Anxiety, Codependency, Escalation, Rejection, and Trust (Good Policing).

Many years ago, I was interviewed by Minneapolis police on their radio show. I wish they still had that show. I remember feeling grateful that this contact with police differed from The Bad Ol’ Daze. But I want to offer a heartfelt word for cops.

Police themselves need MI help and should have On Call help. Being a cop is almost as stressful as being a cashier. Dealing with the crazy side of humanity is what many fields contend with, and the incidence of mental illness in such fields is relatively unmeasured, probably due to fear of stigma. If a cop or anyone admits having MI issues, they risk losing their job (or fear losing their job). Realizing one is human while under extreme, long-term stress should not be stigmatized. Cops should have 24/7 access to psychological help without anyone knowing the details of their issues (except for perhaps supervisors with an ROI).

It seems like people that need help the most get it the least. Every American should take de-escalation training, irrespective of their area of expertise. Even experts can struggle. A peaceful, easy feeling is a choice that many people have no idea how to access. I frequently witness people making excuses for the poor treatment of their fellow, i.e., marginalizing offenders, cops, homeless, alcoholics/addicts, etc.

I've met MANY people in my 31-years of sobriety that are sober. Judges included. The judges are working intelligently to give offenders REAL help with issues like drug courts and creative sentencing. I've spoken to many LEAs and see the utter look of disdain on some of the audience member's faces. Conversely, I've also seen the look of relief and gratitude on some of the faces. The point of my saying this last piece of information isn't about who did or didn't like what I said. It's about my discovery that the one/s I THOUGHT were mad at me… wasn't. Seriously considering points of new information that impact their future course of behavior is challenging for anyone.

Apprehending a mistaken course of conduct is tough. Sure, perhaps a conscience was punk-slapping the inner critic. I thought these very same people couldn't wait for this piece of their training to end but would sincerely thank me after the speech. I was at first surprised. Now I know people are not what they appear. Give them a break. I suspect they were glad to learn that some offenders do change. I was living proof.

Put compassion first; lead with trust that 'change is possible' and that people are doing the best they can with the tools they have. Don't be part of the Hate Boat. Let's give each other the tools we need. Sure, we're not all in the same boat, but we're on the same ship.

An addendum thought. It seems like many people forget who they are (forget their humanity). I remember how many police officers would scowl (after hearing someone complain about how their handling of a situation was hurtful), saying they are not social workers. Such responses are what untreated MI issues sound like. We are all prone to Compassion Fatigue. Especially cops.

Make your wounds your wisdom. There's still time.

“When we are anxiously attached, our inability to trust the intentions and behaviors of others will often lead us to escalate situations and then reject attempts to reassure us. It is a painful and dramatic spiral.” ― Mary Crocker Cook, Awakening Hope. A Developmental, Behavioral, Biological Approach to Codependency Treatment.

Community Standards on facebook

“People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”

― Søren Kierkegaard, from The Journals of Kierkegaard.

The good news is that it's none of my business what others think of me, just like it's none of my business what I think of myself. When I get out of my own way, life goes great. For me, God-Esteem goes farther than Self-Esteem. When I surrender, I align with my Higher Power and we become One.

I posted the following on facebook last year:

The mainstream media keeps people stupid and docile because 'bread & circuses' are where the money is. Follow the money. It's not a new idea. Presidential elections are circuses and the team you vote for feeds you YOUR bread. Feed yourself. The bread is already yours and the people in power are middle-men insurance agents and media prostitutes 'protecting' you (for a fee) to keep you from taking care of yourself.

Think for yourself. Let freedom of individual rights be your platform. Individual rights are the only means to guarantee the Greater Good. Collective rights emanate from individual rights.

Community Standards come from Individual Standards, not vice-versa. Forcing solutions, imposing harmony, and all the outside-in stuff is useless.

Ancient Greece made its greatest strides when they were free to do both good and bad things. My greatest single regret I see coming from Ancient Greece is how they made the human psyche divided against itself. They over-focused on the mind and left the heart out of balance with the mind. One manifestation of this illness came from the idea that "Feelings are not facts." Truth is, the mind and the heart are One.

The mind is the thinking part of the heart, and the heart is the feeling part of the mind.

Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge and pointed out that his leaps of higher ideas came suddenly, intuitively.

The 'dictionary' of Einstein's life exploded like a bomb in a printing press office, and the letters of the dictionary flew everywhere BUT came back together in a beautiful order.

After all, the dictionary and the Bible both contain the same words, albeit in a different order. The EGO exists as an illusion in the mind. The heart is not so deluded, and that's why the battlefield is in the mind and not the heart.

