vulnerability

Footprints That Connect Spirituality

May 31, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The human body is magnificent. The more we learn about the intricacies of our bodies, the more clear it is that there is an amazing life force that creates and connects all of life on this planet and beyond. Some people believe that as phenomenal and amazing as the physical body is most of who we are is spiritual, not physical.

Volumes have been written about the spiritual world but it remains a mystery. Many who decry religion reject the concept altogether. Those who believe and talk about the intangible nature of spirituality accept that discussion about its properties can be like trying to nail jelly to a tree.

Religious practice helps many to chart a course toward the meaning of the spirit world. From a macro view of the world, the influence of spirituality is undeniable…

Today, I would like to suggest a less macro and more micro understanding of spirituality in the common experiences of everyday living.

1. Spirituality is found in the connection of you to the world around you. Addicts live disconnected. They pull the plug on connection to people and the world around them. Their addiction becomes the organizing principle in life. The affair that is created with addictive behavior has been described as a warm blanket more than once. However, spirituality is about the opposite. It is a connection to all facets of living both organic and nonorganic. Meditation is a recovery discipline that connects one to the world around you in the present moment. Being able to connect to the world around you—the birds, trees, plants, animals, rocks and human energy has been described by some recovering addicts as an explosion of meaningfulness where there was once emptiness. I like to think metaphorically that your feelings are the Voice of God.

When listened to, feelings will tell you essential needs that need to be met in a healthy way. The tendency for an addict is to disconnect from feelings of discomfort. Yet, if you sit with uncomfortableness it will tell you what needs to be addressed in your life. You will need to marshal mature actions by utilizing your wise mind to meet those needs in healthy self-fulfilling ways. This requires mentorship and endless practice. It is not magical. So you might say spirituality is about mature adult living and you don’t have to even use the word spirituality to capture this life experience. For example, you may find yourself angry. Rather than emotionally throw up in someone’s lap or stuff the experience and pretend it doesn’t exist, take time to listen to what anger is trying to say to you. Feelings are experienced in clusters. Withanger it is often tied with fear, sadness, loneliness, shame, or other feelings. If you take time to sift and sort each attached feeling they will clarify what you are experiencing and when connected to your wise mind you can better address your needs. This is why I suggest that your feelings are the voice of God! Listen to them and they will serve you well. This is a spiritual experience.

2. Spirituality is found in the experience of vulnerability. Vulnerability is the process of being exposed to possible harm. It is about embracing the fear of rejection, of being taken advantage of, and of embracing your human limits. It is not taught, it is practiced. If you do not practice it, you will not learn it. It is about becoming emotionally naked to another. It is risking rejection. It engages a willingness to remove yourself from the center of your universe for the purpose of sharing another’s energy and making space for someone else knowing that they may flatly reject your efforts.

Vulnerability is accepting this possibility and courageously exposing your heart anyway. It doesn’t make sense to always/only be vulnerable. But when it does it is pursued against all odds no matter what the price. It is a shift from intellectual reason and protection to opening your heart and sharing raw feelings that expose hypocrisy, incongruence andfailed behavior in hopes of finding connection and acceptance. This requires courage but when manifested multiplies meaningful life experiences. Vulnerability is spirituality and counterintuitively creates connection.

3. Spirituality is about the experience of uncertainty. No religion can prove that it is the one true way. Outside of religious experience, no philosophy or experience can prove its methodology of living as the one correct approach. There are many opinions and beliefs. Likely, they are all correct in different ways! You will need to sort out what you choose to think and believe. Ignoring this reality is a choice in itself. For sure, spirituality is a belief plunge into uncertainty. None of us like the experience of free falling. When I was young I would take junior high kids to a cliff at a lake in Wyoming to jump in for a swim. The cliffs were between 50 and 60 feet high! It was far enough to consciously experience the free fall. When free falling you experience total helplessness. There is literally nothing you can do to counter gravity but to fall. This is what it is like to plunge into the uncertainty of spiritual belief. It is having the confidence that in free-falling into your belief, your confidence is not that you will control the outcome but that your spiritual belief will bring you back up. This means that with bravery you are willing to live with the uncertainty that surrounds you every day because of your belief in the basic goodness of who you are and/or the power you choose to trust in your daily free fall.

4. Spirituality is about velvet steel. I call my blog Velvet Steel because of my deep conviction of this spiritual principle. Spirituality is about connection which engages the principle of velvet steel. This concept embraces the word “consideration” which can describe a parent who practices when to apply the strict letter of the law to a misbehaving child and when to back off and go easy. There is no formula. It’s all about cultivating sensitivity to the spirit of another. Sometimes you need to be willing to walk to hell and back to stand for conviction and principle and other times not. It’s about being velvet steel.

In recovery meetings, there is usually at least one person who sees themselves as the hammer—the steel—and gives feedback from that standpoint. It is common for others to consistently be velvet, being easy toward others hoping they too will be easy with them. It is rare that you experience velvet steel blended in feedback. This is because it is difficult. Often it takes a certain degree of steel to be velvet as well as it is important to share a certain amount of steel while being velvet in feedback. That said, spirituality is not all about rules and regs (steel) but it also includes knowing the rules well enough to know how and when to break them (velvet). Velvet steel is a dynamic applied in many different ways and requires integrity and honesty to the practice for it to be a spiritual practice that heals and transforms behavior. Spiritual practice must include a mature application of velvet steel. In truth when applied with sensitivity it reflects an art form.

There are footprints of spirituality in common everyday places that are mostly overlooked by those who are in a hurry or a frenzy of everyday living. Take time to notice the footprints of spirituality that will help right-size your everyday walk with meaningfulness and connection.

