Remembering Cheryl....

Dear Readers......

It is with great love and sadness that we tell you that Cheryl passed away last Wednesday, April 22nd on a sunny evening with her beloved Robert at her side.

My name is Cathie A. and I am the sponsor of the blogger, Cheryl H.   I am here in Cheryl's home with Robert and we both feel Cheryl's presence as we have hacked into her blog (she would love us being naughty).

As I'm sure readers of Cheryl's blog know...she was a wise and witty woman with 29+ years in the program of Al-Anon.  She was also a very talented writer, gardener, painter, stained glass artist, seamstress (really...who sews their own jeans?), hysterically funny, dear friend, sister and much loved spouse.  Her talents, her humility and her ability to laugh at herself were inspiring.

Robert was telling me this morning of the joy of them both falling into fits of laughter after noticing an oversized jar of Nutella while grocery shopping.   One of my favourite personal memories was of visiting Cheryl in hospital with another Al-Anon friend after her last surgery ... the three of us exchanging stories of our own pre-recovery insanity and laughing so hard that Cheryl had to ask the nurse for pain relief after we left.  Such is the stuff of a simple life well-lived.

Cheryl spoke often of the gifts that working the Al-Anon program had given her.  Her ability to use her program in dealing with life's challenges (yes, even the REALLY big ones) was amazing and an inspiration to many (I put myself at the top of that list).

Thank you for allowing me to share my memories of my dear friend Cheryl.  If you wish to share your thoughts and feelings here......please do.....Robert would love to hear from you.

Love in Al-Anon, Cathie A.

New Lumps

As I'd expected, the new lumps are cancerous. So it's back onto chemotherapy, and hope that the new regime shrinks these lumps, in the same way that the first six months of chemo shrank the original small tumours. I go for another CT scan to see if it's metastasized to any of my major organs, and I'll keep you posted as to the news.

On another subject, it's a stunning day today, sunny and mild and beautiful. A glorious day in which to be alive. I'm going to put in some sewing work on the new coat I'm making for myself, and pray for guidance, comfort, strength and hope.

Where there's life, there's hope. A simple truth. I am so grateful for all of my friends,  my brother and sister, and for my beloved Robert. One day last week, I was fed up and weeping, and he made a remark which made me burst into helpless laughter. What a man. And what an enormous gift he is in my life. A treasure, and the best thing that has ever happened to me, he is.

I'm feeling grateful for all of my blessings, and for the delicious sunshine.

Emotional Wealth.

These days, thanks to the wonders of Al-Anon, I have great emotional wealth. My dictionary defines
"wealth" as an abundance of valuable resources, and I certainly have been granted that. I have the valuable resource of program wisdom, and I have been truly blessed with an abundance of friends to walk this path with me.

I have friends with whom I keep in touch, who live in cities many miles away, but I am able to get together with them for lunch and a visit every few months. In between visits, we exchange regular emails, and I smile to see their names in my email inbox. They are a richness in my life. Some are in program, some are not, it doesn't matter, we are close, and they add greatly to my joy.

One of the unexpected blessings of this cancer journey is that I have been allowed to realise how I am loved, by the way my friends have responded, with support, encouragement, humour and anything else I've needed, whether I knew I needed it, or only they knew.

I have a sponsor with whom I can speak with utter honesty. Last week before the meeting, she hugged me and asked how I was - I wasn't doing well last week, and when she gazed at me, concern and humour and affection in her eyes, I was completely undone, and began to weep. She stood up, came to me, and held me in her arms while I wept. I felt so safe and cared for. It was exactly what I needed, and it gave me the release of tears and the comfort of her arms around me. Of such relatively small but important things are friendships forged and solidified.

We make each other laugh like crazy, and can talk about anything - what an enormous gift.

Before Al-Anon, I didn't know how to be a good friend. I used what I jokingly call "The Mafia solution" when I was angry or disappointed in someone - "You are dead to me from this moment!"
- I'd just cut them off, and never speak to them again. I couldn't deal with conflict, so I just avoided it by avoiding them.

Al-Anon has taught me how to give, and how to receive love. Never, before Robert, had I ever thought I would love a man the way I love him. And never did I think a man would love me the way he loves me.

