My Word- 2009 Edition

It was interesting looking back to see my word of 2008. I didn't do such a great job of keeping it in my head as a focus, but I think I did do a good job of practicing self-care anyway. This was the year I bought myself my own fucking Hallmark Card. I got much better at using the phone tool. I participated in an Artist's Way book study, which included dating myself through Artist Dates, Morning Pages, and even a Reading Diet. I got better at using affirmations. I got a really cool self-nurturing tool in therapy last week that I haven't posted about yet, but it's turned into a cool way to end one year and start the next.

It's interesting to look back sometimes and see patterns AND growth. When I went back to see my word for 08, I got to look again at how it started for me. My partner and I went through a dance last night around new years that, in looking back, was very similar to last years. She wanted to isolate. I didn't. She was sick. But, instead of pouting, I chose to practice self-care. I went to figure out what I could do with my own self for new years. I decided that I'd take myself to see fireworks. My partner didn't like the idea of me spending the new year without her. The new behavior we both practiced was working through it together and coming up with something we could both live with. We decided to go to our local NA holiday meeting marathon together. Starting the new year with recovery felt like a good thing.

Hmmm. Recovery, maybe that can be my word. It kind of encompasses everything I've thought about and everything that's important to me today. God's already taken. I thought about gratitude, because I find that my life works better when I focus on the stuff I have to be grateful about. When I started this post, my word was gonna be Steps. I just finished step 12 with one online writing workshop this week. We finished with the 12 step exercise, which is always so powerful for me when I remember to use it.

I'm starting a new online Step Study focusing on my compulsive overeating. We're gonna do one step a month, so I'm excited that this one will take me right through this year.

So, I think I will choose Recovery as my word this year. That encompasses God, the Steps, and Gratitude. Happy New Year!

Partner Stepping Up

My partner seems to be starting her step-work in earnest today. She got herself a new sponsor a few months ago, and then at our therapist's urging, she asked for a deadline. A couple of days ago, she started making comments, INDEPENDENTLY, that she needed to get started, because her deadline was coming up. Today, she pulled out her book, and disappeared.

As most of my experiences in recovery, this is not on my timeline. I, like many of us, used to fantasize about my partner reaching step 9 and making amends to me. I felt I was owed amends. I know today that that expectation meant I wasn't ready.

She'll get there or she won't. She's not doing it in my time or in my way, and today I get that she's not supposed to. I have hope today, because I see her stepping up in new ways,both in recovery and in our relationship. She's doing it on her own and not as a reaction to me. I see how transformative the steps are in the lives of all of the people I see working them, and I want that for her. Ok, I admit, I want it for ME, too. I hope that the changes in her life will transform not only her, but our relationship as well. But today, it's a hope rather than a demand or an expectation. I'm ok with where we are today. I have tools and choices that I can use and make, when I'm not ok with where we are. I think it's not such a coincidence that I'm getting ready to start step 12, and that I really have had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. I wish the same spiritual awakening for her. And, if you're reading and recovery is something you want in your life, I wish the same for you. Peace!

Using my tools

Today, I did some step 1 work. I did what I committed to myself and the internet that I was gonna do, and addressed my compulsive overeating while working the step. Afterwards, I decided to make some program calls to members of OA. That's getting out of my comfort zone. I'm finally to the point where I'm totally comfortable picking up the phone and calling my naranon friends.

But today, I reached out in particular to someone that I really don't know, but who seems to have what I want. I asked her about her experience working the steps in OA. She told me about her experiences. She pointed me to a 4th step tool that's specific to OA. She told me about a 12 step guide that she used, and agreed to email me with information about the guide. She talked to me about some of her successes and some of her struggles. She talked about getting ahead of herself when on step 4 by thinking about the upcoming work she would have in making amends. She mentioned that she's in more than one recovery program (just like me) and that she wanted to do one inventory, but that that didn't work for her. She found that she needed to address her separate issues separately. She talked to me about things that were getting in the way of her 9th step work, and how she's handling them. I'm so glad I made this call. I hung up feeling very uplifted.

I guess when I think about it, I also did some 12 step work today- carrying the message to those who still suffer. I helped a friend who's got a whole lot of recovery behind her but is very new to step work. And I reached out to somebody online who's where I've been, and shared my experience, strength and hope.

