Friday, January 31, 2014

Becoming

How do you become
something you've never seen?
Can you pick up chopsticks
and use them without first seeing?
Could  you play a banjo without help?
If you've never seen sanity
how can you model it?
Surrounded by hate and doubt
how do you know how to love?
Directions, models, instruction...
a person walking the path before you.
We need not recreate the wheel,
but with it available, we can change the world
with tools we've been shown how to use.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

No Answers

There aren't any answers — only choices. ~ Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber
Explanations come sometimes
but why not now when I want them?
Who can explain why people do
the things they do, say that, act that way?
Who can explain why recovery works,
why we need to do the steps as set out —
aren't they only suggestions?
Who's to say we should use the tools,
read the literature, turn it all over,
write inventory, make amends?
What do they mean we should act as if?
Why does it all work when we stop thinking
and just do??
IMG_20140129_222640_630

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Dirty Dishes

I still don't like dirty dishes, but I don't have to interpret them as having a deeper meaning. I am learning to take things at face value. Sometimes dirty dishes are just dirty dishes. ~ Courage to Change, page 27
Enough!!
You just don't have an idea
what I do around here,
how I slave, how you command me,
how much I lay down my life for you,
give up everything for you.
How could you expect that of me?
What do you mean you don't expect it?
How can you say you don't ask for it?
Well, maybe you don't, but you fail to do it.
You never ever do it. What do you mean
when you say I don't seem to expect it?
Don't you know I want  you to do it
before I do, that I just do it because
you're not going to?
DirtyDIshes

Monday, January 27, 2014

Mad at the World


I come to the fourth step
mad at the world,
angry at everybody
and everything. 
I listed those people
who'd wronged me,
snubbed me, peeved me.
I scribbled what they'd done,
irked to be told to keep it short.
I figured out just how it hurt,
then that fourth column…
What do you mean, my part?
But then I started writing
about what I might have had in it
and by the time I finished,
the anger had drained away
and I'd wronged a whole bunch
of folks.

IMG_20131119_104408_044 

To Serve Humbly

To serve humbly, you have to be able to see. ~ Ross Whiteaker
I know what you need. I'll do it.
Who cares what  you say?
I know you decline from fear,
from low self-esteem, from ignorance.
I'll do the grand thing, the fun thing,
leave you free to do the mundane,
the drab, the ordinary, those that don't dare,
that plod on, where no recognition lights.
I will serve, prominently, noticed,
admired. And in serving so
I will have the reward of notice,
of recognition, of eminence.
And it will be empty and I'll wonder
why you show so little appreciation,
why it feels so empty.
matthew6

Sunday, January 26, 2014

How Do You Feel?

How do you feel about the matter?
What do you think about that?My counselor sat, looking at me,
while I really wanted her to hypnotize me,
to help me lose the blasted weight.
What did it matter what I thought, felt?
It wasn't going to happen.
I'd do what hubby wanted, what soothed him.
I couldn't change me, didn't need to
for I'd given up ever having my way,
doing things my way. But she asked.
And asked, asked, asked, probed, prodded...
and finally I began to identify how I felt.
And now I can, and I can tell people,
can express my own wishes and know
I have the right sometimes
to have my own needs met.
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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Revealed

It's a myth, you know,
the putative Big Book quote,
"More will be revealed."
Yet myth or not, the truth is manifest.
How often do you sit in the rooms
and hear what you need to hear,
the exact resolution to the problem
you've yet to identify or pondered
days, months, years?
Sometimes it's revealed by others,
often by your own words as you speak.
To befuddle your calculator
try to number the times you've read,
heard, dreamed, put together,
heard or seen the perfect parable
to reveal what you need to know.
My last time? Yesterday morning
when the reading described precisely
my anxiety and spoke to it, affirmed
the tough decision I'd made.
The Big Book doesn't need to say,
"More will be revealed."
It's just revealed.
revealed

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Things I Can Change

Things I cannot change are not the issue,
but the things I can change, I take over and start
trying on my own to change them.
But it's not I who can change them 
because my life is unmanageable,
not just the food, not the addictions,
not the bad habits but life itself!
I need to be able to see the things I can change,
that I can let change, that I can release,
but that doesn't mean I need to get cocky
and think I can fix the world...even my part of it...
without the second and third steps,
without a Power that can, without surrender.



Tuesday, January 21, 2014

HALT


I try to check in with myself on a regular basis. Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? ~ Courage to Change, page 21
Hold on a bloody minute!You're pushing, he's pushing,
they're pushing, I'm squashed!
need to please people! It's addictive,
mandatory, I cringe at the thought
of that shortest sentence, "No."
But I can't please everybody
and if I leave someone out,
that person is always ME!Yet I have the right to be pleased,
to get what I want, what I need.
I'm a person, too, an individual,
a worthy. And If I don't take care of me
I won't be cared for because not everyone
is as sick, as addicted to pleasing,
as codependent as I. So when you push,
when I'm pulled between two I want to please
and my own needs as well, I promise from now on
I will HALT! I will consider whether I'm hungry
(really hungry, not craving food, not wanting
my familiar pacifier), whether I'm angry,
whether I'm lonely, whether I'm tired...
And when I HALT, when I think it through,
maybe I can clean my own side of the street
and abandon the need to rescue you. Or him. Or them...