I have great emotional wealth, and it sustains me through whatever it is that's happening. I know I have people who love me, and I know I have plenty of people I love and adore. I am a truly lucky woman.

Thanks so much to all who have written their support and encouragement on this blog, it means a lot to me, and I'm grateful that you have taken the time and effort.

Happy To Be Alive And Well This Christmas

I got up late this morning and am having tea and breakfast before I shower and go to the Christmas Day meeting here in town. I like to go to these meetings, because I've noticed that they are usually full of newcomers who are suffering high stress at this time of year. I think it's good to have some old-timers there, it balances the meeting a bit more.

As of May this year, I was told by my surgeon that I had six months to a year to live. (This was challenged and disputed by my oncologist, who said I could live for years with cancer in my lymph nodes, with regular chemo)  I wasn't sure if I'd live to see another Christmas. My last CT scan was clear, so it may still be in my lymph nodes, but the rest of my body is cancer free at the moment.

That's pretty much the best Christmas present I can recall receiving.

I'm grateful for time with my beloved Robert, who can make me laugh no matter what the circumstance. I'm grateful to be alive, and feeling well, and also because I'm getting a port installed in my shoulder this coming Tuesday. I've developed a ferocious allergy to the adhesive in the plastic bandages used to cover my PICC line, so it's coming out, and a port is being put in. I can't wait - the port sits just under the skin, so no more bandage changes, no more wrapping myself up like a sandwich before showering, and NO MORE ITCH!

The itch from the allergy has been driving me to distraction. But it will be over soon, and my arm will feel much better.

 I'm grateful for Al-Anon, which is where I learned about the practise of gratitude.

Bless you all, and Happy Christmas.

Surgical Staples Out This Morning - Facets of Gratitude.

Apart from some serious back problems as the result of an accident many years ago, I have been blessed with good health. One of the strangest aspects of the cancer diagnosis, was the fact that I'd had no symptoms, and believed myself to be in the best possible health except for my back. It was decidedly strange to find out I had a cancerous tumour growing inside me. But I had much to be grateful for - a screening test had caught the tumour at a very early stage, and it appeared not to have metastasized, according to the staging tests available.

I'd taken my favourite Al-Anon daily reader, "Courage to Change" into the hospital with me,  and on the second day after surgery, I lay there and read every one of the 13 pages under the topic of "gratitude", because I was having a hard time feeling any. I was sick after surgery, with my stomach producing bile overtime, not having had any food for about 3 days by then, and the food offered as a fluid diet was, not to exaggerate, disgusting. I do not understand how hospital food can be so atrocious, but had it not been for Robert bringing me yoghurt and real chamomile tea, I'd have been subsisting on the cup of food replacement which was on each meal tray, as it was the most appetising thing available. How any dietician could consider instant pudding, sickeningly sweet and lumpy, to be food for a person who has just survived major surgery, is utterly beyond me.

The food, however, was my only complaint. The nurses were kind, funny, caring, and knowledgeable, the surgeon worked his magic, and the entire thing was covered by my medical plan.

My 26 surgical staples were removed this morning at my GP's office in a matter of ten or so minutes, then we came home, and I was taken out for lunch by a good friend who'd driven down to the city.
Examining my scar (still with the staples) the other day, I was idly musing that were it horizontal rather than vertical, I'd have a good start on the front grille of a '54 Buick.

Today, I'm feeling grateful. I had lots of program friends come to visit in the hospital while I was there, and coming home to my beloved Robert was a gift indeed. Now I have to await the pathology report to find out if the lymph nodes were clean, or if further treatment is recommended. Either way, life is good, the sun is beaming and it's a lovely mild day in December. Bless you all.

Humour and Gratitude

I'm hoping I can get in to see my doctor today to get the results of my biopsy. I'm feeling calm and relaxed this morning; I had a good sleep. Al-Anon has been a blessing to me; when I'm willing to do my part, it works during even the most stressful times in life. This is out of my control - I have a choice as to whether or not I spend my time chewing over the possibilities, or whether I let go, and decide to enjoy myself regardless.

Time spent with my partner yesterday was a peaceful and fulfilling part of my day - his love is a joy, and he makes me laugh. At dinner yesterday, after I'd been talking about some airheaded thing I'd done, he leaned towards me, straightfaced and serious, and asked, "Now that we're a team, do you think we could share the brain cell?"