You Are Stronger Than You Think

May 21, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

There is a ton of uncertainty with tragic circumstances that rage throughout the world. There is the horrible Middle East conflict in the war between Israel and Hamas where thousands of innocent people have been and are being killed every day. There is famine in Sudan. There is instability in Syria because of the thousands killed and many more displaced as a result of civil war. There are regimes that perpetrate oppression and domination over disempowered people all around the world.

Then there are growing tensions that exist in our own country that create political division and disunity. Family betrayal and break up render children displaced and highly stressed with chronic anxiety.

How do you tell innocent children about tragic events?

How do you tell children the truth and make it bearable?

A story was told of an author of children’s books who stood in front of an audience of elementary children and shared the sad story of her father abandoning her when she was at a very young age. She said that she suffered other chronic physical illnesses and was heartbroken because her father had left. To her, at that time, life seemed overwhelming and impossible to go on. Yet, she did.

After her address, during the exchange of questions and answers, one of the children stood and said, “You were a lot stronger than you thought.”

As the children were dismissed and were filing out of the auditorium, the author was in line saying her farewells when a young boy said to her, “I am living here with my mother, and my father is in California. I did not know how I was going to make it until I heard your story. And now you are OK. Maybe I will be OK. Maybe I am stronger than I thought.”

Children learn truth by you facing your truth when things are bad. They know that things will be OK when you walk alongside them while they experience suffering. They can face truth. When you are vulnerable, cry with them and simply present in the existence of uncertainty.

You are more strong than you think. So are children. Strength comes from being seen and heard. When space is made to be noticed and validated then truth can be noticed and validated and not sugar-coated.

Walking alongside each other is the way to find a shortcut to the heart. It opens the awareness that everything around you is sentient. There is energy to be accessed from this reality. Thus, you are stronger than you thought!

It requires vulnerability to walk alongside another. At the end of life’s journey, there are important things to share with those you walked with.

One is, “Thank You” for the energy, example of life, love, truth, conviction, and beliefs modeled.

Two, ”I Love You.”

Three, “I forgive You.”

and Four, “Will you forgive me?”

Sometimes the journey in relationship life seems so difficult. Yet when you become capacious, creating space for you and others when you open your heart with vulnerability. You don’t have all the answers. You don’t even know all the questions. Yet, in that space you know deep within your heart you are now stronger than you think.

How to Embrace the Change That is Before You

May 7, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

Come gather ’round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth savin’

And you better start swimmin’

Or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin’

—Bob Dylan

Dylan’s reflection visits every day. Times are changing. Wisps of nostalgia and recollection of times past do not slow the Change Train. I just watched my home team lose in the first round to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Phoenix Suns used to beat up on the Timberwolves year after year. But, no more. I used to be able to run twice a day every day of the week without struggle. But, no more. Father Time has influenced my capacity to bounce back and keep going. I enjoyed close to 30 years working with Psychological Counseling Services in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s been three years since it all ended. The times have changed.

And so it is for you too! What worked yesterday is not what works today. People say that raising children today is a lot different than 20 years ago. They say that the family unit is more under attack now than before. Perhaps, but it just underscores that times change. The world economy, society, and culture simply keep evolving. Nostalgia is nice but it doesn’t prepare for the present moment. We learn by reflecting on the past but we bring forth what lessons we have gained and let go of the past. This is what it means to embrace the change that is before you.

Nothing remains the same.

Here are some considerations regarding managing the change that is before you today:

1. With success or failure, adjust your attitude to be hungry and curious about the change that tomorrow’s challenge will bring. In his book, The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck likens the journey through life to traveling through the desert. He said many people, desperate to quench their thirst, rejoice and celebrate when arriving at the first oasis in the desert. In fact, they are so happy that they decide to build an encampment and live there for the rest of their lives. He writes most people never adjust their sites to venture through the entire desert. There is nothing immoral or wrong about choosing to become an oasis-dweller. However, the flow of life brings the need for evaluation and change. What worked yesterday is unlikely to be as effective today. Some people say well I have been doing what I do for quite some time, why make significant change now. Recovery success lulls an addict to sleep. It will do the same to you with whatever pursuits are important to you. Yesterday is a word that reflects on the historical past. In order to thrive you must be willing to adjust to tomorrow’s change. I am not suggesting immediate wholesale change but I am suggesting always tweaking the edges and challenging the center toward becoming the best version of who you are. You don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater but you will need new refreshing bathwater for tomorrow. When you have miserably failed it is not difficult to yearn for something more. When you know much past success, that is when change is difficult to embrace. Evaluate the times around you. It might be business, recovery, or your significant relationship. The passing of time is the shadow of change. If your attitude does not include a desire to embrace new pathways, you will not be hungry or curious to adapt to what is needed in your recovery or your business tomorrow.

2. Come to terms with your limits: I am aware that there is an emphasis on reaching beyond your limits. In many applications to life I agree. Another important consideration is that when you know your limits well you can pivot and focus on doing something very different which you failed at before. Some people think that “no limits” means you just beat your head against the same wall time and again. After you take medication for your headache, consider the term limit as a metaphor. When you know your shortcomings you can access the brilliance that lies deep within you. your limits are only a suggestion to do something different that can be resourced deeper within you. You can go as deep within as you choose. You are less likely to be open to creative change as long as you only focus on the limit that you think you should be able to overcome. Why not work with it and go deep? Active acceptance of what is opens your heart to the creative genius—your brilliance that is limitless within.