And guess what? It's the weekend. My addict is piddling around the house, mostly NOT engaging with me. She's also being very loud about her back hurting. I'm not sitting around the house waiting for her to spend time with me. I'm not obsessing about whether she's going to decide to self-medicate and relapse. I'm busy with my own life and my own program. For today, I'm working it, and it's working!!!

keeping what i have by giving it away

Somebody was talking about her struggle around money in the Junky's Wives Club today. In sharing my own experience, strength and hope, I was able to get clearer for me. Here's what I said:

"What I'm learning is that I have to work on acting, and not reacting. I need to look inside myself to figure out what I want, what I need, and what I feel. That's been the hardest part, b/c I completely lost me for a while, and I'm just now figuring that out. Once I know what I need, then I have to set boundaries to take care of myself. You might, after looking inside, decide that what you need to feel safe is to have control of the money for now. Many addicts and addicts wives have come to that decision together. If you decide that you need to be in control of the money in order to feel safe, and you set that as a boundary, then it's up to him to decide whether he can live with that boundary or not. If he chooses not to honor your boundary, then it's up to you to decide whether you can live with that or not. It's hard, hard, hard, complicated stuff. I surely don't do it perfectly. But I'm getting better. Hang in there. And keep sharing. That's what's helped me the most."


Then later, I was just talking to a dear friend who's struggling with boundaries. She called me white light, and said she thought I didn't need my step group because I AM white light. I told her that MY disease is that it's waaay easy for me to boss other folks around, but it's much harder to let them in and see me and my struggles.

In talking to this friend, I got even clearer about the losing me I referred to earlier. I think my greatest character defect of all time is fear of abandonment, and it draws me to go to any length if I let it. I won't even state a boundary, let alone decide for myself what the consequence of invading it might be or, God forbid, follow through on that consequence, because the end result might be abandonment. And abandonment feels intolerable for me.

But, as I'm learning to date myself (go on artist dates and write morning pages and get more comfortable with me), I'm increasing my tolerance. And that's making me, and my relationships, so much healthier.

I'm so grateful for the tools I'm learning and my friends, real and imaginary, who help me to get clearer and healthier, one day at a time.

White Light

We finally met about the 12th step yesterday in our Step Group. It's been an amazingly powerfully healing journey. I look at the growth in the 4 women around me and I know I'm growing too. Getting ready to meet, I rediscovered a tool just when I needed it. I've been spinning for days and not realizing why. I'm finding that my feelings are a barometer for how my partner is doing. She's been working through something major and hadn't been ready to share it with me. My codie powers picked up that something was wrong, but the powers are a bit warped, so how it gets interpreted in my brain is that something must be wrong with me. Anyway, once I used this 12 step tool, I was able to get myself much better centered. And then, not so coincidentally, as soon as I felt more centered, my partner felt able to share what's been going on inside her. Wow! Yet again, it works when I work it.

Here's the tool, modified from from The 12 Steps- A Way Out.

Write a clear concise statement about a situation or condition that's really bothering you and bringing up big feelings (resentment, fear, sadness, or anger.) Then apply the principles of all 12 steps to work through the situation.

Step 1: Write about how this situation is demonstrating your powerlessness and your life's unmanageability.

Step 2: Ask yourself how your higher power can restore you to sanity. My response was that my higher power could help me focus on me.

Step 3: Write an affirmation about how you're now choosing to turn the situation over to your higher power. (Mine was "I now decide to turn my frustration and anxiety over to God.")

Step 4: Write down what character defects are surfacing. For me, it was control and fear of abandonment.

Step 5: Admit your wrongs to God, to yourself, and to another person. I used the exercize the book taught us in Step 5. First, I looked in the mirror and said it out loud to me. Then, I virtually, put God in a chair and said it out loud to God. Then, I told my partner.

Step 6: Write about your willingness or lack thereof to have God remove the character defects that have surfaced. I wrote that I am willing because I do want to stop spinning in response to her feelings and actions.

Step 7: Write a prayer humbly asking God to remove the shortcomings you just identified. Here's mine: God, please help me to keep the focus on me and to take care of myself. Help me to give A time and space to work through her own stuff.

Step 8: Make a list of those you've harmed. Mine was me and A.

Step 9: Describe how you intend to make the amend. What I wrote was that I needed to tell her that I've been getting all enmeshed again. When I told her and showed her my work, she said that she thought that I was supposed to actually amend something. Hmm. Guess I'm working on that living amends thing of changing my behavior.

Step 10: Look back over your work and see if anything else surfaces.

Step 11: Pray or meditate and then write about your higher power's will for you in this situation. I wrote that God wants me to have peace.

Step 12: Write about whether you sensed a spiritual awakening and your understanding of who's in charge, you or God. The book suggests that good indicators of who you see in charge are your attitude and emotions. I wrote that I did sense a spiritual awakening and that God is in charge, because I'm calmer and more focused on me.

This was such a powerful exercize for me. I want to make a little card to carry around with the book's version of this exercize. I'd like to try to remember to practice these principles in all my affairs. This, for me, was a very concrete way of doing that.