiction, obsession or compulsion" to describe something your ego believes it must have or do, in order to survive.

This is a useful concept to understand. It applies not only to the physical substances but to behaviours, things, people and beliefs.

All addictions, obsessions or compulsions are imprisoning. It must be remembered that it is not the thing itself that binds you, but your belief in IT and your ego believes that IT is necessary for you to have so you can continue on in life’s journey.

When you attempt to overcome an addiction or obsession or compulsion through sacrifice, by only giving up the thing while retaining the belief that IT is a necessity for you to have faith in to do for you what it has always done, you are not free.

Freedom is attained when you become willing to accept that the thing itself is unnecessary, and your faith in IT is released and turned back into the universe to find ITs way home. At the same time you become willing to search out a thing called spiritual and become involved.

If you are willing to be free, then the Pattern you are living, working in conjunction with a Higher Power, will reveal freedom to you. IT may come in strange ways from places you would least expect it, but it will be shown to you. IT will be yours to act on and you will know what to do and how to do IT, probably even where to do IT; when to do IT is always left up to you. You may not like what is revealed but there IT will be staring back at you waiting for you to do something with IT.

An imprisoning idea is any idea that inhibits your enjoyment of your abundance and or the expression of your creativity or the full experience of God's joy.

Your abundance or the expression of your creativity or the full experience of God’s joy may seem different, but their effect is the same.

Experience Has Taught Me That

Sooner or Later

I will have to deal with the concept that:

“IT Is Waiting For Me To Do Something With IT.”























35 On Appreciating Introspection

EXPERIENCE has taught us that being able to see the hand of our Higher Power at work, to truly see the miraculous quietly working among us as we go through the daily ritual of being ourselves requires no faith or assump-tions.

All that is required is that we simply stop and notice, that’s all.

It is simply a matter of paying full and close attention to the givens of life as they unfold in front of us, to what is so ever-present that we usually do not notice it or we take it for granted.

Free from the eye unclouded by longing, free from the personal neediness that clouds almost every view.

The true wonders of the world are available everywhere—in the minutest aspects of life, in the vast expanses of the cosmos, and in the innate interconnectedness of all things vast and small.

What Is Most Profound Is That I Am Here To Experience All This In The First Place.

Without Me,

Would This All Exist?

31 On Appreciating Resistance

EXPERIENCE has taught us that in our culture we do all we can to push aside those experiences that bring us closer to our deeper and hidden past. We tend to keep them at a distance and pretend they don’t exist.

It is like living at the base of the volcano and ignoring the intrinsic dangers of being there in the first place, simply because we choose not to notice.

When we think of life in this context there is some merit to the idea that we choose to be “entertained” by life in the fashion that we are.

So . . .

. . . as long as we push away the pain, it has us nailed to the wall. But when we stop resisting it we sort of let it in. It is actually a relief; we feel better in spite of it.




No Longer At Odds With Everything

Extracted from a Client's Story oh so many years ago:

However in the end the pain faded and I was able to realize just how sick my family was and let go. If asked if I would do the court thing again I'm not sure what I would say.

It was hell.

However, at the time, it was what it took for me to let go of my past and turbo burst into a new future full of freedom, love and dreams coming true.

I often watched people in therapy after some times finally come to the point where they were ready to deal with their core issues. Their biggest inner demons and then over and over again always avoiding it always with very well intentioned plans, either through intellectualization, a new relationship, moving away, a new job, getting angry with Neil and quitting, deciding they were finished just when they were actually getting started, being really busy, a series of ongoing crises (my personal favorite) etc.

For me taking the time to sort through my core family issues and all those childhood traumas; a bunch I had forgotten; so much sadness and grief, that was the key to a life of freedom.

I needed to find someone who had been through his or her own hell and back again who knew the way to support, and comfort me. To teach and discipline me so I could learn personal boundaries and most of all to love me and love me and love me until I could learn to love again. For me, that someone was Neil.

I saw five or six therapists before him, but he had really done his stuff and I can see he still does. It's that love and his humanness and experience that gave me the strength to go through.

Group therapy with a capable and compassionate facilitator is from my experience one of the most effective ways of moving through these core family issues and making permanent life changes. There are a lot of “shitty” therapists out there or mediocre well-meaning ones, and some that really know their stuff. Neil knows his stuff.









Tuesday, December 14, 2010

From ACIM ...

Lesson 32


I Have Invented The World I See.


1) Today we are continuing to develop the theme of cause and effect. You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. YOU can give it up as easily as you made it up. YOU will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see.


2) The idea for today, like the preceding ones, applies to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the same. However, since you see them as different, the practice periods for today will again include two phases, one involving the world you see outside you, and the other the world you see in your mind. In today's exercises, try to introduce the thought that both are in your own imagination.


