Healing Emotional Pain • Creating Peace Through Forgiveness

How to Get Past Childhood Resentments

May 18, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you and I hope the day is wonderful for you! Today’s search term was “childhood resentments,” and that is what I shall address.

My first thought when I read this was that most all of us have them because most all of us were slighted in some way when we were children. Our parents, perhaps wounded themselves, not over those wounds, did the same things to us that were done to them. The result is most likely verbal, physical, and/or emotional abuse.

Are you angry and bitter about incidents that occurred when you were growing up? Do you suffer from the effects of childhood resentments? There are some things you can do to remedy being eaten up inside over these feelings.

First of all, admit to your feelings of anger and bitterness. Identify what happened and with whom you are resentful. Allow yourself to remember the incident(s) and how bad it was. Just “be” with those feelings.

Next, after acknowledging your feelings, consider how they are affecting you in your life. Are your relationships in a shambles, for example? Do you get angry at others frequently? Do you think and rethink of the occurrences from childhood, while they eat you up inside? Do you suffer from high blood pressure, or have you been told you are at risk for that, heart attack, stroke, or even cancer?

There is a way through this dilemma you face. Once you have considered that hanging onto childhood resentments is slowly killing you and/or making your life miserable, become willing to consider something else.

Become willing to see the person who harmed you as a wounded human being themselves, and unhealed from those wounds. Consider that they bear scars beyond your understanding. Once you can see them as wounded, view them with compassion, just as you would any wounded being.

Revisit this compassion again and again, and after a while, you will notice that from compassion flows forgiveness. You will begin to feel your childhood resentments fade as you discover a new-found understanding of your parents’ own difficulties.

Now you can begin to realize that what was told to you was said by a sick person, and that it wasn’t true. You can begin to heal from all that was told to you in error, told by a wounded person.

You will most likely find at this point that you are softening to the memory of the harms that you endured. You will never forget them, but you will soften to them, be less resentful.

And that’s one way to deal with childhood resentments, to see the person with compassion and to offer forgiveness. If you try my suggestion, how did it work for you? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: childhood resentments, compassion, forgiveness, how to be compassionate, how to forgive

How to Get Past Feeling Worthless

May 7, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! Many blessings to you each, and many thank you’s to those of you who continued to visit my site, even during my lull in posting. There were four queries for getting past feeling worthless, and today, that is what I will address.

There is nothing quite like feeling worthless to bring about despair. Perhaps you were told you were worthless; perhaps you came to that conclusion after trying things and “failing” at them. The result is the same… you feel like nothing is worth it, you aren’t worth it. Well, I can understand these feelings as I have been there, and I am here to tell you, there is hope.

First of all, I’d like to address you if you feel you have “failed,” and that is what is leading to your feeling worthless. Consider believing that there are no failures, only attempts to try something. You didn’t fail at something; your attempts merely were unsuccessful to reach the goal you were trying to reach.

The thing which is wonderful about looking at it like that is you can try again, and again and again, until you reach your goal. And each time you try and don’t reach that goal, you know what didn’t work and what not to do in the future. Many people try things, don’t get the result they were looking for, and then their thoughts go from, “I failed,” to “I am a failure and therefore, am worthless.”

Is that you? If it is, I invite you to redefine your view of failure as I defined above.

To address the issue of feeling worthless and how to get past it, let me say that the greatest elixir for that is discovering how you can be useful to another person or animal. For me, it was realizing my abusive past had been of use to another person because he could relate to me, he knew I had suffered as he was suffering, and a bond was created. So when I told him of ways in which I had started to heal from my past, he listened.

Had I not dealt with what I did, had I never had the experience, I never would have had to go through the steps and actions to heal that ended up helping another person. There is nothing quite like feeling that what you do or say is of use to another.

To get past feeling worthless, I invite you to muster up your strength, and determine how you can be of use, be of service to someone, sharing with them a way to do something, or a way for them to get past their pain. Opportunities to do this abound out there, as so many people are feeling worthless. I am inviting you to step beyond that to something greater. Will you take the step to healing?

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: feeling worthless, worthless, worthlessness

How to Deal with Sorrow and Grief

April 29, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you! It is my wish that you each have a lovely day, filled with peace and joy. The term that was searched for three times is “how to deal with sorrow,” and I added “and grief.” So that is what I am going to speak about today… sorrow and grief.

If you’re in that space of sorrow and grief, I am sorry for your loss, whatever it might be, and I wish you well in your grieving process. The focus of my writing today is on how to get through your sorrow, your grief.

First of all, know that each of you dealing with these difficult emotions does so in your own way. Each of you deals with sorrow and grief the way you saw your parents and other adults deal with them when you were a child.

The messages we are often told as children, and as adults, are don’t feel bad, replace the loss, just give it time, be strong for others, and definitely grieve alone. So, in response to these messages, we hide our grief and sorrow, put on the face that all is okay; we shove it deep within. This does not serve you and, in fact, is damaging to your soul.

You are going to feel badly until you are ready to move on, and it is beneficial to you not to deny these feelings. To replace the loss is to avoid your feelings. Time heals, depending upon what you do with your time. If you sit and wallow in pity, you will not heal, but if you take action to get to a place of peace, the time will assist you.

Know that it is okay to show your feelings about your sorrow and grief, yet that will most likely make others feel uncomfortable. Express it to those people you trust, those who will not berate you for your feelings.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross has defined five stages in the death and dying arena: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Know that you will experience these things and that they are perfectly normal. You will go back and forth among them; it is not probable that you will go in a straight order with them. The length of time you spend in each stage is totally unique to you and cannot be compared to another.

I’d like to stress not to compare your grieving process with anyone else’s, as yours is totally yours alone, depending upon what you observed while growing up.

Sorrow and grief can occur after a death of a loved one or a pet, after a move of any sort, after leaving a job, from loss of self-worth, or any time there is a loss. I highly recommend the book The Grief Recovery Handbook: The 20th Edition by John W. James and Russell Friedman. It contains valuable exercises to do to assist you through your process to heal from sorrow and grief.

Again, my condolences, and I wish you well on your journey through sorrow and grief.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: Carolyn CJ Jones, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, greiving process, grief, how to deal with sorrow, Sorrow

Feelings of Giving Up

April 17, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and happy day to each of you! I am compelled to speak to the person who expressed “feelings of giving up.” I remember being in that state where all I could do was pray to die because I was experiencing feelings of giving up. It was s such a place of despair that I want to speak to the person who searched for it.

The reason I am so much wanting to speak to them is because I want to relay there is hope. It gets better – it really does. In fact, there are things you can do which will make it get better, which can get you out of the place where you have feelings of giving up.

One thing you can do is begin to identify the one thing that lights you up. This could be the simple beauty of a flower, or seeing a child laugh. I blogged yesterday about this, so read yesterday’s blog. Find just one small thing that can make you smile in spite of yourself and your feelings of giving up. Focus on it and bring your thoughts back to it when you begin to have feelings of giving up.

The next thing you can do is become willing to look at things from a whole new angle, with new eyes. Resolve to have this willingness. If you can’t seem to become willing, ask the Universe for the willingness to be willing to have willingness. Just keep saying, Universe, please help me be willing to have willingness.

Next, think of how you can help another. Set aside your feelings of giving up for a brief time, and do something nice for someone else. Help an elderly person in some way, or a homeless person. Set aside your feelings of giving up while you’re helping them and you’ll begin to feel better.

Now consider what the lesson is that you are being taught, for our darkest hours can be our greatest teachers if we allow them to be.

Give these suggestions a try and see if you do no begin to get through your feelings of giving up. I hope you are feeling less like giving up and more like you have value to others in the world.

If you would like help to get to a place of feeling better about things, I coach people to get past the feelings of giving up. Simply call me to schedule a free 30 minute discovery call. On that call we will discuss what it is you want from your life and how o go about getting it. Call 415-883-8325.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: being willing, despair, feelings of giving up, help, hopelessness, willing, Willingness

What If You Could Be Free From Emotional Struggle?

March 26, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning on this day that dawns clear! I wish for you each a day of hope and clarity. So, I repeat the question… what if you could be free from emotional struggle? Free from loss and grief, guilt and anger… depression? What if you could be free from these things?

Would you take action to do so? Ask yourself, why do you stay stuck in your pain? Are you playing the victim, stuck in self-pity?

Celebration of Choices

These are hard and quite direct questions, and I wanted to jog your thought process. The thing is, there are alternatives. You have choices to remain in that suffering space, that emotional struggle, or to go through it to a stronger and happier you.

It is not lightly that I say these things, for I know the price it probably took to get you where you are today, and I know the work it takes to get to a place of hope. And I know these things because I experienced great angst from my own emotional suffering.

Thirteen years ago, I left my verbally-abusive marriage, expecting to start a relationship with a new man. It didn’t work out and I was so devastated, all I could do for several months was drink and cry. I was terrified to be alone and had no clue how to function on my own after a marriage of twenty years. I was in an emotional and psychological meltdown.

Then I got sober and began to develop what has now become my coaching program, Opening the Gates of Your Heart. The road to wholeness after facing 38 years of anger and bitterness against my parents for my upbringing, facing seven years of debilitating grief over my lost marriage and the lost relationship with the new man, and facing the guilt and depression over the things I did and didn’t do in the marriage, was fraught with agony and ecstasy, pain and joy.

Having taken that journey and having come out on the other side a whole and empowered woman of great freedom and peace, I offer to those of you who are caught in your loss, grief, anger, guilt, and depression my unique and individualized coaching program.

What I teach will benefit you for the rest of your life. My approach is nurturing, compassionate, and supportive as I work with you to gain more confidence and self-esteem, more positive belief in yourself and your innate abilities until you can believe in yourself.

If your life is turned upside down because you are in the middle of emotional struggle, there is hope. If you are withdrawing from life in order to protect your raw and damaged heart, you can heal and open the gates of your heart. If you have lost your confidence and are struggling to claim your independence, you can become empowered.

I invite you to learn more about my one-on-one individualized coaching program. You know my style from my blogs, and if you like what I have to say in them, know that you will receive more of that in our sessions. If you are interested in pursuing some assistance with your emotional struggle, take a look at my coaching page under the “Services” tab.

Then call 415-883-8325 to schedule a free 30 minute discovery session. In that call, we will discuss what is troubling you, what your concerns are, and, if I can be of use to you, we will discuss how you can continue to work with me.

Will you take action to begin to resolve your emotional struggle? I hope so because it feels wonderful to have surpassed the struggle and to get to a place of freedom and peace. I want nothing more than to share that with you. Be well, and if what I say resonates with you, move at the speed of instruction.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: depression, emotional struggle, grief, guilt, loss

Dealing with Despair

March 24, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Face of Despair

Good morning. I hope it is a day of brightness for each of you. Yet, judging from the search term of “dealing with despair,” which showed up three times, I suspect some of you are not feeling brightness in your lives. So today, I want to talk about a way out of despair.

See the image to the left? Can you see the little face, mouth open in a wail of despair, hands covering his eyes? It is from my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, with the verse that says, “Can you hear my wail? Can I hear myself?”

What I meant by “Can I hear myself” was that often, we do not pay attention when we are in deep pain. We ignore it by stuffing it, by becoming incredibly busy, or by numbing the feelings with substances. Is this you?

STOP! Your soul is crying out to be acknowledged, wants you to pay attention to it, wants the opportunity to heal. When you feel those feelings of despair, stop. Become willing to write in a journal or notebook what you are feeling.

When writing, I suggest you print with your non-dominant hand. This will prompt all sorts of your deepest feelings to emerge onto the page; you’ll get to the bottom of your woes more quickly and easily. Try to stay with those feelings for at least 15 minutes at a time. When you can no longer deal with them, THEN get up and be active… do the dishes, take a walk, do something productive.

Then look at and consider what you have written about your despair. Consider how you want to feel instead. Write about that in detail… what would your life look like if you were not in despair? Vision it, write about it. Now, consider if there is an action you can take right now that will move you forward to that vision of how you want your life to be.

Focus on that one thing, that one action. Keep it simple. You will have to find one action you can take. Maybe you cannot do it in the moment, but you can do it today sometime, or tomorrow. Make a to-do list and put that action step on the list. Often, when we are being of use to someone else, our despair lessens, so you might consider an action step that involves doing something good for another.

On the other hand, we often forego our needs for the needs and desires of another, so you may need to focus on your needs and desires right now. Doing good for another can come after you have met your needs.

Now, take that action. Just take it, do it – that one simple thing. Once you have done it, sit and contemplate how you feel about yourself now, having done something good for yourself. Write about it, share about it with someone you trust not to steamroll you.

I am not suggesting this is easy, for it is not. It will take willingness on your part. AND, once you do it, you will reap the rewards and you will feel less despair and more peace in your heart.

Sit down and write today… now. Then take that action step.

If what I say resonates with you, move at the speed of instruction. : ) Write again and again about your despair, focusing on your vision and taking action. Let us know in a comment if things change for you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: despair, despairing, how to be willing, how to find peace, inner peace, peace, Willingness

Feelings of Giving Up and Hopelessness

March 19, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! I have been assent for the past two days, and you visited anyway. Thank you for that. I hope you found information that was useful for you.

Today, the search term which touched my heart was “feelings of giving up and hopelessness.” So, now that you have learned the process of how to forgive, let’s turn our attention to healing and getting past hopelessness.

This term touched my heart deeply because I was once at the place of giving up. I was praying to die because I felt my life had no purpose, that the abuse I had suffered early in life was only for the purpose of making my life miserable. And because I was there, praying to die, I recall how miserable I felt, and so, I wish to be of use to those of you who are struggling with giving up.

I gently say, please do not give up. Things can get better. There is hope. For your life to turn around, you need to muster up all your energy and take one action. Can you do that for me? Will you promise you’ll do this one thing? It has two parts. Will you do them? Great. Let’s proceed…

When I was at my lowest low, praying to die because I was too afraid to kill myself, I was able to get out of that space by being of use to another person who was in the middle of feelings of hopelessness. I shared one thing that had been useful for me, and he was so grateful, tears came to his eyes.

You, too, can do the same thing. Here’s how. The first step of this process is to get a notebook, a wire-bound one, even available at 7-11 for a couple of bucks. Start writing in it every morning, even for 15 minutes… printing, with your “other” hand, your non-dominant hand. Write about your feelings of hopelessness, why you are feeling hopeless, what the circumstances of your life are that lead to those feelings. Write about your past that has led up to these feelings.

What you will find is that all sorts of deep emotions will well up and flow onto the page. You may find yourself sobbing and this is okay. Keep going. You may need to take a break to allow yourself to feel your emotions, yet, feel them. Allow yourself to just “be” with them. Try not to numb your feelings with substances or activity. Certainly, if you are having difficulty dealing with the feelings that arise. consider getting therapy assistance. Sometimes, this is free or low-cost at your county mental health department.

When you are able to look at and feel those feelings of hopelessness, you begin to heal from them. Remember, the only way out of them is through them. What you resist, persists. When you shine light on those dark and depressing emotions, you begin to heal.

At the end of each writing session, write down one thing for which you are grateful, just one thing. Allow yourself to hold onto that one thing throughout the day. It may be as simple as the fact that you are able to write. Just be grateful.

After a time of doing this, you will see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, be on the lookout for someone else who is feeling that feeling of hopelessness, too, someone who is despairing. Share with them the writing exercise, including the one thing for which to be grateful. Focus on them, not you, for the entire time you are speaking with them. Be a good listener of their woes, and then encourage them to write about it, print about it, with their non-dominant hand. Share with them what this experience has been like for you.

Walk away from that experience knowing that you have made a positive impact on someone else’s life. When you realize this, you will begin to feel more and more hope as you help more and more people. You will feel useful, that you have purpose. Make it a mission to help another and this will help with your hopelessness.

