Sound Healing

Things are good. I have been able to give a lot of free time to my metaphysical studies lately. If that is all I could get away with doing, I would. I love being a student! Recently, I was introduced to Tom Kenyon, an amazing psychoanalyst, shaman and sound healer. His teachings, writings and music are healing my life. I am stunned at the efficacy of sound vibration. Especially his work. I also ran out and purchased several other cd's with different types of sound healing techniques. All are quite effective and truly amazing. I have a sense of clarity and awareness that I haven't had in several years.

I haven't researched what I am about to say at any great length yet. I find it more than ironic that as my spiritual journey takes me to sound/vibrational healing and how it works in the universe as a whole, that I would over hear a person talking about HAARP and how it may have had something to do with the recent earthquake in Haiti. I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist but, truth is stranger than fiction. Of course, when something is going to play a huge role in our evolution/ascension the flip side is how it could be misused. It is a shame when that misuse is the making of a weapon that has the exact opposite effect on humanity.

Here is Tom Kenyon's website. He has sound gifts here that you can listen to...amazing!

http://tomkenyon.com/

This is a link to a book about HAARP.

http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Dont-Play-This-Haarp/dp/0964881209

Till next time. Peace.

Pushing Through...

After intuitively titling this blog post, I realize it's the pushing that may be the problem. Or the issue, or whatever! I am always analyzing and critiquing myself, what I do, what I stand for and what my future may hold when considering what is dictated by one's actions. I do believe in the idea that we create our own world/reality. This is not a new concept, the fathers of modern psychology speak of projection in our lives and relationships, which, to me, is part of manifestation and creation of one's life. I feel destined to reach fruition or change or growth/growing up, reguardless of how tenaciously a part of myself may hold onto things or people. Or concepts, for that matter. I can feel the churning of my unconscious, bringing me back to the forefront of what needs acceptance, no matter what I may try to do to cling to what is comfortable. Or should I say, what appears comfortable because it is familiar. I have changed a lot of "things" around in the last 2 years and guess what? The issues, or items that need my attention, are still the same! Whether I stand on the right side or the left side, the "things" I am apparently avoiding, are still there waiting for me, when I am ready, of course. Patient little bastards...

I am making up hours at school. I am so close, but, feeling worn down. I can't wait to be done with school. I feel that there is a huge amount of time that will be freed, that I need to apply to my son and marriage. Myself, too. I have been slightly discouraged lately. I have been feeling better the last few days. I often think of the analogy of life being a river, you or I are floating down, on our backs, and if we fight it, or struggle it is soooo much harder. If we relax and go with the flow of things, like you would have to in order to make it down this proverbial river, life is so much easier and enjoyable.

I'm Back!!

Well, it's been a little over a year, I think, since my last post. I have been keeping myself very, very busy to avoid, or should I say attempt to avoid, horrible relapse insanity/destruction. I enrolled in massage school last April and attend 4 nights a week about an hour from my home. I still work in the same place, too. I am thoroughly enjoying my schooling and have about 3 months to go until I'm ready to take the national exam to become a certified massage therapist.

This past August, I got married to my boyfriend of 10 years after he proposed to me on Christmas of 2007. Our wedding date was 8/8/08. It was our 10th anniversary. I also received my Bachelor's degree in Metaphysical Sciences and I'm currently working on my Masters. I have plans to become an aromatherapist after I'm done with massage school and I also want to eventually be a Metaphysician.

Now that I've given you a little update...

After beginning to drink again, it wasn't long before I was doing other things, too. I think it took me 2 weeks before I had done some form of an opiate. Then, to replace opiate use, cocaine. I know this road all too well. I have debated whether to completely abandon this blog because, honestly, I'm not sure if this is a good thing on some levels. I know that denial is a hallmark for addiction but, is it possible to hyper focus on an issue? So much so that you stress yourself out and make it worse?