Anonymity


Anonymity makes it possible to leave not only our surnames, but all the labels and expectations with which we have been burdened outside... ~ Courage to Change, page 20
Labels are pronouns with substance,
with judgments, with expectations.
Simple labels like wife, mother, sister.
Complex tags as teacher, lawyer,
professor, engineer, judge, physician...
bag lady, tramp, whore, crook, pervert,
fatty, drunkard, addict.
But whatever label I may wear in the world,
in my home, among my colleagues,
in your sight, I shed it. Drop it. Lose it
when I walk through the doors
of the rooms of recovery. Here, I'm just me.
And you understand me, welcome me,
identify with me, love me.Here you know me because you are me
and I am you and we have found hopelessness
and through that route we know we can reach
recovery.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Gently

Gentling is a lifelong process. With each step in the training process, you must reestablish that original trust you worked so hard to attain. ~ eHow.com, "How to Gentle a Horse."
Mild in temperament,
calm in behavior,
tender and kind.
Lenient, compassionate,
merciful. Neither harsh
nor severe. To gentle a horse
is to tame him, to take time…
all the time you might need…
make him comfortable.
Stand close, talk softly,
touch. Love. Be tender.
We can do it for others…
sometimes.
We can learn
to do it to ourselves.
2012-12-28_13-00-45_366

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Hugging Hopelessness

I was not just holding on to hopelessness and depression, I was hugging it! - Kaitlan K
How can you not want to be whole?
Who could find comfort in chaos?
Why would I eat until misery reigned
knowing from the start it would be,
starting from far-too-full at the first?
For no sane reason at all.
Stupidity, obstinacy, fool-headedness…
There's no hope, I can do nothing.
Except to embrace the fact there really is
a power that can restore me to sanity.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Quintet for One

Loneliness echoes
through crowded rooms, seeking out
me, the insecure.
Moving to a town
of closed cliques is an empty
chasm of edges.
Who am I? I lack
definition, mirroring back
what I think you want.
Lonely is married
year after year to one who
knows nothing of me.
I don’t know your name.
Can it be you hurt me less
being so formless?

Slender Steps to Sanity
Slender Steps to Sanity - Twelve Step Notes of Hope (Kindle Locations 202-205).

Friday, January 17, 2014

Detachment

Detachment is not isolation, nor should it remain focused on not enabling the sick behavior of the past. Detachment is not a wall; it is a bridge across which the Al-Anon may begin a new approach to life and relationships generally. ~ Al-Anon: Family treatment Tool in Alcoholism
I don't have to make excuses,
to rescue, to comply with his wishes
through resentment and belligerence.
I can't fix him, remake him, remodel him,
convince him to change his ways.
And it's okay. I can quit hating him
while I obey him, can quit making excuses
for his actions, excuses to me and those to the world.
I'm not responsible but that doesn't mean
I turn over-caring to ignoring,
rescuing to throwing under buses.
I can treat him with respect not because of oughts
but because of wholehearted understanding
of his brokenness...and of mine.

It's Personal

When I have an urge to betray a confidence, to gossip, or to tell something extremely personal to a total stranger, I stop and "Think." ~ Courage to Change, page 16
I was twenty, the first time alone
away from family and dormitory.
Each week I was fed by a family,
part of the congregation of the church
where I worked. By the time the summer job
had drawn to a close, I was glad to leave
for I had spewed my secrets, my heart,
to everyone I'd met. Thinking back
I wanted nothing of the people
who knew my worst, my most personal
thoughts and deeds.
Forty years later I'd learned little
of discretion. The secret I shared
was not my own but that of someone else
and I a gossip, telling the tale to show
my long-suffering, my cross to bear,
my affliction. It wasn't my secret to disclose.
My secrets and more so those of others
don't need to be told to strangers.
Sometimes to a few, trusted, discreet,
available to counsel me, to ease my pain,
to advise my actions and guide me
I can tell the truths that nudge me.
But strangers I meet, casual acquaintances,
the public has no need to know.
barb2

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Room for Feelings


Why am I leaping into the future? Perhaps I've given my feelings no room to exist. ~ Courage to Change, page 15
 Feelings.
Apprehensive, dread,
foreboding, fright,
mistrustful,
panicked, petrified,
scared.
Suspicious, terrified,
wary, worried.
Aggravated, dismayed,
disgruntled, displeased
exasperated.
Frustrated!
Impatient, irritated,
irked...
Dozens of feelings,
roiling up, demanding,
tying me in knots...
What to do with them,
how to control them,
how to manage something!
I've tried eating to the point of stupor,
anything to keep from feeling the feelings...
But the other way to deal, the better way
is to feel them...
And sometimes they're not bad but
compassion, love, sympathetic,
tender, proud, safe, warm, curious,
amazed, spellbound...