I wish you well on your journey.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: being grateful, despair and hopelessness, grateful, gratitude, hopeless, hopelessness, I feel hopeless

The Process of Forgiveness

March 16, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each and every one of you and thank you for coming to this blog. I wish for you a terrific day and weekend! Today, I will deal with the process of forgiveness.

Remember, in the talk about forgiveness, you are not condoning what was done or said, not saying it was okay. You are merely clearing your heart, your spirit, your soul. Nor does the person have to apologize for you to forgive. Also, you can forgive and not keep that person in your life.

Having said that, let me dive into the process of forgiveness. First, identify one person and one incident about which you are angry and resentful. Write about the situation in your journal – print with your non-dominant hand. When you write with your non-dominant hand, all sorts of deep feelings will flow forth; that is a proven occurrence. Also, printing is easier to manage than writing in script.

Feel the feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal, etc., that arise for you. Write about them. “Be” with them; allow them to cross through your mind, but don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. And don’t start plotting how you will get back at them. The purpose of this exercise is simply to feel your emotions rather than avoid them. Don’t numb your emotions with substances during this part, either.

Now look at how this anger/resentment has affected your life and the life of those around you. Write about the impact it has had in your life. Look carefully at what you have written and realize that is not what you want for your life. If you want to be at peace, to have peace-of-mind, then keep doing this exercise. After looking at the ways in which your anger has invaded your life, decide you will look with new eyes, 180 degrees from where you are now looking.

Look at what the person did, and consider that, to have done that, someone, in this case the other person, would have to be wounded themselves to do what they did. Think about the possible wounds the other person may have been, or is, dealing with. See them as a wounded person. Have compassion for that wounded person.

Don’t forget to do your self-appraisal and determine if you got the ball rolling with this resentment, whether you started the whole affair, or whether you do the very same thing for which you are resentful. In these cases, I suggest dropping your resentment, even apologizing if the need is there.

Return to compassion for the person who wronged you, again and again until the seeds of forgiveness begin to grow. Recognize that the person did the best they could with the tools they had at the time. Granted, that may have been pretty nasty behavior, but recognize that was their best at the time.

Get all of this process down in writing, because your feelings about it will flow onto the page. Writing is cathartic and healing. Recognize when you have reached forgiveness and notice how that feels in your heart. Do you feel lighter? If you do not yet feel lighter, keep returning to that state of compassion until forgiveness occurs. For me, it took about a year of doing this before I actually forgave my parents.

Once you have done the process and you feel a lighter spirit, share in a comment what that was like for you. I wish you well on your journey to forgiveness.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: creating forgiveness, forgive, forgiveness, how to forgive

The Act of Forgiveness

March 14, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and welcome to another day! I hope it is a glorious day for you, one in which things go as you desire. Today, we continue our discussion about forgiveness.

In the post yesterday, I spoke about looking at whether or not you are angry at someone for something you, yourself, are guilty of doing or saying. This, as I said, involves doing a self-appraisal, or performance evaluation, if you will.

In that appraisal, be honest, even if it is embarrassing to admit. Instead of being embarrassed, look at the situation with eyes and gentleness of compassion. I, for example, realized one day that I was doing the same thing driving that I was mad at other drivers for doing for which I resented them. Ah, I had to drop my anger, and forgive the other drivers for their habit, even though I find it annoying.

You also need to look at whether you got the ball rolling in a situation that has led to anger and resentment. Did you say or do something that the other person reacted to like a normal human being would? If this is the case, and you acted negatively toward them, you need to accept responsibility for your behavior.

In that case, you need to own your negative behavior, apologize, if needed, and forgive the other person. Often, we unknowingly, and sometimes knowingly, do or say nasty things to others to which they react. It is this situation to which I refer. You can get more detail about how to look at these issues by signing up to get my free article on forgiveness by leaving your email to the right, as I said yesterday.

Once you get the article, you will read further about how to manage a resentment, an anger toward another. You will read about the process of how to forgive. It starts with listing out one anger/resentment, why you are angry and at whom. Feel that anger, feel the hurt, feel the seething. Allow yourself to feel how wrong the offense was.

Then, look at how this has affected your life, the life of those around you, and make a conscious choice to look at the situation with a new set of eyes, from 180 degrees. With that new pair of eyes, decide you want something different for your life and become willing to be responsible for it. Choose to stop blaming and accept what occurred. Just make the decision to do that, even if you are not able to come to a definite resolve to do it.

Now, sit with that choice to make a change in relation to that offense, to your anger and resentment. Just “be” with it. Notice where the feelings take you when you consider a change in your life, in starting a new relationship with your anger and resentment. Write about your feelings, print actually, with your non-dominant hand, so feelings just flow out onto the page.

Try to devote at least 30 minutes to this exercise, and let’s continue tomorrow in the process of forgiveness.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: forgive, forgiveness, how to forgive

What Forgiveness Is Not

March 13, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello and good morning to each of you! It has dawned another clear day in the northern San Francisco Bay Area and I’m loving it! Today is another day about forgiveness.

First though, I want to acknowledge each of you for your perseverance, your coming back, especially now that we’re getting into the meat of things that are personal. It is difficult to look at ourselves. It is difficult to climb from emotional numbness, to examine our anger, our pain. I applaud each and every one of you for your efforts! You will find the reward of peace and freedom so well worth it.

Today, let’s talk about what forgiveness is not. First and foremost, when we forgive, we are not condoning what was said or done. We are not saying that what was said or done was okay, for it was not.

This assumes, of course, that you have already done a self-appraisal and examined whether or not you do the same things others are doing, and if you are, then you need to consider forgiving the other person for being human, just like you. It also assumes that you have identified whether you got the ball rolling, and the other person was just responding in a predictable human fashion.

If you are confused about these things and/or how to do a self-appraisal, I suggest you get my free article by signing up to the right. It explains the process of getting to forgiveness, and how to do a self-appraisal. How to look at these issues is discussed.

Back to the point that forgiveness does not say what was done is wiped from your memory, that you are overlooking the transgression, for you’re not. Yet, you can still forgive. The person is still responsible for what they did or said, you are just looking at it with a different view from your heart. You are looking at it from the standpoint of gaining peace and freedom.

The second misconception about forgiveness is that the other person must apologize before you can forgive. This is just not so, and, in fact, an apology may never be forthcoming.

I never have spoken to my parents, for example, of my 38 years of anger, about the scars I received as a result of my upbringing, as I feel this would only serve to hurt them. They know not what they did. Because of that, an apology will not come forth; yet, I have been able to forgive them anyway, as I realize they are not capable, perhaps, of understanding. That’s okay. I can still forgive because forgiveness is for MY heart.

If you understand these two misconceptions, and that forgiveness is extended so you can be at peace in YOUR heart, to free YOU, then you are that much further in your ability to forgive.

I hope these clarifications make it easier to consider forgiveness. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about ways in which you can take responsibility for your feelings in this area.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: extending forgiveness, forgive, forgiveness, how to find peace, how to forgive, inner peace, peace

Forgiveness Is a Decision and An Emotional Change

March 12, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! It is pre-dawn, and I am up and roaming about. I am surrounded by papers on my desk from my radio talk show yesterday afternoon. Oh, have I told you about it? Transform Into Forgiveness airs on the internet every Monday at 3 pm PST. Just go to www.w4cy.com, and when you get there, you will hear me live. I invite you to join me.

Yesterday on the show, I relayed a saying about learning that I found on Facebook which rang true for me. It was, “If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.” You keep coming back, so I take it you are determined to learn. That is marvelous! You are unstoppable and will reach your goal, whatever that may be.

Having said that, let’s continue our discussion from yesterday when I spoke about things you may be angry and resentful of that keep you from forgiving. The thing about forgiveness is, your anger is like poison that you are drinking. It harms you and the other person is untouched by it. Your anger gnaws at you, eating away from the inside out.

Did you know that medical research has shown that living in a state of forgiveness can lead to a decreased risk of heart disease, heart attack, and cancer? It is true, and so is the opposite, that living in anger, a state of un-forgiveness, leads to all these things. How marvelous that being forgiving, living in a state of forgiveness, can help to decrease your blood pressure, for example, or can lower your risk of getting cancer.

In fact, on January 2, 1998, ABC reported that “studies show that letting go of anger and resentment can reduce the severity of heart disease and in some cases, even prolong the lives of cancer patients.” That is powerful, don’t you think?! It presents a strong case for learning to forgive.

Forgiveness is both a decision and a real change in emotional experience. That change in emotion is related to better emotional and physical health. We decide that we are going to look at forgiving someone, and then we take the steps to do so. It’s like making the decision to look at your world from 180 degrees, from the opposite direction. You make this decision because the anger has consumed you and you are not willing to live with that anymore.

Think about the anger you hold and how it spills into everything you do… your personal relationships, your work and those relationships, your hobbies and pleasures. At what point is enough enough? At what point are you wanting to stop those effects of your anger and resentment and to have peaceful and loving relationships? What about today?

Join me tomorrow as I speak more about forgiveness and clarify what it is not.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: forgive, forgiveness, how to fiind peace, how to forgive, inner peace, peace, showing forgiveness

Forgiveness Is a Process

March 11, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each and every one of you that visits today. May your day be filled with joy! Today we’re going to start a series about forgiveness… starting with the things you may feel that you cannot forgive, on through how to open your hearts, and finally, how to get to forgiveness and the peace and freedom that brings.

I am shifting gears here because, actually, forgiveness is what I’m all about. For me, it’s about an attitude of forgiveness…extending it, living it. Let’s start this discussion by talking about the things for which you likely cannot forgive another. To start that discussion, let’s talk about how you were wronged.

You may have suffered abuse at the hands of another, or been on the receiving end of a marriage or relationship that went sour, and you may be angry about these things. That’s a typical response and quite justified. The thing is, what are you doing with that anger? Are you feeling it and moving on to the next step, moving forward from it, or are you stuck in it, wallowing in it, turning it into a resentment?

A resentment is merely anger that one feels again and again until it affects them in all areas of their life, until they are consumed by it. Usually, the person is very bitter and justifies their bitterness with the wrongness of what happened to them. They blame the other person for their unhappiness, their misery, and they may drink or drug over their pain.

Is this you? It was me… for 38 years. For 38 years I carried the anger and resentment against my parents for my upbringing, blaming them for my emotional pain. Never once, however, did I consider that it was my responsibility to find a way to heal that pain. Never once did I consider that I could even move on from that pain. Never once in all those years…

For 20 of those 38 years, I also had my husband to blame for my unhappiness, never once considering that if I was unhappy in the relationship, that I could leave. So I stayed and was miserable, and made his life miserable. And I drank extremely heavily.

Is what I’m saying ringing true for you? Are you, or were you, in similar situations? If so, let’s take a look at those situations… gently, with quietness. This is what my series will be about… looking at our attitudes, our angers and resentments, and the final step we will take is adopting an attitude of forgiveness.

But we are not there yet. Forgiveness is a process, and I hope you will come back as I take a close look at how to go through that process. It will be a gentle and nurturing guidance, I promise you that. So come back tomorrow for the next part of this discussion on forgiveness.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: forgive, forgiveness, forgiveness is an attitude, how to forgive

Emotional Crying the First Two Weeks of Sobriety

March 7, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Once again, I wish you each a good morning. May the day hold for you great beauty and love.

I was struck by the search term “emotional crying the first two weeks of sobriety” and will talk about the emotions that hit you in sobriety. And hit you they do, as you suddenly find yourself without the blanket, the numbing effect of alcohol. Suddenly, when you are befallen with anger, hurt, or sorrow, for example, you are doomed to feel it. And it is difficult. It hurts.

You have spent many years, perhaps, taking the edge off, taking the sting out of your emotions, and suddenly there is no veil, nothing for you to fall back upon. So feel you must, and when you’re in it, it feels endless. Maybe even hopeless. But there is one thing to keep in mind – your emotions are surfacing so that you can heal from them.

That’s right. The past sorrow, grief, sadness, hurt, despair, hopelessness, all are being raised for you to heal from. The first step in that healing process is feeling the feelings. Just stick with it and don’t drink, no matter what. Here are some things you can do instead:

* do brief bursts of exercise. Walking briskly for 15 minutes is a good release.

* call someone and talk to them about what you are feeling. Don’t keep it bottled up. Let it out. Cry as you must.

* write, journal, with your non-dominant hand. All sorts of deep feelings will flow onto the page; continue to write, even as you cry, for it is all cathartic.

I found the writing to be especially useful, as I moved more quickly through my emotions than when I was not writing. In fact, research has shown that when the “other” side of the brain is used, the side we’re not used to using, great creativity flows forth. This was the case for me. Seventy-five percent of the verses in my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, came from my journals that I wrote with my “other” hand.

The thing about crying is that it cleanses the soul. Allow the tears to flow. Have support systems in place. Mostly, know that it DOES get better. The depth of your pain is equal to the depth of the joy you will experience. Just keep maintaining your sobriety.

If you are struggling with your feelings, please feel free to comment about where you are stuck. I will answer all comments.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: emotional crying in sobriety, how to stay sober, sober, sobriety

10 Ways to Overcome Low Self-Esteem

March 5, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, everyone! I am running, running, running, and I apologize for the lateness today and the hurried post I must make. I have 25 minutes to write about ways to overcome low self-esteem. So, let’s get started!

Here are some thoughts about ways to overcome self-esteem:

1. The best thing to do to overcome low self-esteem is to get into action of some sort. That may involve soul-searching, as I define in the following steps, or it may mean getting active in an activity, or a group.

2. Start writing every morning for at least 15 minutes and print with your “other,” your non-dominant, hand. Allow your feelings to flow onto the page without censoring them.

3. Identify all of your positive points – list them out. This list will be at least one full page on a legal pad. i.e., identify at least 25 positive things about yourself.

4. List out all the positive things you did for others and yourself, and words you said to others and yourself in the last week. List these out. It will be a long list; go with it!

5. Write down all the negative things you have been told throughout the course of your life that have led to your low self-esteem.

6. Take each point on the list, the negative points, and ask yourself: Is it true? Was what I was told true? Write about what comes up for you, what you discover.

7. Now, if you have a “yes” on your list, if some of the negative things told to you were and are true, write a plan for each point you found to be negative. This plan will include how you plan to make changes in yourself so the point is no longer negative. In other words, plan to take action to improve yourself.

8. Take the time to reflect on all the lies you were told. Feel in your gut, in your heart, how those things were not said fairly. Consider they were said by an emotionally ill person, for whatever reason. Write about what comes up for you.

9. Become willing to let go of the negative messages you were/are told, and recognize how it will change the story you tell about yourself. For example, you may be pitying yourself; letting go of the negativity means you will have to let go of the pity, and you may not get the same attention you have been getting. I guarantee you, though, that the positive attention you get instead will be well worth it.

10. Re-write the list of positive points about yourself, including ways you would like to be, even if you have not achieved them quite yet. Adopt the new beliefs about yourself that you have listed.

If you preform these steps, you will see a shift from a low self-esteem, to a much more positive one.

Remember, we are all wanting to step into our greatness. We often play small, and we need to start playing big by stepping into that greatness that exists in al of us. That brings to mind another point, so I have included a bonus tip, tip #11:

11. Identify the fear you hold about letting go of your negative self-esteem; write about that fear. Just by bringing it to light, you help to dissolve it.

I am hopeful you find these steps useful. Leave a comment if you do them and notice an improvement in your low self-esteem.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: fear, low self-esteem

Books to Read When You Are in Despair

March 3, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello again today. I’d like to list out the books I found especially helpful in my quest and thirst for inner peace. I hope you, too, find them to be useful to lift your despair.

