“Somewhere in the Middle Lies the Truth”

 

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know.  But if you listen, you may learn something new.” Dalai Lama

 

These are divisive times for sure.  Whether you voted for Trump or Clinton you are probably looking at friends who voted the opposite and wondering how they can think the way they do.  I have been caught up with it this week myself, but then I remembered something very simple.  It is a principle I know all too well from growing up and moving through life in recovery.  That principle is, “there are two sides to every story, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth”.

It should no longer astound me that people can look at the same thing and see it very differently.  My brother and I grew up in the same family, in the same house with the same parents and had vastly different experiences.  I can state with assurance that my father was an alcoholic, my brother would argue (and has) that my father was not an alcoholic.  I would tell you without hesitation that my mother is mentally and has been since I was a child.  My brother would tell you that she has dementia that started only a few years ago.  It would appear that we are both right and we are both wrong and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

I look at my children.  They have the same parents, lived until recently as a family unit and share mostly the same life experiences but they could not be more different.  They see the same incident and come away with different perspectives often.  Wren has her reality and truth and Dermot has his own reality and truth.  But here is the thing…  They have SHARED experiences and they STILL see things differently.  Now imagine if they had vastly DIFFERENT experiences and think how vastly different their realities could/would be?  That is what is being highlighted now I believe.

A close friend of mine posted a cartoon on his Facebook page the other day and I shared it on.  It shows two men facing each other and looking down at a number painted on the floor.  One says, “six”, the other man standing opposite looking at the same number says, “nine”.  They are both right and they are both wrong.  They are seeing the same number but they are looking at that number from different perspectives.

I guess my hope is that we recognize that we are looking at the same number (or country) but some are seeing “sixes” and some are seeing “nines”.  I am attempting, by listening, to make my way at least halfway around the issue to see the other number so I can understand the perspective.  In understanding I think we can find a way to work together and not against each other.

For the record, I agree with peaceful protests but I abhor violence.  I am a fan of debate, as long as it is civil.  I know where I stand on humanitarianism, refugees, immigrants, race, gender and orientation, not I want to understand where others stand on those same issues so we can move forward.  I will continue to post the things I believe in and I will continue to listen to those who see a “six” when I see a “nine’.  Because in the end, “there are two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle lies the truth”.

Coping

                “Coping”

 

 

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”  William James

 

I recently helped with an open house at the counseling center I now work with.  A number of clinicians were there and I kept hearing this one counselor saying to others, “People just don’t know how to cope.”

It is so true.  People don’t know how to cope because we don’t teach people how to cope.  Maybe it is a sign of the times or maybe it just isn’t the American way.  I know other countries and societies are better and incorporating meditation and work-life balance than we are.  It seems to me the East is better with meditation and yoga practices and the Scandinavian countries are better with work-life balance.

Portugal is leading the way in terms of how they deal with addiction.  They had one of the worst drug problems in Europe until they changed the way they looked at the problem.  They have now cut their addiction rates basically in half.  How did they do it?  They de-criminalized drugs.   They took the money they used to spend on prosecuting and jailing the drug users and instead put it into getting the drug users into holistic recovery.  They treated the users, taught them about the disease, helped them learn coping skills and got them connected to communities again.  They got them on their feet and gave them purpose.  Even those who radically opposed this method in the beginning are now touting its success.  I got this information from an article in Yes Magazine but I had been hearing about it from many other sources.

I recently read on Upworthy that there is a school in Baltimore that has gotten rid of detention and instead they send the children to the “Mindful Meditation Room”.  They are taken through breathing exercises and meditations to get them centered and then they talk through the problem and their feelings with a teacher there in the room before returning to the classroom.  The school incorporates mindfulness practices and yoga as well and their suspension rate dropped to zero. 

Dermot has been struggling to concentrate lately and it stresses him out when it surrounds homework.  The other night I was with him when he started to get upset over his homework.  I had him stop and got him to sit with his feet on the floor and his back again the back of the chair and I took him through a 2 minute meditation using an app on my phone called Insight Timer.  When the meditation was over he was able to calmly start working again and though it wasn’t perfect concentration, it was improved.

What does this tell you?  We need to teach coping skills so people don’t turn to addictive behaviors and substances.  We need to be kinder, more mindful and more connected so we as a society can cope.

               “Intention”

 

 

      “Our intention creates our reality.”  Wayne Dyer

 

I recently had a conversation with a patient about a legal issue he has to face as a result of his actions while in active addiction.  He was understandably nervous about the outcome of his court case.