3) Again we will begin the practice periods for the morning and evening by repeating the idea for today two or three times while looking around at the world you see as outside yourself. Then close your eyes and look around your inner world. Try to treat them both as equally as possible. Repeat the idea for today unhurriedly as often as you wish, as you watch the images your imagination presents to your awareness.


4) For the two longer practice periods three to five minutes are recommended, with not less than three required. More than that can be utilized, if you find the exercise restful. To facilitate this, select a time when few distractions are anticipated, and when you yourself feel reasonably ready.


5) These exercises are also to be continued during the day, as often as possible. The shorter applications consist of repeating the idea slowly, as you survey either your inner or outer world. It does not matter which you choose.


6) The idea for today should also be applied immediately to any situation that may distress you. Apply the idea by telling yourself: I have invented this situation as I see it.


I have invented this situation as I see it.

Taking Action

Talking about our problems.

Mapping out our families dysfunction is not the same as taking action. 

Action means that I have let go of control and I am willing to listen to someone else and do things their way rather then my way.

From John Bradshaw's "The Family" ... page 196

Saturday, December 11, 2010

SCHOOL LIFE, SO TO SPEAK

Living life between a rock and a hard place

Insulting names hurled like stones

The heart turns to steel, caged like a captured animal - defenceless

You learn to put on stone armour to hide behind

Fighting back only makes things worse

Having no place go, no one to turn to

No friends for support, but so desperately seeking

There was no rest not at school, not at home.



Last again, but I knew that was coming, my place already predetermined

Back of the pack again and again

The ump calls batter up, instead I am battered up

Dodging the balls hurdled at me was a daily game I was forced to play

I am out before I reach first plate; in fact I was out before the game started

Why me, why am I always the target

No angels in my outfield, to save and protect me

Where were all the responsible adults at my greatest time of need?



As I sit and learn my ABCs and 123s, I am surrounded by the cruelty of life

The teachers correct my work but, they never really help me

The classrooms were filled to capacity, but yet I was all alone

I am frozen in time from all the cold shoulders

Taunted and haunted to no end

Nothing changes as life passes by, hiding from the pain of abuse

Constantly trashed and then recycled over and over again

When you want to find me, just look in my favourite hiding place.



I wish I would have been able to tell them to take a hike or fly a kite

The bulling inflicted was like bullets fired into my heart

Life was like playing a game of hide and seek, where I hid and no one seeks me

Encapsulated in a world that I so desperately wanted to escape

Each day brought the same old, same old; again and again until you believed it was the only way

On a scale of 1 to 10, my life was a "0"

The torture was so great I felt like I was living in hell

Escaped at last with no desire to go back – no more repeat visits for me.


Who ever came up with the saying "Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you", never lived a life like mine, as the names did hurt, a very deep lasting hurt.



A description of how things were oh so many years ago: J M H - 2010

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Addictions, Obsessions or Compulsions

Addictions, obsessions or compulsions are activities that I can’t resist doing, or group of substance(s) I have to consume. It can be a set of values that I adhere to even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is not in my best interest to do so. It can be a lifestyle/relationship and how I interact in that arrangement that is self destructive but I cling to it for dear life. These things all have one clear connecting quality, they are things I repeatedly crave to experience or consume or conversely ...things I avoid experiencing and the entire purpose in the doing or not doing is to offset feelings I have no idea how to handle. Feelings of emptiness, aloneness, fearfulness and or anger begin to describe the range. Feelings that in and of themselves can be more painful than the most painful physical feelings I have ever experienced. These feelings plague us and to gain release from these feelings I am willing to pay a price ... (suffer negative consequences). Enabling is a form most often overlooked. Here is collection of some of the themes of denial I hear voiced from time to time in my office.

• "I know I have a problem with this sometimes, but do I have to do this recovery stuff all the time?"

• "What's the big deal? Nobody has boundaries really. Why do people give me such a hard time?"

• "I don't understand why I still do it. But every so often I get a big urge, and I go for it then I have to hide."

• "Maybe I'm the sort of person who just needs to not be clear. Anyway, I've tried before, and it’s too hard, I can't do it. So?"

• "For several months I was doing fine. One night I slipped, and it’s been back downhill ever since."

• "Making boundaries successfully amounts to having enough willpower to do it. I don't, so why kid myself?"

• "Do I have to do this rest of my life?"

Relatively minor addictions like enabling or watching too much television, eating a certain kind of candy, lying in bed on weekend mornings, or not saying what needs to be said because I am caretaking someone I fear and that extends to me trying to protect me from some ghost of Christmas past, are often not even considered addictions, obsessions or compulsions, because the price being paid for indulging them does not seem to be too high.