3. Lean into the experiences that life brings you to: If you fail in your pursuits and cannot comprehend what the results of your efforts are trying to tell you, don’t be too quick to run to the next application for the possibility of success. Even if you are cornered by great financial pressure to figure out how to get some dough right now, take time to sit with your failure—all your feelings, your thoughts and process what brought you to this point. Be real! Sift and sort for meaningfulness in the presence of your daily experience (recovery, business, or both). Counterintuitively, leaning into your experience of struggle, emotional pain, loss, and failure will help you move forward. Allowing dust to settle helps to establish a clear pathway. Life’s purpose in time and space is revealed through your willingness to be vulnerable.

4. Trust the process of transformation. If you could just have a blueprint that shows you where you are and reminds you that on the other side of your struggle and trouble, it will all look like this! But, transformation in life does not work this way. You must know that you cannot know what is happening in the moment of your transformation. It doesn’t occur in an instant. Like the rising sun, it happens in its time! It is impossible to see what is emerging in your life when opportunities, health, and people are taken from your life. It is hard to believe in transformation when the feeling of deprivation is in every corner of your life. Transformation brings you to a place where you cannot go back. You can no more go back and create what you hoped for than you can wear the same pair of blue jeans when you were in junior high! Those experiences have been scoured from your life.

When you do embrace the change that is real in your life, you will be given the invitation and the power to welcome the experience of something new that will transform the limits that you thought were insurmountable in your past endeavors. It is from the place of embracing change that the transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was inspired to write “I have learned this at least by my experience: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours”.

Embrace the change that is before you and experience the transformation that is to be a part of your destiny.

When The Load Seems too Much

April 2, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

Someone remarked that Atlas was not forced to hold up the world, he was convinced that if he did not, the world would fall. This kind of magical thinking is a trademark for children between the ages of 3 and 11. If dad were to wake up and announce to his five-year-old that the sun was going to come up from the west and be bright blue, it is likely that son would say “OK, if you say so, Dad!” He would believe it because at that age he is highly impressionable and vulnerable to illogical conclusions.

During this time it is so important that parents recognize the vulnerability of their children during early susceptible years of childhood development. Often, children make up that they are responsible for adults in ways that are distorted.

Children listen to the interaction between parents. When parents fight unfairly, the kids conclude it is their fault. Parents almost literally are God to young impressionable children. So when they fight, kids conclude that it is one thing for a child to have a problem but if God (mom and dad) have a problem it is untenable. So, they make up that the reason mom or dad are fighting is their fault. Or, they believe that it is their responsibility to fix the problem. Often, one or both parents seek out emotional support from the inadequate child. When parents lament about the other or use the child to be a receiver of everything that is wrong in the world, the child concludes that it is their responsibility to fix their parent. It could be that the parent complains about the other partner in the relationship. It might be that the parent pours out fear and anxiety about finances, health, world economy, politics, religion, dismal results about their favorite sports teams, or whatever. Like a vacuum, young impressionable kids suck it all in and magically conclude that it is their responsibility to fix the problem that mom and dad complain about.

Subtlety, the parent-to-child role begins to shift whether intended by the adult parent or not. Children take on a role that they cannot fulfill. Even though they cannot fix the adult by their behavior, they still try.

When adults get stuck in immature childlike behavior, they are vulnerable to allow the child to fix the problem. They allow the child to attempt to fix the problem by letting them listen to them lament and/or depending upon the child to offer emotional support and love. This dysfunctional behavior cements into the brain of the child that it is their responsibility to be the parent to their adult parent. Children take on this impossible task and adopt a family role to be the fixer or hero in ways that never work. They lose themselves in their role and maintain the role in their adult relationships after they physically grow up.

This patterned behavior contributes to intimacy-disabling behaviors in their adulthood. The lack of early child development of healthy boundaries created by unhealthy parents fuels dysfunctional adult behavior. The child grows up believing that the only way to be OK is that they have to fix everyone around them. They are set up to absorb everyone else’s hurt, disappointment, and difficulties, and that it is their responsibility to fix. They need to be the hero in order to be validated. So children who needed to fix their parents are prone to seek out heroic type jobs as adults. They become medical professionals, entrepreneurs, and CEO’S of companies with an emphasis to prove their worth by fixing problems. Their tendency is to find their identity in how well they can move mountains, fix problems, and conquer conflict because that is what was required of them when they were children. Dysfunctional childhood expectations are usually very subtle and unnoticeably powerful. It is a set up for desperate outside validation. The only way you know that you are worthwhile is that you are able to fix, conquer, or create solutions for problems that other people have. No matter how much money they pay you, if you do not fulfill this role of fixing others you will not be satisfied. Even though you know as an adult that intellectually you cannot solve other people’s problems, you have wired yourself that this is the fixated role you must play. Unnoticed, you become Atlas convinced that if you do not hold up your world it will indeed fall apart.

Here are a few considerations to ponder if you feel stuck being Atlas.

1. There is a distinct difference between sharing someone’s pain and bearing it. Children from dysfunctional families learn to practice carrying mom/dad’s and other’s pain. In doing so, they succumb to overwhelm. They may grow up to be successful in their professional pursuits, but in their relationships they continue to believe it is their job to carry another person’s problems with the accompanying pain. They never learned to walk alongside and witness another person’s struggle without carrying their pain and compulsively needing to fix the problem. It is necessary to allow others to feel and have their own struggle without your interference.

