Change as Love Change as Good - One Day at a Time

I love change. I can count on change. If I am willing and go with the flow of my Higher Power change becomes a source of strength.

If I can change, everything becomes possible to me.

Real change is gentle, seasonal and tender. It is not jerked or forced or harsh. Return to real change is a return to love, a return to renewal and a return to the True Self.

I love changing, becoming, being.

True self becomes dominant with real change.

I can't change the past or the future. But I can heal the past, and by doing so become healthier for the future in the present.

In this moment I can touch my entire span of life and transform everything to good. That is the power of my Higher Power, given to me. As my Higher Power is, so am I.

When I am in my Higher Power's will, everything will turn out for good.

When the anger, resentment, control and disease are felt and released, or healed, then gratitude naturally bubbles up and constant contentment becomes my companion. Everything becomes beautiful.

I told my Higher Power I was angry at him, he could have changed what happened to me when I was little. My Higher Power said yes, I could have, but if I had you would not have become who you are right now. I like who I am right now.

People around me made poor choices, but I chose to stay with my Higher Power and trust in love. Because I was able to believe in the absence of what should have been there, my parents' love, I was able to be a part of the stream of goodness.

My addictions I built became tools helping me to a better life, and for that I will always be profoundly grateful.

When I accept and love change, everything becomes possible with a Higher Power whose unchanging strength is seen in change, in the power of being able to draw good out of anything.

If I say with my Higher Power, I can draw good out of everything that could happen to me as well, just like I'm doing right now.

Just for today I will be grateful.

Just for today I will trust.

The loss of Sacred Text and the finding of spirituality

One of the saddest things that happened to me as a result of abuse was losing the ability to find comfort in the sacred text of my faith.

This was a direct result of the 'accusing voices' or 'critical parent' script, that told me what to believe about what I was reading once I physically got away from the abusive family and church I was a part of.

I was always able to find joy in the Psalms, however.

I have only just recently been able to return to other portions of the Word. The Gospel of John has always been a deep comfort, along with his other books. They are so mystical, so only-easily grasped by the heart and spirit, that I don't know if I ever heard a sermon on them. 

The Song of Songs was another - oh, to be loved that way, and to love! I have returned to this book over and over through the years, re-reading it over and over before key moments in my spiritual journey.

Before I became Catholic, it was all I read. Before I entered Mt. Carmel and before my first and second promise. I imagine if I am called to continue in Carmel the rest of my life, I shall return again to this masterwork of the Spirit.

With the freedom of the Spirit, I have been able to read and appreciate other spiritual traditions without fear of being hexed by the bogeyman.

I'm currently reading The Four Agreements, and I've found that its common sense take on life not only echoes but reinforces my own tradition, and give me muscular practice in spiritual change.

I find the sayings / teachings of Rumi inspiring as well.

Right now for formation I'm reading the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross. I feel like I am looking into his soul. It is his personal Song of Songs. Sometimes I almost feel carried away, out of myself. I can't read it through without entering a spiritual state.

Poetry has always spoken to me, has been there for me, and has given me a voice to express the inexpressible in my own life.

My day has been tiring. My sleep was broken multiple times, by outside forces, but I was able to surrender my sleep to my Higher Power, even surrender the inability to return to sleep, and took it as an opportunity for communion.

I'm getting better at moment by moment communion.

I subscribe to the emails of Richard Rohr, and his meditation today (by someone else) about the God particle was profoundly moving.

St. John preaches the "NADA" or the way of nothing. My ego, my will, my control, my addiction as they slowly drop off me or reveal to me my weakness, expose my nakedness, my personal expression of image and likeness, to the divine impulse.

I slowly become, I slowly return to the garden of delight, of intimate universal communion.

But I run from God, he frightens me, a creature, by his realness, and so he comes to me in the darkness, hidden living inside a body, my body and I give love to him by loving the self and together we walk hand in hand, moment by moment.

The way of nothing is the way to everything. Because without God everything is nothing, but with him, nothing is everything.

Just for today I will try to improve my conscious contact with God.

