Presence

Junkie Worm Blues #4 – Grounding Skills

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“Life can only be found in the present moment. Your true home is in the here and the now.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

The greatest challenge I have ever had in addiction recovery is being present in the here and now. If this is where my true home exists, there have been many days that I have spent on the road, even though geographically I am home. I become preoccupied with yesterday’s behavior, thoughts, and other people’s actions. I have engaged my mind for hours thinking about the anticipation of tomorrow’s activities and what I need to do or what I think about what the responsibility of others should be. Some days there is a nonstop ping-pong match between past and future that preoccupies my mind and keeps me from being just where I am. This mind mesh unmanaged triggers the junkie worm blues. 

In your recovery do you know this dynamic? It short circuits the serenity of sobriety. It creates a brown out from self empowerment. It breeds an environment that is ripe for relapse. Here are some short suggestions to manage past and future distractions that pull you away from the present moment. 

1. Practice noticing nature: We live our lives as if everything is centered around our perceived wants and needs. I am in the process of deepening my awareness that when I am distracted and stuck wallowing in past thoughts and behaviors or worrying about the future nature can bring me back to the present. Nature is sacred in this manner. Thich Nhat Hanh reflected “Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” Nature brings us back to the present. Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux leader, offered grounding in this description “What is Life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. The True Peace. The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Taka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.”

Eckart Tolle said, “You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are. Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life. Sometimes, letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” The practice of noticing the nature around you cultivates the awareness of being present in the here and now. 

2. Slow down and do things mindfully. Meditation brings us back to center. Some people have found grounding by doing a walking meditation, feeling their feet connected to the earth, their bodies at one with the trees and animal life around them. They experience the energy of life by inhaling the breath of fresh air in the great outdoors and taking in the warmth of the constant sun. Recovery author Melodie Beattie wrote, “At no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace.” Shifting to a slower speed can help you center yourself and promote a clear perspective in recovery. 

3. Pay attention to your purchasing patterns. It is easy to lose yourself in the frenzy of consumerism. We have all compulsively purchased something we did not need. There is an amazing number of people who have bought items that they don’t even take out of the box. It is important to ask yourself what the compulsive urge to buy something is all about. What emotion am I trying to avoid? Compulsive purchases not only block awareness of emotional needs, it will set you up to feed the junkie worm in your addiction.

4. Cultivate sensitivity to ways that you presume upon the people around you. If you are an addict and an entrepreneur, you must pay attention to this subtle yet dangerous dynamic in behavior. Are there people around you that you take for granted? Do you expect others to take care of your personal needs? In what ways do you presume upon those around you, your partner, family, colleagues, and those who work for you? It is easy to create a calloused expectation about those who are hired or in a relationship with you that subtly fuels entitlement. Celebrity status is dangerous this way. Most of us think of celebrities as Hollywood, athletic, or rock star status people. But, we are all celebrities in our own world. There are people who look to you and tend to put you on a pedestal no matter who you are or the world you live. Pay attention to the way in which you might presume upon them. The presumption always accelerates an entitled attitude. Entitlement comes from deprivation. Ask yourself what legitimate need must be met that when neglected triggers me to presume upon someone else to meet that need.

Sensitivity to the present moment, nature, and personal patterns that lead to destructive behavior are necessary grounding skills in managing the junkie worm that wants to be fed one way or the other.

How Does Believing in Who You Are Differ From Believing You Can Do Great Things?

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“None of us are defined by our worst actions that we have done.” — Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

“Nor are we defined by the worst things that have happened to us.” —KW 

I have been privileged to work with individuals who have demonstrated extreme self-confidence and belief in being able to achieve great accomplishments in their personal and professional lives. Some have accessed confidence and belief to create massive financial success while others have become elite in their professional sport, ability to entertain, or experiences of political power. They have engaged in visualization skills and affirmation to fulfill their goals. They were masterful in their achievements. 

However, there is a remarkable number of those who have achieved world-renowned feats who admittedly state they have less belief in who they are separate from what they do.  Some have even disclosed that they would be lost separate from what they do.  In other words, their professional craft and achievements define who they are. 