2. It is necessary to look backward and undo your dependency to your parents or caregivers around the dysfunctional roles you learned to play as a child. You will not be able to detach from your unhealthy role through simple recognition of what is happening dysfunctionally with your partner, friend, or professional endeavor. Recognition is a necessary beginning. Yet, to transform your behavior you will need to address the past parental/caregiver enmeshment. Grieving is necessary regarding the role reversal in relationship that mom or dad unintentionally did with you. Shame is the dynamic that keeps the old role in place. Empty chair work often is helpful. Sitting your parent down in an empty chair without them being actually present, and describing the impact of their past behavior is always helpful toward creating resolve. With this exercise, you can practice saying it straight without edit and move the energy of all your feelings from the parent/caregiver to the issue of injustice (you being their for them in an adult responsibility rather than they being their for you) and then further to your own personal empowerment to initiate healthy boundaries and self-actualized care. It is powerful to do this with your parents/caregivers in person as long as you are not expecting anything from them in their response or lack of response.

3. Check to see whose baggage you are carrying. When you are traveling and check in bags at the airport you are given identification tags so that you are sure to pick up the right luggage at the end of your destination. More than once someone has mistakenly left with the wrong luggage. In relationships, you need to be sure that you are not carrying other people’s baggage. Sorting out what is truly yours and what is not is never-ending work. Some people don’t feel at peace until the emotions of everyone around them are managed and tended. If this is you, then you are walking out of the airport with someone else’s luggage. Bring it back to them. They cannot go home without it. Though confusing, you cannot be responsible for other people’s emotional response. Until you realize this you will continue to go home with someone else’s baggage, wondering how do you fit into their life expectations, solve their problems or essentially live their life. It is like opening the luggage once home and trying to fit into someone else’s clothing. It just doesn’t work!

Rather than continuing to mimic Atlas in your life, discover the amazing freedom of letting down, letting go, and allowing the world to carry you.

Wake Up Calls: The Reality of Relapse in Recovery

March 29, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

Thirty-four years ago I was a neophyte in the recovery world. Determined to overcome my addiction, I did everything my sponsor told me to do. I read every book I could get my hands on and listened to audio tapes that would help me stay sober. I did everything my therapist would suggest. I was all in. On one occasion, I engaged in regressive therapy to resolve painful past events. The therapist was a specialist in uncovering unresolved painful events in life.

The session itself was very emotionally charged and plunged into significant past emotional trauma. When the session was over, I recall leaving the therapeutic setting feeling pretty raw emotionally. I was experiencing a lot of vulnerability. Even though I had established a significant length of time in sober living, I found myself in a kind of trance cruising and searching for a way to act out in my addiction. What I learned was that uncovering pain from past traumatic experiences creates increased vulnerability and a high risk toward relapse unless sufficient self-care is administered before and after trauma work. I learned to practice bookending my therapy sessions with connection and accountability with support people before and after therapy sessions.

For sure, relapse is not necessary for addicts in recovery. Yet, learning to address lapse or relapse behaviors is imperative toward building long-term recovery. There are high-risk zones and pitfalls in recovery that addicts must be alert to avoid the backsliding into old destructive behaviors that are common for many.

Wake-up calls are life experiences that take addicts by the nap of the neck and shake them with the reality that they are facing major relapse unless something dramatically changes quickly. I hear wake-up stories all the time. It may be a sex addict in recovery who shared that he was on his way to acting out with an escort when his car broke down on the way. He decided to call his sponsor instead of following through with his destructive act out. As a result, he determined to re-engage his program. He was saved from the slippery slide of relapse by way of a wake-up call in a random mechanical failure. I have listened to alcoholics and drug addicts share similar near misses around relapse. For one getting lost trying to find the location of a dealer and the other who drove to her old neighborhood bar only to learn that it had closed because of a COVID outbreak, represented indelible near-miss wake up calls that are often shared in recovery circles.

For sure, cravings for the dopamine hit that comes from addictive urges is an everyday possibility for addicts in recovery. Engaging in addictive act out can be like turning on a fire hose of dopamine to the brain of an addict, triggering euphoric response. The level of dopamine rises with anticipation and spikes when addicts act on their addictive urge. Living without the hit is tough. Usually, an addict will feel worse before he feels better. As a result, many addicts will live on the edge of their recovery program and bash boundaries around their addiction behavior. There is a certain rush just being near an addictive environment. Thus, the old adage “if you hang around the barbershop, you’re gonna get a haircut”. Inevitably, unattended high-risk behaviors will cascade you over the falls of addictive behavior.

Wake-up call experiences in life can be utilized to help get your attention before relapse.

Here are a few considerations:

1. Roll up the welcome mat to addictive behavior. If you don’t want to slip stay away from slippery places. Often I listen to sex addicts share that they are hit on constantly. One will tell me that I was minding my own business and she came up to me and began flirting and throwing herself at me. What was I to do? Or I have heard complaints like I was sitting alone and he just came to me with warmth and a smile so I had no choice but to be nice to him. It’s almost as if helplessly they are unable to prevent these high-risk people and situations from happening. It’s not as if sex addicts are the most drop-dead gorgeous people who have to tolerate being hit on. Most people don’t live a life where they are constantly badgered by sexual invites from others. Substance addicts complain the same way. Everywhere I go I am being offered a drink or asked if I want to score, some will say. The answer to these challenges can be unraveled by taking an attitude inventory. First, am I serious and committed to ending the addictive behavior? If so, then eliminate the high-risk behavior by rolling up the welcome mat. Stop communicating availability in terms of the environment you hang out, the conversations you have with others, and the energy about the addictive behavior that you communicate. Simply put, shut down the energy that you are available for sexual intrigue if you are a sex addict and turn away from addictive environments while spurning the encouragement of those who would invite you to use or sit in high-risk scenarios. When you eliminate slippery places you likely will not slip.