The Invitation and The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Yesterday I Cried and In the Meantime by Iyanla VanZant, plus the meditation book by her, Until Today

It Will Never Happen to Me and Changing Course by Claudia Black, PhD

Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

These books were all especially useful to me in my journey to wholeness. I hope they are useful to you. And there are more. If you are interested, feel free to email me at carolyncjjones@yahoo.com to get more information about how you can receive my books. I have a library of them I am giving away, so if you are interested, email me.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: despair, healing emotional pain

What to Do When You Despair

March 3, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Good morning all! I am back on a brand new computer and will not be having crashes any more! Yay!! Thank each of you for continuing to visit while I was down, and my computer was at camp, getting new data imported from the dying one.

Face of Despair

I am drawn to the search term “what to do when you despair,” and would like to offer the image to the left to depict our wail when we are in despair. Do you see the face, the mouth opened in an utter wail? The hands covering the eyes, hiding tears being shed? This image is from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, which is available for purchase online under the “products” tab.

Ah, if you are in a place of despair, I feel with all my heart for your situation, having been there myself many times in the past. It is a place of utter pain, of inability to move forward… a place where one feels hopeless, feels that things cannot get better. For me, it was a place of giving up. It was the time that I start praying to God to let me die, because I was too afraid to kill myself, afraid I wold fail in the effort.

What do we do when we are in despair? Well, what worked for me was to discover a way in which I could use my despair to be useful to another person. It happened quite by accident, actually. I heard a man share at a meeting of my alcohol recovery support group, and he was suffering form the same despair I was feeling.

So, I went up to him and offered him the names of books I had read which were comforting to me, and I offered him the name of my therapist. He was so grateful, he almost started crying. After that happened, while I was walking to my car, I realized the things I was despairing about were the things which had been useful to him.

I had been of service to another simply by sharing of my despair and what I’d discovered that was comforting, even though this comfort did not sustain me. I suddenly realized that by taking action and sharing of the few simple things I had done, I was useful and in doing so, I felt worthwhile.

Boy, I suddenly had a purpose for my life… to share my story and small solutions with others so that they, too, could find comfort in small things. My despair left me at that moment of realization and it has never returned. That was in 2007.

So, what can you do when you despair? Well, take action. Any small step you can do to help another human being will do and you will begiin to see your life has a purpose, that YOU have a purpose! All it takes is a small revelation you have discovered. If you think hard enough about it, you will likely find one such comforting thing you have discovered and you can share it with another.

What action can you take today to be of service to another, based on one comforting thing you have learned? Have you read a book that was useful to you, or had a revelation about something in your life that brought you joy? Share that with someone else who is in despair and I almost guarantee you you will feel better about things. Allow that to be your “aha!” moment, when you can be useful to another.

What was your aha! moment that you shared with another? Leave a comment and share it with us.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: despair, recovery from alcoholism, sober, sobriety, what to do when you despair

Effects of Sobriety

February 21, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to all, in the wee hours of the morning! I popped awake at 3:30 am and here I am, an hour later. I hope you each have a blessed day.

There are two search terms that I am going to address today and they are the “effects of sobriety” and “why am I so hostile in my sobriety two years later?”

I have written many time about the positive effects of sobriety and I love this topic because I love my sobriety and love being able to let others know what they might experience if they get sober. I see sobriety as the greatest gift I and the Universe have ever given to me.

But first, let’s address the question of why hostility has shown up for someone. First of all, I would like to commend whomever it was that wrote that, as it indicates a true looking at themselves and their behavior. So, good for you!

That said, it takes a while for the alcohol to get out of our system and for the brain to clear. That may take a year or two for this to occur.

Then, we are often on that “pink cloud” of feeling good about ourselves and the world, and that can last for a few months to about a year. After that time, we may begin to really feel our feelings and old experiences and feelings come up. I, for example, had bad feelings come up at age 3 years of sobriety, over my violent upbringing.

Not having alcohol to numb these feelings, I had to feel them and they were of rage – huge anger – at my parents. It took a year or two to work through these feelings until I could allow them back into my life. You see, I basically was very hostile toward them and kept them at an arm’s length. That did pass as I continued to stay sober and to work through my feelings.

So, it is not uncommon for hostility to occur throughout the course of sobriety as our feeliings come up and we have nothing to numb them with.

Now, about the effects of sobriety… the first thing I noticed was the freedom from hangovers and that was glorious. Then, after a time, I discovered that the practice of looking at myself and assessing my positive and negative behaviors, and then taking responsibility for my negative behaviors, was the biggest gift I received from sobriety.

Being able to look at myself led to the start of me being responsible for myself, totally. This meant being responsible for my feelings also. So, what happened was, I stopped blaming others for my feelings and my unhappiness. I began to see those as my responsibility to manage and to find.

I stopped playing the victim, stopped being filled with self-pity. And I’ll tell you all, being able to do those things has led me to an incredible peace, freedom, and great joy of life. And it all stemmed from learning to look at myself and hold myself accountable. And THAT is the BEST effect of sobriety!

What are some of the effects you notice from sobriety, or are you struggling with finding a good effect? Leave a comment and let us know how it is going for you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Why Physical Injury Heals Faster Than Emotional Pain

February 20, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good afternoon, everyone! I am late in getting my post out and I am competing with construction workers not 4 feet away from my computer. I am getting a new window frame constructed and bay window replaced. The old one was leaking and dry-rotted. But, enough about me.

Yesterday, I spoke about emotional pain and how when we don’t address it, it festers, like an infected wound. Today, there was a search term for how physical pain heals faster than emotional pain, and that is what I’d like to address.

I believe that verbal onslaught is more difficult to heal from than a physical injury because the negative words or feelings get embedded in our psyche, in our soul. They, I have heard, get embedded in our very cells, and if we do not work to rid ourselves of our emotional pain, or at least allow orselves time to heal from it, it just stays there and cotinues to negatively impact our psyche.

Physical injury, on the other hand, heals more quickly as blood is brought to the injured area. With that blood comes oxygen and nutrients, and those help the area to heal. With our emotional pain, on the other hand, it sits and festers unless brought to light.

Unfortunately, it is frequently, if not always, painful to look at our hurting emotions and because of this, we avoid looking at it. We numb it with substances like alcohol or drugs, or engage in compulsive behaviors like cleaning, shopping, or gambling. We avoid looking at it at all costs. The thing is, the cost is high because it affects our ability to be truly happy and at peace.

To look at our emotional pain, I recommended yesterday writing, journaling, with your non-dominat hand. Printing is easier than writing script and that’s what I did. And, it worked miracles. Do not be surprised or dismayed if you find yourself crying or even sobbing when you start journaling. This is natural and is the body’s way of cleansing the soul. At least, that’s what I believe is happening.

Engaging in modalities like massage and deep tissue therapy helps to loosen the stuck feelings from our tissues, our cells, and this speeds up the healing process. It is wise to drink lots of water after undergoing massage, or even writing and releasing your emotions, as that further cleanses the cells.

I also believe emotional pain is harder to heal because we think over and over about things, often obsessing about them. That’s the fuel that feeds anger and resentment, keeping us from being happy and peaceful. And that’s what I specialize in… helping people past anger and resentment to find forgiveness.

So, I hope this article gives you some further idea of why emotional pain takes longer to heal than physical injury. Furthermore, I hope the suggestion of journaling with your non-dominat hand is one you will try. If you do and see some results, leave us a message about what that was like for you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: emotional pain, healing emotional pain, how to find peace, inner peace, peace

Must There be Emotional Pain Before it Heals?

February 19, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you. May your day be filled with gentleness and peace. The query that got my attention today was “must there be emotional pain before it heals?” This tugged at my heart, and so, I’d like to speak to this question today.

It has been my experience, and the experience of many I have heard talk about emotional pain, that there is pain first from the wound that needs to heal, and then, pain is followed by the healing.

Think of a wound that you get and how it heals. If it gets infected, the wound cannot heal. And, if a scab does form, there is an infection that festers beneath the scab.

This is true of our emotional pain, our emotional wounds. If we gloss over them or shove them away before looking at them, they fester below the surface, showing up in, perhaps, violent ways, but always showing up somehow. Maybe the pain manifests as physical symptoms such as heart disease or heart attack – even cancer – or maybe as irritable behavior.

We can look at these as signals of a deeper issue – one of buried emotional pain. If you think about it, we all suffer wounds to our psyche, inflicted unconsciously usually, but sometimes intentionally. The effect on us is hurt feelings. What do we do with the resultant feelings, with our emotional pain? We stuff them or lash out.

There is an altenative. That alternative is to quietly and gently clean out the wound. We do this by looking at it, feeling the hurt that was inflicted. We may be angry, yet stop and realize that beneath anger is often hurt, so we would be wise to look more closely at the hurt, the emotional pain.

How do we do this, you may ask? Well, I have found the most effective way to clear out emotional pain is to write about it through journaling. Furthermore, deep feelings will arise if we journal, print, with our non-dominant hand. For example, I am right-handed, and in early sobriety I injured that hand, and it was very painful to write with my right hand.

So, I taught myself to print with my left hand. All sorts of deep emotional pains came forth… literally flowed out onto the page. It is this which I recommend for you to do when you have emotional pain, when you have wounds you need to examine.

Additionally, have someone you trust that you can speak to about your pain. If your emotional pain is extensive, a therapist or counselor is usually preferred over a friend or family member because the friend or family member will get exhausted hearing about your feelings. Be aware of this, be considerate of them, and seek help from an outside person.

By writing and then talking about your emotional pain, you will see some transformations occur. You will see the festering of wounds decrease until they are healed.

Tell us, did you try the journaling with your non-dominant hand? If you did, what was the effect? Leave a comment and let us know what that was like for you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: dealing with emotional pain, emotional pain, how to heal emotional pain, must there be emotional pain before it heals

Grief Timeline and Behaviors – Conclusion

February 17, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Welcome back for the conclusion of the discussion about grief. My hope for you today is that you find peace in your journey. Yesterday, I spoke about how grief after loss is normal, that we may go on a roller coaster ride of emotions, that we are not alone – others have gone through the grieving process also, and they are available to help us through ours.

And that is a key point right there. Grief recovery is a process. It occurs in stages or waves, and if we can stay present for those changed emotions, we can recover more quickly.

Let’s look at our emotional landscape… when we experience grief, we may be breathless, unable to catch our breath due to the shock and disbelief. We will likely be angry and either target it at someone/something specific, or generally be angry at the world, at God. We may feel guilty, worthless, and depressed, alternated with calm and peace. This is quite normal.

Our release of emotions may include weeping, wailing, sobbing, and we may isolate ourselves. In our physical landscape, we may be experiencing lethargy, physical numbness, aches and pains. Our sleeping and eating patterns may change; we may feel general malaise and fatigue.

All of these things are normal, and we can take the best care of ourselves that we can throughout our changing emotional and physical status.

We may find ourselves getting to a point where we enjoy a portion(s) of our lives and this does not deny our loss and grief. I think the important thing to realize is that we get through grief more quickly if we feel our feelings, if we allow them to surface and be acknowledged. Then, if we get stuck, we can do things to get unstuck. What can we do to get unstuck, you may ask?

First, we can reach out. Reach out to friends, family, to spiritual leaders, to clergy, to teachers, medical community, our personal social circle. Second, we can risk examining our stuck behaviors. This takes courage and we can acknowledge that courage. We can talk to those who are not stuck.

Third, we can make this a year of “yes,” giving ourselves permission to move forward and act. We can take one step, one baby step, and we can live life fully, to the best of our ability. Fourth, we can move, exercise. This produces endorphins, the feel-good chemical in our brain. And fifth, we can write a letter to the person or thing with which we grieve, talking through any unfinished business.

In fact, writing, and especially printing with the non-dominat hand, will bring out emotions more quickly and we can pass through them as we write about them. Throughout the process, we find our purpose and we eventually gain peace with our grief. We find our purpose, and we find acceptance.

What are you grieving about? What do you discover about your feelings, your beliefs, when you write about your grief? How does it feel when you reach acceptance? Have you reached it yet? Leave a comment and let us know how you are coping with your grief.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: grief, grieving, grieving a loss, grieving process, inner peace, peace

Growing Beyond Despair

February 13, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 5 Comments

Good morning. It is not quite dawn here at my home as I sit to write to you. Honestly, I do not know exactly what I want to write, other than to say I’d like to continue with positive words about despair and suggestions on how to grow past it.

Yesterday, I wrote about my experience with despair and how I got past it permanently. I invite you to read that article in addition to this. Today, let’s focus on the things you can do to work toward letting go of your despair, growing beyond it.

I believe that a solution lies in the doing of something for others, but I also believe that we can’t skip over the step of looking deeply at our pain. Most people do not do this, simply because it IS painful, but the rewards we reap by exploring are many-fold. Inner peace, freedom, serenity, are a few of the rewards and these are huge!

The two single-most things I found that we can do to grow beyond despair are to journal about our feelings, our past, and to read self-help books. For me, the self-help books gave me hope, gave explanation for my feelings. I read Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s The Invitation and gained immense hope and deep understanding of my inner-most desires.

Then, Claudia Black’s books about the effects of abuse in our lives gave words to my feelings and helped me climb out of the hole of despair. After Claudia’s books came Alice Miller and John Bradshaw.

All of the books I read that helped me get through despair are sitting in two boxes here in my study and if you are interested in finding out what I have and reading them, I am happy to relay to you what I have and can send to you. Call me at 415-883-8325 if you’re interested in knowing more.

So, one way to get beyond despair is to read books that speak of hope. The other way is to write, and I suggest journaling with the non-dominant hand. If you are right-handed, teach yourself to print with your left hand, for example. The rewards are tremendous, as deep feelings will flow onto the page.

At first you may discover that the feelings that arise are too painful. If so, talk to someone you trust, or to a minister, or to a counselor. The point is to get help with them, but try to continue on. Research has shown that writing with the non-dominant hand uncovers deep creativity. I found it also uncovers deep feelings.

Be gentle with yourself as feelings surface. Do this exercise for a limited time each day at a pre-designated time of the day. Even five minutes is a great start. Eat well; exercise to release the tension that may arise. Don’t act upon what you discover, as what you are feeling now will change. It will morph into more of a peace eventually.

And I cannot stress enough to get help with what you discover.

I wish you well in your healing process and seriously, call me if you’re interested in getting access to my library of healing books. 415-883-8325. May you find peace in your journey as you learn to grow beyond despair. .

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: despair, despairing, feelings of despair, how to find peace, how to grow beyond despair, inner peace, peace

Despair and Trauma

February 12, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hi, all! The day dawns bright and clear here in my home town of Novato, just 30 minutes north of San Francisco. It holds promise of peace for me and I hope for you also.

Yesterday’s search term really spoke to me. It was “despair and trauma” and it spoke to me because I experienced trauma that caused me great despair throughout my life as an adult. My upbringing was physically and verbally violent, traumatic for me, and throughout my adult life, I drank heavily to quell the feelings of despair I felt over the incidents I experienced.

Sometimes, I got drunk enough that I lost all self-control and found myself wailing over my despair. I would keen for hours until I was cried dry. Even in sobriety, I experienced despair over the issue that I saw no purpose in having had experienced the abuse I did; there was no purpose in it other than to make my life miserable.

Then one day, I had the opportunity to be useful to another person who was struggling, simply by relaying what had happened to me and what I had been doing to heal from it all. He was so grateful for the information, he almost started crying.

As I walked to my car, I started crying because I suddenly realized my upbringing had been of use. I was crying tears of realization, of joy. My background had been something that allowed me to connect to someone who was suffering, and I was able to have compassion for their plight.

If I never would have suffered as I did, I never would have been on the healing journey I was, and what I learned never would have been helpful to that man. See how my upbringing suddenly became useful to another? I did, and my despair disappeared and has not returned since that day about 6 years ago.

You, too, perhaps, can quiet your despair simply by letting your experience with trauma be known to someone else who is struggling. Then, share what you have done to heal from that despair, things that have been useful for you, things that have given you even a little bit of hope.