I howled with delight. He grinned at me, and I was washed with a wave of gratitude for his presence in my life. I've been looking for a man like this all my adult life. He's gentle and kind, with a strength of character developed through his own sufferings; he's also wickedly funny, thoughtful, insightful and hugely supportive.

One of my adoptive parents was British, and she used the phrase "rub along together" to describe a state of contented enjoyment of each other's company - my partner and I rub along together very well. I've never felt the desire to get away by myself, that I felt with each of the two alcoholics who were my earlier long-term relationships - this man is the best companion a woman could wish for, and I find him enormously attractive. We each have our own pursuits, and when we get together again afterwards, I feel gratitude and delight in his company; he's fun. He's also a mad gardener, and has increased my stock of house plants exponentially.

I'd rather concentrate on those parts of my life which bring me joy and peace, than fulminate in a closed loop upon that which is beyond my power to control. I've done so much of that kind of obsessing in my life, and it's a terrible way to pass the time, because it's futile, and it winds me up from a beginning state of mildly upset, to a state of frantic frustration and overwhelming compulsion - I don't want to live like that ever again.

It works if we work it. I'll keep you posted.

A Year Later.

My dear friend died last year on May 17th, today. I woke up this morning remembering, and wept for the loss of him. Seems like every song I put on reminds me of some aspect of his character. He was wonderfully confident and caring and the people in his life flourished in the light of that attentiveness and focused attention, just as his garden flourished from the care he lavished upon it. Rarely have I met anyone so universally adored, he made friends anywhere he went, and the warmth of his nature was unjudgemental, he was just one of those amazingly loving people you find once or twice in a lifetime, if you are very fortunate.

I thank my Higher Power for the trip my friend and I took across to the big city on the mainland, because that was the last time before he went into hospital, and never came out.

I remember his humour, never biting or unkind, but screamingly funny all the same, he had a turn of phrase that could render his listeners helpless with laughter. He was generous with his possessions, his time and his love, and I miss him.

Constitutionally Incapable of Being Honest With Themselves.

AA uses that phrase in the Big Book, page 58. I searched for something today, and that page came up, so I read it again.

"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. There chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest."


I can recall trying to talk with my (sober but not in recovery) husband when we were newly married, and being taken aback by his complete refusal to be honest with himself or me about his part in our troubles. He blamed me completely, and felt he was an innocent victim.

I had accepted his self-appraisal as a great guy, buttressed by the public facade he's developed to feel accepted. The difference between the public man, and the private man, shocked me. For years, I was in denial that he was not who he pretended to be, and it didn't help that while he was being angry with me and ignoring me for days, friends and customers who knew him only slightly, would tell me how lucky I was to be married to him. The confusion for me was terrible. I didn't understand that the rejection in my childhood had set me up perfectly to assume blame when it was handed to me.

I had learned in Al-Anon that when I felt the hot rush of defensiveness rising within me, I was hearing the truth about myself, however painful or distasteful. I didn't get that feeling if what was being said had no bearing on my character, I could remain detached.

I learned this fact about my character defects both through self-appraisal, and through listening to the words of those who had gone before me in this program. I wanted peace from pain, and I wanted to improve and grow - to become the woman I dimly felt I could be, were I willing to set my pride aside, and listen for the guidance of my Higher Power.

But with my husband, I couldn't withstand the force of his personality, or the emotional abuse, I accepted what he said, and tried to right it. The awful co-dependent fixing need.

Over the years, his blaming became less effective, the more I learned to value my own worth. When I met with him this last time, he was in full bore with the blaming, and his assumption of the victim role. It was exhausting to sit for 3 hours and listen as talked about himself - I wasn't even in the equation.

 I wish for him the spiritual awakening 12-Step speaks of, I know that mine changed my life in ways I didn't understand when it was new. I pray that he find his way to himself. I've let go of wanting to see that happen.

Al-Anon Family Groups

One wonderful aspect of living in this city is the number of Al-Anon meetings available - at least one every day, and sometimes two - this makes for a great framework of support for someone like myself who has recently moved here, and has few connections. When I walk into a meeting, sit down in a chair and smile at the other people in the room, it doesn't matter that I don't know their names or life stories; what I do know is that they have been affected by someone else's alcoholism.