2. Decide you are going to be all in with recovery. Seriously embrace the AA saying “Half measure avail us nothing. We ask for his care with complete abandon”. Many addicts who attend 12-step meetings enjoy the community and gain from the insights shared. Fewer take the insights seriously toward life transformation. There is a difference between attending 12-step meetings and being all-in. Following through with boundaries, commitments, and program work requires an addict to abandon half-hearted attempts at recovery tasks. All in is a plunge experience. It is like cliff jumping. You put yourself into a position so that when you take the first step there is no turning back because of your complete abandonment to whatever it takes. When you compromise, make excuses, make commitments, and don’t follow through, you exemplify half-measures that never work. It’s like getting a prescription from your doctor and drinking the water while leaving the pills for treatment on the table. If you are blaming others for your downfall, keeping secrets about your thought and behavior life, and giving negative voices free rent in your head, this is the evidence that you are not willing to go to any lengths to create the sober life you want. In the presence of many new approaches and technology for healing, the only way to emotionally grow yourself up and address addiction will be through complete abandonment in your recovery program.

3. Wake-up calls are never heard when you are stubbornly stuck in refusing to accept life as it is in the present moment. Denying the reality of what is in your life is a setup for relapse even when there are wake-up calls ringing all around you. There are many experiences about recovery that are not pleasant. The discomfort of real consequences from addictive behavior can be an intrusive reality that is shoved in your face with no reprieve. Loss of job, family, and esteem can be repressive. The whirlwind of addictive behavior always includes unfair treatment and unfair judgment. Consequences and restrictions can seem overwhelming. Yet, you will not find peace and sobriety until you can accept the limitations and implications of your addiction behavior. “This too will pass” will only be true for you through surrender when you can concentrate less on what needs to be changed in the world around you, and more about what needs to be changed within you and your attitudes. Acceptance is an age-old process that paves the way toward long-term sobriety. Without it, the phone will ring off the wall and you will never answer the wake-up call in recovery.

4. Wake-up calls are a reminder to understand the underlying conditions that come from unresolved family-of-origin issues that have been incompletely addressed. Questions like “After so much time in recovery sobriety, why did I so quickly reach for my addictive behavior”? “Why do I struggle so much with behavior and attitudes that sabotage closeness to people I love”? “Why do I procrastinate facing the fear of my childhood or addressing Step 4 work”?are all about the underlying conditions of unresolved family of origin issues. Relapse is about losing who you are and forfeiting your potential for who you are meant to be. Relapse gives you the opportunity to claim lessons from the past and to reclaim your truth. If those underlying conditions aren’t treated, the return of those symptoms may cause you intense discomfort that can trigger you to go back to using. That’s the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent on addictive behavior. It has less to do with the addiction and more to do with the original causes that created the dependency. There is a wake-up call for each of us who are tempted to walk only to the first oasis in the desert and camp out for the rest of our days. The wake-up call is to go the distance all the way through the desert to the other side. That other side is the peace that comes to those courageous enough to address the unresolved family of origin issues that trigger the addiction.

5. Wake-up calls require that you learn to bushwhack with accountability. Bushwhacking is a term that applies to a way of hiking in the wilderness. There is no trail. You just go—through thickets, over boulders, aimlessly moving into the adventure of the woods and great outdoors. It is a very uncomfortable way to travel. It may be a shortcut or may not be. What is involved is an adventure and exploration of the forest. Recovery growth engages a form of bushwhacking. Going deep always includes an uncharted course to follow that embraces getting out of your comfort zone. It calls for you to acknowledge your inconsistency. It requires that you own your incongruence. It demands that you admit your hypocrisy. It summons you to submit to the accountability of community to draw you back from these human frailties to be true to your heart. This is the wake-up call that curates relapse prevention and cultivates the character of long-term sobriety.

Things We Need to Talk About But Don’t Touch

February 23, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” —T.S. Eliot

This is true about recovery. It is such a repetitive cyclical experience in so many ways. There are many portals to explore and understand about addictive behavior. Open one door and it seems to lead to the next. You learned how to end your addictive behavior and stop the out-of-control train going down the track. Desperation opened the door to a belief in a Higher Power that restored you to sanity. Yet, stubborn willfulness blocked the decision to turn your will over to the care of that Higher Power. It brought you back to where you started with your addictive mindset dominating your behavior, and you repeated the same experience as before. Each time you repeat, the pattern becomes an opportunity to know yourself for the first time.

The recovery experience invites you to talk about things that you don’t touch. There are secrets. You are invited to open your deepest darkest hidden experience and expose it to the light of day. You are encouraged to get emotionally naked about reality, often in the presence of people you don’t know that well or for that long.

The exploration doesn’t stop with the addictive behavior. The challenge is to explore all of our behaviors and our relationships. Some 12-step groups insist that you only relate to one identified addiction during your time to share. I have always found this limiting. Recovery is pervasive in its journey of research and examination. It requires that you turn over every stone and inquire, with curiosity, pathways you have not explored. Many in recovery choose not to open doors about intimacy and relationships. They limit their 12-step journey to remaining sober from their addiction. They know a lot about staying sober and less about intimacy and building relationships.

Addicts talk about things with their sponsors and others but often don’t open their hearts to their partners. They become good about sharing vulnerability with those who are distant. They give good advice about how to be emotionally open but remain closed and distant at home. There is so much that needs to be talked about that is never touched at home.

Feelings like stress, anxiety, and fear build on the inside. An addict becomes lonely and seeks escape from discomfort. H/She sits with a craving to escape through their drug of choice. It is powerful because it works for a while. The pain is so great and the relief is so powerful.