Even though I am still battling my addiciton issues, I feel like a lot of what I learned in my experience of going to AA meetings and using other self improvement tools, during my almost 3 years of sobriety, has stuck with me REGUARDLESS of being 100% sober or not. I say that being fully aware of the reality of it and the likely outcome that is assumed by most people out there in the "recovery" world. I am not stupid. When I decided to get sober in the first place, I was at the point of desperation required to have a spiritual awakening described in the Big Book. I most definitely HAD that experience and breaking my sobriety hasn't taken that away like so many people act like it would. I can still 'hear' God. I always did!! I just didn't want to listen before.

I will do my best to pick this blog back up but, it is going to have to encompass more of my life as a whole. With that said, I'll talk to you soon.

Struggle

So, as a dear friend of mine says, I opened the door and got off the wagon, on Christmas after 2.5 years of sobriety in a 12 step program. I am struggling, I have all this programming about the "disease" and I notice it rearing it's head more so lately. Guilt, guilt, guilt. I have a 3 year old and I mostly feel guilty about me as a parent. There is nothing in my present behavior that is bad for my son. I know how I used to be though. I need to believe in myself more. I'll go days without drinking and then I'll drink and feel really guilty afterward. You know the pattern. I feel like it's programmed in to me. I enjoy myself while I'm drinking, I don't get drunk or black out but I still feel guilty afterward. The guilt perpetuates the cycle. How do I break the guilt?

I have consulted with several astrologers, I should mention that I want to be a certified astrologer, and one of them said that I am different than I was before and that I won't go back to my old ways because when I was 26 Saturn crossed over my ascendent and I started to form a whole new personality, I got sober and Max was born while I was 26 years old. I am also in my Saturn Return. I have 5 planets in Scorpio, Moon Libra and Gemini Rising. I need to focus my energy in a creative manner because of all the Scorpio, in the 6th house I might add, so I need to be involved in some sort of service to humanity or I'll suffer.

I don't want to go back to where I came from and I don't want to tell my self that I am different than other people anymore.

4th Step and Beyond

Okay, so I haven't written in a while, mostly because I don't want to talk about the steps. Not because I didn't have a good experience with them or because I avoided them while participating in AA, but because I just don't feel passionately about them anymore like I used to.

I did my first 4th Step when I was 6 months sober. It was 15 pages long. I wrote down EVERYTHING. Honestly, it was easy for me. I had the overwhelming relief of Step 4 when I made the decision to get sober, I felt like all the guilt associated with Step 4 had been taken away when I decided to do something about my self destructive behavior. My second and third 4th Steps were much more revealing than the first and much, much shorter. I was diving into some of the good stuff finally. The stuff that makes me tick. To my surprise, I am not the untrustworthy, manipulative, insane person that a lot of "us" are assumed to be. I think the 4th Step has always helped me to see that it's all in my head and that I need to start respecting myself. Believing in myself.

Telling my dirty laundry in Step 5 was also easy for me. I actually have a little bit of a problem keeping my mouth shut when it comes to talking with people about my problems. I have actually had recent life lessons in keeping my mouth shut about all the crazy negativity in my head. Sometimes, when you talk about these things, it feeds them and then they grow. I have seen this happen over and over again in my own life.

Steps 6 and 7 have always confused me a little. I feel like, "of course I'm ready to have God remove all my defects of character," who wouldn't be ready for that? I did these steps while I was reading the Big Book. While your reading, he walks you right through it. I remember asking myself if that was it, did I just do Steps 6 and 7? Some would tell me yes and some would tell me no. My 3rd sponsor told me that we have individual defects revealed to us when we are ready and then we work on those resulting in asking God to remove them. I can buy into this. I also like the idea that when you say the 7th step prayer, it's done. I think I have overcomplicated these steps for myself, always looking for that next character defect to be revealed.

When it comes to Steps 8 and 9, I felt like I had a lot of the amends happen as living amends. Getting sober was amends enough in most of the relationships that mattered. I wasn't going to call up my old drug dealer and apologize to her for ripping her off and some people I wrote to never responded, they were people who weren't that close to me but, that I had cared about at one time and that my drug abuse definitely effected.

I think Step 10 is probably my favorite Step. Let's review the day. How could we have done things differently and if we know we did something wrong, what can we do to fix it? I use this step a lot, it helps to keep me on track and easily forgive myself for imperfection.