I know they have suffered in the same ways I have, in their struggles to deal with that "cunning, baffling and powerful" disease: had the same feelings of intense frustration and despair: most likely made some of the same crazy  misguided choices, in their efforts both to understand and to change the alcoholic. (I've come to see that when it comes to alcoholism and our efforts to have some effect upon it, we are all barking mad, it's just that some are barking more loudly than others.)

I know that I can learn from those whom I've met for the first time two weeks ago - we don't have to be close friends in order for me to gain insight from their willingness to share and to offer their experience, strength and hope. All that's required from me is an open mind, and that I pay attention when people are sharing. An open mind means that even if I've attended a meeting for the first time and not liked it as much as some of the others,  I continue to go back, because that "not liking" may have had more to do with my state of mind, expectations, or physical comfort than anything to do with the people in the group, or the way the meeting is run.  I had yet another example of this last night, when I went for the second time to a specific meeting, although I'd felt rather depressed after the meeting last week. I've learned that my situation can sharply affect my perceptions, and my situation is that I've recently left a long-term marriage, with all of the stresses that includes.

I'm grateful for all who take the time to attend meetings and give back what was given to them when they were new. My first sponsor used to say this to me whenever I'd suggest that I didn't feel like going to my home group meeting because I was tired, or busy, or distracted, or lazy - she'd give me that steely look, and ask what would have become of me, if everyone in the group in the very first meeting I'd attended, had decided to stay home and watch tv? I quailed before that prospect, and went to my meeting.

The Practise of Gratitude.

Yesterday my husband woke me from a late afternoon nap, to show me a tiny baby fawn curled up at the side of our front steps:

I wondered if his mother had put him into the trees and bushes, and he decided to move himself, or if he was placed there by his mother. He was very small, and didn't move when my husband walked way out onto the lawn to take his picture, but did open one eye, you can see the flash reflected. (An indication of his tiny size can be gained from the very small dog dish behind him.)

Today my friend was released from hospital, I went to pick him up and take him home. (This is the second of my friends to be in hospital during the last few weeks, the first one died on May 17th.) I've done all that I could do to help, and have offered to be phoned at any hour of the day or night, and also to help with weeding; as the weeds have been rampaging in his garden whilst he's been away.
I do what I can, and I let the rest go. I've discovered that it's very difficult not to hover in certain circumstances, but that if I wish to allow a friend their dignity, I must be willing to move back a step. In my arrogance, I may think that I know what is best for someone, but do I truly? Isn't this best left to their Higher Power?

To love, I must respect. To respect, I must be willing to allow for that which I might not choose for myself.
I must allow those I love to make their own choices. I can't live their lives for them, and I have no right to try to hammer the round peg of my solutions into the square hole of their problems. Let go, and let God.

Keeping Busy Through Difficult Times.

During this period of my grieving for my friend who is terminally ill, I've been receiving easily twice as many calls for help from sponsees, and other people in program wanting some of my time to "reason things out with someone else."  Seems as though I barely finish with one before another is calling or emailing. Ordinarily, I might feel overwhelmed, but not now - now I'm intensely grateful to be taken out of myself and my feelings, to focus upon helping another person. Perhaps my HP is giving me this comfort of feeling helpful or useful to balance the helpless inadequacy I feel in the face of my friend's suffering.

Every time a sponsee arrives at my door for their weekly time with me, I feel blessed to be given this comfort of their company, getting into an intense discussion about them, and what's going on in their life, sharing moments of abandoned laughter about how nutty we co-dependents can be.

When your sponsor tells you that he or she gets more out of your relationship than you can imagine, believe them, believe when they say that your work together is a gift for them.

I Don't Trust You Because...

I've been told by the vet, and also the breeder from whom I got my female dog, that the best thing to do is crate rest, being let out to relieve herself and to eat, then right back in.  This gives the injury a chance to heal, because the dog can't do much else but sleep. The vet gave me a handout which states: "In reality, poor results in a dog are almost always traceable to inadequate confinement" and "Three weeks of cage rest is a minimum course." Her breeder agreed with this, when I spoke to her, and warned me that my dog is going to be upset with me, but that if I'm seeking the best possible outcome, I'll do as suggested.