On the other hand, the easy one to see is the “addict." The person who, at least in the eyes of others, continues an addictive behavior long after it may have been clear that there is substantial price being paid by them and it is not worth the benefit they think they are getting. This individual may have lost a career, house, family and friends, because of cocaine use but is unwilling to consider stopping, is an unfortunate example.

adapted fromCOPING WITH ADDICTION by Arthur T. Horvath, Ph.D., A.B.P.P Copyright, 1989

Simple Statement of Truth:

Experiencing our discomfort simply as it is and not being carried off imagining that it is the end of the world, has some hidden benefits; benefits that we may never have either considered or imagined without slowing things down enough just to notice.

The experience of having our feelings simply as they are presents unexpected outcomes, but only if you take the time to notice. For instance simply having the experience rather then attempting to shun it or push it away, or mood alter can in and of itself have the ability to open us up to dynamics and to places within us that are so vast and rich, so full of the presence of spirit and creativity that it would be hard to describe them, let alone imagine them to be there without having the opportunity to experience them.

People who have experienced these awakening to the deeper side of life have do so as the result of experiencing life from a prospective that was life threatening and or terrorizing, and they report that in the midst of all the clamber and hullabaloo they came in contact with aspects of themselves that they never would have imagine were there to be contacted in the first place. Now the oddity of it all is that they might never have consider of looking inside the pain, the confusion the clamber and hubbub to see what was there and they only reason that they did was because they had no choice, it happened to them.

• So how can one become skillful at taking benefit from that observation and intimacies with that which scares me nearly to death?

• How can one go about touching base with the deeper side of things that seem only to be accessible via methods that are both scary and uncomfortable?

• Then if you wanted to stretch it just a little further how could one use the wisdom gleaned from the experience of crossing over into that place as a temp plate for resolving life’s difficulties.

• Is it possible to source the deeper aspects of yourself and not be scared to death as you do it?

Simply have the feeling. Not being lost in it or having to run away from it or re arranging it to appear to be something that it is not but rather to simply sit on it and noticing, just watchingto what is happening both on the inside and the outside.

Just notice.

That is all that is required.

Simply Notice

All most to a person, we have a strong desire to shun the sensation of what is initially perceived as unpleasant or uncomfortable and all most to a person we will hesitate to even admit that this opportunity of deep introspection is there just waiting for us, should we choose to try it.

• Scary thought not to run away from the fear or the hurt and the pain.

• Scary thought just to have it and notice all its qualities.

I have done this many times and noticed one consistent thing; the feelings are never what I thought they were. Scary is not scary after I get passed the initial moment or onset and not reacted. I have found that there were stages to move through as I sat with the feelings, and the first and most intimidating of all is the overwhelming sense of vulnerability.

Vulnerability is like a vestibule or waiting area that leads to the deeper workings of the soul. The front hall if you like. Be there in vulnerability can be something akin to sitting in the dentist’s office waiting for your turn. Being there in vulnerability often seems to be an empty, creepy and lonely thing to doplace, yet when your consciousness simply stands there in it, waiting, it is then that you notice that there is a very particular discomfort that sets up deep within you. This discomfort has many noticeable features that can change from situation to situation and they can come together and seem to gather momentum to be come the working definition of creepy or lonely or empty and the list goes on and on.

We notice this strangeness and we will, quite naturally, want to make every effort to avoid it.

But … and this but is a major but … if you can just stay centered in the moment and allow yourself to delve deeper into the introspection of the natural and painful processes, know this, growth is hidden within the process of examination.

There is really only one major requirement and that is; that we stay with the sensation of vulnerable, or metaphorically, stand in the vestibule, and then simply notice what comes along in our consciousness.

Then simply notice.

Don’t grasp, don’t push, don’t run just notice. Allow it to be what it is and how it is.

Free from your influence that is being driven by your underlying fears.

Simply notice.

This is often said to be done in a fashion that we have never would have imagined possible and often as not, to heighten the affect, we do it with people or in circumstances we would have thought impossible to either be with or be in.

Imagine that ...doing something that I would never have thought possible.

Question To The Universe

So does vulnerable equal defense¬less?

1) And if it does, then when these two places in our consciousness come together do they conspire to bring about the pain, the pain we are afraid to have in the first place.

2) Am I complicit in my own suffering either covertly or overtly?

3) Are there times where life conspires with the circumstances to present situations that simply have no appetizing solutions, it seems that it is just more despair and depression?

So there you are in the midst of experiencing turmoil on many levels, intense sensations that most would want to call painful at levels in your being that you would never have imagined.

Now if you stay steady with it for just a few brief moments in time you may begin to notice something unusual, the sensation, in and of itself, begins to change. The business of standing in the vestibule of your soul becomes an interesting place to be.

The feelings evolves and as it does some of it evolves into that motivating force that will begin to move you towards sharing things you never would have dreamt of sharing with people you never would have thought of sharing with, ever, but … and here is the magical big but again … you do this because in all honesty, you need to for your own well being.