Your partner also has anxiety, stress, fear, and loneliness building within. They also want to escape. It could be through their addiction. It often takes the form of a cocktail of other experiences like busyness, electronic games, children’s activities, running errands, or exercise. The emptiness in the relationship builds as both partners avoid what needs to be talked about but is never touched.

An addict may talk about the experience in a 12-step community. Yet, if it is never discussed with your partner, the 12-step group becomes a lifelong partner of triangulation. You can avoid opening your heart to the partner you should be talking with by sharing instead with a third party. The void between you and that person grows as you lament to your 12-step group. This becomes particularly sad when that person is your romantic partner.

To stop the fantasy about your addiction you need to tell on yourself to your partner who, in turn, needs to talk to you about how they try to escape from their discomfort. When partners do this with each other, the void between them shrinks and the feelings of discomfort give way to the richness of emotional intimacy. No third-party relationship has ever been able to replace the richness of intimacy that is created when you touch what needs to be shared with your partner about the truth of who you are. Each time you talk about what you don’t want to touch in a relationship you will arrive where you began and know the place for the first time.

Talkin’ Trash

December 12, 2023 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“Here I am – Do You See Me.”

—KW

Blown by the wind without notice

Others just like me become my blanket

Gathered in a desolate corner

Invisible until we become so many

Scorned with disgust from others

Would someone please rid me of this filth?

There’s a trash can—put me there

Make me out of sight

Make me invisible like the night

But you can’t, cause I’m here just like you

I’m the reality of your imagination

I’m dog shit

People shit

The wrappers of dreams to make me disappear

Straws for smack and blow to get you to forget

But here I am—

You can’t forget me, you must do something about me

I’m the writer who paints your park benches

Your trains, your overpass bridges

Got stuff you don’t get in carts on permanent loan

Sleep in places that scare the hell out of you and me too

Others just like me—in the heat and cold, moan and groan

Wash away the crust

I’m just like you

Broken family, broken dreams

Close your eyes and listen

It’s all the same—so it seems

Just talkin’ trash

No one wants to be invisible or forgotten. Being unwanted and uncared for is worse than being hungry with nothing to eat. When people are objectified their essential self is invisibilized. People objectify others as sexual body parts to be pursued and conquered or as sources to achieve power, fame, or fortune. People who are takers and not givers reduce relationships to what’s in it for me. Solutions to social dilemmas require a giver mentality. Objectification is about taking. It’s about wanting what you want when you want it. It’s about going through the world seeing only what you want to experience and ignoring the suffering that challenges others.

From Martin Buber’s book, I and Thou, it can be emphasized that when you engage others and the world around you as an “it” you organize and manipulate the world only as you want to see it. Human suffering, social dilemmas, and environmental challenges become obstacles to ignore while material and relational pleasures become objectified. An “it” mentality is a pathway to becoming alienated from the world around you as it is. Buber wrote, “To look away from the world or to stare at it, does not help a man to reach God; but he who sees the world in Him stands in His presence.” There is a sense of spiritual connection that occurs when what you see and experience in the world around you connects with what is in you. It becomes a source for “thou” relationships which holds great respect for others problems and challenges in life.

Everyone needs a safe and trusting community to be seen. Here, vulnerability and trust are serendipitously expressed through our grief, joy, and challenge. I don’t know anyone who exemplifies this truth more than Sally, a client I once had.

Sally had every reason to isolate and avoid the community when she first came to see me in my office. Emotionally, she was fragmented. She suffered horrendous physical, ritual, and sexual abuse from her parents who were involved in a cult. Her parents solicited her to other members of the family and cult. She experienced everything that would make a family unsafe. She fled from this frightful gruesome family to a life on the streets.

While learning plenty of street savvy, she also learned to stuff her sorrows and the sadism she’d experienced throughout her childhood with a cocktail of addictions. When she initially sought professional counsel, she experienced more abuse and betrayal from those who were supposed to be healing and safe. She learned to deaden herself to the world at large and to disconnect from the community. Eventually, she decided to attend our intensive outpatient program, which involves sixty-five hours of therapy in 8 days.

When she began her plunge experience, there was no trust, only desperation. However, as the days unfolded, her barriers began to come down. Maybe it was the intensity of one session after another beginning at 7:00 a.m. and continuing until 8:30 p.m. It could have been the many different approaches that her relentless counselors used. Whatever it was, she reached a watershed point where she decided to open her heart to the possibility of healing. As she progressed throughout the week, she decided that this would be her last attempt to find hope. She decided that she would do whatever it took to get healthy.

As she became committed to healing herself, she committed to integrating her fragmented inner self. She embraced the emotional pain that dominated her life, rather than medicate it with addiction. She resolved to attend 12-Step meetings to address her compulsive behaviors. Though dominated with fear and full of anxiety, slowly she shifted and allowed her 12-Step community to become a touchstone and signpost for reality in her recovery. Sharing her brokenness in the community provided relational safety for Sally.

When there is relational safety in the community, anything and everything can be explored and sifted and sorted through. Pain becomes the fellowship’s touchstone and signpost indicating an imbalance in life. The community provides a sound studio to listen to pain’s message. Common shared brokenness is its draw, not common likeness or interest. Becoming emotionally naked by sharing our deepest feelings and secrets is commonplace and expected. It’s a space where we can fit in and be accepted as we are. It is a sanctuary in which to learn how we can wear our own skin well. It’s a space to accept our own acceptance while staring at imperfection. It is a place to grow ourselves into adult maturity and discover inner brilliance.

Today, after many years of recovery and therapy, Sally has carved out a commitment to a 12-step community based on a shared brokenness that has proven supportive and sustaining. Today, though she continues to work out her emotional brokenness, she has become an inspiration to those who work with her professionally. She has become a leader in her field of expertise. Her husband and children continue to benefit from her resilience and commitment to her healing journey.