It is my hope that you discover, as I did, that your heart soars because you used your trauma and despair to be useful to another. It is my hope that you find peace.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: despair, despair and traauma, inner peace, peace, peace of mind, trauma

Overcoming Hopelessness and Despair

February 5, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. May this be a pleasant and productive day for you all. Today, there were numerous searches for issues related to hopelessness and despair, so that is what I will address today.

There are no two things that are so emotionally draining as hopelessness and despair. And once we are feeling these, we feel physically drained as well. We are chronically depressed, and have no energy or desire to do anything. At least, that is how it was for me.

For me, there was a feeling that things could not and would not get better. That hopelessness and despair touched everything I tried to do, and I seemed to just keep failing. Soon, I gave up. I started praying to die because I was too afraid to kill myself. The biggest thing I was despairing about was my background, the abuse, and feeling it was for no purpose in my life other than to make me miserable.

Then one day, something happened which took away the hopeless and despair in an instant. I was at a meeting where a man shared about his continued difficulties with his childhood issues. Hmmm, he sounded like he had a similar background as mine, so I went to talk to him after the meeting.

After I asked if he wanted to hear what I had to say, I relayed my story a little bit, and then started telling him about the things I was doing to try and get past the effects of the abuse. I told him about my therapist who was versed in 12-step programs as well as Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) issues. He asked how to reach her and I told him.

Then I started talking about books I had read which had been very helpful in putting the puzzle together about my hopelessness and despair. John Bradshaw, Alice Miller, and the most helpful, Claudia Black. He was so grateful for this information he almost started crying.

As I walked to my car, I started crying as I realized there was a purpose for my abusive upbringiing. It was to have experienced it so I could relate to others and the hopelessness and despair they felt because of it, and then so I could relay how I was healing from it. And doing this was useful and helpful to others who were suffering from hopelessness and despair. Suddenly, the feelings went away, and I felt refreshed, lightened, alive.

To get past your feelings of hopelessness and despair, I suggest you consider all the things you have done that have helped you, even a tiny bit, to feel better. Then, seek out others who are dealing with what you are dealing with, and relay to them what has been working for you in your journey.

In other words, use your successes to build up someone else. Use your experiences to be of service to another who is suffering from hopelessness and despair. When you do this, your own hopelessness and despair will lessen.

Let us know if this has been helpful for you to be of service to another by leaving a comment. Thank you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living Tagged With: despair, hopeless, hopelessness, hopelessness and despair

Is PTSD More Anxiety or Depression?

February 4, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Hello. Today I am going to talk about PTSD, post traumatic distress disorder. It was searched for by a Vietnam vet who is still suffering from it. Ah, my heart goes out to you and to all of you Nam vets who still suffer from this, and I want to thank you for your service and say, welcome home!

PTSD is becoming more well diagnosed for men and women who have been in combat. PTSD can strike people who were not in combat, also. It can develop for anyone who has been a victim or observer of trauma, including physical, sexual, and verbal. Symptoms include hyper-vigilance, or being acutely aware of what is going on around you at every instant in time. People with PTSD usually replay the incident(s) over and over in their mind. They are highly anxious and they are depressed.

To answer the question, is PTSD more anxiety or depression, for me, they were equal. And, the depression led to despair and hopelessness. I prayed to die at that point. I suffered PTSD from a physically abusive upbringing, being both the receiver and observer of traumatic acts. I dealt with the effects of it until I was 54 years of age, which was several years into sobriety.

PTSD was diagnosed for me after I was placed on medication for depression and I continued to be highly anxious. In fact, I was diagnosed with panic disorder, which I believe was from the PTSD. Today, for example, since finding my purpose in life and forgiving my parents for the abuse, I do not feel that hyper-vigilance, that anxiety, that panic.

What can one do who has PTSD? Well, you can seek help from a mental health clinic in your county, or see a psychiatrist. You can also see a person who administers EMDR, which stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It is a specific movement of the eyes guided by a therapist trained in EMDR, and that is what helped me, in addition to talking to a therapist, and anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications. You can go to this site and this, for more information about treatment of PTSD.

So, PTSD can be equally demonstrated by high anxiety, as well as depression. It is a heck of a place in which to be, as one struggles with low energy, but has the need to watch what’s going on around them. It is exhausting because of this. There are answers, and I hope you, the Vietnam vet who searched for the phrase “is PTSD more anxiety or depression,” finds those answers and some comfort and solution in this post. You deserve peace in your life and I wish it for you.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: EMDR, how to find peace, inner peace, peace, post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, treatment for PTSD

Letting Go of Childhood Resentments Against Our Parents

February 3, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello! I’m a little later than usual today. I tried to do a post this morning, and the computer kept freezing on me. So, I am back to try it again…

The issue of our letting go of resentments from our childhood, resentments against our parents, is a big topic that was searched for and I’d like to address it. I personally spent 38 years angry and bitter toward my folks because of my upbringing. Much of that time, I drown my sorrows in the bottle.

And all of the time, I blamed them for my woes, my emotional difficulties. I never realized it was my responsibility to straighten out my messed up psyche. Never even occurred to me. It was easier to blame them. Yes, I was a very bitter and angry person, but you’d never know it because I hid it from everyone, even myself.

But when drunk, the rage would raise its ugly head and I said some nasty things to the men in my lives. I used to yell at them that they were worthless, would never amount to anything. I realized I’d said this when I got sober at the age of 48 and I was doing a self-appraisal, looking at my actions and behaviors throughout my life.

Whoa, I was stopped short, and was devastated that I had denigrated their souls so badly! I realized I had repeated what I’d been told by my father nearly every day while growing up. I also realized that when I said that to the men, I didn’t mean it about them… I meant it about me. Oh, I felt horrible! I have since apologized to them for those words.

More to the point, I began to think, after a few days, gee, if I didn’t mean that the men in my life were worthless and actually said it because I felt it about me, was it possible my father didn’t mean it about me when he called me worthless, that he said it about himself? The answer to this was yes, it was possible he was, in his extreme frustration and anger, yelling at me but meaning he was worthless.

The world opened up the second I realized that. It brought me up short, with new information. I had a new angle to consider. I began to recall stories about the abuse he endured while he was growing up, and I began to realize he was doing to me what was done to him, just like I did to the men in my life what was done to me. This was very powerful to acknowledge.

I began to see myself as a wounded person, and looked with compassion. I recognized that my father was a wounded man also, and began to see him with compassion. Over time, as I considered him with compassion, I began to forgive him for the abuse of my childhood. My resentments began to melt away… over time… and I experienced the greatest freedom and peace I have ever known. To this day, I still experience it, and it has been eight years since I was able to forgive.

You, too, can experience that freedom, that peace, from your childhood resentments. First, take a look at yourself and see if you have ever repeated the behavior that was done to you by your parents. If you have, then you may get to compassion for yourself and them faster than if you haven’t. But it is still possible to find compassion, even if you haven’t repeated your parents’ behavior.

Consider them as wounded people at the time that they did what they did to you. Then, see them with compassion, just like you would see any wounded person. Revisit this compassion again and again, and over time, you may be able to forgive them and get past your childhood resentments.

Let us know if this process helps you by leaving a comment.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: childhood resentments, compassion, freedom, inner freedom, inner peace, peace, resentment, resentments

Feeling Hopeless with No Purpose or Reason to Live

February 2, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. I hope this morning dawns brightly, and that you aren’t feeling hopeless with no reason to live. Instead, I hope that you each reflect upon your strengths and the wonderful being that you are, and bring that to the world today.

I was struck by this search, “feeling worthless with no purpose and no reason to live” because I have been there. I have been in that place that is so low, that all I wanted to do was to die. In fact, I prayed to God several times a day to let me die. He didn’t answer that prayer…

I’m so glad He didn’t because things turned around for me, and they can turn around for you, too. With a little bit of action, you, too can feel there is purpose to your life, to your living and you can quiet those feelings of feeling hopeless.

The first action I suggest is to take the time each morning to write in a journal. I suggest writing with your non-dominant hand. I am right-handed and when I started writing with my left hand, all sorts of things, deep feelings, came up and flowed onto the page. I printed instead of writing script. That was easier. There is a soothing quality that emerges when we can express what is in our heart and soul.

The second thing to do is to seek out books written about the thing you are feeling hopeless about. For example, my feelings of hopelessness centered around my abusive childhood, so I found authors John Bradshaw, Alice Miller, and Claudia Black and I read their books. They gave voice and definition to the feelings I had but couldn’t quite name. This was very soothing for me.

The third thing you can do is to find someone to talk to about feeling hopeless, someone with whom to share your burden. This can be a trusted friend, family member, or clergy/minister. Remember, a pain shared is a pain divided. Find someone who will not start telling you what to do, but will instead just listen and offer comfort to you.

Try these three things and see if you get some relief from feeling hopeless. The secret lies in trying to get the feelings out… either in writing or by verbalizing them.

To you who is feeling no reason to live, I wish you hope to live, hope that your life is worth it. You see, each life is worth it. Each person has a gift to share with the world. You just don’t know what that gift is yet. Be patient. It will appear. You will soon discover it and feeling hopeless will melt away.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings Tagged With: feeling hopeless, hopelessness, low self-esteem

The Side Effects of Sobriety

February 1, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, all! I chose “the side effects of sobriety” today because there have been so many for me, that I want to share about them.

The first effect of sobriety is the absence of hangovers. If you’re like me and experienced terrific hangovers every day, keeping you down until about 2 or 3 pm, then you will love this benefit of sobriety. Waking up clear is a true delight.

The second side effect of sobriety is healing of emotional wounds. For me, this took a bit of time, but the effort and wait were very much worth it. By remaining sober, the deep feelings I had numbed for years, had avoided for years, were brought forth for me to examine. At first it was very difficult, but over time, they softened and even got better as I did the emotional work to heal.

What do I mean when I talk about doing the emotional work to heal? I’m referring first to being present for the feelings that arise, allowing them to “be” within, without running, without numbing. Then there is the work with an outside, objective person to help dispel the ill-effects of various feelings gained along the way.

For example, as I grew up, I gained the feeling that I was worthless. This feeling stuck with me in adulthood and shadowed everything I did or tried to do. With external support and encouragement, I was able to realize that the words repeatedly said by my father, “you are worthless,” were a lie, not said about me. I learned that I was a very worthwhile person.

Another side effect of sobriety is the ability to look at the world around me in great detail. Everything is clearer, more noticeable to me.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of sobriety is the improvement I have had in my relations with others. I am able to come at a relationship with true caring and concern for the other, with true respect and tolerance. My vision of what they are saying to me is no longer skewed by the effects of alcohol, and I am not nearly as hostile or argumentative.

I can see others as spirited beings in sobriety, and this is something totally new for me. I delight in my dealings with others.

What are some of the side effects you have experienced in sobriety? Leave a comment and let us know.

Being Judged by Others, Even Though They’re Flawed

January 30, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! So sorry I missed yesterday. My computer would not allow me to access the back end of the blog, so I couldn’t write the blog. Today, it is cooperating… The search phrase I picked out is being judged by others, even though they’re imperfect themselves, even though they are displaying negative behavior.

It is my belief that we are being judged by others when they feel insecure and unsure about themselves. They are blowing out our light to make their light shine brighter. They feel “less than,” and putting us down builds them up – in their mind. The thing is, if we’re wise to them and their method, they don’t have to be built up. In fact, if we realize they’re putting us down to build themselves up, we can stop their behavior in its tracks.

We can bring to the attention of others that they are judging us negatively and to stop that behavior. Of course, this will most likely bring on a confrontation. None-the-less, speaking up against the verbal abuse is an option. When we are being judged by others, we can also just ignore what they say, knowing the reason behind their judgment. This is known as turning the other cheek.

So, we have a choice here and it depends upon the situation. If we are likely to enrage the other person who is judging us negatively, putting us in a dangerous situation, we may wish to just know deep within that what they are saying is not true. If, on the other hand, they are rational, and a conversation can be had in which we can bring up their judgment of us, then we will want to do so in the hopes that they can see their behavior and alter it.

In any event, know that when we are being judged by others, they are actually reflecting how they feel about themselves, and we would do well to not take it personally. If we do take it personally, we will likely develop anger and resentment toward the other person. I did this with my father when I was growing up, for the verbal abuse he slung my way. It took me 54 years to get past that to an understanding of his pain, and to get to forgiveness.

How do you treat others when you are feeling less than and insecure about who you are? Do you judge them harshly?

In closing, I have two points: First, I will be hosting the radio show W4CY.com every Monday afternoon at 3 pm PST. The name of the show is Transform Into Forgiveness. I imagine we will have discussions about how to get past being judged by others.

Second, I am starting two support groups called Opening the Gates of Your Heart. These groups will be in the San Francisco Bay Area in Marin and will focus on getting through grief and past resentment to forgiveness. Group one will meet every 2nd and 4th Monday from 10-11 am PST, starting February 11th. The second group will meet every 2nd and 4th Thursday from 1:30-2:30 pm, also PST, starting February 14th.

Both groups will run for 3 months and cost is $35 per month. Both groups will meet at the Wells Fargo Bank in San Rafael, 1203 4th Street, 2nd Floor, 94901. There is parking in the rear of the building, and you would go through the double doors in the rear. Take the elevator to the 2nd floor. For more information and to register, call me at 415-883-8325, or email me at carolyncjjones@yahoo.com.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living Tagged With: being judged by others, forgiveness, how to forgive, judgment, resentment, ridicule, ridiculed by others, support group, support groups, verbal abuse

What Are Resentments & How To Get Past Them

January 28, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, all! I am having a slow morning getting started, as I am unwinding from a wonderful event I went to yesterday for aspiring speakers. I am slowly getting to my daily tasks, including this blog. : )

The search term I have chosen is “what are resentments,” and I have added “how to get past them.” Resentments are anger we hold against another about which we go over and over and over again in our mind. We stew about our resentments, turning them around and around. They keep us awake at night, as we seethe, and burn and churn inwardly. Often, we plot a revenge for the wrong done to us.

Resentments are deadly, especially to an alcoholic or addict like myself, as that is what we often used and abused about. They cause our health to suffer through raised blood pressure, heart disease, and increased incidences of cancer. They are bad news for us and rob us of any type of inner peace we seek.

So how do we get past resentments? We start by doing a self-appraisal. In that appraisal, we are looking over our actions and behaviors with the person we resent to see if we actually started the ball rolling on what has turned into a resentment for us. When we look at ourselves, we are honest, and we look for behavior to which the other person reacted in a normal, human way. i.e., we consider if we, ourselves, started the whole thing.

If we did, we need to own our behavior, admit our wrong-doing, and let go of the resentment. An apology may even be in order. We approach the other person humbly, without shame or groveling, nor defensive and abusive. We just simply state what we did, accepting the fact that we were acting in a human fashion.

If we were not responsible for setting the stage for our resentments, then we begin to look at the other person as being sick emotionally and spiritually, which they most likely are. We show compassion, just like we would for any sick person. We also try to understand what their experience(s) was that led them to act in the manner in which they did. Again, we can then see them with compassion.

With compassion comes forgiveness, and we offer them that forgiveness. This frees our heart and mind of our resentments. We offer forgiveness, not to condone what was done to us, rather, to free ourselves emotionally.

What are the resentments you are currently experiencing? What steps have you taken to resolve them? Leave a comment and let us know.

And, if you are interested in dealing with your resentments, I invite you to attend my up-coming support group, Transform Into Forgiveness. This group will meet the 2nd and 4th Monday from 10 am to 11 am, starting February 11th, or the 2nd and 4th Thursday from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm, starting Feb 14th. Both groups will meet at the Wells Fargo Bank in San Rafael, CA. 1203 4th Street, 2nd floor. 94901.