It is like an awakening or birth where the soul breaking out of its shell, the ego, much as a butterfly has to break out of the chrysalis to complete the transformation process, of becoming … what you might ask … of becoming intimate, actually become an intimate, someone who has had the experience and gleaned the wisdom to be able share from the heart.

Having the facility to share and listen and not be dominated with or by fear.

To be able to translate and transfer that experience to and with people in a fashion you never would have thought possible.

Imagine that ... doing the impossible.

What everyone notices who venture into this process is this:

(a) Those barriers that stood between you and you sharing with the world outside of you slowly began to fall away as an indirect aside from taking the time to appreciate the sensation for what it is.

(b) The appreciation process becomes the tool or the instrument of release from the cocoon of the ego, it is the process that is melting those barriers mentioned above.

(c) By stopping and doing this marks the beginning of the undoing of the self imposed isolation of self and the beginning of the undoing of that tiny little painful knot that is hidden deep down in your heart, something like the single pebble in the heal of your shoe. It becomes very wearisome after awhile.

(d) It also marks the beginning of the process that will allow you to touch the existence of the reality that lay at and just beyond the very surface of your skin. Something akin to a fish in a pond that discovers the surface and senses that there is something more out there, no idea what, but a sense that something is there and it is important to have. So he pokes his head up to the surface and begins to hang out there simply for the experience.

(e) By simply being willing to explore the deeper aspects of your own sensory output, this will eventually cause you to become aware that for you, more is possible.

Here is the interesting fact of life; for me to touch them they had to touch me, for my life to be focused and centered in reality I had to be real.

You can come in connect with them

and they with you

and not be destroyed by the contact.

My conundrum was that I was afraid and I was hiding deep in side my skin, far below the surface of my metaphorical pond but if I wanted to have the life I said I always wanted I had to at least come to the surface and be present and accountable.

Being Real Can Only Happen Where The Skin Meet The Air.

My pain brought me to the surface. I never said out of my body, just to the surface of my being.

It is at the surface of our existence, the skin line so to speak, where we find things like compassion, and understanding, love and caring, things that if we allowed them to sink in, to be absorbed, then we could begin to give over the hard driving perfectionist tread mill that we keep our selves on.

• We also might even notice others just like us at the surface too trying figure out what the hell to do too.

• We may just very well awaken into a place where we can begin to appreciate that we are not alone on the face of this planet and God has not made a mistake.

• That we really are here for a reason, and that reason might not have a darned thing to do with our logic and reason.

• We might notice that if we are actually paying close attention to all that is we might notice that there just might be a message in the fact that we are here in the midst of 6 or so billion other lost souls here too and maybe we should try experimenting with what we might be able to do with at least some of those others who seem to be aware of the predicament we are all in.

All our natural defenses of resistance are just devices we use to keep our focus off the job at hand, of exploring the universe we were born into.

So here is the conundrum:

We are left right in the middle of a life that has brought us to our knees by the sharp fragments and shards of it’s circumstances and there seems not to be an appetizing solution at hand, but there is a door, and that door seems to go places that could be both scary and painful, but as we stand where we stand in our life’s circumstance the very pain of standing there is slowly becoming overpowering so we either have to mood alter, pretend or get on with it and go through.

It is simply a decision.

It is the ramifications of that decision that are mind boggling when you stop and think about it.

As we begin to examine the pain of it all, we might just notice that there is a choice hidden away in there and I could have if I wanted it and that choice seems to be for me to step through the thought/passageway/door and enter a deep world of appreciation that has nothing to do with outer world values, that is now opening to me if only I choose; a place that is called by many different names and a place that for a time initially will appear to be filled with unknowingness, unfamiliarity and sometimes raw fear, but I now know that this will all pass, if only I give it a chance.

Finally as we are brought into touch with a place very deep inside our souls we find that this unknowingness slowly gives way to a place that has a quiet sense of immense strength and spaciousness.

It is place where courage and strength is sown and harvested, where our ability to imagine and accept and go on in the face of adversity comes to maturity and if drawn upon this place it allows us to preserver and get on with life as it is laid out for us.

It is a place where we can be stretched beyond what we think we could do, and then do whatever it is that comes next and needs to be done. This can all come to fruition in the face of the unfamiliar and the uncertain and done is such a fashion that your next action will be full of both a sense of self and a sense of creative genius intertwined into one new sensation.

It is a mystical place where you and your physical reality can meet up with your eternal essence. This meeting up is more a blending and it does not happen because of the pain or aversion, but rather out of a respect for life gained as you examine the pain and aversions of your life. It comes about because of the willingness you display to play on the edge of, and explore into the depths of, which allows you a greater access to that deeper part of you.

