Recognition and Resolution

Been looking closely at dreams lately. A by product of paying attention I guess. I really don’t write what I decide would be good to write about. I guess the generic description of where I get my topics is – they just come up. I write what I feel compelled to write. A lot of the time these topics arrive first thing in the morning. They’re there when I begin the transition from sleep to waking. Today that happened at three something. Not a good time to, all of a sudden, have something you know is important start taking shape. I know if I don’t stay focused on it, it might fade away so sometimes I’ll get up and write a note to myself. This mornings realization was – I’m scared.

Of what? Everything. What does that mean? It means that every move I make, every decision, every idea, everything I choose to believe…literally everything is tainted by the state of fear. At the biological level it means my body is dying faster. This, dying faster, is evidenced from sound scientific experimentation. (Watch “The biology of belief” by Bruce Lipton.)

It also means that I write differently. Has to. Everything I do is affected. I know that I use language, or don’t use language I normally use when talking with friends, when I write. Part of that is out of consideration for who may be reading this stuff. Doesn’t do any good to run someone off. Part of it is I’m afraid it might “Get me in trouble”. I’m not sure how. It’s just a build up of ideas grown out of past experience. All emotional undercurrents, all programs, are built up over time. That time may be 40 years, or 40 seconds. Either way – it’s there. All to often it goes unnoticed. Running in the background.

This, going unnoticed, is another aspect of living in a state of fear. Not only do I believe stories (in my head) I wouldn’t believe otherwise – I make up stories (in my head) to soothe, pacify, justify, fortify: anything that will bring some sort of solace. I don’t know every single manifestation of fear possible in every single human. I can know mine. It just came to me that writing about this is like going from a recitation on recovering to a live broadcast from the front lines. Like having the camera following me through a struggle with schizophrenia. “Today we’ll follow Doug as he attempts to separate the real from the unreal and resolve the conditions that for so many years have made his life unbearable…”.

I could make a fears list. I might. I might do it so I can look at it from another viewpoint. At the moment the “condition” is right here. I’ve got it where I want it. Now I need to move on it. So I’m scared of everything, “Scared of my friend Rosalinda dying because it will change my life, scared to quit smoking because it has always made me crazy, scared of getting in fights, not being accepted, not succeeding in my ventures and still scared of being lost. None of this is new.

The good thing is, none of it is to the degree it used to be. It’s not as severe. If I wasn’t watching closely I’d have missed it. The important thing to me is I’ve come understand if it’s there at all – in any way, shape or form – I’m suffering from it. My overall quality of living is diminished. It’s cutting me off – I’m cutting me off – from the best possible state of being. I want the best possible state of being – so I go after it – I’m going after all that residual fear lingering beneath the surface.

So what else am I going to do? It’s times and situations like these that I have to admit a lack of power. I think this is what the founders talked about in AA when they talked about powerlessness. It’s not a total, all inclusive, powerlessness which leads to dependency, but a lack of power to resolve a condition with out some sort of aid from life.

What I’ve learned is – Life is going to help me. Everything That Is – will give me what I need to make myself more compatible with “happy”. I’m not unhappy. I just want more happy. All the happy I can get. It’s not selfish. Without happy – nobodies happy. The happier I get the more happy gets and the more get happy. So – am I going to ask a higher power to help me? Hell yes – I already did. It’s been part of the system that’s led me to where I am. I like where I am way more than where I was.

Understanding the Path Concept

You hear it all the time: Discover the path to enlightenment, the path to freedom, the road to financial success. You can even get a path to finding your soul mate. How about this, it’s my favorite, find your true purpose in life. Or find the meaning of life. That last one is just plain wild.

So do these paths exist? Is it possible to sign up and get a personal path to happiness in the mail? Or download the secret to your lifes purpose in an e-book? Well, you can certainly get them. You can hold them in your hand and you can read them. What will become of it? What good will be gained? Peace of mind? Eternal Bliss? Financial stability? True love? Do I have a path you can follow? You’ve read the title of this page and expect me do provide something. The first thing I’d like to provide is an understanding of “Paths” or “Roads”. The pertinent question is: Are they real? Some of them are – some are some aren’t. But that’s not the most important thing to know about paths.