So that's what I'm doing, and at the moment, my little dog won't even lick my fingers when I put them through the mesh, or let me tickle her chin, she turns her face away - she's very upset about being put into a crate and kept there day and night. I understand that, but I also understand that to be a responsible dachshund owner, I need to be willing to accept her annoyance and sadness, do what I can to make her feel happy, but accept that the outcome of a very loved and cuddled and snuggled dog being confined to a crate 24 hours a day, is going to be one very upset dog.

Last night my alcoholic was trying to convince me to let her out, because "she's upset and lonely." I explained again what the vet and breeder had explained to me, and finally realised that he wanted to let her out because it would make him feel better. It was upsetting him to see her gazing mournfully through the wire mesh door of the crate, and he wanted to relieve that feeling for himself right now. That, combined with the arrogance of the (long-time sober, but new to recovery) alcoholic stubbornly insisting that "she'd be fine lying on the couch" sparked me to say firmly that I wasn't going to discuss it anymore, and to state that if I'm not home, he is not let her out of her crate - I'll take her out when I get home, just leave her in there, please. Unfortunately, I can easily imagine him ignoring that. I may have to take her with me in the car when I go out, just to stop him from doing what he's done so many times in the years we've been together - gone against what I've specifically asked of him because he thinks he knows better.  I could ask him to promise, but I've learned that his promises are meaningless.

The interesting part of all this for me, and the point of this post, is that I'm not even remotely annoyed about it - I'm completely accepting that for now, this is who he is, and what can I do to safeguard my dog? I don't want to give the impression that he doesn't love her, because that's not the case. But he can only go so far in that love, and when it comes up against him feeling uncomfortable, the dog is going to be the loser. I've reached a place in my own recovery where I can see that with clarity, with no accompanying emotional storm about it - no anger, no blaming.

Love is accepting - it is what it is. He is what he is. Work around it. I can't change his thinking, or his inability at this stage to put the dog's health above his feelings of discomfort at confining her. All the talking in the world won't accomplish that, it's beyond my control. I control what I can - myself, and I let the rest go with a sigh of relief.

Choosing Serenity.

This week we're hoping to take our friend who is ill with cancer out to dinner and the theatre, but won't know until the day before, because he's waiting for an operation date. When I think of him, I say a prayer, and give him to my HP, and to his, because if I think about it for too long, I become fearful, and that helps neither he nor I. It is what it is, and it's utterly out of  my control. I cannot save him from anything he must go through in this life, all I can do is love him, enjoy him, and be grateful for his friendship. When we love, we are opening ourselves to pain, that's part and parcel of the experience of loving, the knowledge that each day we get with another human being is a gift beyond measure; there are no guarantees of time.

From Courage to Change, page 107:

"What I discovered is that what I go through in life is not as important as how I interpret the experience."

Last week I received a compliment which has made me think about how far I have come in my personal growth. We can go for quite a long time stumbling about, working our programs assiduously, but not sure if we're getting much further ahead, and then we'll get a little reminder, perhaps a remark made by a relative stranger, and we'll realise that we've moved along at a steady pace, in those tiny increments of mental change, or in a leap, after a startling realisation - an understanding which shifts my viewpoint a few degrees from my usual, and makes everything look slightly different.

For my sake, and the sake of all those with whom I might come into contact today, I choose serenity.

Acceptance.

I've been struggling with this the last 24 hours, having to time and again turn my mind to positive thoughts, and ask my HP to help me, for a couple of reasons, one being that my friend has been diagosed with colon cancer.

My little dog is a good indicator of how well I'm doing in my attitude, because she senses it, and responds accordingly - last night, after receiving the bad news, I wandered around the house for a few minutes, with her close at my heels, giving me little nudges with her nose when I stopped to gaze out the front window. Glancing down, I saw in her body language the mirror of my own distress, and going to the kitchen, picked up the phone and called a dear friend, telling her what I'd just learned, asked if she'd like to go for a dog walk. She agreed, and within 20 minutes was at my door, hugging me; we gathered up dogs and leashes and went out for a long walk. I talked about the diagnosis, and my fears, and my friend gave comfort through her willingness to walk with me, and give me the gift of allowing free expression of all my feelings, the joyous, and the painful.