The re¬sistance to exploration of the pain is us holding that opportunity at bay purely out of fear of fear, because we believe we don’t know, and we don’t want to go round the corner and see. We are simply too scared. But if you just take the time to enter into the feeling of being scared you will notice it has deeper qualities too and it is only the device our mind is using to keep us from seeing our own true nature.

When we open to our suffering we open to our humanity … to all that is.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Dr Timmen Cermak: Diagnosing and Treating Co Dependency

The primary purpose of a long term interactive group is to provide a setting in which the issues of codependency emerge spontaneously ... Interactive group therapy works best when members discover themselves behaving inside the group much as they do in real life – being distrustful, controlling their feelings, sacrificing their own needs to ensure that others are taken care of, revealing only carefully chosen parts of themselves ... when they finally understand that those behaviours reflect habitual and unconscious patterns, the group can become a laboratory for experimenting with alternative behaviours ...




Dr Timmen Cermak: Diagnosing and Treating Co Dependency (pgs 88-89)

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Life is What Happens to You While You are Doing Something Else

EXPERIENCE has taught us that this path of looking more closely at ourselves, although certainly not easy, is truly the only route by which we can at last leave behind the cruel invisible prison walls created in our childhood exploration of our humanity.

We become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible, responsive individuals in the present. People who are aware of their past have processed and accepted it for what it is, and are thus able to live with it.

The irony is that most people do exactly the opposite, even those who profess most loudly that they are on the path. Without realizing that the unprocessed past is constantly determining their present actions, most people avoid learning anything meaningful about their history. They continue to live their lives in the state of their repressed childhood roles, ignoring the fact that these situations no longer exist, except in the mind of the beholder. They continue to live with the old and repressed assumptions; they continue the posture of fearing fears and avoiding dangers that, once real, have not been real for a long, long time.

Psychic shadow boxing

Fighting a fight I can neither win nor protect myself from. Why? Because that was then and this is now and it is not here now.

We now know that people are driven by these unconscious memories, repressed feelings, and unfulfilled needs, and this state of affairs determines nearly everything they do or are willing to attempt to do or fail to do.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

What is an Addiction, Obsession and or Compulsion ... An Eating Disorder

People use food, drugs, alcohol and other activities for many reasons; to feel pleasure, to forget their problems, to help them relax.

No one chooses to become an addict or obsessive or compulsive, a co dependent ... but for every one of us who have fallen prey to this thing there was a point when we no longer make a choice about whether to act out or not. The psychological and physical dependency on the substance or behaviour overrides all logic.

No matter how much we love our families we will engage in behaviours that can destroy those relationships – we lie, steal, cheat and abuse ourselves and others and it is usually the ones we love because they are handy.

People who are co-dependent have lost all hope, all faith, all belief that they can survive without alcohol or other drugs or their own particular behaviour pattern that they learned in early to mid childhood. These substances and circumstances are not just stress relievers or crutches, they become life itself.

It’s no wonder that if someone tries to take that thing away they’ll fight for just like they are fighting for their life – because they are.

Co-dependents etc want the love and approval of their family and friends even if they act like they don’t need anyone. They tend to push people away, not because they don’t care about them, but because they feel shame and guilt and don’t want anyone else to see them as they see themselves.

If you are  interested in what we are doing in South Africa have a look at this blog: http://vivianjoslovo.blogspot.com/

Recognizing Co-dependent Patterns

There are lots of ways to avoid recognizing the existence of co-dependency. Co dependency is the direct result of me adjusting my life to someone else's problem ... especially if this happens early on in life and my need to adapt to their problems becomes part of my normal. Then adapting those habits I picked up into my terrible dailiness ... and then depending on those habits to get me through my adult life.... spending my adult life tripping over the very things that helped me ... saved me ... away back when I had a prime stressor in my life ... people describe the avoidance patterns thusly:

• It's like being asleep.

• You dream that things are one way when really they are not.

• Even if they aren't that way, you just keep dreaming it anyway. Because almost everything you have been exposed to has co-dependent overtones, you may not know that there is something better.

• For some, denial may have been a learned survival or safety mechanism.

• If you really saw or talked about what was happening in your family when you grew up, you might not have survived childhood.

• You may have been taught not to notice what was happening to you and to other people in your family in order to maintain a "one big happy family" fantasy for the outside world.

• Of all the things you were taught to ignore, it is the lack of recognition of your own feelings that usually has the most devastating effects on you and your relationships and others.

Co-dependency, like all addictions,

It Is A Feeling Disorder.



A Prayer For All Seasons

To be honest, I’m not sure who I'm praying to.

Maybe I'm talking to myself.

To be honest, I can't take "it" anymore.

Oh yes I could still do "it”.... At least for a while longer but...

I don't know what I feel like

I wanna quit hurting.

I wanna quit hurting me and being my own worst enemy.