The most important bit of knowledge I can provide concerning paths is this. Somewhere in your house or your car there are a bunch of maps. OK maybe not a bunch. Lets pretend that in the glove box of your car there is a map of the united states (or any country). On this map is a well researched path to every destination in the country. It’s real. We all believe that if we follow the paths drawn on these maps we’ll arrive at “A Place”.

Why would you choose to go to any of these places? Lets pretend there is a little town named HappyVille. What would inspire you to go to a little town like HappyVille? It’s name implies – a happy place. Why haven’t you been there yet? Isn’t that the way it is with maps? We know we can visit these places. All we’ve got to do is follow the map.

But, all the maps in the world don’t put us at the destination. That seems obvious but it’s important. People are looking for “places to be”. Places to go, other than where they are. So they look to see if they can find a path. They’ll find one if they look. They’ll find one because there are people who seek to provide what people are looking for. Some provide out of concern for others. Some provide for profit.

Lets pretend they lucked out and fell in with someone who could indeed give them the direction they needed. Lot’s of people have gotten to this point. They are the people in the story with maps in the glove box. Real maps. But they don’t go anywhere. You might say, “They’re probably busy…”. You’d be 100% right. Lets pretend that “Rumor has it” there is a billion dollars worth of gold in HappyVille. All you have to do is stop what we’re doing and go get it. How many of would be leaving today? Your guess is probably as good as mine here. How many? One in a hundred One in a thousand? Why?

There are two qualifiers that have to be in place before people take action. One: we have to believe it’s true. Let’s say we’re convinced there is a billion in gold and all we have to do is get to Happy ville and it’s ours. Now how many are out the door? How many are packing bags and calling to get someone to look after with the pets?

Are they on their way with only one qualifier met? Nope, there was two. One, it’s there. Two, I want it – I really want it. That’s what it takes – it’s real and I want it.  We can have all the maps and paths and “secrets to this or that” in the world laid at our feet and nothing will happen until we decide for ourselves if they’re real and that we want them. Can’t go with just one. I want it but I don’t believe it’s real equals no action. It’s real, but I don’t want it equals no action. Put the two together and Bingo – we’re off and running.

So lets pretend we are considering investigating the concept of tranquility. Why would someone do that? Why would it come up as a possible fulfillment interest? People who are looking for tranquility are looking for tranquility because they heard a story told about tranquility. Can’t be anything else. Tranquility is a word used to describe something to people – a story.

There are fiction and non-fiction stories. There is fiction passed off as non-fiction and the other way around. So we hear a story about tranquility, or peace of mind, or universal harmony. Why would we be interested? Simply put: we’re not completely happy. Nothing wrong with that, very few people are completely happy. So we’re looking and listening and someone talks about peace of mind or nirvana and we think – Is that what I’m missing? Lets pretend we believe we are lacking in the nirvana department and we’ve begun our investigation. Right now we’re operating on – might be real and I might want it. Are the essential qualifiers are actually in place? What we believe is – we want something and it might be real. It could be out there somewhere. So we look.

At last after looking at a lot of material we’ve decided to get Rosalinda’s Path to fulfillment. We have it in our hands and we have a tingling hope that our lives are about to change. Hey, we have new hope – that’s better already. One week later it’s in the glove box on top of the map to HappyVille. What the hell happened? We were there, moving, on the path – What happened? One of two things – didn’t believe it was real or didn’t want it.

Does that mean that it wasn’t a valid path? Does it mean that following the steps along the path would – Not – lead to perfect peace? Not necessarily. Of course it might have been trashed because about the time it started to get interesting we’re told how to buy the next step at a discount -  limited time offer. But, not necessarily. Lets pretend it was real. Lets pretend we read it, it made sense, we found out what the process was and believed it would lead to a state of tranquility but decided it really wasn’t something we wanted? Glove box. Why?

Somewhere along the way we lost interest. We changed our minds. We’re back to where we started. We really don’t know what we want…

I believe that “The Path To Knowing What We Want” might be the best path to be on. I can tell you what I think is the easiest way to get started: write down everything you’re positive you don’t want. Hang it up so it’s visible. Add to it. Get a pocket size spiral for when the list is out of reach and transfer what you write  in it to the main list when you can. This would be a good place to start on ” A Self Determined Path”. In this way we can narrow our search.

