Lessons From My Recovery

Take what serves you, leave what does not. I am hoping that some or all of the suggestions will become second nature and that your life will thereby become lighter. Then perhaps the light in ourselves may become a light for others.

• Explore mindful pausing as a central spiritual practice that has the power to change your life. One moment and one pause at a time.
• You will receive a body. It's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life. How will you treat it? Your relationship to it is a mirror of your relationship with yourself, meaning how you feel about it isn’t actually about your body. It is about how you feel about you. Can you experience yourself in the present moment; as opposed to through the conditioned mind; the beliefs and attitudes you have from family, culture, religion, gender, society. The more you see through the illusion of this conditioning, the happier you and your body will BE.
• Symptoms are a healing response. Suppressing them will lead to more dis-ease because they are a call to action.
• You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth". Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher. Resent it and suffer. Or accept it and grow.
• There are no mistakes, only lessons. Choices will simply lead to more choices. And there is always choice
• Growth is a process of experimentation. "Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success." Failure is absolutely inevitable. You get to choose the meaning that has. People with core beliefs that are supportive to who they are, what they are capable of - will know this as failure is not personal. Those with imprinted core beliefs that are life limiting (like I am not good enough, I am a failure, I am not worthy, I am unlovable) will not be able to tolerate failure as it will feel threatening to self.
• A lesson is repeated until learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it: then you can go on to the next lesson. If you notice patterns, get curious. They are a lesson not yet integrated. This happens for all of us. It is not personal.
• If you don't learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes.
• Pain is how the universe gets your attention. Do not shoot the messenger. Get curious about its message. It is meant for you and is not addressed to the wrong person.
• You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing. So baby steps are ALWAYS enough.
• Avoidance gets you nowhere.
• Relationships are a mirror for our worth. You will know when your own esteem has filled your cup enough that you no longer feel others need to fill it for you and you will not tolerate others draining that cup either.
• Co-dependency (I prefer the term ineffective dependency due to our hyper individualistic culture downplaying the need and power of effective dependency – interdependence) is also nothing to be ashamed of. It is healed with self-love. True boundaries can only come from there. Walls from protection are not boundaries. They will block the good too.
• "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here." This is a big one. Wherever we go, there we are. Same internal conflict, same lack of self-love reflected in our lives.
• Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself. It is all leading you home to love.
• Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life, or someone else will. There’s plenty of authority figures, gurus, and other people happy to tell you what to think and who to be. This will keep you powerless and victimised. Own yourself and you will flourish, no matter how long it takes. Your authentic self is never damaged. It will be waiting for you to see yourself in a mirror of compassion and then you will actually see the truth of you.
• Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract; therefore, the only fool proof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.
• You may have been victimised and this is NEVER something to hold blame or shame over. Staying in victimisation will stunt growth, health and happiness.
• There is no right or wrong path for you, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best and throw the rest in the fuck it bucket.
• Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others; but as we mature, we must learn to know and trust our hearts. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. All you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.
• Being still enough to listen is an art we need to practice. Meditation, nature and animals teach us a lot about patience and slowing down and trusting.
• Confronted with the suffering in the world, I do not turn my eyes away, nor do I get stuck in blaming God or humanity but simply ask: “What then shall I do?” I respond to pain in others with a plan to help, even if it has to be minimal: “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”
• Admit your fear, allow yourself to feel it, and then act as if it were not able to stop you. This is how fear turns to excitement about an alternative and how self-esteem increases because you now have the courage to risk.
• We become fully human not by our efforts alone but also by the assistance of a higher power than our ego, that complements our psychological work and our spiritual practice. Abundant grace is surrounding us right now and can be trusted to help us cross our next bridge or threshold.
• Only you can heal you. Help is often necessary yes. but ultimately you will heal you. Or more specifically you will allow the self-healing power inside you to do its job uninhibited by your conditioned mind, beliefs, thoughts, behaviours that block it from going back to homeostasis like it is always wanting to. Basically learn to get out of the way!
• Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not here. We have too much past and future and not enough presence. There is only now. How you experience the now is under your influence.
• You will forget all this. Many times.
• You can remember any time you wish.