There is parking in the rear of the building, and a double door to go through, where you will find an elevator. Take it directly to the second floor. For more details and to register, please contact me at 415-883-8325 or email me at carolyncjjones@yahoo.com. Get past your resentments and experience inner peace like you have never experienced it.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: alcoholism, cancer prevention, forgiveness, heart disease, high blood pressure, how to find inner peace, inner peace, peace, resentment, resentments

How to Show Compassion

January 27, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, everyone! May this day bring you peace. May it also bring you the gift of showing compassion to those in your life. The search term I have chosen today is “how to show compassion (to your husband).” I have dropped off the “to your husband,” in the hopes that we can learn how to show compassion to anyone.

Fields of Compassion

Compassion is defined as the ability to show sympathy for another’s plight, to have empathy, coupled with a strong desire to help. In the process of getting to compassion, we will end up clearing out our anger, our resentment, toward the other person. That means we need to look at our anger.

To do that, first look at what is behind your anger. Usually, it is hurt, betrayal. Allow yourself to acknowledge and feel those feelings. Remember, what we resist, persists, so we want to shine light on our anger, our resentment. Next, we always want to so a self-appraisal to see if we did anything to start the dispute, the situation about which we are angry.

If we find we did do or say something to which the other person is reacting like any normal person would, then we need to take responsibility for that and apologize, at the same time letting go of the anger. We need to own our behavior, honestly and completely.

If we didn’t do something to provoke the other person, then we need to look with the eyes of compassion. So, how do we do that? We acknowledge the difficulty the other person is experiencing, or has experienced in their life that leads them to behave as they do, and we have sympathy, empathy, for them. To do this, we think of what we would feel like if we had experienced what the other did or does experience.

Once we have compassion for another, we can move toward forgiveness. As we forgive, it is easier and easier to expand our compassion toward them, and we are able to forgive more and more completely. The depth of the hurt will dictate the length of time this process takes, with more hurt leading to more time needing to forgive.

This is all a process and we would do well to have compassion for ourselves as we move through it all.

In what way do you try to show your compassion toward another or yourself? Leave a comment and let us know.

I’d like to let you know that, if you like what I blog about, then you may be interested in a support group I am starting. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to find peace-of-mind, want to find a way through any emotional turmoil, then I invite you to join me. There are two groups. One meets every 2nd and 4th Monday from 10 am to 11 am in San Rafael, in Marin. The second group meets every 2nd and 4th Thursday from 1:30 to 2: 30 pm, also in SanRafael. Both groups will run for three months.

We will cover how to identify the gates of your heart, learn the keys to unlock these gates, and understand how to push the gates open. In month one, we will deal with how to do a self-appraisal. Month two will be spent on getting through grief, and month three will deal with forgiveness so we can find peace.

If you are interested, call me to get more information or to register. The groups will start in February, 2013. Space is limited to twelve people per group. 415-883-8325.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement Tagged With: compassion, compassionate, how to show compassion, resentful, resentment

Overcoming Insecurity and Low Self-Esteem

January 22, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, all. May you have a day of growth and awareness as you journey today. There were four searches for overcoming insecurity and low self-esteem, so I will address this topic.

In the pursuit of getting past insecurity and low self-esteem, I wonder if we ever get totally over insecurity. I mean, I wonder if there are situations that arise for us all that sometimes lead us to feel insecure, even when we have a strong sense of self-esteem? It may be quite normal to feel pangs of insecurity, for example, when faced with a new situation, but we move through it and it disappears as we become more comfortable in the situation.

Having raised that point, let’s look at situations where we are acutely insecure… insecure all the time, with a low self-esteem. I believe that our esteem is formed as we grow up, and is further affected as an adult. Lots of berating, criticism, and being put down will lead to insecurity and low self-esteem, either as a child, or while in a bad marriage, for example. So, what do we do about it?

I suggest that we determine what is the root of our insecurity and low self-esteem. Can we recall the times when we were berated, criticized… told we were worthless, for example. That was my demise… being told I was worthless almost every day as a child. It took its toll and I have had difficulty with getting past a low self-esteem all my life. How did I do it, get beyond the messages I received?

First, I identified the cause of my insecurity and low esteem. It was not only childhood that led to this, but my verbally abusive marriage, as well. After identifying the causes, I wrote about my feelings… I journaled. And not just writing, but printing with my non-dominant hand, my left hand. When I did this, all sorts of deep feelings welled forth onto the page, and I began to feel some relief. My suggestion is for you to try to print with your non-dominant hand every morning for at least 5 minutes. You’ll be amazed what will surface.

Next, I began a rigorous self-talk campaign. I told myself that what was said to me were lies, that what was said was highly critical and I could never meet the expectations of the one who criticized me. Knowing there was nothing I could ever do to meet their expectations led me to feel freer, more secure in myself. Coupled with a self-appraisal of my traits, I saw my positive traits, and I began to remind myself of them every time insecurity or low self-esteem occurred.

I recognized that what was told to me was actually what the person who said them was feeling about themselves. Ahhh, what was said had nothing to do with me, only the other person. I recognized that they were emotionally and spiritually sick, not that I was bad.

So, with repeated soothing and positive self-talk, I began to grow my low self-esteem. I wrote about my positive traits, again with my non-dominant hand, to reinforce them in my heart and mind. Over the years, that has worked to raise my low self-esteem and has led to feeling more secure.

What about you? Can you identify where the feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem originated? Can you write, print, with your non-dominant hand and let the deep hurt surface? Can you follow up those revelations with positive self-talk, and recognize that what was said was really about the person who said those things to you? Give these things a try and let us know how it turns out for you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: insecurity, insecurity and low self-esteem, low self-esteem

Getting Through Grief After a Divorce – Conclusion

January 21, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello, again. We are talking about getting through our grief after we have left a marriage or were left. Either way, there is loss and grief.

Perhaps the most useful tool I can recommend is to write about your thoughts and feelings with your non-dominant hand. I recommend you print, rather than write script. Printing is easier. I did this, printed with my left hand, and all sorts of deep emotions surfaced that I was then able to look at and process. I began to get through my grief more quickly and identified some feelings I didn’t even know I had.

There are stages to grief that are defined in the literature. For example, Elisabeth Kublar-Ross believes there are five stages that we go through. These are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. We go from one to the other, not necessarily in order, and we may stay for a brief time in one, or a long period of time. We often jump back and forth from one to the other until we finally reach acceptance and gain some peace.

It is all individual and we cannot compare our grieving process to anyone else’s, nor should we allow others to compare us to someone, or a “norm.” There is no norm. There is only what is in our own heart. I believe it helps to understand these stages, as we are then prepared for what we might experience and we can put words to our feelings.

Another train of thought is suggested in the book The Grief Recovery Handbook, 20th Edition, by John W. James and Russell Friedman. They do not believe in stages, and state grief is a totally individual experience and cannot be placed into any stage or box. I highly recommend getting and reading this book, and doing the writing exercises.

These exercises are designed to get us to understand how we deal with grief, as the first step. Generally, we mirror what we saw when we were growing up. Often, that was the belief that we need to get over it, grieve alone, be strong… These beliefs are detrimental to our grief recovery. Instead, we can adopt the beliefs and attitudes that having feelings of sorrow, anger, and even guilt are natural occurrences when we experience a divorce.

To get through these, John and Russell walk the reader of their book through a process that identifies all the losses in one’s life, written on a timeline. Then, they have us look at all our important relationships in which there is unfinished business, also on a timeline. The loss of a divorce will most likely coincide with feelings about the person from whom we are divorced. Again, I urge you to get the book and do the program that is outlined.

After a divorce, there is often bitterness and anger. We can help to get through these by first recognizing what is underneath it. Perhaps there is hurt, fear we are not good enough, fear that there is something wrong with us. We may feel anger for abuse we received. We may feel guilty for things we said or did.

To deal with the anger, I found doing a self-appraisal to identify the things I did to bring the marriage to a bad place was of paramount importance. I discovered, for example, several things I did and said that brought the marriage to its demise. I also did not speak up for myself, so invited verbal abuse agaiin and again. Then, I played the victim, a role I played so others would feel sorry for me. I did this all unconsciously, of course, but I discovered it when I did an appraisal.

How about you? When you take a look at yourself and stop blaming the other person, what do you see? We all will find something or other that we did or did not do, that we are not proud of, that was detrimental to the marriage. We need to own those things, recognize we did the best we could at the time, and forgive ourselves. Then, we can find compassion for the other person and forgive them as well.

This does not happen overnight; it is a process that takes time and focus, a continual returning to exploration. Over time, though, we will find we have gotten through our grief, mainly because we allowed ourselves to feel our sorrow, and from that, the process of healing occurred.

I wish you well in your recovery from a divorce and hope that you gain peace from the experience. Take what was learned to the next relationship, which will be more whole and complete than the last, simply because you allowed yourself to heal and to gain insight of your behaviors from the past marriage. I wish you well.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: divorce, getting through a divorce, grief, grieving, grieving process, how to survive a divorce

Getting Through Grief After a Divorce – Part I

January 20, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! The day dawns clear and bright, and like all days, brings the promise of peace and joy to my world. I hope this is so for your world as well. Someone was looking for inspirational sayings for after a divorce, and I can offer ways to get through your grief. You be the judge of whether or not what I say is inspirational. : )

Grief occurs with any loss we experience. In other words, grief does not only occur after the death of a loved one. Loss includes divorce, loss of a pet, loss of a job, even a move to a different location. If we recognize that we have experienced a loss, that makes going through the grief process that much easier because we are not resisting it or being blind to our grief.

Grieving is difficult, I will admit, yet, to return to whole and to get to peace-of-mind again, we need to allow ourselves to feel our grief. We need to allow ourselves to go through the process of recovery and repair of our heart. Today, let’s talk aboout the grief process after a divorce.

People are uncomfortable with another’s expressions of grief and say some pretty useless and even damaging things. Examples include: “Get over it,” “S/he was no good for you anyway,” “You will meet someone else and forget about him/her.” There are more, and these are most commonly said to us when we have gone through a divorce and are struggling with our grief. So, what can we do?

First of all, it is a grave disservice to tell someone who is grieving to “get over it!” This totally negates where someone is in the process of grieving. Obviously, they can’t, or they would! There is something stopping them from moving on. Often, that is unfinished business, anger, or guilt.

For me, after I left my marriage in 2001, I grieved the loss of my familiar routine the most. It took several months before I actually missed my ex-husband. Then I moved into the guilt phase, as I realized the ways in which I had led the marriage to demise. Occasionally, I still get twangs of grief over things I did, and I say soothing things to myself, like: “If you had known better, you would have done better, Jones.” “You did the best you could with the tools you had at the time, lacking though they were, it was the best you knew how to do.”

Sit with that self-talk for the day, and I will return tomorrow to give more information about how to get through grief. I am splitting it up, because I have a fair amount more to say and the post is getting long. Also, for the day, try to ignore what people tell you that is not useful, realizing that the person saying those things is uncomfortable. Feel compassion for their uncomfortableness and continue with your soothing self-talk. I’ll be back tomorrow morning…

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings Tagged With: divorce, grief, grieving, how to grieve, surviving a divorce, the stages of grief

Fear of Emotional Sobriety

January 17, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Good morning, all. I hope this day is a productive one for each of you. I actually started this two days ago, and the days got away from me, so I’ll try again…

I liked it that “fear of sobriety” was searched for twice, as I had been thinking of writing about whether sobriety was for you. Fear of sobriety fits quite nicely into that question. Before we dive into it though, I want to redefine the way I will now be looking at sobriety, which is what led me to add “emotional” to “sobriety.”

Sobriety refers to more than just abstaining from substances. It also refers to behaviors, and this is what I wish to focus on from here on in when I blog. I would like to define it as the act of developing more awareness – of self, others, and surroundings – as well as becoming more enlightened spiritually. It is about going through the gates of your heart, the gates of your life.

Webs of Fear

Using this definition, let’s look at fear now. Like a fly or some other insect, we each can get stuck in the webs of fear. My fear was not only about leaving behind the substances, it was also about changing my thoughts and behaviors as well. In fact, I didn’t even know that if I became more aware of myself and others, I would find peace-of-mind. And isn’t peace our goal? Don’t we all wish for peace-of-mind?

I was slow to wake up to self-awareness and especially awareness of others, as I was so emotionally damaged. It took doing a lot of work on myself to even identify what I was feeling! I was afraid to look at myself… fearful that I would find a nobody, a worthless person with no merit.

What I have found instead over the years is a highly compassionate and caring person with lots of gifts and talents. I discovered many strengths and character traits that I didn’t even know I had! Today, I can recognize and celebrate these.

It works that way when we do our emotional work, when we take a look at who we are at our core. It is scary, and the reward is immense peace that is gained. It grows on us. We become more self-aware, and thus, develop more sobriety. Also, as we become more self-aware, we become able to be more aware of others… their needs, their desires, and we become able to treat others with respect, kindness, and tolerance.

Said another way, when we become more self-aware, we are able to show more love to ourselves and to others. We also become enlightened in spiritual principles, such as gratitude and compassion. The end result of all of this? Sobriety in our behavior and more peace-of-mind.

Will you walk through the gates of your heart to more self-awareness, awareness of others, and the ability to practice spiritual principles? Or, will you continue to allow the fear of looking at yourself keep you from emotional sobriety? The choice is yours. Which will you make? Leave a comment and let us know. : )

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: emotional sobriety, how to find peace, peace, peace of mind, Sober Living, sobriety

Surrender in Sobriety

January 14, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 1 Comment

Good morning, everyone! I hope this is a glorious day for each of you. Today’s search term I have chosen to address is “surrender in sobriety.”

When we surrender, our sobriety moves along much more smoothly. When I say surrender, I am referring to giving in to sobriety, or letting go of trying to manage our drinking. There are many points along the way where surrender will aid the pursuit of sobriety.

Surrender of Pretense

The first thing to surrender is the pretense that all is fine for us. To quote my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing and the verse Surrender of Pretense, “I am no longer able to maintain the pretense that all is fine behind my gate of false bravado and politeness. It is time to let others see the pitted and rusted metal that is me. It is time to come out from behind my gate”

Once we give up the pretense that all is fine, we need to next surrender our thought that we can manage our drinking and stay sober through our own willpower. This is a myth. People are told all the time by friends and family, “You are a strong person. Just exert your strength and you will be able to stop.” It doesn’t work that way.

We need to give up our efforts to manage our drinking, to become sober, and turn to others and a higher power for help. We need to give in to the process that occurs in sobriety. This means letting go of trying to manage and control everything, of being in charge of everything.

After giving in to our efforts to manage our drinking, we need to next surrender to a higher power in our lives that will guide us, if we allow it to do so. This higher power can be anything we want it to be: nature, God, Buddha, our favorite place to be. The point is, we stop making liquor our higher power and allow something outside of liquor and ourselves to guide us, to support us, on an on-going and continual basis.

The next thing we surrender to is a major part of the process of sobriety. This includes looking at ourselves and our behaviors, our actions, and then apologizing if it has harmed another person. We give in and realize we are not perfect, nor is our behavior. This self-appraisal is a major step to freedom and peace-of-mind. The process then includes an on-going look at our behavior, catching ourselves when we act or behave poorly. By doing this, we can right our wrong immediately; this will help tremendously to maintain our sobriety.

We now surrender to the positive things that will come our way when we have surrendered all the things I have discussed above. Sometimes we feel we are undeserving of the good that comes our way, but if we have surrendered to all the things I have discussed, then we are worthy of the good. Welcome it in.

The photo and verse above are from my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, which is an accounting of my journey of healing in sobriety. It is an excellent source of guidance for you to use through the feelings that surface in sobriety. Many claim they use it as a daily meditation guide. My book is available on this site, under the “Products” tab above. When you order my book, I sign it specifically for you. You can see examples of the pages under the “About” tab; then go to “The book.”