Step 11, to me, is all about Spiritual practice. I love Spiritual practice. Prayer and meditation can take on many forms. I use a lot of ritual and do daily devotion at an altar. This is definitely a Step that you continue to use, I know that all of them are, but this one counts for me whether I am in the program or not.

Step 12 to me is "Help Others."

I felt like I had to write about the Steps although I'm not really into it. I can't wait to right my next blog!

The First Three...

Powerless-ness. I know what powerless-ness is. Day after day doing something you don't want to do because you feel like you have to. In my case, it was usually that I would become physically ill if I didn't.

When I heard people talk of powerlessness in AA, I knew what they were talking about. One of my favorite AA women used to talk about going to the store to get milk and bread for her 3 starving kids and buying a six pack of beer instead. Although my drug of choice was different, I too had experienced what she was talking about.

The second part of Step One, the unmanagability, well, stealing pills from a little old lady and getting addicted is slightly unmanagable. I had no question that I was powerless and that my life was unmanagable. Just read my previous blogs, it's all there. Unmanagability at it's best!

I quickly, with a sponsor, moved onto Step 2. I came to believe. I had been praying for months for help. I saw angels regularly and they were the ones who guided me to AA. I have always believed in a power greater than myself. I have also always had a great deal of faith in this power greater than me. I knew "God" could restore my sanity. God was capable of anything. I had no problem with this concept and I still don't. As you can imagine, I quickly moved onto Step 3.

Turn it over. Let go and let God. Tell me, why can't any person use this kind of thinking reguardless of their circumstances? I had turned my life over to something other than my crazy thinking as soon as I had made that call for help to my best friend. The angels, God, whatever you want to call it. I want to say that I don't believe that the 3rd Step is conditional. When you turn your life over, that's it. Have faith and trust in your "Higher Power" no matter what!

I had heard it described as the archway to freedom, the first three steps. Step 3 is the keystone. I still believe this today, how do you define freedom?

The rest of the steps, when I return....

Just a Little More History

I find myself raiding medicine cabinets and realize rather quickly where this is going to lead me. I wean myself off after several weeks of using pain medicine. I feel confident with my ability to do that and for several months everything is fine. When my son was about 4 months old, I was asked to help an elderly woman who was blind and hard of hearing with her letter/card writing. I agreed. The elderly woman was the mother-in-law of the daughter of our landlords at the llama farm. She lived right next door. The older woman lived in an apt. in the basement of the daughter's house. I went over to help out like I had agreed. I was writing out cards for the woman and we needed an address book that was in a drawer in her kitchen. She directed me to the drawer and I opened it. To my surprise, not only was the address book there, but a rather large bottle of Oxycontin. 350 pills a month. Evidently the woman had severe pain due to her Osteoporosis. She was blind for God's sake. I took a few for fun and thought how great this would be that I could occasionally take a few pills and with such a large prescription no one would notice. Well, before long I was taking her pain pills every day. She had Methadone as well, and I was taking these, too. I was strung out on someone else's pain medicine for about 5 months. My son was 9 months old when I got sober. I finally broke down after months of trying to wean myself off of her medications. I had stolen a fentanyl patch and was using a heating pad to try and get "well." I had my 9 month old with me and freaked out, called my best friend and told her that I needed help. I couldn't stop and wanted to. I went to her house for a few days and started the withdrawal process. She has a young family of her own and I couldn't stay for very long. I returned home and couldn't keep myself away from the drugs next door. This time I knew it was going to be noticed. It was a miracle it hadn't been noticed up to this point. The packaging on the pills was different, it was in sheets, much easier to see how many were there at a glance. I knew my employers/landlords noticed something was fishy. They actually thought it was one of the old lady's nurses. I went over to my landlord's house and told them everything. I told them that I wanted to stop and that I needed help. They wanted me to go to AA. At first, I pretended to go. I felt so much guilt and remorse for lying about going but, it was the pattern I was accustomed to. Finally, one day when I was at my best friend's house, the one I had called originally, she suggested that I go to AA so that I wouldn't have to lie. What a concept! So, I went and felt relief for the first time in years. What I heard in the rooms spoke to me in such a deep way. I had been so lost. So broken. So desperate. This was the answer I had been searching for all of my life....or was it?