The mind is supposed to protect the heart, for once the heart goes, our destiny goes. A poisoned heart is a most tragic state of affairs, with forgiveness and peace defying all explanation and knowledge rushes in to save the day (if we surrender to the Holy Spirit).

My Sponsor used to say, “When I wanna make God laugh, I just tell ‘em MY plans.

God’s Plan. The is One who has all power, that One is God...

Seeking/researching without an agenda is an intuitive art of discovering the Invisible. No one is more invisible/anonymous than God. God hides in the Atheist, the Agnostic, but hides even more succinctly in the religionists. I've seen God in prison, as there's no prison wall so thick that God can't get through it.

I've seen God in the eyes of an Atheist and have seen God living most vibrantly in the eyes of the Agnostic who is willing to question everything. Being teachable is being open to questioning everything.

I loved God beyond reason and still do, and in so doing have released a peace greater than all understanding. Lean not unto your own understanding. Don't make everything all about you, your loved ones, or your enemies. Human reasoning is laughable. Rule 62. Forgive everything until forgiveness becomes the laughable joke that it is. If I am unoffendable (I'm not surprised there is no word as "unoffendable" in the English lexicon), there's nothing to forgive.

Yet, cast not the pearls before swine; be as wise as a serpent. Forgive everything.

If there is nothing to forgive, who is your enemy? The enemy disappears into the illusion that ego gave it to hide in. EGO seems more real than God, but with ego, there is no truth in it at all. Ego is a liar, and can only dance in duality and the addiction to knowledge (eating from the tree of the ego of duality or the ego (knowledge) of the duality (of good and evil). Forever learning, but knowing nothing.

Only in the human mind can ego subsist itself. Humans are the only ones that can talk about something that doesn't exist. Maybe that's why Existentialism resonates in my life like the echoes of God crying from the wilderness. Truth without paradox is dead.

Truth, like God and Love, is One. God, Love, and Truth have no opposites, for they are not of duality. Sure, sometimes I hear and don't object to 'My truth" and "your truth", but it's kinda chicken shit. It's childish to do my truth/your truth game. It's childlike to met in the realm beyond good and evil, like the field that Rumi mentioned.

I have experienced many miracles in my life, have witnessed the Hand of God, and heard the Voice of Christ; from these spiritual experiences have come spiritual awareness. Sometimes I describe Sponsorship as the practice of making the Comfortable uncomfortable, and the Uncomfortable comfortable until the Sponsee is (equally) at peace with everything. It makes the burden light, the yolk easy.

My Bible in prison.

When I chose to not work on the Sabbath in prison, I kept getting thrown in The Hole. It was a number of lovely mini-vacations because at the time 'The Hole' was the only place in prison that had adequate heating, (thanks to the federal courts).

Eventually, the problem of my not working when they told me to work on the basis of religion was starting to annoy the administration, until one fine day the Associate Warden called me and my Cellie into his office and asked/demanded to know why we were not working on Sundays. I said, "Because God said not to" (in the Bible). The Ass War slammed his tightly clenched fist on his desk and yelled, "In this prison, I'M GOD!" I simply said, "No, you're not."

Art by Bruce Hong

Magically, I was removed from any job that required Sunday work. I was not at war with the prison. It was genuinely my belief. It was not my ego, but my willingness to obey what I understood as a commandment.

Oh, by the way, about a year or so later, God died of a heart attack.

Look, I ain't pretending to be all that. I fall short every day in many ways, but I do my best to echo God's Love back to God in the form of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and trust that if God thinks I have a defect of character that requires removal, I'll get some help. In the meanwhile, I suspect that shortcomings might be God's way of reminding us who God is and who 'ain't' God.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, seeking ONLY for knowledge of God's will, and the power to carry it out. Thy will be done...even when I am clueless about how to make it happen.

Can One Hit a Target they Don't Have?

Your mind is a very strange thing. As soon as you give something a name, logos, and a genuine aim, it’ll reconfigure the world in keeping true to that aim.

It’s actually how you see to begin with. We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. If you set the intention of aim as a task, as best you have to be genuine (integrated) about the aim as a task. Bring your thoughts and emotions together, then make your actions match your words. Then you have to get them in your body so you’re acting consistently. To be genuine about the aim is beautiful. Once you aim, the world will reconfigure itself around that aim, which is very strange but it’s technically true. Perhaps the best exemplification you’ve no doubt seen is the video where you watch basketballs being tossed back and forth between members of the white team versus the black team. While you’re doing that, a gorilla walks up in the middle of the video and you don’t see it.

If you thought about that experiment for about five years, that would be the right amount of time to spend thinking about it, because what it shows you is that you see what you aim at. The maturity of intention stops colliding with expectation, and then you’re able to see things you’ve never seen or imagined before. Maybe this is why Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge.

TRUST has no agenda, even when it aims.