Sometimes feelings are fun to feel!
And they're never so destructive
as avoiding them.
feelings

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Magic Pill

I'm not really sure I want the magic pill. ~ Joan B
How have I tried to lose weight?
Let me count the ways...
Diet pills from the doctor at 13...
Most weigh-and-pay groups,
some multiple times...
Carb blockers…
Amphetamines (when they were discouraged
but still legal I drove 300 miles for 30 days of pills)...
A metal pin at an acupuncture point on my ear...
Graphs and charts projecting how much
I’d lose by what date, with planned rewards...
Internet programs...
A diet from a women’s magazine...
Counting calories...
Counting carbs...
Counseling (3 times, years at a time)...
Hypnotism...
Motivational tapes...
New Year’s resolutions...
Goals for certain major events...
Diet books...
Cookbooks with reduced calories/fat/carbs/sugar...
Books, directed at weight loss,
organization, codependency,
relationships, misogynists, self-esteem,
and anything else marginally relative...
Partners in person and on the Internet...
Fasting one day each week...
Beginning to write a book
about how with a partner I
attained a total weight loss of 500 pounds,
knowing I lacked well over a hundred
of those before publication...
Giving myself shots in the stomach
twice daily with a medication
approved for diabetics, which I was not,
but not approved for weight control...
For probably five years monthly doctor visits
as he used all his powers of persuasion
and prescription to help me.
I used the carbohydrate blockers
and appetite suppressants he urged on me
because I intended to eat bad stuff.
I looked for the magic pill in any or every form.
And if I'd found the magic pill
I'd never have found true relief, sanity,
and a life I can't believe how great it is!
IMG_20140114_205259_019

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Convince Me I Can't Save Him


Hebrews 6:7-8 (NLT)
When the ground soaks up the falling rain and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has God’s blessing. But if a field bears thorns and thistles, it is useless. The farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it.
Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 96
We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you. If you leave such a person alone, he may soon become convinced that he cannot recover by himself. To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy. 
Let me love him
until he can love himself.
But convince me I can’t save him,
can’t pull him to joy, to peace,
can’t push him to right thinking,
can’t help him
because I decide to.
When he’s stuck in thorns
and thistles,
I make it worse
when I try to pull him out.
I do best if I let the thorns
and thistles burn out.
God, stop me when kindness intended 
is damage inflicted.
A Cloud of Witnesses
From A Cloud of Witnesses - Two Big Books and Us

Monday, January 13, 2014

Faucet or Current?

currentlife
Even when I get around to meditating
God's assigned to his place, his time, his role…
Oh, I ask that he direct my actions, that he lead me,
that I manage to surrender control to him,
not my will but his…but then meditation's over
and far too often the spigot's closed,
connection lost, conversation to be continued.
I need that if it's all I can have, but it's not.
I need the times I sit to meditate, to study, to pray,
but I need the connection, the God-presence,
the peace, the sanity day by day, minute by minute,
every second of every day. I get disgusted
when the computer won't connect, when the power's weak
but oh, how much more I need the continuing river of power
in my life, flowing through me, all the time,
God directing me through the current.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Hug a Redwood

I need to hug a redwood. ~ Dexter
How do you be happy? Just do it.
Live happy, breathe free, accept he bounty
offered by the universe, there for the taking.
Grab hold of joy, dance with abandon,
bask in the delight of being loved,
of loving, of life. Quit the charade
of being grown up, of following rules,
of living by the mores of society.
Feel the love, share the joy,
hug every redwood you can find!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

No Magic

There is no magic…but there are miracles. ~Voices of Recovery (Kindle Location 3007).
Just wishing for —
praying for – leanness,
painless weight loss,
miracle beauty…
it doesn't work.
Nothing leads to giving up,
to rewarding self,
to comforting with sugar,
to bingeing...more than trusting
in the magic.
So what is the difference
in magic and miracles?
Magic lacks accountability,
seems deserved just because.
Miracles, though, are gifts, grace…
miracles come to those who know
they don't deserve it,
can't get it on their own,
who have given up
but are ready, willing,
amenable to letting go
and welcoming
the greatest gift.