What are some of the things that get in your way of surrendering to sobriety? Or, have you found surrender to be easy? Please leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, surrender in sobriety

Feelings of Despair and Hopelessness

January 11, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and welcome back. Today I will discuss despair and hopelessness, and how to get past them. This was a search term from the 6th. There have been minimal visits to this site since that day and I am confused why that is. If anyone can clue me in, I’d be most grateful.

I have addressed despair and hopelessness before, and I would like to expand upon what I have said. Despair is giving up all hope, or being without hope. Hopelessness is the feeling that things will not and cannot get better. It is a sense of futility about continuing one’s efforts.

When one is in this space, there is a feeling of giving up. At least, that’s how it was for me in 2005 when I felt huge despair and hopelessness. I prayed to God to let me die because I did not have the courage to commit suicide. But I truly wanted my life to end because I could not go on feeling these feelings.

God did not let me die, obviously, because here I am, writing about how to get past despair and hopelessness. For me, it was a process; it did not happen overnight. The first thing that happened was I allowed myself to be treated in the mental health system; I sought out help at someone’s recommendation and urging.

When I sought out emotional help, I discovered I had major depression. Although I fought it for some time, I finally allowed the doctor to put me on an anti-depression medication. Boy, what a difference that made in my spirits! I learned that I had most likely experienced brain changes because of the physical and verbal abuse I’d endured in early years, and that the medication allowed my brain to function more normally.

That was the first thing that happened to me. The second thing that happened was when I discovered how my past experiences were of use to another person who was suffering. In fact, I was only a few steps ahead of him in the healing process, but it was enough to relay to him what I had done up until that point, such as books I had read that were helpful, the name of my therapist, and the trick of journaling, printing actually, with my left, non-dominant hand.

When I journaled that way, all sorts of deep feelings arose, as did comforting words to soothe me. The words just appeared on the page. All I did was to be willing to accept some responsibility for my healing, and to follow up by journaling, taking medication, seeing my therapist and reading self-help books that dealt with being an abused child. (Claudia Black, John Bradshaw, and Alice Miller are three that were very important to me and brought me solace and relief.)

With these practices and actions, I was slowly able to crawl out of my despair and I began to have hope. All it took was a little bit of hope, and that grew as I continued doing the things I mentioned above. Today, I am a whole person, still on medication, no longer seeing a therapist, and I experience peace and joy on a daily basis. I am extremely hopeful in the present moment and for the future. Like I said, I am at peace.

You, too, can experience relief from your despair and hopelessness. The path I took may be beneficial for you, as it was for me. The key is willingness, being willing to take an active role in your attempts to crawl out of the quagmire, and then taking action to follow up. If you elect to do that, to recover from despair and hopelessness, I wish you every success in the world.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: despair, despair and hopelessness, hopeless, hopelessness, how to find peace, peace, suicide

The Benefits of Compassion

January 6, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to you all! It is the wee hours of the morning and I just popped awake, so I got up. I’m armed with a cup of coffee in me, and am ready to write. : ) This morning’s search term I chose is compassion. Let’s see where that takes us.

Webster defines compassion as sorrow for the troubles of another coupled with the desire to help. It also defines it as having pity, and here I disagree. Pity is also defined as sorrow for another’s misfortunes, and goes on to say it implies a slight contempt because the object is regarded as weak or ignorant. I don’t think people want pity, especially because it implies ignorance or weakness, yet I believe compassion is desired by others when they are suffering.

It is possible to feel compassion for someone who is ill or experiencing difficult times. For example, I am currently care-taking a woman who is unable to be independent in her life, and I show her compassion. I think, “What if this were me? How would I like to be treated?” So I show her a mixture of kindness, gentleness, and patience – all components of compassion.

The benefit is a feeling that I have done something good for another, and that feels satisfying emotionally. It feeds my spirit, my soul. The benefit to the other person is that they feel nurtured, cared for and about.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of compassion is that it leads to forgiveness – of others and of ourselves. Let me explain how I discovered this. I spent 38 years angry and bitter about my up-bringing and the damage it did to my psyche. Then, through the process of my recovery in sobriety, I was lookinig at the relationship I had with my parents at the time, and I began to think about what they had endured in their lives.

What I realized is that they were abused themselves in harmful ways, and they were just repeating that behavior with me. When seen in this light, I began to feel sorrow for their troubles, their experiences, knowing how difficult the after-effects of abuse are. And they never learned to examine the feelings associated with their misfortunes. I began to feel compassion for them.

I re-visited that space of compassion many times, as I thought about the effect their up-bringing had on mine, and I found my anger and bitterness melting slowly away. Eventually, I realized I was feeling forgiveness for their behavior, knowing they knew no other way. That did not condone their actions and behaviors, of course, but forgiveness does not mean you condone anything that happened, it just means you pardon it.

In a similar fashion, we can feel compassion for ourselves over our difficulties, our misfortunes, and even our bad behavior. After-all, we knew no better or we would have done differently at that time. We were most likely wounded people ourselves. Instead of feeling pity or remorse, however, we can allow ourselves to feel compassion for our ignorance, our woundedness that led us to poor behavior.

We can feel compassion for the damaged person that we perhaps became through our experiences in life. Yet, that is not grounds for excuses over our behavior or actions. We feel compassion for ourselves, learn the lesson, and move forward in our life, resolving to not repeat what led us to compassion in the first place.

So, there you have what I believe to be the benefits of compassion, with forgiveness of others and ourselves high on the list. In what way do you show compassion to others, to yourself? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: compassion, compassionate, how to show compassion, living sober, recovery, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, whay do we show compassion

The Keys to Sobriety

January 4, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! It is chilly on this clear and sunny morning in the Bay Area. We had frost last night. I have ice on the top of my trash can! Brrrr.

The search term that caught my attention was “the keys to sobriety.” I haven’t written in several days about sobriety, so want to pass along the things that worked for me, and that continue to work. which help me to stay sober.

What I did in early sobriety is different than what I do today. Early on, I was an emotional mess. Lots of feelings surfaced and they were raw, very difficult to feel and remain sober. So here’s what I did. I started the day with a brisk walk to a coffee shop and got coffee, then a brisk walk home.

The most effective thing I then did was to journal with my non-dominant hand. For me, that meant printing with my left hand, as I’m right-handed. I printed rather than attempted to write cursive. It is easier and more legible, and I believe the results would be the same.

What I discovered with my journalling was that deep feelings welled up and words to describe them found their way to the page of the journal. Frankly, I was surprised and astounded each time this happened, even though it happened on a daily basis. With the release of my deepest, inner-most thoughts and feelings, I was able to get some relief.

I also attended 4-5 support group meetings every day, as I was an emotional wreck and needed the support to maintain my sobriety. Between meetings, I wrote and took brisk walks. I did a lot of crying, which released the angst I felt. I let myself express my feelings in such a way, even though I got tired of crying. It was cleansing for me. I also prayed to a higher power of my choosing all the time, asking for the strength to maintain my sobriety. It was granted to me.

the van I rebuilt in cherrywood

When I was about nine or ten months sober, a major project came my way and I kept myself occupied in a good way for hours each day, when I wasn’t writing or at meetings. It was a full-sized van, outfitted with a stove, oven, and refrig, and I gutted it and rebuilt it in cherrywood. I built it to look like a boat.

I had to learn about all systems, such as plumbing and electrical, in addition to the wood working. This project was a great way to occupy my time, and I had a chance to think while I was working. It was a good distraction, versus a not-so-good distraction, such as shopping. The project also boosted my self-esteem, as it came out very nicely.

Today, I have a running conversation with my higher power and I blog every day to be helpful to others. I attend support group meetings 1-2 times a week. But the most beneficial thing that maintains my sobriety today is being of service to others. This leads me to maintain my sobriety, to feel good about myself, and to share my gifts and knowledge with others. We all benefit.

These are some things that worked for me to keep my sobriety going. I hope they are useful to you, as well.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Sober Living Tagged With: journal, journalling, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Inspirational Thoughts for Feelings of Hopelessness

January 3, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

There were two searches for hopelessness this morning, and I would like to address this topic today. I wish to offer some solace and comfort to those of you who are feeling hopeless.

I remember what it was like to have feelings of hopelessness. It was a feeling that what I wanted and expected would not happen, that there was no sign of a favorable outcome. It led me to great depression and despair, and I spent every day praying to God to let me die. I was miserable and did not want to continue in life.

Then something happened which turned that around for me. I listened to the people who were urging me to seek professional psychiatric help for my depression and despair. I sought help through the County Mental Health system. What I discovered was, I was suffering from major depression and panic disorder.

Ray of Hope

Suddenly, armed with this new information, I saw a ray of light, a twinkling of hope. I felt less like I was a loser, a failure. I accepted the recommendation to take medication for my disorders and I began to feel better emotionally. It was like it says in my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing:

“A ray of light across the bars of my being lights my way, instills hope in my heart.”

Just that little bit of light began the journey out of my emotional prison. But what really transformed my hopelessness was being of service to another who was suffering the way I was. I shared with them about my story, and efforts I had made to heal from my past, which is why I was feeling so hopeless. I began to feel worthy, worthwhile. From that point on, I felt hopeful that things could get better.

The thing is, I had to keep sober to get to that point. I had to maintain my sobriety. If I had not done that, I believe I would have stayed in that feeling of hopelessness, unable to get out at all. As is was, I was given the gift of continued sobriety because I worked at it.

As that ray of hope grew, I began to look at my expectations and discovered that what I was expecting was unrealistic. My expectations were too high. In my case, I was expecting to clear the pain of my past away, to wipe it from my mind. What I learned to do instead was to use it to help others, and that led me to more hopefulness.

I began to set realistic goals and dreams, based in every day occurrences. The more I helped others, the more peace with my past I began to have. It was amazing how that worked, but it did. With just that small ray of light, that ray of hope, I was able to conquer my hopelessness and that occurred because I asked for help. Asking for help allowed me to get unstuck and move forward. I stopped asking to die, and thanked God instead for showing me a better way, for guiding me to be of service to others.

Today, I have continual hope and the feelings of hopelessness have not returned. I consciously try to not have expectations for anything, and my goals and dreams are more realistic and attainable. This has led me to peace and joy.

Do you have feelings of hopelessness, like life is not worth continuing? If you do, I wish for you the courage to ask for help, to talk it over with someone else. I wish for you to be of service to someone else who is struggling also, so that you feel that your experience is worthwhile and through that, feel more hope. I wish you well on your journey.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: depression, hopeful, hopefulness, hopelessness, how to overcome depression, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Worthlessness – What Caused It and How I Overcame It

December 29, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. It is early and the sun has not yet begun to rise. I am in a pensive mood today, wondering if I need to let go of my dream to be a speaker and a coach, and focus my energy and attention elsewhere, on another opportunity that has arisen. I saw the search term of “what causes worthlessness” and decided to write about that today.

Most of my life has been spent with the feeling of worthlessness. In my case, it began when I was told most every day that I was worthless. I was told that because I did not excel at intellectual pursuits like my two sisters. Rather, I was of an artistic nature and excelled at writing and other creative endeavors. Those things were not valued by my father, however, who was an intellectual type himself.

The effect that being called worthless had on my later life was devastating. It always was underlying any attempt to better myself, any attempt to heal and to grow. It hit me the most and became known to me when I was drunk. There were many times when all I could do was sob – kean actually, if that’s the right word for it. It was sobbing and wailing at the same time. It was miserable and always left me spent emotionally.

Although when I stopped drinking and got sober the sobbing and wailing stopped, the feelings of worthlessness I carried were always underlying everything I did. They always surfaced and I felt defeated. Even when I worked in a high-level job for State government and initiated a program that got very ill and medically-fragile children out of the hospital ICU and into the home with hourly nursing care, I felt that feeling of worthlessness. Nothing I did was ever good enough.

Today, I do not feel that worthlessness. In fact, I feel like a worthy and worthwhile person. How did that happen? Well, the first thing that happened was I got sober. That allowed me to really feel my worthless feelings and after several years in sobriety, an incident occurred that led to my healing.

I was at a meeting and heard a man share about the emotional turmoil he was experiencing. What he said struck a chord with me, and I went to talk to him after the meeting. I listened as he further described his feelings, and then I relayed my experience with early abuse, and how I had begun to heal from it. I relayed books I had read which were helpful. I offered my therapist’s name and number. I offered understanding and kindness.

He was so grateful for my input that he almost cried. As I walked to my car, I realized I had been of use to him. Relaying my experiences and how I had begun to heal had helped him. In a flash, it hit me that talking about these things to another person was of use, of service. Suddenly, my life and all my experiences had a purpose, and my feelings of worthlessness began to heal in that instant, as I began to see myself as a worthwhile person.

It took a few more years to fully overcome my feelings of worthlessness, and I worked diligently to identify them when they surfaced. I engaged in positive self-talk when they came up, reminding myself I was a person of worth simply because I am on this planet. Today, I occasionally feel worthless, but it is a rare occasion, and I can work my way out if it.

It has been my experience that feelings of worthlessness can begin to resolve by being of service to another, to others. Further healing can occur when positive self-talk is used to combat those feelings when they arise. The reward is feeling whole, feeling happy.

Do you deal with feelings of worthlessness? If you do, I send my deepest compassion, for I know how debilitating it can be. I invite you to try being of service to another, and from that, gain appreciation for who you are as a person at your core, for at your core, you are a worthy and worthwhile person.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: sober, sobriety, unworthy, worthlessness, worthy

How to Manage Resentment

December 27, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I spent 38 years of my life carrying a resentment against my parents for the things that occurred when I was growing up. I was a bitter, angry person, filled with self-pity. I drank heavily, saying, “You’d drink too if you’d had an upbringing like mine.” The thing is, the resentment was only hurting myself, and did nothing to move me forward in life.

Resentment is defined by Webster as a feeling of bitter hurt or indignation, from a sense of being injured or offended. In recovery circles, it is distinguished from anger by the thought that a resentment means to feel again and again.

Today, I have resolved my resentment and enjoy a fine relationship with my parents, as well as with others. How did I do that, get to that place?

First, I looked at what was behind my resentment. I found it was usually because I was hurt or disappointed by something someone did or said. I took that hurt and disappointment and ran with it, feeling it again and again, feeling indignant that “this” was done to me. As I mentioned, I was filled with self-pity.

The second thing I did was to conduct a self-appraisal. This involved looking at my positive points first, and then my negative ones, my negative thoughts, behaviors, and actions. What I discovered was that I had very high expectations, higher than, for example, my parents could meet, given their own wounds they received while growing up. They were incapable of being who and what I wanted them to be. When I realized this, I was able to let go of my expectations and enjoy the positive things that came my way.

Also in that appraisal, I discovered ways in which I had gotten the ball rolling on a resentment. In other words, I did or said something to hurt another and they reacted in a human way back to me. I then resented them for how they reacted. But I started the whole affair. I had to learn to identify my part in things, and in the case of resentment, I found it was caused usually by my behavior and actions.

That was an embarrassing thing for me to realize, as I thought I was “justified” in my resentment, but when I saw that I started the whole thing, I had to let go of the resentment. I had to learn to identify what was behind the resentment and it was most often hurt.

It was also because I was disappointed by something and blamed it on the person I thought disappointed me. After doing my appraisal, identifying when I was disappointed, I began to learn not to expect anything from anyone. This way, when something happened that was nice, it was a pleasant surprise.

To recap, my resentment was almost always caused by my high expectations that someone couldn’t meet, or by something I did or said to get the ball rolling. How did I get past my resentments?

Well, after the self-appraisal, I began to develop compassion for others. For example, when I allowed myself to look at my parents and what they endured during their childhood, I began to realize they were just repeating what was done to them. Knowing what that was like, I felt compassion for their childhood, and for them. From this compassion, I was able to forgive. That does not mean I condone what happened; it just means I am pardoning their behavior, having seen its root causes.