I wanna quit hurting my family, my friends, my neighbours.

I just wanna quit all this stuff.

To be honest, I don't know how and I don't know what to do.

I believe this is what "they" call lost and I am not sure if anyone or anything is listening,

But if someone or something is,

Please listen,

Please help,

Come find me

I'm hiding in plain sight.
taken from Experience Has Taught Us: 175 Missing Pieces




Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The 8 Deadly Sins of Codependency

There is Subterfuge with the confines of codependency, and there seems to be 8 basic umbrella groupings with many, many sub groups. The mingling of these sub groups causes many variations of a theme on the sub plots that go to make up and contribute to the subterfuge of codependency ... the number of variations on a theme is enormous …



The covert rules that are constructed as a result of that intermingling can work in unison or in conjunction with each other. Again more fodder for subterfuge. They can combine in many a haphazard fashion. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of ways they can conspire. Often as not, it is the application of these variations on a theme that forces people within dysfunctional systems into survivor modes just to get by. It is how we got by during our original experience.

1 Control

One must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behaviour at all times. This is the primary tenant for all systems that are managed by covert and dysfunctional rules.

Control is a defensive strategy. The Strategy has gone awry … it has missed the mark … but … if it is all that I have then I will use it … if I use it then it will become my habit … as it becomes my habit, I will call it normal … if it becomes the working definition of my normal then I will hope against hope that my way works because, and here is the important part, I am not about to try anyone else’s way or use anyone else’s rules.

This rule is supposed to protect me/us from the shame … the origin of this shame is actually from my deeper sense of a lost and ruptured self. But, here is why the strategy of control really can’t work …

My effort with control is to attempt to stop all the outside influences from being themselves and reminding or triggering me into my sense of self-rupture.

I want to sense being both feeling safe and secure.

There is a deep need from within me to feel that way. My attempts to do so tend to elude me no matter how hard I try or for that matter how often I try with the misbegotten tools I have acquired.

I want to both feel safe and feel better; but my very effort to do so defeats me every time I try.

The problem is that once you enter into the process of controlling your feelings, your actions, controlling what the family can and can’t do, how the office is going to be run etc … then all spontaneity is lost with the system.

Know this: It is a shame evoking process to attempt to protect you from shame via control.

It sort of follows the bumper sticker idea of planning your spontaneity Is Not A Fun Thing To Do, it can be an interesting pass-time to enter into but not fun!

Control really does not serve a practical function. The function it does serve really is an attempt to prevent from happening what cannot be prevented. It is all about the Ghosts of Christmas Past, and it comes from trying to find a way to interact with life without coming out of hiding and being real.

Control has an addictive quality to it.

In the application of the facility called control, it gives the beholder a sense of power; there seems to be a sort of surreal sense of predictability and security that wants to spin off from the situation as the control is applied. It gives the beholder a high. Not that it ever really works for extended periods of time, it doesn’t.

It is just there and seemingly wants to jump in to the ring and make us feel better ― temporarily. Did you hear just how close that one came to actually doing something for us and still missed the mark?

Again as mentioned before, temporarily, is the key word here ― only temporarily!

Controlling all … is in and of itself … a form of severe disability of the will.

It has some of the same qualities as a shark feeding proudly upon itself … in frenzy … Just Look What I Can Do it says taking another mouth full of self … not realizing that this is a form of a disease and if left to its own devices … over time … will consume the beholder.

This is pointed out in Lesley Farber’s book Ways of the Will… the disabled Will wants to will away what cannot be willed away … all life’s little twists and turns and its total unpredictabil¬ity (no matter who the guru is that says he or she can actually support you in making them go away).

It is a key and a clue to what it was really like to be a kid at your house …

Know this: Control is bred in fear … no other place … just fear. Once formed it drives us to avoid the fear like the plague … Control is our sword and shield … if it is all we think we have … then that is all we can do.

2 Perfectionism 

Don’t be caught being wrong … this is more often in your own eyes than anywhere else ... it is how I imagine I am perceived...

Always “be right” in everything you do.

This oppressive form of thinking can be about everything we attempt to do or think we want to do … it is often justified by our own thinking and our own rationale.

It is all the notions and rules about life that we carried away in our covert backpack from our family of origin.

We may be of the belief that we have dealt with the family of origin issues and we even have distanced ourselves far away from them … but the ideals and beliefs we carried away from the family of origin in our covert backpacks are right here dictating how we have to think.

How we think is governed by the covert backpack and for our purpose(s) here we will call it what we often refer to it as … normal, understanding that our normal is filled with what we believe to be truths.

Now these norms may be about intellectual achievement or moral self-righteousness, about being upper class or lower class, about being rich or poor. It is the underpinning of how we see the world. They are always about how we will frame the world we live in and then be able to judge others and ourselves. We will always be able, in theory, to know where we stand. We will never be caught off guard.