Friday, January 10, 2014

I'd Rather Have Joy

I can wallow in mire,
in guilt, in obligation,
in doubt.
I can carry the weight
of the world, worry,
feel obligated to fix all.
I can love, help, serve
with no desire for recognition,
for repayment, just for pleasure.
I have all kinds of options.
I'd rather have joy.
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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Circumspect

Wary and unwilling to take risks…
stuck in the past, in the survival mode
a niche carved out of escape, of avoidance,
of the behaviors that once upon a time
in la-la land met some need…
though the need no longer exists
and the behaviors have morphed
from comfort to torture.
Circumspect, a horse to ride
all the way to desperation, to giving up.
And then, finally, the risk of reaching out,
of admitting defeat and welcoming recovery,
ready to be reckless, audacious,
bold enough to grow.
circumspect

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Becoming Lighter

I remember my ideals and dreams, and I pay attention to them. The Sixth Step is not about being controlled or coerced toward perfection, as my disease would have me believe. Rather, I prepare to become lighter: more fully me, more fully aware and living in my heart’s desire. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 2468-2470).
Were entirely ready 
to have God remove 
all these defects of character.Sweep the house clean,
examine my defects,
willing them gone.
Act through the step
for I'm responsible
for taking the steps,
for securing my recovery.
Problem is, that doesn't work!
If I could rid myself
of any tiny defect,
I long ago would have.
Prepare to become lighter.
Not to make myself lighter —
in weight or in obligation to be —
but simply prepare to beknowing I can't, trusting He can.

Untethered

Struggling with meditation
mind wanders from path,
plans grocery stop,
ponders stinging barb received,
checks the clock.
Mind adrift, trusting guidance,
guilt glides away, spirit joins peace,
presence encountered, wisdom absorbed
discovers itself powerless over meditation.
SONY DSC

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Clean and Orderly

 I have worried more about a clean and orderly house than a clean and orderly spirit. ~ Linda T
The todo list goes on and on,
tasks demanding attention.
Fear would stop progress,
freeze the fingers, clog thoughts,
wedge a kink in the works.
Procrastination reigns,
chronic low-intensity fear…
So much to be done that nothing is.
Only when the list is set aside,
when time is claimed for respite,
for thought, for sitting silently
allowing the universe to sigh and sing…
Only when the spirit receives care
shall the way be cleared for perception,
for wisdom, for intuition and understanding
that allows the todo list to
adequately be addressed fearlessly.
IMG_20140105_220655_913

Bee Wise

Individual bees cannot survive outside the colony. ~ Ross Boehler
Meeting makers make it.
Going to meetings alone may not
transform an addict, restore sanity.
But the lone bee cannot survive
denied the support of the hive
for long. Experience may deceive
to cause thoughts of having arrived,
but the journey continues,
and the solo traveller
soon loses the way
and lapses back
into old behaviors
with old companions.
bee

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Looking Forward

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices. ~ Alexander Smith
Complacency,
satisfaction with the known.
Old patterns,
habits even,
feel comfortable
from familiarity.
Yet if they're deadly —
if they tear down
and never built up —
the old, while comfortable,
hold the power to rot,
to permeate, to subjugate.
We may hate what we do
though we continue
in the actions
for comfort of familiar.
Yet, when we can trust,
believe, hope, dream…
then we may act confidently,
moving through fear,
standing firm without knowledge,
without understanding,
only trusting a greater power
while moving to trails
we've never explored.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Saying or Being

In practice, step six turns out to be one of the most difficult of the twelve steps, because saying we’re entirely ready and being entirely ready are two very different things. ~The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous (Kindle Locations 649-651).
"Expert liar."
Not a credential
I'd eagerly claim,
but claim I do for strength,
for growth, for recovery,
for honesty. And I've said
lying words to most folks,
including me, and to my God.
I wear masks well but no longer
can I wear them with comfort.
For when I quit trying to fool
the world, friends, family,
God, me
then I can become – can reflect
on the outside – an inside
I'm willing to let be seen.
saying

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Intuition

When we place our will and our lives in God’s care in step three, we give God our intuition as well. ~  The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous (Kindle Locations 281-282)
So, we give God our intuition?
Our  ability to immediately understand
without need of conscious reasoning?
Where did we get it but from God?
Isn't that circular? If I come in powerless
I'm guessing that means my intuition's broken.
But it's fixed if it's involved in Step Three…
I offer myself to Thee, to build with me,
to build with me and to do with me 
as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, 
that I may better do Thy will. 
Take away my difficulties, 
that victory over them 
may bear witness to those I would help 
of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always!So, my intuition is part of me
turned over to God, so it's his,
but my gift to him by surrender.

spiral

Today Is...

Today is a good day to bury bad habits, attitudes, and relationships so you can give birth to a new you. ~ Dave Braun
Who could fault examining yourself,
assessing the inventory, acknowledging the bad,
defining the positive? A fine daily goal
inherent in the prayer of serenity
to accept things we cannot change,
courage to change what we can,
wisdom to know the difference.
It's a fine day to do it…
so long as the benefit
is not ignored three hundred sixty-four days
in every year.