This morning, I realised that I've been fighting off tears ever since my friend called to tell me that he's been diagnosed with cancer. This is old behavior, rooted in childhood, this not allowing myself to truly feel my feelings, trying instead to surmount them. I've expended enormous energy in my life, doing this - going through my days with sorrow half-choking me, because at some point I had lost the ability to release the pain through tears, and then when I regained it, I didn't want to submit to weeping, to surrender.

I have no control over this. It will be what it will be, and I will go with it, because when it comes to life and my powerlessness, I'm a twig going over Niagara Falls. My only choice is in my attitude - am I going over screaming in fear and anger, or am I going in peace, knowing that I have the precious gifts of friendship and love in my life? I am truly blessed with the people in my life - fascinating, witty, generous people - and I am blessed to have had a family doctor all those years ago, who kept telling me, "I think you need to go to Al-Anon." I had no concept then, of the love and growth I would be offered, or the healing. I went to my first meeting seeking a way to stop my alcoholic from drinking, and here I am, so far from that day in time and place, with a gratitude I cannot begin to express for all of those who've helped me along the way.

I've gone from a bitter, furious, resentful woman who hadn't cried in years, to someone who knows how to get through anything. Reach out, ask for help and support, and then when it's offered, accept it.
Let the tears flow, let the pain out, ask my HP for serenity, and be willing to let it all go. Give back to others what was so generously given to me by the women at my first meeting, and every Al-Anon meeting since - love.

Old Dogs, New Tricks, and Fireworks.

Our little male dog was always utterly terrified of fireworks, thunder, any loud noise, but fireworks were the worst, they'd send him to his bed to shake for hours. It was a dreadful sight, and we tried everything to comfort him, but nothing worked. Our little female dog wasn't afraid when we adopted her, but followed his lead - if he was so afraid, there must be something to fear, and she became terrified of fireworks herself.

One day I was watching the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, and he spoke of distracting a dog when they are afraid. I thought - how do I do that? I decided to get my dog a new toy, and keep it until the night of the fireworks. When the first one went off, I reached behind the couch cushion, brought out the new toys, and handed them out. He didn't know what to do - his fear was telling him to rush down the hall to cower in his bed, but he had just been given a new toy - he compromised by taking his new toy into his bed, and huddling with it there. Over time, we've worked on distracting him with retrieving whenever there's a loud frightening noise. He's a crazed retreiver dog.

Last night I was overjoyed when the first very loud firework exploded, and he rushed into the livingroom, grabbed his newest toy, brought it to where I was at the kichen sink, dropped it at my feet, and stood eagerly waiting, tail waving, ears up. He has learned to associate fireworks with play. It brought a lump to my throat and the sting of tears to my eyes - his terror was gone, as if it had never been.

If a 10 year old dog, (that's 70 in human years,) can learn to get over a life-long fear, can't we do the same?

Common Denominators - Judgement, and Joy.

This morning I was thinking that for many of us, if we do not work against it, our character tends to solidify and become more rigid the older we get. Left unchallenged, our basic beliefs will harden like cement curing, setting into an impermeable foundation for our character defects.

Had I not been bailing against the tide for the last 26 years, I would be a very different woman today.

So much of my old judgement of other people was an effort to protect my insecure self - I kept people at a safe distance by judging, classifying, rating, labelling...it was an exhaustive and time-consuming business, but it felt necessary.

When I was new to program, and began to slowly grasp the concept that it wasn't the world that was so cold to me, it was I who was cold to the world, and the world responded in kind, it felt like a formidable challenge to try to wrest my thinking around to that viewpoint. I didn't like the view from that particular outcropping, it made my self-pity an unwieldy and sharp-edged garment to don, rather than the soft comforting blanket it had always been for me.

Judgement, I thought, kept me safe. What it did, was keep me isolated. And when we're isolated, we don't get the necessary input to effect a change in our thinking; it becomes ever stronger, self-reinforcing.

I still have times when my internal dialogue is less than loving, and I most likely always will as long as I'm upon this earth. Al-Anon has taught me to be aware of that internal dialogue, and when I can't get up out of that rut, to seek help, whether that's to call my sponsor or a program friend, read some literature, or pray. I've evolved a little shorthand phrase for those times: "No judgement - God's love."