The Path To Recovering From Addiction

When it comes to addiction there is a path that when followed will allow people an opportunity to recover. Do I believe I have “A Path”? I believe I’ve found a good system. It’s not mine. It’s a collection of principles and ideas. The system for getting started on a self determined path is to start collecting facts. You find out what’s real and put it in a “Stuff that is Real” place. You start a collection. So pretty soon we’ll know a few things that are real and we’ll recognize a few things we don’t want. We’ll also have them at hand if we’ll write things down. That, at hand business, is really important – because we forget things.

Something To Remember

Everyone already knows what they want. Everyone wants to be happy. There is an exhaustive bit of writing on this and you can follow up as you see fit. Decide if the ideas you have about happiness goes in the “Real Stuff Box”.

If we are on a path to recovery we’ll meet others who can, and will, help us. Others who have done the same thing and have useful experiences and observations to share with us.

Dealing with self doubt…

Having spent most of my life…doing the wrong things, I’ve created this place inside my brain that doesn’t know what it is. I don’t know if that’s the best way to say it. What it does is give me thoughts about my sincerity. Or lack of sincerity. I never really know if I’m doing what I think is “the right thing” for “The right reasons” or if I’m just trying to work the cosmic system. Tip the table in my favor. This is a classic example of self doubt. I’ve gotten a lot of negative programming.

One thing that is stuck in my memory is being surrounded by a bunch of kids from school at a party. The conversation went, “There are good people and there are bad people – you (me) are one of the bad people”. This memory has never left the “right there” part of my brain. There have been numerous situations similar to this in my life, but that one has really stuck. Part of the reason for this “sticking” is: it really made me mad. None of them would ever sit down and talk to me like two people talk. I knew them all. They needed to “posse up”. There was about ten of them gathered there – to tell me. I was leaning up against a car talking to a girl I’d just met. They came – she left – they made there little speech – I left. I didn’t say anything, just left. Thinking back, this was a big turning point for me. From then on I never said much of anything to anybody.

I’ve had a lot of opportunities to change my direction. I had chance after chance to – be one of the good guys. The problem was – I didn’t really like people that much. In a way, I still don’t. I understand the euthanasia crowd. I feel that sociopathic detachment. I look at the question, “As a species will we survive our own actions – or destroy ourselves?”, and I honestly don’t know the answer. At the same time, I made a decision to spend my life asking, whatever higher power, for direction to what is best and doing what I can to help people who are struggling. Why? Sometimes I wonder – do I really want to do this? Am I just seeing if I can? I don’t even know what that means.

Do I really want to help anyone? If I was given the opportunity to “dispose of” everyone I thought was apt to destroy the human race – what would I do? If it was in my power to put them down like bad dogs – what would I do? I know I would want to. Part of me really wants to. So part of me runs real cold. Which brings me to the point of this story. Thoughts and emotions are not the deciding factors for me. I used to do things based on what I thought and felt. At some level I still do – but there is a big difference in the resulting actions. I have a benchmark I go by. I use it to decide what to do. This is different than reacting to conditions. Reacting to emotions or thoughts alone.

I’ve devised a system for making decisions. It was developed from my early days in the change process. I ask for direction. I ask to be directed to what is best. For everything. I don’t really ask for what I want. I spent years looking for what I wanted and it wasn’t satisfying – ever. So how do I know what is best for everything? I don’t. I know what’s not best for some things. Here is an example of a decision making process: What is best for people under the yoke of addiction? Easy – to get unyoked. Do I know something about it? Hell yes. So I can write what I know – I do it. I don’t bother wondering if I’m lying to myself – as far as the decision goes. It doesn’t matter. I made a decision to do what I could to participate in “Doing what was best”.

What is best?
How would we know what is best? We have a very limited viewpoint. Our horizons are – right there. There is always imagination – but that’s not knowing. That’s not seeing the big picture. What’s best for the trillions of people throughout the universe? This is where a higher power comes in to play. This is why we would ask it to direct us to what is best. I just look at it as getting plugged in to the structure of life. Getting connected to the system. Somewhere in this process I started to notice a lot of good in people. I am no longer afraid of being part of “people”. In fact I’m liking people more and more all the time. I still see the animals. I see them every day. I see the madness and the sociopath. There are the politics of nation states and their crazed plans. Nothing “out there” has changed. I have changed enough to not go completely nuts in my reaction to it all. It does what it does – I do what I do. Just a decision. A choice.