Take Your Power Back from Learned Helplessness

Before I sobered up, alcohol was like a rope or noose around my neck. Steeped in Learned Helplessness, I was powerless over alcohol. The addiction to drinking made my ‘problem thinking’ run riot. Alcohol in my bloodstream became an insidious saboteur, infecting my thinking.

I experienced a profound alteration IN MY REACTION to life. Pre-sobriety, over and over and endlessly over again, ODAAT, I sold my freedom for a drink. Post sobriety, spiritual awareness grew in my consciousness.

Sure, I had spiritual experiences as a drunk, but the power of spiritual awareness came later, as did the ability to do something useful with the spiritual experiences. It’s like the joke about knowing one has the right to remain silent but not being able to keep one’s mouth shut.

Consider how we coerced ourselves by broken beliefs that served as self-made prisons. Others did not constrain us; the Big Book reads that our problems are primarily of our own making. A prison psychiatrist told me that it is a foregone conclusion that I would spend the rest of my life in prison. NOTHING CHANGED until I got honest about the noose called alcohol that was strangling my life.

Here’s one illustrative lesson that explains ‘Learned Helplessness’ well that I would like to pass on for your consideration. It describes what happened and what we thought happened in our lives—the newfound freedom and happiness rest in awareness. Unlearning is key to that awareness. Step 4 was the Virus Scan, and Step 5 was the delete key. For me, Step 6 was one of the happiest days of my entire life. I still had to work on other things, like Steps 7, 8, and 9, but I was amazed even though I was barely halfway through the Steps.

Elephant Training

When elephant trainers catch a baby elephant, they tie one of its legs to a post with a rope. The baby elephant struggles and struggles, but it can’t get free. For days the elephant pulls and strains at the rope. Gradually it learns that struggle is useless, and it gives up.

When the elephant grows up, the trainer keeps it tied to the same rope in the same way. And even though it can now break the rope and get away, it stands passively and waits for the trainer to come and get it. It has developed what is called Learned Helplessness. It has learned that the struggle is useless as a result of repeated failure experiences earlier in life, the elephant has learned a self-imposed limitation.”

So how does Learned Helplessness affect humans?

It’s a condition where a person has the power to change their unpleasant situation yet does not attempt to use that power because they have learned to feel helpless in that situation. No one is perfectly free from the trap of learned helplessness; the point is to grow along spiritual lines. Not even the most successful people with long-term sobriety find themselves free of all character defects. But the difference is those who are successful have surrendered their willpower and embarked upon a simple, straightforward plan of action to overcome their most significant limitations in life.

Alcoholism is a LOSS OF CONTROL. Essentially, learned helplessness is a practical feeling of lack of control. A lack of control over one’s prevailing circumstances ensues when we drink, sometimes called a trainwreck. In the worse cases, learned helplessness leads to clinical depression in individuals, and alcohol depresses the brain even more into a downward spiral. You often hear people say who relapse: “It’s useless…”, “There’s just no way out….”

Learned helplessness limits people’s belief in themselves, while Steps 2 & 3 DELIMITS people. Sobriety leads to confidence without conceit, healthy self-esteem through God Esteem, and an attitude of gratitude that we thirst to pass on. Alcohol-induced limitation leads to a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, which leads to a lack of self-worth, which leads to procrastination and finally settling for mediocrity at best, and insanity, prison, or death at worst.

Given any particular situation, a sober individual would have a fair idea of how to get out of problems. Yet most are afraid to take any action. How many of you feel that you’re stuck in a stagnant, unsatisfactory, unchallenging job? You know you could be much happier and earn a lot more, but the fear of change that things could be worse on the other side has kept you from taking massive action toward your desires. This is ‘Stinking Thinking.

There are thousands of stories of individuals who have risen above unimaginable circumstances to live extraordinary lives and become people of prodigious influence since 1935. A few great examples are Lois Wilson, Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob, and maybe the person you look at in the mirror every morning. These people all took enormous strides and were willing to go to any lengths to overcome their ego limitations, freeing themselves from the trap of learned helplessness.

Take the noose from around your neck and free your life! Or, as they said in The Matrix, UNPLUG! Never believe any story that doesn’t empower you. Take what you like and leave the rest; kick out the angry renters that live rent-free in your head.

“...one of the primary differences between alcoholics and nonalcoholics is that nonalcoholics change their behavior to meet their goals and alcoholics change their goals to meet their behaviors.”

Release the blocks, drop the rocks, and fly free!

You Can't Handle the Truth

Truth is not ‘relative’, but the perspective on it differs for everyone.

I heard a speaker say some people stay in their shit because it's warm(er than the people around them).