I hope this is helpful information that you can put to use now or in the near future. Here’s to the resolution of resentment in your life.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living Tagged With: compassion, forgiveness, how to forgive, how to manage resentment, resentment

Is Living Worthwhile?

December 21, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I was taken aback by this search term this morning, and want to address it. The question searched for was “Is Living Worthless,” and I changed it to “worthwhile,” as it is easier to address for me. The an answer is, no, living is not worthless, and yes, living is worthwhile.

How do you discover your worth when you feel worthless? First, let’s define worthless a little bit. It creeps up on you when you feel there is no use in continuing, when you feel your life has no purpose, no worth to anyone. It is a feeling that accompanies hopelessness, and leaves you exhausted, depressed. So, how do you get out of this feeling?

It is helpful to find someone for whom you can be useful, even if you are just two steps ahead of them in the healing journey. That help comes in the form of you telling your story to someone in need and relaying how you got past your own feelings of worthlessness, focusing only on what you have gained, and not on the distance you have yet to go. You want to give from one to three points of things the person can do to work through those feelings.

For example, it might have worked, or be working, for you to journal. If this is the case, tell the person who is feeling worthless that they can journal and feel better. Recommend they write with their non-dominant hand, as all sorts of deep feelings will come out and they can get to the core faster than if they write with their dominant hand. This has been tested and found to be true and I found it to be true in the writing of the majority of verses in my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing.

Taking a brisk walk or engaging in some other form of exercise may have been, or is being, helpful to you. Therapy may have been helpful also, as has been, perhaps, any group’s support meetings. And, there is always prayer, asking for the willingness and strength to get through your feelings of worthlessness.

Remember, you are taking the strife you have experienced in your life, turning it positive, and then relaying what you did, to someone who is feeling worthless. You are trying to be of service to another. There is nothing quite like realizing you have been of use to a person who is hurting, that helps you get out of the feeling of being worthless, nothing quite like discovering the purpose of your life. For, you see, helping another is your purpose in life. It just depends upon HOW you are intended to help them.

Once you talk to another who is struggling, one who is in great emotional pain, you will feel that life is worth living. You will see the purpose of your life to be that of being of service. This will feel wonderful and it will change your thoughts about yourself when you think about being of service to another.

This does not mean that you forget about your own personal pain. No, you keep it off to the side while you’re helping the other person; you put it on hold. But you do not want to negate it or sweep it under the rug, because the pain will just show up in a different way in your life. At its best, your personal pain ignored will keep you stuck, unable to move forward.

When you are not helping another, and are considering your own feelings of worthlessness, try to write about these feelings and why you feel worthless. Get in writing all the old stories, the old injustices, that have led you to this point of not feeling worthwhile. Allow yourself to feel the feelings and look them squarely in the eye. Recognize the hurt, humiliation, and shame that are beneath the worthlessness. As you focus on these feelings, they will soon float away, replaced by other thoughts.

Look at the ways in which you can take action to fix or right things that are wrong in your life, or that are not the way you want them to be. Follow through with these actions, or you will feel like a failure. Start with just a few, or even one, manageable actions to begin with and grow from there if you’d like. But, be responsible and do your part to get to a place of feeling worthwhile.

Do you feel worthless? Do you think you can be of service to another so you begin to feel more worthwhile? Write down the answers to these questions, using your non-dominat hand. List out people you know that are struggling emotionally, and think how what you have learned or experienced could be of use to that person. Resolve to tell them your story and you will be spreading hope.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement Tagged With: is living worthwhile, worthless, worthlessness, worthwhile

How to Stay Sober During the Holidays

December 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Today, I’d like to discuss how to stay sober during the Holidays, how to rise above the family feuds and grudges that keep the fires of bitterness and resentment stoked. Taking a look at this will require action on your part, and the rewards are simply awesome. You will feel a freedom and a lightness you have not felt in years. You will not want to drink.

Perhaps the single, most effective tool to use to get through and past family feuds and bitterness is the self-appraisal. Let’s review how to do an appraisal and you will discover the secret of how to stay sober.

First, list out your positive points, the things about yourself that you like, that others say they like. Spend some time doing this, maybe a day reflecting on nothing but your positive points. Then, pick a time period, either a week or a month, and list out all the positive behaviors and actions you took during this time that were thoughtful, kind, gentle, compassionate – you get the point, I’m sure. You are trying to ferret out all your goodness, to identify it so you can feel good about yourself. Contemplate about these things for a day, just “being” with your goodness.

After you have spent a day or so discovering and acknowledging your goodness, turn your attention to the darker side of your character, to your negative behavior. We all have such a side. Look at the ways in which you were unkind and demeaning to yourself and others. List these out so you can see them on the page. Acknowledge them. Practice being humble about them.

Now, look at the relationships with others that are problematic for you, ones about which you are resentful or harbor a grudge, ones that are causing a feud. Look at this closely. You are trying to determine if you, in fact, said or did something unkind or rude to another that led them to react in a predictable, human way. If you find situations that you instigated, that you started, rethink your anger, your bitterness and take responsibility for your bad behavior by letting go of the resentment.

This is the one, most single action that, when completed, will show you how to stay sober. You can dive deeper into the situation, also. For example, once you identify that you, in fact, started a feud, you can feel compassion for yourself, a troubled soul. You can feel compassion for the other person who responded like any other human who was treated poorly.

This exercise is the precursor to forgiveness and once you discover forgiveness, you will discover freedom of heart and mind. You will especially wish to right your wrongs during this Holiday season. This means being humble, admitting your fault, and apologizing to the other person for any grief you have caused them.

In a situation where you did not start the ball of hate and anger rolling – the other person did, then look at the other person as a wounded soul, someone who is sick emotionally. Extend compassion to this wounded person, just like you would for anyone who is ill. Really feel a softness in your heart, and let it guide you to forgiveness. It is from that place of forgiveness that you will find great peace. Even though there are situations in which you had no negative behavior, there are many that involve your self-righteousness, when you, in fact, started the ball rolling. That’s what we were talking about in the preceding paragraphs.

And now you know how to stay sober, merely by being responsible for your own behavior, by taking ownership for it.

Do you have some advice on how to stay sober during the Holidays? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to stay sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

How to Stay Sober in the Wake of the Connecticut Shootings

December 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good afternoon. It is with a weeping heart that I write today, as I am writing to express my deepest condolences to the parents and families who lost children and loved ones yesterday. I am writing to help any of you survivors of those killed by writing about how to stay sober in the face of the acute and deep grief you are experiencing.

I do not have children, yet, I have a cat who is my child and I cannot imagine the grief I would feel if she were shot or lost in some other senseless, and devastating way. So, I can say that the loss of a child must be one hundred times more painful than the loss of my own “child,” my pet. I would want to drink to dull the tremendous heartache and grief.

This may be the case of any sober person related to someone who died yesterday. You are in such pain that the thought of drowning that sorrow in a drink or several must be tempting… oh, so tempting. Yet, with the help of your Higher Power, friends, family, and other sober people, you can get through this without a drink.

Try to separate yourself from your sorrow for a brief moment to consider where that drink will lead you… to total emotional meltdown, to possible DUI, jail, or other institutions. You could lose everything. And you don’t need that right now. It’s important to stay present for your family, for yourself. So think the drink through.

Prayer and seeking comfort from others are so needed right now. Try not to isolate yourself; rather, talk to someone about your feelings, or go to a meeting of your support group and share about your feelings of grief. Allow your sadness, your sorrow, to surface and to be known to others. Even as I recommend not to isolate, it is important to allow yourself alone time to grieve, but don’t do it with a drink.

In the wake of this tragedy, these are a few thoughts about how to stay sober. These words seem so trite and lacking, and yet, they are the only ones I can muster at this time.

To those of you who are reading this, please join me in sending prayers and thoughts to the families of the victims, and the children who experienced this tragedy. Thank you.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Sober Living Tagged With: Connecticut shootings, how to stay sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Dealing with LIving Sober

December 12, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The search term I chose today is “dealing with living sober.” This is a great topic for me, as I enjoy my sobriety so much, I am happy to discuss what I do to keep living sober.

In early sobriety, I dealt with things differently then in later years of sobriety. When I would “fall off the cliff,” as I called it, early in sobriety, I went right to my journal and wrote for a couple of hours. That provided a great deal of solace. And, I went to a support group meeting and shared about my angst, the feelings I was experiencing.

You need to have a plan for what to do when you are going to slip from living sober. For example, calling someone right away, going to a meeting of your support group, writing… You also can take a brisk walk or engage in some other form of physical activity. When things are really squirrely for you, remember to just do the next indicated thing, the next thing that appears on your path. This might be washing the dishes, or taking a nap.

That’s how I dealt with living sober when I was new to sobriety. Now, after twelve years, I still do the next indicated thing in my path to do, and that often includes going to a meeting or calling someone. It also involves getting involved in my work, or doing chores around the house. I actually have few moments when I want to slip from living sober, if any at all…

We, as drinkers, often drank to celebrate the good things that occurred in our lives. You will have to have a different plan and way of celebrating so you can remain living sober. Again, sharing about your successes at a group level, or writing about them is helpful. Pat yourself on the back for your success, and don’t get cocky about it. Be humble and gracious.

You may wish to get involved in activities that feed your soul to maintain living sober. Maybe a woodworking group, or a card game such as bridge. But the most definite way to remain living sober is to help others, to be of service. As soon as you help another, your spirits lift and you are so happy to be living sober that you vow to do anything to stay that way.

Here are just a few ways of living sober when things get tough or are glorious. They have helped me, anyway. What do you do to stay sober, to remain living sober? Leave a comment and let us know what you do.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: dealing with living sober, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

PTSD Despair – the Conclusion

December 10, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Today, we conclude the post about PTSD despair. Yesterday, we ended with me saying I wanted to share my experience of what was happening at the end, when I was praying to die. Here’s what was going on for me.

I had been in a state of decreased energy, of lethargy, for weeks, feeling that my abusive past had occurred only to make my life miserable. Other than that, there was no purpose to it, there was no purpose to me, to my life. This was my state-of-mind at about five years of sobriety. One day, I was at a group meeting for that sobriety, and a man shared about the difficulties he was experiencing from his childhood that were affecting him today. It sounded like what I had been through, but I was a few steps ahead of him in the process of healing. So, I went up after the meeting and began to talk with him.

I first asked him for permission to share some things with him. After he said yes, I related to his experience by relaying some of what I had been through. Then I began to talk of the books I had read that had been helpful with the symptoms of abused people, such as Claudia Black, Alice Miller, John Bradshaw, books that had helped with my healing. I relayed how wondrous my therapist was in dealing with recovery issues, both for my alcoholism and my abusive past and the characteristics I was displaying, and was able to give him her number.

What I had to say was useful to him – I could see it in his face, in his eyes. He was so grateful for the information, he almost cried. As I walked back to my car, I realized in a flash that I DID have purpose, my abusive past WAS for a reason. That reason was to help others who were dealing with what I had overcome, even if I was just two steps in front of them in a couple areas. If I had not endured the abuse, I never would have been able to offer him anything. Therefore, my abuse had a purpose.

I had a purpose. From that point, I realized my purpose in life was to connect with people who were suffering emotionally, and relay the things that had helped me, so that the information could be of use to them.

In your case, with PTSD, let’s say you are a veteran, reliving the trauma you experienced, the terror, living in anger over the grief of premature deaths you witnessed, dealing with the guilt that somehow you could have prevented it. You are living a nightmare, and, yet, I invite you to take action to get out of the place where you currently are. Here is what I invite you to try. It worked for me.

Seek assistance from a qualified therapist, versed in PTSD issues. They exist at VA medical centers, if you are a vet, and interviewing a potential therapist about their experiences with PTSD treatment will help guide you in the right direction in selecting a well-versed therapist. I looked for a therapist that was versed in alcohol recovery and who knew the effects and treatment for being an abused child, for example, because at the time, I had not been diagnosed with PTSD.

After you select a therapist, ask about the use of EMDR, or get that yourself. It was roughly $100 a session and I needed three. I would imagine the VA centers have someone available to do it or could refer you. Do some reflection about your feelings of despair, your lack of purpose in the world, your guilts, your grief… writing, journalling was extremely helpful to me to get feelings out, and especially because I wrote with my left, non-dominant hand. They say that writing with the non-dominant hand brings forth new information from the other side of the brain, and it stimulates you with deeper thoughts. I invite you to try it.

I invite you to stop drinking, if you are doing so. The liquor fuels the symptoms that you are experiencing, especially the anger. I know it doesn’t feel that way when you’re in the middle of it. But your world remains very small while you are drinking, filled with resentments and bitterness, guilt and remorse. You look for relief for these things in the alcohol, yet you will never find them there. It is in the absence of alcohol that you will find relief. There are many resources to help you stop drinking that are listed in the yellow pages, or on the internet. For me personally, I found getting sober to be the beginning of the process that has allowed me to find the peace I looked for in alcohol and drugs. I invite you in from the cold.

Finally, I’d like to invite you to look at the cause of your PTSD despair, and discover how that experience, the experience over which you despair, can be useful to another if you were to share with them your experience and what one, maybe two, steps you’ve taken to heal. All you have to be is two steps ahead of them in the healing process. I cannot describe the way my heart soared to know I had been of use to another and I invite you to experience it also.

I hope these two posts have been useful for you. I wish you well in your journey. May you have peace.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: EMDR, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, PTSD, PTSD despair, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

One Day at a Time in Sobriety

November 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and welcome to this rainy day, if you are in the San Francisco area… It is the rainy season here in the Bay Area, and I am not fond of the rainy weather. Oh dear, we are just at the beginning of the season. How will I make it through? I will make it through one day at a time, just like my sobriety. I accumulated 12 years one day at a time.

It is our tendency to want change to happen to ourselves and our situation right now, but that is not how things work in sobriety, or in life. Things evolve, they happen slowly when it comes to changing ourselves. My sponsor once told me everything in my life was going to shit because God was breaking me down to nothingness so He could rebuild me in all my glory, all my worthiness.

So, all the old messages and beliefs that I was worthless needed to be dispelled. I needed to learn to see myself with eyes of love, and the only way to do that was to strip me of all the old messages that I was no good. I was brought back to the past for the purpose of healing from it so I could move forward in the present. The only way to do that was one day at a time.

Then, each day was broken down into one action after another, a day of doing the next indicated thing, and then the next, and the next, and so forth, until the day had passed. It was difficult to get through some days, and sometimes, all I could do was take a nap or go to bed, even at 6 pm, for example.

If you are contemplating sobriety, or are in the middle of sobriety, you can adopt the philosophy of taking it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. By doing this, you allow yourself to see your past, the old messages of worthlessness, and you can begin to build upon the ashes that have become your life. Emotional pain may be needed for a time, and that will disappear as you replace it with good feelings about yourself, as your situation improves, one day at a time.

My suggestion to you is to start taking it one day at a time, doing the next indicated thing to do throughout that day, until the day is over and you can start over again the next day. Make plans only so they can move you forward, but let go of the outcome and be flexible with your plans, wants, and desires. Try not to live in the past or the future, but squarely in the present day.

So, tell me, how are you doing with living one day at a time in sobriety? Leave a comment and let us know how you do that and how it works for you in your sobriety.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: feelings of worthlessness, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, worthless, worthlessness

What Happens When You Surrender to Sobriety?

November 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I am going to address two of the search terms from early this morning – how to surrender to sobriety and joyous emotions. The reason I chose these two is because once you do get sober, you experience joyous emotions. I want to be very clear that my joyous emotions are possible only through my sobriety. I proved otherwise for 26 years of drinking.

The “how to surrender to sobriety” sounds like a plea to me. Sounds like someone is recognizing their need to start sobriety, and cannot get to surrender, can’t go there. I surrendered after spending several months in deep and debilitating grief over an unrequited love. So, my surrender was very difficult and when I finally asked for help, I was desperate. I was begging for help. You don’t have to get to that point.