He was obsessing about the outcome as you might imagine and kept saying what he wanted to have happen.  He was hoping that the person bringing the charges against him would just drop the case.  When the other counselor working with me started to prepare him for the fact that the other person may not drop the charges, she asked him what he would do if that was did not happen.  The patient started down the road of saying that if the plaintiff did not drop the charges then he would be forced to bring up things about the plaintiff that would damage their reputation.  Basically his tact was going to be tit for tat.

I understand that the legal system will likely advise him to do so and I suppose he will do what he has to but we tried to talk to him about intention.  Rather than shaping the incident in his head around what he wants to have happen, look at it in terms of intention.  We asked him what his intention was and he said it was for peaceful resolution.  We encouraged him to look at it that way rather than think of it in terms of “If they don’t do what I want, then I will have to do such and such.”

I find that if I start going down a rabbit hole in a discussion with someone and I start getting argumentative with them, I have to pause.  If I start to lose my temper or my focus then things generally don’t work out for one or both of us.  However if I stop and say what is my intention in having this discussion, then my focus returns and I am generally able to resolve the situation or problem in a positive manner.

I can get into an argument with someone about an opinion that I have.  I can start getting heated because I repeatedly state my case and I feel I am right in what I am saying.  They can do the same.  We can continue to butt heads all we want, I may never convince the other that I am right and then we just continue down the road of trying to out-argue each other and getting more and more frustrated.  Or one or both of us can pause and assess our intention.

For example, say I am at a family dinner.  The conversation turns to politics (shudder!), and a simple matter of policy is brought up.  I, being a liberal, am going to see this matter of policy on one light and my father-in-law, being a conservative, is going to see it in a much different light.  I could argue with him for hours and we could start to get angry and upset with each other or I could stop and think about my intentions.  My intentions are not to convince him to change his mind, my intentions in that moment are to have a nice family dinner!  That doesn’t mean that I need to lie and say I agree with him or expend energy trying to “be right”, but if I keep my intention as my focus, it will vastly change the way I approach this discussion.

Dermot and Wren recently went back to school and last night Dermot was struggling with a situation he had with his new teacher.  He had asked permission to leave the classroom to retrieve an item he had left in his classroom from last year.  His old teacher said he had kept it for him and asked him to come and get it when he could.  Dermot asked permission several times, (he says he only asked three times, but knowing Dermot it was probably more like 6) and in frustration it sounds like his new teacher told him he had lost the privilege at the end of the day. Dermot was upset about this and making sweeping statements about how his new teacher was really mad at him and that he thinks she hates him in a very defeatist manner.

Frank and I offered him some suggestions on how to approach his teacher about the situation (none of these included us sending an e-mail or calling on his behalf).  He dismissed most of these suggestions as he was so frustrated.  His take was that she was only going to get mad at him and that she would never let him leave the room to get the item he left behind.  We tried to say that if he focused only on getting what he wanted (to leave the room) then his approach might not work.  Instead we encouraged him to speak to his teacher with the intention of understanding where she was coming from and having the opportunity to let her know where he was coming from.  Then, likely they would be able to resolve the issue one way or the other, and they would be able to move forward without hard feelings.

It remains to be seen what the patient will do and indeed what Dermot will do, but I stand by the idea that if your focus is on your intention rather than the outcome, the resolution will be acceptable even if it doesn’t go the way you thought it might.

 

I'm Glad You're Not My Sponsor

“I’m Glad You’re Not My Sponsor”

 

 

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”  George R.R. Martin

 

“I’m glad you’re not my sponsor.”  A patient recently said this to me and I smiled.  I had been talking about one of the steps and mentioning that I had called out one of my sponsees for calling me late for their daily check-in.  The same thing happened to me when I was working the steps so I am simply handing down the process in the same way it was handed down to me.

I was asked if I was willing to go to any length in working the steps and I said “yes”.  My sponsor told me she wasn’t going to ask me to do anything that she herself had not done.  I was to pick a time to call her each day.  I had about 5 minutes lee-way before and after that time and I needed to call her then.  I made it a while before I was late.  I was a half-hour late.  She answered the phone and said, “You’re late calling me.”  I was in a recovery house at the time that had only one phone and even though I had a note on the phone asking that no one be on it at 8:00am, someone had grabbed it while I wasn’t looking. I explained this to her and her answer was, “If your recovery isn’t important to you, then why should I make it a priority of mine?”   

Some people will read that and think it harsh.  It stung a little at the time, but I knew it was coming at 8:30 when I dialed.  She had warned me.  She had told me she was serious about my recovery and she was.  It takes time and effort to sponsor someone and it isn’t a job to be taken lightly.  It is a life and death battle you are fighting and your sponsor is your sergeant major.