Shit is like a blanket. People' just call it like it is' or callously say, 'It's the truth! You can't handle the truth!' 'Calling people on their shit' reminds me of snatching a blanket away from someone who, in their consummate wisdom (because they know precisely what the other person does and doesn't need), kicks their crutch or snatches the blanket away (and they freeze as a result). I think it was Melanie Beattie who told the blanket story in Codependent No More. It's been a long time since I read it, but it made sense to me.

I remember someone's Sponsor (venting?) in a meeting, saying he finally told his Sponsee to quit calling him because he doesn't do anything he is told to do anyway, and he's going to die from drinking. Yes, the Sponsee kept relapsing, calling from Detox, jail, and wherever. But our prescription is almost a prayer. When anyone, anywhere, REACHES OUT FOR HELP...we know the rest of it.

I mentioned in that very same meeting a metaphorical story about an obese man who was having a heart attack that called out to someone for help, but the person told him to F-off, saying he was warned for years that overeating might kill him and that he should have put down that last hamburger. Yes, the Sponsor was obese. I ain't judgin', I'm jis' sayin'. Another saying I heard in early recovery, was BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, THERE GO I.

A saying I once heard in a meeting opened my heart. 'We don't shoot our wounded.' The Big Book generally reads that we should be hard on ourselves, not others. I also heard Oprah say that we should make our wounds our wisdom. Beating people over the head with truth is not why we are here.

It's a hard pill to swallow, but there is not anyone residing on Earth School that couldn't turn into a purely evil, toxic person, totally willing to kill or injure others. We can kill a person with a word if we aren't careful. It takes a lot of work not to be an asshole when we are upset, and the irony is that many of us don't know any better. But the "I didn't mean to" argument is useless if you drive drunk and kill someone. You have to mean NOT to do something. Given the worst life scenarios, maybe anyone could grow up to be a serial killer. Wounded people wound people. Healed people heal people.

Truth without compassion is cruelty. Attraction, not forcing solutions, is critical. If you like something I say, don't give me any credit. There is One who has all power, and it ain't me. If you turn your will and life over to the care of God, then you'll see and hear God everywhere. If you DON'T like something I say, take it up with God because God is why I'm still kicking it on Earth School. Thank God life ain't fair because if life were 'reasonable,' I'd still be in prison, be in a nuthouse, or be 6-feet under your feet and forgotten long ago.

Like the line of a 70's movie, "Hang up the blame thrower." I LOVE THAT THIS SAYS GROWTH STARTS WHEN WE TIRE OF OUR OWN SHIT (we're taking our own inventory). I got sick and tired of being sick and tired and quit drinking. People in The Rooms loved me back to health. Go where the love is.

Random Thought Generator

Once in a while, a person should say what they really think.  This world of which compassionate people dream is not about Sigourney weaving an enemy’s birth for us all to hate and destroy like any other coldblooded challenger of another’s flag or book. Forgiveness of our own and others’ shortcomings is flagged as an idealization of neo-inconformity. Nor is purity a dualistic lacky of a road whose multifaceted divisions polishes like diamonds (mistaken for disassociation of) making own wounds our wisdom, or even diversity masked as acceptance. Separation Consciousness should never be capitalized, but since humans alone can discuss what doesn’t exist, we think that which does exist can fathom prayers that have pieced together over the millennia’s selfishness. Is purity selfish?  Focused on one thing, or is it more like the many joining as One?  The One cannot be reunited, for it was never always.

Human life is like a jigsaw puzzle, I supposed, comprised of bricks formed and dissolved into and out of the penitent’s desire for perfection that already precedes the desire and heralds the longing. A word here, a sentence there, a cumulative impact perceiving snow upon one’s moonroof as cloud formations. Rorschach’s Test with no highlights, underlining, or sidebar notations. A pure book. An unread Blog. And so we meet death to live beyond both. Quit kicking yourself out of the Garden of Eden.

There seem to be times when we know we need to be ruthless with someone else and to just allow the holy witness (those who love us enough) to trust deeply enough to listen to when they were from our path. Rare souls.

I'm hesitant to I want to ask you to reveal and to show me in advance the consequences of this. Deep down, maybe we all know we must commence ‘not yet determined.’  So now that you already know (both true and that mystical way) in which contradictions in our human world blend beautifully together, then maybe you can intuit purity. The cost of choice is not the same as surrendering Freedom or Unfreedom. The cost is the illusion itself.

Hate is hate, but ironically, it starts SMALL and gets masked and labeled in a hundred different 'acceptable' disguises.

Any problem can be easily resolved if it's caught while it's still small, but the truth (honesty) without compassion is often migrated into cruelty.

I've noticed in life, my life at least, that if I am listening with great sensitivity, I will hear that still, small voice saying a thing is wrong before I act on it. It grows when we first notice it, depending on what we do with it. It can grow into compassion, or it can grow into that historical thousand points of superiority.