That little sentence blocks the negativity, and reminds me that I'm seeking to become more loving, and to have that loving be a pure and unconditional sort - no strings attached, no qualifications, no requirements. Love for the sake of love. Which brings me to the other topic - joy.

I believe that within each of us is a powerful expansive joyfulness, and we can tap into that joy through working 12-Step. You can see it in the faces of those who've realised that joy is an inner resource, not the result of the perfect exterior happening. It makes daily life a very different thing when we get there, because we become the spiritual equivalent of a self-righting boat. We aren't immune to the storms of life, and we may be swept under the surface by a wave of circumstance, but that inner buoyancy brings us back to the surface, and the "sunlight of the spirit."

Happy New Year, all.

The Many Uses of 12-Step.

I'd forgotten what a bulldog arguer my brother can be. It slipped my mind, just how much he likes a rip-snorter of a debate.

Today in an email, I'd dodged one of his attempts to solicit an opinion from me, with a comment about not feeling comfortable making judgements about other people's beliefs. I'm sure it's very strange for him to be writing to me now, as I've said earlier in this blog, because when he knew me last, I was a very different, very opinionated woman.

He responded to my attempt to dodge the topic, with a strongly worded epistle about how if we don't judge and condemn other people when they are wrong, we are falling down on our job of protecting our fellow humans, upon whom they might prey.

I replied that I was only speaking for myself, about my discomfort with judging. I got another email in response describing the many ways in which I was wrong to not judge other people, because of this, and this, and that!
I read it and sighed heavily, wondering how I'd managed to elicit such a strong repsonse with my mild comments about my own discomfort with judging. I looked down at my little dog arranged in comfort upon my lap, and asked her, "How on earth did we get from me not being comfortable judging other people's beliefs, to whether or not it's ok to stone someone?" I know perfectly well how we got there - riding the tsunami of my brother's debating skill.

Sitting there, gazing at the screen, at a loss as to how I might reply,  I received the loveliest little nudge from my Higher Power. I wrote:

"You could be right."

and sent it off. I had been feeling slightly distressed by the force of his argument, (and his insistence upon having one) but after I sent that, I felt lighthearted, and free. I went to have a shower and go to a meeting. I don't have to argue just because he likes to. I don't have to step into the loop of rope lying on deck, and be swept over the rail into the ocean to wrestle with sharks. I can stop, detach, and avoid the "bite of the line."

I don't have to fall back into my old ways, not out of habit, nor to please my brother.

When I returned home from a wonderful Al-Anon meeting, his reply to my "You could be right" email was in my inbox; it read:

"Yes, but only partly."

That made me laugh, and wish that I could hug him. He's a dear man, my brother. I don't share his love of debate and argument anymore, but I do love him. I hope my love comes through clearly when I write.

An Exercise In Humility.

Since having reconnected with my adoptive brother, we've been emailing back and forth several times a day, and the conversation ranges over a wide landscape. I've missed my brother's humour, it was always a delight, and we share a sense of irony.

It's an exercise in humility, reconnecting with my brother, because he thinks of me as I was before Al-Anon; that's how long we've been estranged. So he's talking to that person, and I can feel his confusion when it isn't that person who replies. In one email, he asked what I thought about how some people behave - this would have been an opening to a ranting diatribe of snarky humour on my part, all those years ago. This time, I replied mildly that I'd given up thinking that I knew best how the world should be run.

Because we were so close for many years, our reconnection was immediate, and the comfort is still there for both of us, but I think he's having a hard time wresting his mind around to the massive changes in my ways of thinking. He's writing to the person that I was, and it's the woman I've become who's writing back.

I was a furiously opinionated, sarcastic, self-centred, judgemental person when he last knew me. I get the feeling from his emails that he might be finding it rather astonishing to have the woman he thinks is still that person reply to his question soliciting my "opinion," with the statement "I try hard not to have "opinions;" they interfere with my efforts to achieve humility."

He's poking at me a bit now, with his questions and his teasing, and I can watch it happening - where is the person he remembers as his sister? Long gone to past history, thank God, and thank Al-Anon. I know we'll find our way to a peaceful relationship, once he realises and understands who I've become - he is an "old soul" with a kind and loving heart. I'm so grateful to have been granted the chance to make my amend to him, and to be able to answer all of his questions, and ask my own of him.