Recently, she told me her recovery life has rendered her 1,000 percent improved. She echoed that without a community to share her deepest feelings of brokenness, in concert with therapeutic intervention, her road to recovery would have led to a dead end.

There are thousands of Sally’s in the world around you including the homeless. My wife Eileen and I have chosen to live in a neighborhood where homeless people live all around us. Each morning we walk our dog through our neighborhood streets. We pick up trash and dog poop with our sanitary gloves as we make our way. Along the canal that we walk there is graffiti painted on park benches and backyard walls. There is trash all around including dog and human feces. At first, it was disgusting. Over time, I have learned that the trash has a voice that represents the many unfortunate ones. The trash is their voice to tell me and you that “I am here. Don’t forget me. Please see me!”

Do you know someone you would describe as forgotten? When you drive to work, worship, or play, do you notice the street people in your community? Not knowing what to do with misfortune, many look away from the homeless, choosing to deal with discomfort by distancing themselves from it. What about the person at the grocery store who shuffles by with a blank stare on his face? Do you think of him as invisible?

Today every piece of trash I pick up, I hear the voices of so many on the streets and elsewhere saying please treat me as a “Thou.” Just talkin’ trash!

Peace in the Presence of Turmoil

November 28, 2023 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“Peace

Is an inner awakening,

And this inner awakening

We must share

With the rest of the world.”

― Sri Chinmoy

Finding the way of peace is a journey addicts in recovery long for. Turmoil and chaos is created by the junkie worm every day an addict lives. In desperation, addicts search for escape from the insanity that rules their life. Even in recovery, many continue to struggle in search for peace in the midst of sobriety. Stopping the runaway train going down the track is a relief but not necessarily peaceful. The question remains “How do I create calm out of chaos?” “Is it possible to have peace when there is a storm that rages all around me?” Of course, addicts are not the only ones who want to know the answer to this quandary.

In 1975 thousands of Vietnamese fled their country by sea following the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Crowded into small boats, they were prey to pirates, and many suffered dehydration, starvation, and death by drowning. When challenged with rough seas, many in the boats panicked causing the boat to sink and many to drown. Thich Nhat Hanh remarked in his book Being Peace that when one person remained calm and lucid, knowing what to do, he or she would help others to avoid capsizing the boat. When their voice and facial expression communicated clarity and calmness, others trusted, listened, and avoided capsizing. (Page 12)

Addicts in recovery are boat people trying to survive the currents that pull and tug them back to the sea of addictive behavior. There is panic and an onslaught of craving that crashes against the recovery program of every addict who desires to escape the domination of addiction. Recovery requires that you become a peaceful person who sits in the midst of the storm around you with perspective and poise. Where does this panorama of equanimity come from in recovery? Consider the following:

1. In the midst of addictive chaos, return to being true to yourself. The demands of recovery are intimidating. It is tempting to compare your recovery journey with someone else’s recovery journey. Some people are talented presenters. At a speakers’ meeting some tell wonderful compelling stories about recovery and you wish that your recovery life looked like theirs. But it doesn’t. It simply looks like yours. This is a time that is important to maintain perspective and return to being true to yourself. That is all you must do. Remember an oak tree is an oak tree. That is all it has to do and be. If there was a demand that it grow and look like a palm tree, it would be in trouble. When you think you and your recovery must be something you are not, you will get into trouble. Just be you. It is your only requirement. Being true to yourself is where you will discover poise and perspective.

2. Seek Understanding. It will provide compassion toward yourself and others. Addicts in recovery come from a lifestyle of self-absorption. Addicts want what they want when they want it. Their life is about taking up too much space. There is no perspective or understanding that makes sense except that which leads to achieving a desired fix with their drug of choice. It’s a very narrow view of understanding. This distorted thinking does not change overnight in recovery. An addict must seek understanding in order to cultivate compassion for others. Understanding transforms addict behavior. Understanding why you do what you do accelerates self-compassion and love for others. It is common for an addict to compartmentalize their thinking to only seeing the world from their viewpoint. Yet, when you expand your understanding with deep listening, it provides a depth of compassion for self and others. For example, I recently celebrated a birthday. However, my three sons failed to recognize my birthday. I was disappointed. Yet, when I explored the situation that each was experiencing, it provided understanding. One was traveling out of state. Distracted with covering responsibilities for a small child and engaging pomp and circumstance of a special event, he became distracted and overwhelmed with his own agenda. Another was distracted with the adjustment of a newborn and suffered from a lack of sleep and the responsibilities of being a new father. A third did call me, belated, while snow skiing. He was huffing and puffing while boot packing his way up the mountain for his first ski rendezvous of the season. His thoughts were about climbing to the top of a mountain, not my birthday. When you put yourself in other’s shoes you awaken to deeper understanding which creates room for compassion for the conditions you encounter in your world. Practice understanding.

3. Practice cultivating community. Most addicts struggle with creating harmony and awareness in a meaningful community. Addicts tend to isolate. If they do create community it is with those in the group that they can “relate” to. Everyone in a 12-step group is an addict. We all can relate to each other. Addicts tend to be rigid and unable to adjust or become flexible with who they connect to. A 12-step community is a good place to learn how to create connections with people you would normally not relate to. This exercise is a secret to long-term sobriety. It is important that an addict take with them the ability to create community wherever they go outside a 12-step room. While easier said than done, mature recovery goes beyond a 12-step room and includes vulnerable sharing with others engaged throughout the course of life. Developing community must become a priority for addicts in recovery.