Love and G-D have no opposites. I love you. Against Love, there is no law.

BOUNDARIES: Who am I? Who are YOU? Who are WE?

What Do Boundaries Feel Like?’

This is a question I often see posed on codependency websites, pages, or groups. Afterward, a bullet point list generally presented that does little to

nothing to describe ‘feelings.’ The question itself has always left me feeling a little

unsettled, nervous, and even a bit fearful. I believe in Live and Let Live, so it’s none of my business what others think or feel on an educational platform. But I  do have an opinion on the matter that might make me look iconoclastic. That’s not a bad thing, per se, but I don’t want to be judgmental about it. Hence, my apprehension. Geez, why does anyone say, What Do Boundaries “feel” like, but then go on to say what they ‘think’? What is the dictionary definition of a feeling?

feel·ing

/ˈfēliNG/

Noun:

1.an emotional state or reaction. Exp: "a feeling of joy."

2.a belief, especially a vague or irrational one.

Exp: "she had the feeling that she was being watched."

Adjective:

showing emotion or sensitivity.

Exp: “She had a warm and feeling heart."

Now let’s get back to the bullet points attending the question “what do  boundaries feel like?” They typically go on to describe rules for relationships,  AKA “boundaries vaguely." Here’s my disclaimer: The way I view topics in recovery life is probably best described as the Minority Opinion. Having revealed that, I would like to tear apart and reconstruct the bullet point descriptions.

First of all, I think what they mean is, “What Do Healthy Boundaries Look

Like? “Boundaries” can be good or bad, healthy, or unhealthy; if they want to talk about what healthy boundaries ‘feel’ like, the list would have to be drastically altered.

Okay, here we go:

·“It is not my job to fix others.” Agreed, unless one has been assigned that task in agreement, such as with a therapist. While we might protect someone, such as a child or someone vulnerable, it is still not our job to “fix” them.

·“It is okay if others get angry.” What does “okay” mean? For me, it’s okay to stay peaceful, centered, and grateful even when others are exhibiting feelings of anger. Their feelings of anger or joy are none of my business to judge, so their anger is not “okay" or “not okay.” Taking someone else’s inventory without being asked to do so is a can to gossip, and is an unhealthy boundary.

·“It is okay to say no.” Agreed, if the thing we are saying ‘no’ to is an illusory reflection of our healthy sensibilities. Even if our “no” is unreasonable, we still have a right to be irrational from time to time. When we realize we made a mistake and hurt ourselves or others, that’s what amends are made for. It is hard to say “no” to people who are demanding, narcissistic, or who are in positions of authority. But sometimes we have to say “no” anyway. It takes courage to say no.

·“It’s not my job to take responsibility for others.” An over-inflated sense of responsibility often obscures a person suffering from codependency from seeing what their responsibility for others is or is not. My responsibility “to” people with healthy boundaries differs from my responsibility “for” people with healthy boundaries. One can be responsible for a vulnerable adult or child, but being accountable to others or for others is contingent upon the mutual spoken or unspoken agreements into which they have entered.

·“I don’t have to anticipate the needs of others.” Agreed, in healthy relationships, people are capable of self-advocacy. Focusing on one’s own needs sets the stage for healthy relationships. If one is healthy, for example, one can contribute healthily within any given relationship, professional or personal. The proverbial plane going down comes to mind. When the oxygen masks drop down from their compartments, an unhealthy person would go about helping others affix their oxygen masks before attaching their own. Riding a sick horse is not wisdom.

·“It is my job to make me happy.” Now here, a lot of people would probably disagree with me. While I do believe that happiness is a choice based on willingness to be happy, the dynamics of choice in my life emanate from my willingness to be in a healthy relationship with my Higher Power. It is none of my business what others think of me, and it is not my business what I think of myself. My only business is what my Higher Power thinks of me. My Higher  Power always thinks and feels in connection to my (our: HP & Me) highest good. For me, choosing to be happy amid difficulty and choosing to be satisfied while everything seems to be going well are equal propositions. “It’s my job to make me happy” is to turn my will in my life over to the care of God as I  understand God. Being happy with my defects of character happens when I  surrender my shortcomings to my Higher Power. That is when I become willing to let God remove all of my defects of character, and choose to be happy when the deficiencies remain. I trust that their presence is required in my life. Why my imperfections are required is none of my business; it is my business to trust that  it is so. Forgiveness always runs deeper than the offense which requires its  presence. Without an offense, there is no forgiveness. Therefore, I should celebrate the offense through forgiveness, just like grief is proof of praise for a thing I love.