Tough love is so hard to reconcile.  It is distasteful in the extreme to the people doling it out and to the people meant to swallow it down.  It is, however, an essential nectar.  People attempting recovery are in their situations because they have an illness that sends them to the depths of “self-will run riot”.  Our thought process will constantly be whispering in our ears that we can control our using.  Our thoughts tell us we can handle it. Our thoughts tell us we aren’t that badly off.  Our thoughts tell us we weren’t as bad as some other addicts we know.  Our mental illness tells us that we should be in control when in reality our taking control of the ship lead to its sinking. 

I had another patient tell me that the kind of sponsor that he needed was someone who would celebrate his successes with him but not to get on his case when he slacks a bit.  I smiled and said to him that that was exactly the opposite of the kind of sponsor that he needed.  If you want a cheerleader, then look to family members and friends (if they are still speaking to you).  If you want to truly get better, then you need a drill sergeant.  You need someone that is going to hold your feet to the flame to make sure you get through this process in one piece.  There is no reason this can’t be done, it has after all, been done by many before us.  But you can’t get through it alone.  And if I am lost in the wilderness, then I want a guide who is a survivalist and knows the terrain.  Someone who will get me out alive, not someone that simply knows how to make a comfortable campground in the midst of the void so we can sit in seeming luxury while we wait for the apocalypse.

So I will move forward making sure that the people who ask for my help get the same kind of help from me that I got from others before me.  The kind of help that enabled me to be where I am today.  Tough love is a beautiful thing, it just isn’t for the faint of heart.

The Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny

 

            So many people struggle with the 12 steps, particularly steps 1, 2 and 3 because they bring up the concept of a higher power and talk about God.  I did and I see many other people struggling with it also.

            As I have mentioned I am working part-time as a counselor’s aide in an addiction treatment program.  At the moment my job is to introduce the patients to the 12 steps and to take them through where they are outlined in the Big Book.  The population of the treatment program is chiefly medical professionals in recovery.  So as you can imagine they are highly educated but I am finding not very spiritual.

            The concept of surrendering to something we can’t see or touch but only hopefully feel is hard for most people.  These patients however, are trained to be rational.  They are trained to be powerful.  A certain amount of arrogance goes with the territory.  We see doctors as authority figures, they are like gods among us and they are often treated as such.  It only goes to follow that they would want to hold onto control and rational thinking, refusing to consider taking leap of faith.

            To lead them in a discussion on spirituality and surrender is no easy feat.  I have had to appeal to them as rationally as I can (which for me isn’t all that simple!).  I was trying to say to them that perhaps we are over-complicating the search.  Maybe, just maybe, we are making this so much more difficult than it needs to be.

            My kids are at an age where they are starting to grow out of some of the childhood staples.  Wren is 9 and she is a skeptic by nature so it is hard to tell if she still believes in such things as Santa, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny.  Sometimes she will voice doubts but mostly I think she chooses to play along with a good think.

            Dermot is turning 11 soon and is much more of a dreamer and a magical thinker.  You can see him starting to question these childhood heroes but also willing them to exist. 

This past year we celebrated Easter at my house.  We had Wren’s family birthday at the same time.  We had presents and a meal and cake and an Easter egg hunt with eggs and baskets.  It was fun and just before the kids were leaving with Frank for the night, Dermot called Frank into his bedroom.

            He looked at Frank and said he wanted to talk to him about something.  Frank says he prepared himself a little and asked what was up.  Dermot looked a little sad and said, “You always say you never lied to me, but now I know you have.”  Frank was a little taken aback by this and asked what Dermot was talking about and Dermot quietly said while shaking his head, “I saw you and mom go out the back door with eggs. I figured it out.  That means that Santa isn’t real, or the Elf on the shelf because the Easter Bunny isn’t real.”

            Speaking very wisely, Frank said, “Dermot I have never lied to you.  The Easter Bunny is real… he just looks different than you thought he would.”  Dermot thought about this and seemed to accept it.  He patted Frank on the head and said, “Good job tooth fairy, and don’t worry I want to keep the magic alive for Wren so I won’t say anything.”

            So maybe it’s that simple.  Maybe God, or a higher power is there and that higher power just doesn’t look like we thought it would.

Dancing in the Rain

Dancing in the Rain

 

In recovery they talk a lot about being present and living in the moment.  This is something I think is very difficult for people to grasp in general but especially in today’s modern, fast-paced society.  We seem to rush from appointment to appointment, task to task, chore to chore and are frequently spending most of our days thinking ahead to the next thing on our long to-do lists.  I do this far too much, even now – I am a professional list-maker.  I am one of those people who makes a list and puts on them things I have already done just to get the gratification of being able to immediately cross them off!

