The Power of Imagination

The past can steal your present if you let it. You can spend hours, days, weeks, months, or even years overanalyzing a situation from the past...Or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and walk out the door and into the sunlight.

Marc and Angel Cheernoff

Imagination is a wonderful coping strategy. Especially if we use it to our advantage. Marc and Angel’s suggestion to “leave the pieces on the floor and walk out the door and into the sunlight” sparks my imagination for recovery and change.

What if...we came to believe that any situation from the past, no matter how upsetting, does not have to steal our capacity for living in the warm light of the sun?

What if...we came to understand that the “why” is not often where we find forgiveness, grace and mercy? What if we grappled with the ill effects of ruminating and began to let that destructive habit go?

How could we use our imagination to spur us forward, toward the light?

A Meditation on Love…

Intuition is louder when you are still.

Angela Gorringe

Take a few minutes to sit and breathe. Pay attention to the feel of your breath. Take time to remind yourself to trust that all is proceeding along lines planned by God and executed in Jesus. Picture yourself using your freedom to say whatever needs to be said, whatever needs doing to be done, within the boundary of turning your life and will over to the care of God.

Imagine all the free time that will emerge when our decisions are in alignment with our values. Love God? Then we love our neighbor too, right? So we don’t need to complain, critique, criticize, judge, or try to change them.

Love your neighbor? That’s hard to do at times! But it is far more compelling to focus on how to do THAT than it is to spend time trying to make excuses for why you should not have to love them.

The Company You Keep

Sometimes your circle decreases in size but increases in value.

Unknown

In our community we are truly lucky ducks. We have our recovery tools and our faith perspective to challenge and inspire us to constantly grow and learn new ways of being in the world. One of the first pieces of advice given to people in need of recovery is to change people, places and things.

The founders of mutual aid societies like AA knew from experience that early in recovery it was not safe to hang out with people and in places associated with using. This organization has done a great job of giving us short phrases to help us remember wise principles. If mutual aid societies are not your jam, the book of Proverbs provides the same advice.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.

Proverbs 1:32-33 NIV

No matter where you find support and encouragement for transformation, this simple, basic advice is always on target. Stay alert. Maybe notice what kind of friend you are to others and consider what kind of friend others are to you. Sometimes we need to make changes that will help us and others continue on the path of transformation. Are we living in support of our values? Are the people we surround ourselves with living in ways that challenge us to keep challenging ourselves through much needed self-reflection?

Combatting Feelings of Unworthiness

Note to self: Quit holding on to your unworthiness. It may be familiar, but it’s not a friend. You were worthy from the day you were born, and nothing you do will ever take that away. So welcome your worthiness IN. Erica Layne

I had a friend who got into the habit of lamenting her poor parenting skills. We, her friends, got into the habit of reassuring her of her parenting prowess. The more we affirmed, the louder she berated herself. After a while, it was annoying to listen to her constant put downs.

Finally, we performed an intervention. We decided to agree with her and see what happened. If I had understood the concept of ambivalence and how that relates to change, I would have understood the situation better. None of us knew about this principle, but we somehow managed to stumble into the cure.

We were hanging out at the park and our kids were running around while we sat on blankets, happy for a warm sunny spring day. She began her lament. We started responding like this: “Wow. You know, that does sound pretty bad.” Or, “Gosh, maybe you need to get some support to help you improve your parenting skills.”

Stunned, she began to defend herself!!! After several rounds of this rodeo, she realized what was happening and she had a real moment of clarity. “Wait a second! I’m defending my parenting all of a sudden!” Yes she was.

So we told her our perspective. We talked about how tiring it was to constantly act as her booster rocket to launch her out of her parental despair. We asked her to consider two things: 1. Give up the habit of self-recrimination or 2. If you think you are that bad, get help to change.

To her credit, she did both. It was a hard habit to break, but she did it. She has raised four amazing children. But I sometimes wonder when I reflect back on those days of young motherhood - where would she have ended up if she had not been willing to accept that she was worthy of being the kind of parent she aspired to become?

What familiar old messages of unworthiness do you need to release or address?

A Path Forward…

Yesterday I talked about my grandson’s “mirror moment” when he saw his beloved cousin Norah imitating his best tantrum moves. Mirrors can be extremely helpful in the gym for improving our form. Metaphorical mirrors like the experience Christian had can also be helpful. They assist us in seeing how we are behaving in ways that, for whatever reason, we might want to change. This helps us see what we don’t like, but then what? We need a path forward.

I am a fan of self-reflection and taking stock. But I also need guidance and good coaching. Otherwise, my self-reflection is more likely to result in rationalizations and justifications for my actions with a side order of denial thrown in for good measure. The prayer of St. Francis provides a suggested path forward. Today, let’s look toward the horizon… and pray:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace -

That where there is hatred, I may bring love -

That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness -

Where there is discord, I may bring harmony -

Where there is error, I may bring truth -

Where there is doubt, I may bring faith -

Where there is despair, I may bring hope -

Where there are shadows, I may bring light -

Where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted -

To understand than to be understood -

To love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Live.

The St. Francis Prayer