Perfectionism is an instrument of measure primarily; it encourages competitiveness amongst its users. It gives the beholder a sense of one-up-man-ship; again it is a temporary thing that needs to be redone over and over and over again in a vain attempt to fill that sense of self rupture.

Now because it is a tool of measurement this rule is imposed on just about everything we do ... but … being imposed … is the key phrase here.

Similarly the competitive aspect is also imposed upon others, usually within the system itself. It is what we do to cover-up and compensate for the hurt and the shame and the intense sense of self rupture we feel from time to time. Now we feel it from time to time but it is there all the time noticed or not. All the members of the system play the game of being members of the system by anxiously avoiding what is defined as bad, wrong or inferior by the systems rules and this can include neighbors or political parties … anything that the system has decided does not or is not worthy of its respect. It is usually something that if it were looked at closely would reveal the original system to be flawed.

Again a basic rule is followed: Fear And Avoidance Of The Negative Is The Organizing Principle Of Life.

The members live according to an externalized image they project … all become what is called being self-image actualized. Thus they are their image and these people who practice this principle lose their real selves via dissociation … Dr Ralph Alison , retired Forensic Psychiatrist, says that the birth personality goes into hiding until the individual comes in contact with an ethical therapist and is well into the therapeutic process.

This leaves the beholder of this structured belief system to live what amounts to a chronic life of dissociation from self. Always busy observing the self in all situations while wondering internally: “Am I doing it right or what are they thinking of me?”

James Joyce’s quote comes to mind:
“Mr. Duff lives a few feet from his body.”

The list goes on and on… John Bradshaw summed it up nicely in his book, The Family … no belief system leads to hopelessness more quickly than this one.

3 Denial Of The Five Freedoms 

Deny feelings, this is a defense strategy … it keeps the unwanted away … it keeps us in a place where we can appear to be having a good time while at the same time we … deep down inside … are scared half to death about things we don’t or can’t even imagine or remember … deny anything that might stir feelings up … things like perceptions, thoughts, wants and imaginings … and especially things that have been predetermined to be negative things like fear, loneliness, sadness, hurt, rejection and dependency needs.

This is a variation on a theme of the rules of perfectionism … and we are back to the first tenant of perfectionism: “No Rule Takes Us Into Hopelessness Any Faster Than This One”. You shouldn’t think, feel, desire, imagine, see things, hear things, the way you do. You should see, hear, feel, think, imagine, and desire the way the Perfectionist’s ideal demands … never the way you wish or want to or for that matter the way you imagine it. Just know what the working definition of normal and acceptable is for the moment and adhere to it … regardless of your thoughts wants or desires.

4 Blame 

Who did ‘it’?

Why they do ‘it’?

Deflect ‘it’ away from me. The ‘it’ in this case is anything that I think or feel will expose me for what I believe I really am … actually it is the fabled self-rupture quietly at work in our lives trying to maintain a home in our house … spotlight someone else before someone spotlights me and most important if someone makes a mistake … regardless of how minor … nail them for ‘it’ !

Blame gives one a sense of control. This is especially important when one loses a sense of control. It is thought to be one of the fastest mood altering methods.

Blame as many forms … it is a form of mood altering … often the art of the Spectatoring is a form of blame … each party is exactly sure what the other said and the context in which it was used and the other party recalling perfectly the same incident saw and heard something totally different … the differences we argue about … blaming the other party … it is actually pointless … it allows what is referred to as a cybernetic feedback loop to occur … that is, an endless argument that has no beginning and no end … oddly enough … it does facilitate the relationship remaining stable … not healthy … but stable … considering that one working definition of stable is the continuance of the familiar.

Blame is a “from childhood” defense strategy. It learned in the backyard or in the basement of our pre-school-sibling-rivalry days … it wasn’t me mommy … Bobby did it! … He said with the broken cup in his hand and the spilt milk at his feet.

5 No-Talk Rule

To be properly dysfunctional you cannot and neither must you encourage either yourself or others to talk about the realities of life, things like feelings, thoughts or experiences and especially those things that might focus on the pain and loneliness of the dysfunction.

This is also a variation on a theme of the perfectionist’s rule … fundamental prerequisite for dysfunction to be able to take hold and operate in your life.

Here’s why … denial of expression is a fundamental wound to our humanity ... the actual process of us being a human being … we are basically symbolic creatures … this is basically (basically being the key word here) how we express ourselves … in symbols.

We both create and seek our creativity and the expression of our humanity through the symbolic function of the imagination … so it follows that to be perfectly dysfunctional it is a must that this aspect of our beingness be stifled as completely as possible ... “All By Myself … I can handle this all by myself … etc.”