·“Nobody has to agree with me.” Agreed. Nor do I have to agree with anyone else. I don’t even have to agree with myself. I have a right to change my mind, just like everybody else. As the poet, W.H. Auden wrote, “If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.”

·“I have a right to my own feelings.” I agree with this one. Love is a feeling, a noun, and a verb that made peace with one another. People erroneously say that “feelings are not facts.” It would be hard for me to disagree with this more than I do. “Since feeling is first, who pays any attention to the syntax of things,”

e.e. cummings wrote, “will never wholly kiss you.” I feel, therefore, I think I Am.

·  “I am enough.” Always, even when I don’t feel or think I am at any given moment! Even in times of despair, bear in mind, ‘This Too Shall Pass’. The real  question is, “Who am I?” If I am a person who ‘know(s) thyself’, and I am a person who can be myself no matter what, then it is time to remove my shoes because  I am treading on Sacred Space. Find out who you are, then be precisely who you are.

I want to leave you with a quote by Marianne Williamson.

Who am I? Who are YOU? Who are WE?

Happiness is a Choice

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free”

― Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Elective Affinities

I’ve been using this idea in my speeches for at least the last ten years.

It's mind over matter (if you don't mind...it don't matter). Decisions Determine Destiny. The Destiny of Choice! Break free!

On August 19th, 1990, I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood God. For me, if it’s not about Love, it ain’t about God, because God is Love.

Love! If you are the reason someone feels loved, you are doing God’s Work. Look for the good, you’ll find it. God is everywhere. If I decide everything is in God’s Hands, then I have dropped the rock that weighed me down. I released the ballast from my balloon and began to fly free.

One last quote. ‘The universe is simply a turtle upon a turtle upon a turtle...all the way down.’

William James, philosopher, and psychologist

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Without forgiveness, life is bland. I blame forgiveness for this. OK, bad joke, but there is a flip-side to everything. Being thankful for EVERYTHING is part of true forgiveness (to me). Catch & release is like what you describe. Remember (catch), feel, forgive (release). I feel, therefore, I think I Am. The point of peace between catch & release is oftentimes the prism of acceptance. Intuitively knowing is a balance between feeling and thinking, but only when it is surrendered. Otherwise, we are only sponsoring ourselves. I don't exactly buy the concept that a person representing themselves in a court of law has a fool for a lawyer. Having a genius sponsor without a sponsee's prayers is a complete waste of 'conscious' (ha!) energy. ...seeking only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out. The door to hell is only opened from the inside, but like Kid Rock said, get in the pit and try to love someone. Knock on the door so they can find it in the dark.

Candace Lightner Interview for The Incomplete Skeptic - and incidentally My Speaking Anniversary is Coming Up).

On the third Thursday of January 1991, I started speaking for MADD Minnesota. I was terrified to speak and seriously, I used to break out in perspiration, run to the restroom to vomit in sinks, maybe deal with diarrhea, or just plain cry before going on stage to talk about drunk driving and how I impacted lives. It took years before the fear subsided and I was healed of debilitating guilt.

Tomorrow, I’m interviewing Candace Lightner, the founder of MADD, and current President of We Save Lives (wesavelives.org).

Seems like an apropos way to celebrate 32 years of speaking. She started speaking way before me and continues to use her Voice to uplift victims and make changes in our society. She knows I drove under the influence and killed a baby, yet she hasn’t treated me like garbage and never judges me that I know of. That makes her a hero in my book. While I never put humans on pedestals either in heaven or in hell, I am unapologetically an admirer of her spirit and work. She is a woman of consummate courage; she had to dig deeper than most of us to make sense of what oftentimes seems to be an insane world.

My Podcasts are not LIVE, but we might try to do one LIVE on LinkedIn. TBD.

I’ll post a link to the interview on my Blog tomorrow.

Here are some of my website platforms:

www.facebook.com/QuantumCommunicationz/

www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-g-cameron-21b91b32/

timothygcameron.podbean.com/

My Contact Email: cameroncommunicationz@gmail.com

If you want me to ask Candace any questions in particular, please email me (or comment here).

Thank you, and of course, Happy New Year!

Do the Strongest Ones Bleed in Silence?

The deepest wounds have no perfect words, and forgiveness is more than echos from the walls of desire. Maybe that's why Simon & Garfunkel sang of paradoxical ironies and poets only die decades after their parting. However, I suspect not meaning to be mean can be replaced with meaning to be loving, even when done far from the mysteries of perfection.

Kim Potter Trial & Crappy Counsel

Lifting prayers for the families of Daunte Wright and Kim Potter.

This morning, I was watching closing defense arguments in the Kim Potter trial and had some feelings come up.