Peace in the presence of turmoil can be achieved when addicts practice community in the highways and byways of their lives. It is anchored when addicts are true to themselves and deepened through understanding.

Catfished in a Sweetheart Swindle

October 3, 2023 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

Catfished in a Sweetheart Swindle Bobbi Ann grew up in a family where she was the only girl with 4 brothers. Her dad was a truck driver who spent most of his time on the road. When he was home he spent his time trying to catch up with the boys’ sports schedule. He never had much time for Bobbi Ann. He always thought attention to her activities was her mother’s job. Bobbi Ann admired her dad and quietly felt pain in her heart because of his lack of attention. When she went to college she fell in love with Buddy, and they both dropped out of school and got married. Things seemed great for the first 5 years. By then Buddy got into the habit of meeting guys at a local bar after work and would stay late. Finally, Bobbi Ann discovered that he was having an affair with her best friend and the marriage ended.

Bobbi Ann was devastated, depressed, and even suicidal. The loneliness at night was driving her insane. She learned about the dating app Plenty of Fish from a friend at work. She reached out in desperation, trying to fill the gaping void in her life. Soon, she met Michael from Chicago online. He had a winsome personality and swept her off her feet with kindness. He seemed to be a perfect fit. He asked many personal questions as he wove charm in his pursuit. She liked how he always seemed to make her feel special. After each web contact, Bobbi Ann wondered why she didn’t learn much about Michael. He began to direct the conversation to sexual behavior. Bobbi Ann wasn’t comfortable but she didn’t want to disappoint. So, she went along to get along. He boldly asked her to post sexually compromising pictures. She couldn’t believe that she did it.

She knew she was hooked when he asked for $5000 to start a new business. He said he would pay her back as soon as the business got off the ground. She cashed a stock investment in order to give him the money. At her next encounter, she asked him to come to San Francisco to visit her. He told her that he was too busy with his new start-up. When she insisted that she visit him he was slow to agree. He asked for another $5000 in order for his start-up to reach the next stage of development. Feeling pressured, she consented to provide the money and again posted a provocative pose at his request before ending the conversation.

When she flew to Chicago, he never showed up to meet her. She called the number that he gave her and was greeted with a rude encounter: Michael told her to release another $30,000 or he would take the nude pictures that she posted for him and ruin her reputation and her life. Bobbi Ann was blackmailed. She had been catfished with a sweetheart swindle in an internet scam for thousands of dollars.

Romance scammers weave all sorts of believable stories to con people. The stories might involve a sick child or a temporary inability to get to their money for a whole range of reasons. There is a kind of scamming called “catfishing” which happens when someone creates a fictional persona on a dating site to target a specific victim. Besides financial gain, catfishing motivations can sometimes be simply to cause distress or harm or possibly enable the perpetrator to carry out a fantasy or wish fulfillment.

Romance scamming has skyrocketed in recent years over the internet. In 2021 reported losses hit a record $547 million. That’s more than six times the reported losses in 2017 and a nearly 80% increase compared to 2020. The vast majority of frauds are not reported to the government.

Targets that make up sweetheart swindling include military romance scams, sexual exposure blackmail scams, fake dating sites, and code verification scams, where you are asked to click on a third-party link to verify your account. Once you click through you are asked a number of personal questions including credit card information.

Victims experience a range of negative emotions, such as anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, and depression. Furthermore, victims of romance scams feel embarrassed and believe that they are responsible for their victimization, which impacts their sense of trust in themselves.

Smart people get caught in a romance scam for many reasons:

1. Victims are vulnerable to idealizing their online pursuits. Often, needy and hurt, like Bobbi Ann, they tend to focus on the positives and forget the negatives in their new romance.

2. Loneliness: Some web users prefer expressing themselves online rather than in the real world. However, some tend to lower their guard to a scammer who takes full advantage.

3. Thrill seekers: some web users are impulsive and addictive. Some victims have described feeling addicted to the relationship and found it difficult to cut it off even when they learned that it was not genuine.

The coronavirus pandemic triggered people to spend more time online. It provided conditions that romance scammers could exploit. Often, scammers target older people because they are more likely to have assets such as retirement funds or homes, which they can steal. It is estimated that about two-thirds of romance fraud victims are women, with an average age of 50.

A growing trend in 2021 was scammers using romance as a hook to lure people into bogus investments, especially cryptocurrency. People are led to believe their new online companion is a successful investor who, before long, casually offers investment advice. These so-called investment opportunities often involve foreign exchange (forex) trading or cryptocurrency. When people follow this investment advice, they wind up losing all the money they invest.

How to avoid an online sweetheart swindle:

There are a number of guidelines that help you use a legitimate dating site and stay out of harm’s way:

1. Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know. Try a reverse-image search of profile pictures. If the details don’t match up, it’s a scam.

2. Avoid revealing too much personal information in a dating profile or to someone you’ve chatted with only online. Never provide your credentials to third parties online. If you give sensitive information, don’t panic — remove your credentials. Change your passwords and contact your bank immediately.

3. Use reputable dating sites and keep communicating through their messaging service. Fraudsters will want you to switch to text, social media, or phone quickly, so there is no evidence on the dating site of them asking you for money.

4. Avoid sending compromising photos to online strangers that could later be used for extortion.

5. Never send money or gift cards or disclose your bank details to someone you’ve only met online.

Many sex and relationship addicts have been snagged by swindles and fraudsters. They often remain hidden because of fear and shame. Online relationship scamming is pervasive. Taking suggested precautions will help you avoid the dangers described. If you have been victimized by a sweetheart swindle, please report the crime to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

Connect To The Conversation

Are you making the most of your recovery?

Take our short quiz and find out.