Love is a gift. I've been blessed in my life,

Catharsis - A Deleted Post.

I wrote a post two days ago, with the title "Catharsis," then went back later and deleted it, because I felt too raw and vulnerable. I'm not sure why, perhaps because what's happening is so precious to me that I want to guard and protect it? A moment of superstition? No matter.

This week, I've reconnected with my adoptive brother. We'd had a blowout (my fault) and didn't speak for a while (my pride and stubbornness - this preceded my joining Al-Anon) then later, he'd moved to another country, and I'd lost touch with him completely. After some time in program, I'd tried to reconnect, but my adoptive parents wouldn't give me his contact info, or him mine. Later, I tried to find him online, with no luck. I've tried many times since then to search online, with no result. My first sponsor suggested since I couldn't make the amend to him directly, I do it by writing a letter and reading it to her, and I did that, but I just could not lay it to rest. I've had no peace on that one thing for many years. I've tried to forgive myself, I've prayed and meditated, but I couldn't get there. I've tried and tried to let it go, but it's always been there, underneath. We were very close as children, and I've grieved the loss of that relationship a hundred thousand times.

For some reason, this week, a few days ago, when I did an online search, I included his middle initial, which I'd never thought to do before, and up it came - he's a member of faculty on a university in that country. I clicked on the link, and there was his picture, and an email address.

I prayed for guidance, wrote an amends letter and sent it off, heart in mouth. He responded within about 3 hours, warmly, thanking me, "surely accepting" my amend, and signed his response with "Love."

That undid me completely.

I cried so hard for about the next day or so, off and on, that, as I wrote to a dear program friend, "my eyes looked like little boiled cherry tomatoes."

I've carried the desire to make that amend for about 24 years. I've been afraid that he would die before I could find him, and make that amend to him.

I believe that this has happened at last, because I've moved forward in my spiritual growth of late. I've been doing what one AA speaker calls "seeking more" - making a concerted effort to work Step 11, and improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power. I've learned some painful lessons about myself and the way I still think and behave. I've grown in humility, and I've wanted that humility with all my heart and soul.

I think it was finally time for the reconnection with this wonderful man, my brother. My joy is like a  heat in my chest, and the tears are washing out 24 years of close-held pain and regret.
"Gratitude" seems like such a small word to describe what I am feeling.

Isolation

A reader asked:

"So how do I begin to trust? I am very independent. My personal friends and acquaintances result in so much let down and are unreliable people. My famiy is entirely self absorbed. I have not begin to talk to others in the program at meetings beyond superficial hi and hello. I do not feel the need to call them on the phone or look for a person to be a sponsor.I conclude this is a trust issue.Need to change the isolation I am in. People = let down for me. I wonder, how can I get the support from people and a sponsor if I have a trust barrier? Any thoughts, suggestions or comments?"
---------------------------------------------------

My first thought is to notice the way you've written about the people in your life: your friends and acquaintances are "unreliable people,"  your family is "entirely self-absorbed."

I know that when I get caught up in judgement of another human being, not only have I lost my focus on myself and my own shortcomings, I've also put on a filter which has the strange effect of only allowing me to see the negative aspects of life and other people. And most people aren't saints, which means that if I'm judging and condemning them, always aware of their faults, and how they've fallen short of my standards for them, they aren't going to be rushing over to me, wanting to be supportive.

Our attitudes color our perception of the world, and other people.
We get back pretty much what we put out - that's why people who are positive and cheerful tend to have a better experience out in the world, than those of us who are negative, critical, and judgemental. I was all of those, and more.
 
How did I begin to trust? By deciding to. By deciding that I could handle it if this person wasn't perfect, or let me down. I decided first to relax, and then to let go of all of my standards of behavior for other people. I work to let go of my expectations, good and bad. When I have no expectations, I can't be disappointed when they aren't fufilled. If I want to have a friend who is loving, supportive and trustworthy, I need to be that friend first.

Instead of demanding that I get, I want to be a person who is delighted to give. I want to be open-minded, accepting, and a generous giver of love.