I said in a FB post,“
Kim Potter much has been hitting the crack pipe when she picked a lawyer. Total freaking idiot. Makes me wonder if the end game is winning on appeal after all the heat dies down. Might get a new trial possibly even. Amazing how graduating from law school can still produce completely incompetent trial attorneys.

Perhaps majoring in law and minoring in in social work would be a good combination.”

My friend answered with an interesting possibility. She said, “Mistook gun for taser... subconsciously wanted to kill.. would this be an excuse if it wasn't a cop?”

I responded, “Never thought of that! Maybe there was a subconscious desire, I don't know. A very slow brew, if that's the case. I've seen people frayed at the edges who make poor decisions that turn into tragic consequences. Getting cops the right help they need before they implode is crucial. Trauma can destroy anyone if unresolved. I know a guy who offed himself recently from unresolved grief. I think a lot of us are suffering from exactly that. Rage...kneejerk reactions compounded over time sublimate into serious mental illness. So many people are attacking each other just because they're there when they lose it. Finger-pointing and fostering a spirit of bullying the bullies perpetuates and ingrains the problem. Honesty is the beginning of the pathway to peace. A good cop is one that helps bad cops heal or stops them from harming others. I have stories of police abuse on many levels, but I also have good stories to recite post-sobriety. When one side quits contributing to the problem, it cuts the problem down to a manageable size (not always, of course). Change IMO begins with transparency and honesty. Hence, Body Cams and offering psychological screening for new employees and having MI professionals seeing officers periodically for 'check-ups from the heart-ups.' Process Drift affects every industry, but high-stress jobs wear down people's empathy over time until they end up only feeling HUGE emotions like rage or depression. I don't wish that on anybody. Generational Trauma is a real thing. But mistaking a gun for a taser is better than mistaking a taser for a gun, but both are nearly impossible for me to wrap my mind around.”

THEN my friend responded:

yes, the other cops have to help, and not lie and cover-up for the ones who do wrong. Seems like it's always been like that, though, the cover for each other. they never know if THEY might need to be covered. I read this book long ago. Since it happened in MA and I was living there at the time, it was more of a big local deal”. https://www.amazon.com/Cops-Are-Robbers.../dp/0933341709

She continued, “of course, not all cops are corrupt or bad, but since police are "the law" (there, at the time) it's really only them who can police themselves. Like George Floyd, the other cops there COULD have stopped it.”

I ended the conversation (so far) with this:

“There were citizens there trying to stop it. Had I been there, I'd have gone to jail, because I would have pushed him off with my foot, saying while recording, "I'm only trying to save his life." The discipline and self-control of the onlookers were astounding. The recordings helped secure a conviction, despite anti-cop hatred and brainwashed citizens that assume every cop is a wonderful angel on earth. If the book is in audio, that would be cool. My eyes get too tired reading actual books these days. Sad, because I love reading books.”

Here’s Kim’s Mug Shot.

Hennepin County Sheriff Dave Hutchinson addresses his issues w/ alcohol & a serious single-vehicle crash he was involved in

Many have traveled this path. I've met people from every walk of life and discipline who have fallen short of what they want for their lives because of alcohol. To the judges that got sober, and the cops, and the crooks who got sober, I salute you. Alcohol doesn't discriminate. Neither does recovery.

I hope he uses what happened to give a break to other people struggling with alcoholism or addiction.

Kim Potter is in the news a lot, as her trial is going on as I write this. I’ve read how many people want her to get nailed but good. We all know she'll get twice what is coming to her. That should make you happy, I suspect. All I can say is, THANK GOD LIFE AIN'T FAIR! If it were fair, I know a lot of people, GOOD PEOPLE, who would be dead or in prison today. That day was the worst day of her life. Yes, she should face consequences, but the hell she is already in is pretty difficult and she’ll need serious therapy.

But back to Sherrif Hutchinson. Someone complained as follows (I didn’t correct misspellings, as it’s a quote): “He's only admitting he needs help because he got caught. He just thought that he was Sober enough to make it home like hes probably done a 100 times before. It doesn't mean he has an addiction problem hes got a Selfish problem.” I responded: “Yes, that's true, like a lot of people. Some people are lucky enough to not kill someone. Most people that say "I didn't mean to" should instead say, "I meant not to" and see the difference that makes in their lives. I can't tell you how many times I heard someone complain that they are a '1st-time offender' of a DWI when I suspect that most people have done it many times. The likelihood of getting caught the very first time is, well, unlikely. Indeed, selfishness is the root of many problems in addiction. Fingerpointing is selfish, too. Selfishness doesn't try to help people. Selflessness doesn't hurt people.”

Tradition 12: Friends of Bill & Lois W.