How bout you? Do you know who you are separate from what you do? Do your achievements define you? If so, then you have created a hamster wheel affect for your life. You will need to do more to keep from being less. 

There will never be a time when enough achievements will create fulfillment. You will never experience a sense of completion or enduring satisfaction because you will need to keep running for more and more. It’s the nature of the hamster wheel driven by your identification that who you are is what you do. Or, you will only know to identify yourself by what you did in the past or what you are planning to do tomorrow. 

It is not uncommon for those who find their identity in what they do, to feel a great sense of emptiness and despair immediately after performing a great feat. I have heard several share that their deepest darkness happens when they are off stage and alone after performing. Some have even shared that it has been a huge trigger to act out with their drug of choice while others have indicated vulnerability to suicidal ideation. 

Identifying who you are other than the results of what you do or will do requires that you have a sense of presence in the here and now with an emphasis upon “being”. This requires that you be able to sit with what is and make meaningfulness from it. 

It suggests that you are able to separate what you do from who you are. It can be scary. You learn to focus on meaningfulness by simply being you separate from what you do. 

When you are all about the results of what you do then the idea of coming home to yourself and sitting with your feelings, thoughts and presence is frustrating and likely confusing. 

Yet, it is necessary to detach from the results of what you do. Even, when success bombards your world and seems to flow freely. Eventually, you get to a point of realization that you cannot control the end result. It is beyond you! 

But, the alternative to the detachment of results is to embrace uncertainty and all of its unwanted feelings and thoughts. Not a very attractive alternative. However, when you practice this free fall in life experience you encounter unparalleled freedom. You learn that uncertainty and freedom go together. Eventually, you discover that unwanted feelings subside or become transformed into the magic of gratitude and other feelings of peace. You experience the unconditional confidence of going down with all the feelings of discomfort knowing that you will rise again with the awareness of freedom to be who you are.

This is no small feat. When this is practiced both praise and criticism received for the things you do is recognized as an imposter to the real you. 

Here are considerations to anchor your identity to who you are rather than what you do.

1. Know the values of your heart and don’t betray them. Be more concerned about being true to those values and less concerned about successful results. 

2. Affirm that you are an unrepeatable miracle of the universe. For many this sound like too much fluff. Many would want their result to speak for who they are. The paradox is that when you know who you are before an endeavor, the results do not determine their essence. You will not let an outcome define you. You will embrace all of yourself- the good, the bad, and the ugly. You will understand that life is a tapestry that weaves the sweet with bitterness and triumph with tragedy. No victory will add to this reality and no defeat will take away from it. This reality must be etched in stone that exists within your heart. 

3. Create a list of affirmations about your being, not what you are good at doing. Religiously bathe yourself in them every day as mental hygiene in the same way you take care of your physical hygiene. This is often overlooked. Endless practice prevents most people from realizing their destiny. To know who you are you must feed yourself with the clarity that separates being from doing. Give yourself permission to be a mistake-making person, the only kind that lives on this earth.  Be the one who takes something meaningful from every mistake into your future. This is an endless practice. 

4. You won’t understand your sense of self from a distance. You will need to be willing to embrace going deep within to know your being. For most this is scary. Socrates stated that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. You must be willing to do the uncomfortable. it requires intentionality. Sitting with challenging emotions and understanding their message to you about who you are requires persistence and tenacity which many prefer to avoid. 

5. You will need to be courageous as you embrace your being. You will need to make a decision to be true to yourself when everyone around you is pressuring you to be different. You must be brave, anchoring your identity in your being. You will be tempted to lose yourself in what you do. There will be failure but you must bring yourself back to center. As Maya Angelou wrote in her poem Still I Rise, “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

    When you learn to believe in who you are as a stand alone belief, what you do or how much you do will pale in comparison to the uncovered brilliance that you are an unrepeatable miracle of the universe. This truth about being is a stand-alone truth that will stand the test of the ages. 