6 Myth-Making

This one has its own particular twists that could be seen to be funny if they weren’t so sad at times … it is here where well practiced denial becomes delusion … the fundamental rules for operating the myth making system are simple and to the point, as follows:

Always look at the bright side. (Translated that means avoid the negative at all costs)

Reframe the hurt, pain and distress in such a way as to distract everyone from what is really happening. (Translated that means avoid the negative at all costs)

This is a way to appear to always keep the balance in the system … notice I never said healthy … just in-balance … often as not, the balance is precarious … but it is balanced none-the-less.

The overall object of the exercise is to keep the system closed … nothing in, nothing out … the steel trap concept thus if anyone rocks the boat with truth or an understanding or insight they will upset the status quo and the system will in all likelihood turn on them … in a vain effort to regain balance.

7 Incompletion

Never resolve anything … don’t bring things to closure … don’t complete transactions … maintain the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s posture … old fights are good fights even if you can’t remember why or how they started in the first place … this can go on for years … it just becomes what we do because we are who we are … or at least so we think … Just look at Northern Ireland or the Middle East … two real good bad examples of what this concept embodies.

There are two basic tenants of this application:

First: chronic fighting and conflict … no real resolution is sought or found … we fight because it is what we do best, because … because … because. Each person with a perfectly clear recall of what was said and how it was said and each with a different picture of what happened or how it happened … fighting over things that really matter not outside the fighting … oddly enough maintains the relationship because they cannot get along in any other manner … the fighting is the bonding formula… the jam that holds them together.

Second: is through enmeshment and confluence … agreeing never to disagree. Some people pride themselves that in their relationship they have never fought with their partners … the unspoken message here is that fighting between partners is bad … it is not … it is just confrontational … and that is definitely not bad. Again all the rules of above apply and again this process is the bonding formula that holds people together in the face of overwhelming evidence that they should maybe separate and be done with it …

This style of system allows people to appear to be together while at the same time maintain a real sense of distance between members (no meaningful contact) while appearing to be a tightly knit unit such as a family or a work team etc.

The pain of the process is that members of this style of system are generally upset and confused all the time.

8 Unreliability 

Never enter into a place called trust … don’t offer it and don’t expect it … know deep down inside that you are the only reliable person that you know … keep this one to yourself and you will never be disappointed by life. It follows that since the parents never got their dependency needs met as children, that they did not have this to pass on to us … because parents cannot pass on what they don’t have thus the parents cover this short fall up by acting either aloof and independent (walled boundaries) or needy and dependent (enmeshed boundaries) … thus in either case every member of the system … especially the junior members of the system … feels emotionally cut off and incomplete … and of course it follows that the tradition of yesteryear continues on and no one gets their needs met in a functional manner… translated this means it slips onto and into the next generation and they will sooner or later continue in the tradition of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Step One

"We admitted that we were powerless over our compulsions, obsessions, and addiction and that our lives had become unmanageable."



It has been my belief since my earliest memory that

“I am alone and my world is a dangerous place”.

My life seems to affirm this daily.

I have found that I can only acquire the relief and happiness that I think I want
By doing something or getting something.

There are times when I feel so desperate, lost and alone.

Taken from Experience Has Taught Us: Searching for the Willingness to Change

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

EXPERIENCE has taught us that

EXPERIENCE has taught us that there are basic truths we can operate from in our healing processes—basic guides, if you like. These truths are all about us, and none are about our supposed circumstances. All, if respected, will allow us to step a little deeper into our conundrum, develop an appreciation of our life’s predicament and, possibly, if we are paying close attention, reveal how to get out of it.

1) Each one of us holds beliefs, some conscious and some unconscious. Our behavior is shaped far more by our unconscious beliefs than by our conscious ones.

2) Most of our unconscious beliefs were formed early on in our lives (before age three) and are strongly influenced by the culture we grew up in.

3) There are structures of our consciousness, or states of being, that further the hurt and pain within us. These are places or conditions of non-peace, states of fear that verge on terror, and places of buried or denied hurts, deep distrust of humanity, and frustrated hostility that is always ready to boil over.

4) It is normal for any of us to exhibit strong resistance to even recognizing any evidence that challenges the legitimacy or the adequacy of these deep-set unconscious beliefs.

5) Despite all the resistance, unconscious beliefs can be changed.

The Primary Purpose

The primary purpose of a long term interactive group is to provide a setting in which the issues of codependency emerge spontaneously ... Interactive group therapy works best when members discover themselves behaving inside the group much as they do in real life – being distrustful, controlling their feelings, sacrificing their own needs to ensure that others are taken care of, revealing only carefully chosen parts of themselves ... when they finally understand that those behaviours reflect habitual and unconscious patterns, the group can become a laboratory for experimenting with alternative behaviours ...



Dr Timmen Cermak: Diagnosing and Treating Co Dependency (pgs 88-89)