Just for today I will seek love with love.

Detaching with Love

I went to a meeting today. My insight was that I've learned to detach from other people's emotional reactions, and to stay inside myself. I was worried about going, but I knew I needed to go, so I went anyway.

When I am thrown back to the past, which often happens in and after meetings, it is difficult to stay inside, and some reactions are still similar to the past - but I know they are happening, and they are not as extreme. This is part of the gift of awareness.

I also know how to get myself back inside myself instead of continuing to run around wounded, wondering why I'm reacting. Self-care is huge.

I can identify my emotions. I don't always like my emotions, but I'm becoming more accepting of them. When I can accept the emotion, and fully feel it, without trying to escape it, push it away or deny it, the emotion passes and I am able to say goodbye.

Goodbye to that lost dream. Or just the dream of a dream. Acceptance is the key.

When I accept what is, then it is like I wake up, and am able to see what I have. I am able to enjoy what I have. I am able to be grateful.

By feeling my feelings my headspace is freed to to focus on my stuff, the good stuff. And there is a lot of good stuff!

Going to meetings is good because it helps stir up things that would otherwise remained unresolved. It also helps me practice what I've learned.

I read the book "The New Codependency" by Melody Beattie, and I have to say I really enjoyed the chapter about how some people need meetings their entire lives, some just need them during crisis, and some go for a time and then leave.

I have to be responsible for my own well being, not handing it over to meetings or anyone else. I can take into consideration what therapists say, what other people say, and what people important to me say, but at the end of the day I am responsible for me.

Do I love me? It is difficult when the healthy ego is destroyed to develop self love but I'm doing it.

I'm letting myself be loved. By myself. By my Higher Power and by others.

When I don't have loving feelings, when I'm all tossed up inside, or have gone outside myself, I can still behave in a loving way to myself or others. I can practice the principles before personalities on me.

Today I will let myself be loved, just as I am, without judgment, without rancour and with respect, tenderness and kindness. I trust that with time I will be able to love as I am loved, and see others as I begin to see myself, with clarity, honesty and compassion.

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love. First, friendship with myself  and my higher power by accepting my higher power's friendship, second, love for myself and my higher power by accepting my higher power's love for me.

Just for today I will let myself be loved. 

Step 1 - Admitted I am powerless over blog content

Step 1 - Admitted I am powerless over blog content, that my blogging had become unmanageable.

After typing Step 1, I realized that, actually, I do know what this blog will be about.

Granted, I don't know what form or story it will take each day, but I do know this is about my journey through the 12 steps and how this interacts within my life as a child of God in the 3rd order or lay Carmelite vocation of the Catholic church.

Step 1 is very powerful. The second I say, "I don't know," I admit to the possibility that someone else does, or that the answer exists outside myself. I don't have to know, right now. 

When I am okay with not knowing, then I am ready to know.

My blogging is unmanageable, because of control. I I I need to control control control everything.

I don't know which direction this blog will take, other than the above mentioned. I don't know if anyone will read it. I have no control over the fact that my mind starts to obsess about all the things I need to know if I am going to start blogging again. I have to plan for all the bad things that could happen. I have to plan for all the good things that could happen. What if. What if. What if.

No. I do not have to know. I only have to trust that, right now, I need to make this blog. IF someday I need to move it, I can. IF someday, I need to delete it, I can.

When I am okay with not knowing, then I no longer have to control. I can rest in the fact that I only have to do, right now, what I need to do next. That is all that is expected, to do the next right thing.

The unmanageable shrinks down into its right size until I am able to see only the next thing, because I never really saw the big picture anyway. The mirror of my mind had distorted everything, like one of those curved mirrors at the funhouse.

When I am okay with not knowing, then I am ready to know.

Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our life had become unmanageable.

I pray that we will find the serenity we seek, and that we will see that what we seek has always been inside us, waiting for us to return to ourselves to find rest.

We are loved with an everlasting love, and surrounding us are the everlasting arms.

No-people, No-place, No-thing, can separate us from the love of God.

Let yourself be loved.