    Monkey-Minded Friendships

    “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” – Bob Marley

    I was at the Tucson Zoo a few days ago with our little 4-year-old granddaughter Mo Jelly. She’s in a stage of social development where she finds a slightly older girl who might even be a stranger and then will follow her around like a puppy dog, mesmerized by the other girl’s every move. She then will try to mimic whatever the girl does. I watched this unfold at the zoo. Mo Jelly noticed another little girl. When the other little girl grabbed her mother’s hand, Mo Jelly reached out for her grandmother’s hand. Wherever the other girl went, Mo Jelly would follow. When the other girl rode the carousel, so too did Mo Jelly. The other little girl got off the carousel and gave her mother a high-five. Mo Jelly gave her mother a high-five too. It was amusing and typical to a little girl’s social development.

    Mo Jelly made up a fantasy relationship about another little girl she did not know. This happens in the recovery world. People make others to be a figment of their imagination. They make up that others work a solid recovery program or have a cool personality. They put people on a pedestal and make them up to be what they are not. They are disappointed when others do not meet expectations.

    I have often heard people complain that their sponsor is not responding as expected. Frequently, I hear others bemoan that their 12-step group is disappointing and less than anticipated. Just like Mo Jelly, they have made their expectations about a recovery community to be a figment of their imagination. People are simply human with flaws and disappoint others with their shortcomings. This is true of every organized group. Developing healthy relationships in a 12-step community involves the same dynamics as establishing good relationships elsewhere. Listed are observations about utilizing a recovery community to learn how to cultivate friendship and connection.

    1. Friendship relationships take time to develop. This observation is familiar and well-worn. Most addicts who seek recovery do not put in the time to cultivate connection. They settle for intensity and do not do the work of intimacy. In a 12-step group there are interesting characters with personality flair. Frequently, addicts are enamored by the intensity of personality and the mantras that are shared during a meeting without internalizing the principles of recovery. This is the work of intimacy. I have listened to addicts complain about not being able to relate to 12-step meetings after attending one or two times. What they are really saying is that they are not willing to invest the time to connect. The value of a 12-step community is the space it provides to be vulnerable. Vulnerability requires time to unfold. When you invest the time you will create the deepest friendships.

    2. Friends are just who they are. There is a tendency for people to idealize and make their friends what they are not. But, friends are never a perfect fit. They won’t change your life or make whatever has been wrong, all of a sudden right! You won’t like everything about your friend. They will irritate and disappoint you. They don’t entertain or make you laugh all the time. You learn to let your friends be just who they are.

    3. Friendships share space. In a friendship one person cannot have all the power, make all the decisions, and dominate the space. When this is true friendships don’t last long. The relationship morphs into codependency or some other form of dysfunction. Addicts are oblivious to how much space they demand in a friendship relationship. They think their space includes other people’s space. As long as they relate to others in this way, they sabotage their potential to deepen friendships, if they have any. Friends are curious about the interests, needs, and expectations of each other. Between friends, there is mutual respect of boundaries. There is never demand, that is a one-way street. Friends are willing to share space.

    4. There are cycles to friendship. There is ebb and flow to friendship relationships. There are times of much conversation and times of silence. Just being in the presence of your friend is meaningful. Friends don’t fuel chaos or turn each other’s lives upside down. They go with the flow of life issues. There are times that a friend will have an issue and need time to address a challenge and you let them have their space. Friends don’t have to be in each other’s presence 24/7 to be close. There is space and time for each to go his/her own way. True friendships are both close and distant in the course of time.

    5. Deep friendships don’t personalize the issues of the other. Don Miguel Ruiz taught us not to personalize other’s behavior and actions in his acclaimed book The Four Agreements. Friends work to recognize each other’s flaws. There is an ongoing willingness to make apologies when actions or behaviors have been personalized. This is a lifelong process and deepens relationship between two friends.

    Henry Nouwen framed the journey of true friendship in a beautiful description. He said “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness—that is a friend who cares.”

    Monkey-minded friendships have a limited shelf life. Embracing the long journey of deepening relationships through vulnerability and perseverance creates the richest experiences in all of life.


    This new post was written by Ken Wells. In Dare to be AverageKen’s new book, you can embrace healing, peace, and self-acceptance through meaningful insights to discover purpose and fulfillment in everyday life. 