TRANSFORMATION: SETTING ASIDE EVERYTHING WE THINK WE KNOW TO BECOME ANONYMOUS

Most of us have probably attended a significant number of meetings where we read How It Works. We often refer to The Twelve Traditions as “Why it works.” How a thing works and why it works are usually two different ideas. Here let’s give some attention to the transformative power of the 12th tradition, especially the parts about anonymity and working these principles in all our affairs.

Tradition 12: “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.”

Undoubtedly, alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful. Before recovery, people suffering from alcohol addiction carried the selfishness blamethrower, which kept wellness as far away from them as possible. The big book reads that we had a thinking problem, not a drinking problem and that drinking was but a symptom of our thinking problem.

Conversely, before recovery, those suffering from people addiction habitually lose themselves in the selfishness of other people. They continually walked directly into the blast of the blamethrower until, over time, recovered and realized that, as they say in the Friends of Lois Program, The Three C’s: they didn’t Cause it, Couldn’t control it, and couldn’t Cure it. Alcoholism has to run its course, and to try to save the alcoholic from themselves is impossible. Throwing a pillow under the alcoholic when they are falling toward their bottom, my sponsor explained to me, can kill them. We have to let them hit the concrete, she explained.

One of the hardest things I’ve done in my entire life was to let alcoholism take its course in the life of someone I loved desperately. Ultimately, she drank herself to death, but I knew that she had a higher power God and that it wasn’t me. Part of How It Works reads, “Probably no human power could have relieved us from our alcoholism.”

My sponsor explained to me further that she was holding on to the bottle and drowning. I was holding on to her to save her from drowning. She said if I didn’t let go of her, I would drown right along with her. I prayed about it steadfastly and received a message from my Higher Power about the course of action I was to take. I truly Let Go and Let God. This was without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

It is not a moral weakness to be an alcoholic. I eventually came to believe that I would no longer judge an alcoholic for drinking themselves to death, just as I would not judge someone who was suffering from obesity that died of a heart attack. Alcoholism and heart conditions are both diseases.

But where does the 12th tradition fit into all of this? My sponsor said that if God took away all my character defects, I would disappear (or become anonymous), AKA, become the hole in the doughnut.

If there is one who has all power, and that One is God, then what is my role in providing service to those who reach out for help? Fleshing this out was simple but not easy for me.

I’ve heard it said that it is none of my business what others think of me. That has brought me some peace. I started to believe that it is also none of MY business what I think of me. Instead, I thought it was only my business what God thought of me.

Whether they know it or not, perhaps when someone reaches out for the hand of help, it is probably the case that God is directing their attention to you. Some people think they are not ready to sponsor, but if God puts it on someone’s heart to ask you for help (because they are attracted to something in your life), who are you to tell them no? Praying about your answer and telling them no afterward is not YOU telling them no, but is your Higher Power telling them no. God led them to you to hear a no and go to the next person and learn how to accept the no answers of life. You are not Omni-responsible. God is. When the Big Book reads that there is one who has all power, it might mean that you don’t get any (control). Thus, we are back to the hole in the doughnut thing. That’s the anonymity part.

Steps 1 to 11 are there to clean and keep our gifts clean in preparation for Step 12. Step 11suggests we seek through prayer and meditation ONLY for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out. We can only do this by becoming invisible ourselves. We have to get out of our own way to be of maximum service to our fellow and our Higher Power.

When I (as a Messenger) tell my story, it’s a story about how all roads lead from and back to God. God gave me the 12-Step program, and the 12-Step program and Fellowship gave me God. When we surrender our will and life to the care of God as we understand God, our problems are no longer ours. Most of us can’t get out of our own way because of fear. The program founders begged us to be fearless and thorough ‘from the very start’ of getting out of our own way (beginning Step 4) because they knew from experience how fearful they were and how it kept them in a self-imposed prison.

Consider the Serenity Prayer. Perhaps you have not because you ask not? Anonymity is a gift, not a curse, from God. The smaller I get, the bigger God gets. God GRANTS us serenity and acceptance; both are gifts from God (our part is to be willing to ask for it). Courage is a gift that we received from God, as is wisdom. Profound principles that rise out of working Steps 1 through 11 allow us to pass on these gifts through step 12 (if we get out of our own way to do so).

We are the Messengers, not the Message. If people remember us more than our Message when we tell our story, we have failed them. If you get out of your own way and realize it’s not about you, you can’t fail them or yourself. You’re in charge of what you say; people are in charge of what they hear.

If everyone has turned their will in their lives over the care of God, they will hear God’s will even if we say everything wrong and they don’t understand anything that comes into their ears. God can transform everything! Remember that it’s not possible to be off your spiritual path. All mistakes are blessings in disguise. As Bill W.was fond of saying, “In God’s Economy, nothing is wasted.”

The Highest Degree of Self-Esteem comes from God-Esteem.