But when we spend so much time thinking forward to tasks and then thinking backward to history and possible regrets, when do we actually live?  In reality a certain amount of planning is needed, there are responsibilities to be tended to and looking back over the past is necessary as well to reflect on mistakes and triumphs – the key is not to get stuck on either end of the spectrum and try and balance those with the middle present.

I remember about 5 years ago now when we were living in Annapolis, I had the luck to be shown, by my children, how gratifying truly living in the present can be.  I was working full-time from home and Frank was frequently working long hours and there was always any number of things that had to get done.  It was August and I remember wrapping things up for work before heading out to pick the kids up from day camp.

It was raining pretty hard when I pulled up to the school and I waited as long as I could to leave the car as I had not had an umbrella.  I gave up realizing that the rain was not going to abate and struck out knowing I would get soaked on the way.  I got the kids and we made our way back to the car, all of us getting pretty wet in the process.

The kids gabbled away at me about their day while I drove them home and all the while I was cataloging what I was going to make for dinner, how much laundry still had to be done, feeding the dogs… whatever I had on my on-going list…

We reached the end of our long cul-de-sac and Dermot (just about to turn 6) said urgently, “Mom!  Stop the car!”  I braked suddenly thinking that I was about to run over a small animal I hadn’t seen or something and said tensely, “What is it?”  He looked at me in the rear view mirror with a glint in his eye and said, “I want to run home in the rain!”

I remember staring at him for a moment in shock before something in me decided, “Why not?”  I got out, opened the car door and let him out.  I can’t describe the sheer joy he had on his face as he took off down the sidewalk, his little tanned legs and arms pumping as he ran and whooped.  I drove slowly to our driveway and turned around to look at Wren (then 4.5) and said, “That looks like a lot of fun doesn’t it?”  She agreed and before I knew it we were all three of us stomping in rain puddles, pretending to swim down the street, singing songs and dancing in the rain.  We were soaked to the skin and I didn’t care.  We laid down across the driveway holding hands with me in the middle blinking up at the rain coming down and trying to drink.  We laughed so hard our sides were hurting. 

We finally went in, cold and fingertips wrinkled about 20 minutes later, drenched and happy.  I had for those view precious moments been completely in the now.  Completely present as a mom, as a human being.  My to-do lists were forgotten and I think we may have had leftovers for dinner, but it didn’t matter.  The kids still talk about this as one of their favorite memories with me.

            As I said, life has priorities, responsibilities and forward planning.  It also has regret and pain from the past.  But to get stuck in either one all the time means we can’t experience the real-time magic of life.  To be stuck in either the future or the past means we will miss the chance to dance in the rain.

You'd Think I'd Make a Better Cop

You’d Think I’d Make a Better Cop

 

I recently started working part-time as a counselor’s aide in a drug and alcohol treatment program.  I love it.  Being in a group session with people I can relate to and potentially help is one of the most rewarding things I can do.

I was recently in a group session where one of the patients was checking in on his day and any challenges he had faced.  He had been doing some maintenance work on his property and had offered someone in his home group the opportunity to do some work with him as this other person was struggling financially.  The first day working together had gone really well but the second day had been a disaster.  The person was lethargic, unhelpful, saying they were not feeling well etc…  This made my patient worry that perhaps this person was under the influence.

He struggled with that and with feeling guilty that he was being judgmental and jumping to conclusions.  This had been confusing for him and he was really shaken by the experience.  He said to me, “It’s like, I’ve been a criminal for so long that you would think I’d make a better cop.”

That phrase struck me as being so apt.  The confusion that people feel when dealing with an alcoholic or an addict is like trying to walk a straight line in the midst of heavy fog or stand still in the midst of a tornado. 

Even fellow addicts become confused and question what they are seeing or hearing.  It has happened to me as well.  I have had friends relapse and been swept up in the storm of lies and hidden agendas and confusion.  It is very difficult to deal with this disease from the other side just as it is hard for us to deal with it ourselves.  I know for myself that I want to believe that people are telling the truth.  I want to see the best in others and that can at times come back to bite me.  If you are dealing with a family member who is in active addiction I can’t even imagine how wrenching and exhausting that must be.  Frank and my in-laws and close friends can tell you. 

I have only dealt with it with friends from my program and my connection to them is not nearly as strong, yet I feel some of the pain of seeing someone you care for struggle with this and change for the worse.  I hope that this patient uses this as a learning experience as I have.  That seeing our disease from the other side allows us to feel a small portion of the pain we inflicted on others ourselves.