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    Only the Lonely

    “Only the lonely, Know the heartaches I’ve been through-Only the lonely-Know I cry and cry for you.”
    (Roy Orbison “Only the Lonely” lyrics)

    Loneliness drives escapism. In an unsettled world there are a million different reasons to want to avoid reality. Traumatic experiences in home life can trigger the desire to travel anywhere but home to escape further stress and psychological harm. More than 15 million Americans suffer loneliness attributed to major clinical depression. Many will do anything to escape the dregs of emptiness, loneliness and anxiety that come with it. However, a temporary new environment is not the cure. Often, when this form of escape through travel is done impulsively, there’s a greater likelihood that symptoms will rebound or return even stronger than before. Lonely older adults are twice as likely to be prescribed an antidepressant compared to adults reporting no loneliness (27% vs 14%). This indicates that medication alone is not a cure to the challenge of loneliness.

    Most addicts suffer from loneliness. For many, home was disastrous, chaotic, totally abusive and unsafe. People need to belong, experience sanctuary and be treated with dignity and respect. Addicts run from the fear that if they slow down they will have to face the anxiety and terror of coming home to themselves. The experience is devastating. For those who do not come to terms with loneliness, it is a shadow that follows and never releases its grip. Addicts in recovery must learn to manage the experience of loneliness. It is a major trigger for relapse. Here are a few considerations to help you work with this common malady that affects everyone.

    1. Practice coming home to yourself: Addicts learn to lose themselves with busyness and activities that distract from the discomfort of anxiety and other difficult emotions. Thich Nat Hanh stated that sitting is an act of revolution. In the presence of the urge to rush and be active, it is counterintuitive to sit with your feelings. However, sitting with your feelings will cultivate awareness. It helps to separate your thoughts and emotions from your true nature. As some say, sitting helps you to see your true nature to be like the sky and your feelings and thoughts to be like the clouds that come and go away. Coming home to yourself is a way of connecting with yourself and accepting what is.

    2. Quiet the clamor and clutter by putting away your electronic devices for a definite period of time each day. It has been said that in America, the average person spends 7 hours looking at a screen each day. Your computer and cell phone distract you from being connected with yourself. You would think social media would help you to connect with others. However, it is an illusion that social media helps you to connect with others when you do not connect with yourself. Technology does not help reduce loneliness. Take time each day to turn off your phone and all other technology each day to cultivate conscious awareness. Make it a deliberate act.

    3. Connect with the here and now. Distractions keep you from being present. You might be doing something important but your mind is somewhere else. People go through their life distracted without being connected to the present moment. Poet T.S. Eliot penned “we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”. Many people will never experience this reality in reflection because they don’t know how to connect to the present moment. Don’t allow yourself to live a life of distraction from the here and now.

    4. Go Inside. Loneliness is about feeling disconnected from others. You won’t connect with others until you connect with yourself. Becoming a social butterfly can make you popular with many acquaintances. Yet, you can be lonely in a crowd of people. Loneliness will disappear when you go inside. Learn to become an island to yourself. Buddhists teach that you go inside yourself through the in-breath and the out-breath. Hahn says that you tidy your home within by going inside. This is where you calm your spirit and connect with yourself. It all begins by cultivating a lifestyle of going inside.

    5. Make peace with your loneliness. There is a wounded child within each of us that needs to be recognized and embraced. Loneliness is magnified when you busy yourself with activity and neglect the pool of pain that exists within you. People try to minimize this pain by comparing their life experience with others. This only isolates the wounded child and intensifies loneliness. Coming home requires that you focus on healing your wounded child.

    6. Liberate yourself from the prisons of the past. Addicts live with a vacuum inside that makes them uncomfortable connecting with others. Their wounded child has been betrayed and let down by others. They don’t trust themselves or others. Dominating their brain are mistaken beliefs that keep them inside an emotional prison. Liberation requires an act of daily forgiveness which simply means that you will not hold this egregious destructive behavior against yourself any longer. Every day you come home to yourself and make this agreement. You then walk away from destructive behavior and embrace healing and practice being helpful to others. Addicts who choose to live this way liberate themselves from loneliness effectively. They learn to use their eyes to look at others with compassion and eliminate criticism.