On the other hand, my surrender to decide to attend a support group to help to stop drinking came with grace. The friend I was living with said to me that she had been to this group before and did I want to join her? I just quietly said yes, without even thinking. This part was easy. It was getting to the decision to quit, finally quit, that was difficult, that brought me to my knees emotionally. Let’s look at that for a minute.

I kept on and on with my drinking because I knew of no other way to deal with my pain over the unrequited love, over childhood issues. I was afraid if I quit, I would wither away to nothingness, that it would zap what little energy I had left. The reality was, starting in sobriety actually gave me more energy, I found, because I was not so badly hung over every morning, that I had to eat greasy or spicy foods to control it.

I couldn’t even name my pain, I was that far gone in the ability to know what I was feeling. The thing is, as I said, I was afraid to give up the only way I knew of to deal with the pain. What I didn’t know was, the longer I kept drinking, the longer I prolonged the ability to feel joyous emotions. I prolonged the ability to get through and past my grief over the unrequited love, the anger over my childhood. It was a vicious circle.

Let me just say that, in the end, I adore and cherish my sobriety and if I had one regret, it would be that I didn’t do it sooner. If I had, I could have spent less years in emotional misery from childhood issues. That’s because, with the aid of the support group, I was able to get to the point of dealing with the childhood issues and thus, healing from them.

If you were to ask me, I would tell you that sobriety is so well worth it. Yes, it sucks at first and sometimes for a few years. But in the end, when you clear out all the past debris, when you can visit the past only to make it possible to move forward in the present, you reach a space where you find peace and freedom. And joy. Tremendous joy and excitement about the things around you, especially the people.

Then there’s wonder. In sobriety. You see everything and everyone with great awe and wonder, as you focus on one moment to the next, taking it all in. Along comes grace, that space where you somewhat float along, where the ability to roll with everything that is going on descends upon you like a cloak. And, of course, there is peace, a deep knowingness that all is well, that all is going as planned.

I wish you well on your journey to sobriety and hope that you can approach surrender to it with grace and wonder, instead of with the attitude of giving up in defeat. Yes, you are defeated by alcohol, but that doesn’t mean YOU’RE defeated as a person. You have treasure trove of things to discover about yourself and others. Happy discovery.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how do I surrender to alcohol, how to find peace, inner peace, joy, joyous emotions, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, surrender

The Rewards of Sobriety

November 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I decided to speak about the rewards of sobriety because I am going to talk about an activity in which I engage, only because I am sober. Because of my sobriety, I have been able to heal from 38 years of huge anger and bitterness against my parents, as well as to recover form deep and debilitating grief that lasted seven years. Because of my sobriety, I am able to be a motivational speaker, sharing how I did that so I can be of service to others.

How did I do that, you may ask? Well, I got sober and the rest just seemed to fall into place over the years of healing I did. Note, though, that I took action. I took responsibility for my own healing by maintaining my sobriety, writing about my feelings, and getting professional help. The feelings uncovered were difficult and at times excruciating, and still, I maintained my sobriety.

I didn’t think I could do it. There were many times during the first five years that I would scream that sobriety was not better than drinking. Ah, but it is… once you get beyond all the debris of the past so you can bring forth the healing that needs to occur. In sobriety, you have abilities that you don’t have when drinking. For example, when in sobriety, you have the ability to be willing to consider new things, to look at things with new eyes, to hear differently. Willingness takes you a long way. So does gratitude…

You see, before sobriety, when you are still drinking, when I was still drinking, we don’t have the capability to open our mind to new things, especially when it involves looking honestly at ourselves, especially when it involves letting another be right… and on and on. You see, when we are drinking, we are often self-righteous know-it-alls who are overly concerned about ourselves… how we look, act, are being evaluated. We do everything to assure we get what we want, even if it is hurtful to another. These traits are common to alcoholics, I’ve discovered over the years in sobriety.

It takes so long to beat down the ego and the need for control that that’s why it takes some of us so long to find sobriety. I’d like to address the need for control for a minute. It helps to have compassion for those who try to manage and control everything if you understand where that comes from. Many of us who drink grew up in a chaotic, often abusive, environment, and as a result, are trying to be in control of things to avoid that chaos we’ve dealt with all those years. It’s a skill we mastered while living in that unstable environment so we could maintain ourselves through the craziness.

But the need to control gets in the way of your ability to get and maintain sobriety. As with any survival skill we learned and practiced during our formative years, you need to evaluate if it is serving you in present day. Chances are, these skills that saved your life are the very ones that are holding you back now. Being aware of all of this helps to keep you conscious of your behaviors. When you are conscious and aware of them, you can choose to make a change in them, from battling to control, to going with the flow.

When I say going with the flow, I do not mean you do nothing. Wrong. In sobriety, you will learn that life is a series of doing the next indicated thing in front of you to do. In other words, its a series of continual actions you take. You learn to be accountable for yourself, responsible, and that is a gift of sobriety, because it sets you free. You also learn it is a choice… yes, we always have a choice. Even doing nothing is a choice. Learning that is yet another gift of sobriety.

For me, it took a process of getting to the point where I realized I had choice in everything. I didn’t used to think I did, I was so mired in the blaming of my parents for my misery, so mired in blaming the rejection by an unrequited love. But I made the decision to keep in that space of blame. I could have, instead, elected to look at my own actions and behaviors that contributed to my misery. But I could no more do that then fly to the moon without a spaceship.

Well, here are some thoughts to leave you with for the day… thoughts about your sobriety and how it’s going for you, thoughts about what you may experience if you get sober. It is 1:43 am and I am up at this time of night because I awoke and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to blog. And, I am ready to go back to bed now. Good night. Thank you for being tolerant my rambling today…

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living

The Rewards of Sobriety

November 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Well, here are some thoughts to leave you with for the day… thoughts about your sobriety and how it’s going for you, thoughts about what you may experience if you get sober. It is 1:43 am and I am wake at this time of night because I awoke and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to blog. And, I am ready to go back to bed now. Good night.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living

Overcome Despair with Sobriety

November 13, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. I haven’t done the rest of my grief work yet, so do not have the rest of the process to report on this morning. I will have it tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s talk about the benefits of sobriety, for with sobriety, it is possible to overcome despair and feelings of worthlessness.

When I was in my drinking days, it was easy to keep being in despair and worthlessness because the drink fueled those feelings, kept me in self-pity and blaming others. Then when I started in sobriety, the fuel for that fire was gone. Suddenly, I had to look at the actual feelings behind my despair, my worthlessness. I had to feel the hurt at a very deep level. I had to be responsible for my own feelings… and it was difficult.

Yet, by keeping my sobriety intact, I was able to ease my way through the feelings. My sobriety allowed me to discover a place inside where I wanted to give to others. And when I wanted to give to others, I found my purpose in life. When I found my purpose in life, the despair left me. It was only by staying sober that I became able to get outside of myself and really care about another, really care about being of service to them. It’s actually a glorious place to be.

But if you are in despair or feeling worthless, you cannot imagine that place, I know. At least, I never would have been able to imagine that place. Trust me when I say that it may be obtained. It is possible. So, let me tell you how I got there and maybe you, then, can get there yourself.

My despair dissipated when I told my story to someone and it was useful to him. Recognizing that, I came to the realization that by telling my story and how I recovered from a horrible upbringing, horrible anger and bitterness, horrible grief, it might be useful to others so that they, too, could get through and past their horrible experiences, their resentments, their despair.

It took being in a state of sobriety, where I was “clear” enough to recognize this. It took being in sobriety to be able to get beyond myself so I could consider another, could be of service. I did this by being willing to be open to what came to me, by being willing to maintain and practice my sobriety.

How about you? How can you take what you have learned in sobriety and be useful to another with that information? How can you be of service from that deep place of knowingness that we discussed yesterday… that place of great worthiness. All you have to be is two steps ahead of the person to whom you are being of service.

Move forward in your day with awareness. Be conscious of the ways in which you can be of service to another. Look for how your story, your experiences and the healing you’ve done-to-date could be useful to another. Remember… you only need to be two steps ahead. Then make the decision to be of service, to be of use and take action. May you discover your purpose as a result of this process, and may you replace your despair with hope, with feelings of goodness.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: despair, despairing, how to get past despair, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, worthless, worthlessness

Overcome Worthlessness with Grief Recovery

November 12, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

It is with a great deal of experience in the area of worthlessness that I write today. i.e., it is something with which I am quite intimate. You see, every day or so throughout childhood, I was called worthless, told I would never amount to anything. I grew up and flew the nest with that belief firmly stamped into my deep sub-consciousness.

This is how I started the blog that I planned to post yesterday. It ended up being 950 words, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to post such a long one, filled with a great deal of personal experience that I thought you’d find boring. I was afraid it would be too much. Confused, I took no action…

Interesting. I wonder how much of my inability to edit it down has to do with the effect that feelings of worthlessness have on me today, which make it difficult to speak about it without getting carried away. In other words, I believe that I still hold some feelings of worthlessness and they come up for me from time to time. Oh, I have made great headway. Example… in days past, I would forget to post, or not get to it, and I’d feel like a failure, worthless. I no longer go there.

Enough about me. At least you understand why I didn’t post yesterday and I hope you returned today for the post on worthlessness.

Before I write about that, I want to acknowledge all the Veterans who are reading this post and say thank you for your service. You have made a sacrifice that will affect you for the rest of your lifetime, and I want you to know that I recognize that, and am especially appreciative of what you did to help our country.

On to our topic… Webster defines worthlessness as being without value, without merit or worth. Worth is defined as that quality of a person that lends importance. I believe that we each have something of importance to bring to the world. I believe that at our core, we are each inherently good people, filled with worth.

Even though I believe this, I struggle some days with feelings of worthlessness, days in which I feel of no importance or value to anyone or anything. On these days, I have to consciously talk myself through it, reminding myself over and over that when my father called me worthless, it was a lie. Also, I consider that he said it, but meant it about himself, not me. I find I can them go to the affirmation of “I am worthy and worthwhile.”

I know the feelings of worthlessness I hold go deep within my being. So it was with interest that I decided to get help through this. An opportunity came along to be coached in a grief recovery program. What I have discovered is as expected… continued feelings of worthlessness, the grief from the feelings of worthlessness. I never even thought to look at what losses I endured as a result of those words. So I have been looking at that.

The losses I’ve identified so far are loss of self-respect, loss of all beliefs that I am a good person, loss of a positive image, loss of ability to receive acknowledgment or compliments about me and my work. I imagine more will surface. Next, the process involves allowing myself to feel those losses, the grief from losing those things. I then make a choice to let the worthless feelings go.

The next part of the grief process involves choosing one person with whom I wish to get closure, to put to bed my feelings of worthlessness. I, naturally, chose my father and his calling me worthless all those years.

As I explore my feelings, I come to a place of forgiveness for him. I get there by realizing that he was a wounded person when he said that, and I feel compassion for his woundedness. From that place of compassion, I have been able to reach forgiveness for him.

My assignment for the week is to write a letter of closure, putting to bed my feelings of worthlessness, breaking the connection of my father’s words with my current-day reality. I will be working on that today and tomorrow, so can report back on what I discovered through the process.

What about you? What wounds have you endured in life that have led you to develop feelings of worthlessness? Take a look at that/those and see how it/they manifest in your life. Then, identify all the losses you have experienced as a result of those feelings of worthlessness. Allow yourself to look at them, to feel them. Acknowledge the hurt you felt every time you were told you were worthless, or whatever it was that led you to develop worthlessness.

Then tell yourself that is not who you were or are at your core, the center of your being. Step outside of yourself for a minute and picture your outer self smiling to you, the real person. Smile with great knowingness that you are a person of great worth, with value to share with the world. Smile with deep belief and understanding that you are filled with worth and value, value to yourself and to others. When you slip into worthlessness, return to that place of knowingness. Gradually, you will find your feelings of worthlessness are fading away.

Well, I have managed to write another long post today, and I’m going to let it stand. I’ll return, hopefully tomorrow, to let you know how the letter-writing went. Remember your mantra for the day… “I am a person of great value and worth.”

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: feelings of worthlessness, how do I feel worthy, worthiness, worthlessness, worthy

How Showing Compassion Led to Renewed Affection

November 2, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“How to show compassion” is a search term from this morning that I would like to address, and it follows nicely on the heels of yesterday’s post. Today, I am going to talk about how I have had to show a lot of compassion in the past two days, all the while being worried I had lost someone near and dear to me in my life.

I’m talking about Izzy, my Izzy-girl, Mama’s Izzy. She is my cat of five years. I got her from my vet’s wife who spent her time adopting feral cats. Izzy was a feral kitten when I first met her. I had never had a feral and I had no clue how to deal with one.

What I have come to learn over the years is that I have to let her initiate any affection that exchanges between us. In other words, I cannot approach her first to pet her; rather, I have to wait until she comes around for pets and affection. I have had to learn to give my love in the way that she needed it, not the way I wanted to give it.

Izzy got her name because of her spunk, her feistiness. She was named after Izzy in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. Do you remember how spunky the main character, Izzy, was? That’s why I named her Izzy. It has suited her well. Izzy was pretty standoffish and defiant when I first got her, and this continued all the while there was another kitten in the house. Then, about 4 years ago, the other kitten, Emily, got out of the house and disappeared. Since that time, Izzy changed from that defiant, standoffish being to an amazing bundle of affection.

Oh, the affection has to be what she wants, on her terms. For example, she will not sit in my lap, nor can I touch her belly to rub it. Occasionally, she will allow me to scratch her ears and rub her neck. She has a routine whereby she parades in front of me when she wants a pet, and she will seek that out. If I initiate a pet, she will often shy away from me.

I used to take this personally, as an affront, that she put off any affection I extended first. Then I learned to see her with compassion for her background, deciding that she had a rough eight weeks of life to make her so leery of a human being. I began to be grateful that she would show me any affection at all, that she would allow me to be affectionate with her.

Since adopting that attitude, our relationship has soared. She follows me around, sits on the desk with me while I’m working, or sits behind me on the floor. She even comes in for pets when I go to the bathroom. Then there’s our bedtime routine. She hops on the bed and extends her paw, asking for pets, for attention, and we spend a great deal of time engaging in pets while I murmur terms of endearment.

I write about Izzy today because two days ago, all of this changed and I was frightened that I had lost her forever. I began to get afraid that all the ground we made had been lost, and that I would be spending my time with a feral cat living and hiding in my home, coming out only to be fed.

What happened was, she escaped out the front door two nights ago and she was gone all night. She may have come to the door to get back in, but I didn’t know about that if it happened, as I had gone to bed and locked the door. I felt awful doing that, but had to go to bed and certainly couldn’t just leave the door open.

She showed up the next morning for her breakfast, but her whole demeanor had changed and stayed changed for two days. Anytime I got within ten feet of her, she bolted, running for the cupboard she hides in when she gets scared. If I called her or said endearing words to her, she scowled and bolted. I began to get a complex and was quite confused about how to win her back. I quickly realized that, if it was going to happen, it had to happen on her terms, in her time-frame, but that didn’t stop me from getting pretty concerned that I had lost the connection we shared.

I was used to her putting me off when I returned from a trip, but she always warmed up to me within a couple hours of my return. And she never bolted from me, never shied away from me like she has been doing for the past two days. Never, even when she was a kitten. I was greatly saddened and was at a loss to know how to handle the situation. I finally decided to just let her be and see what happened. I began to feel compassion for whatever triggered her terror of me. I felt compassion for this wounded little being.

Then this morning, everything changed. She started talking to me when I got up, and not in an angry tone. She hopped on the bed for pets, and started following me around, parading in front of me, looking for more pets. Wow, my Izzy is back and I am extremely grateful! By seeing her with compassion, it allowed me to be patient with her, allowing her the space to return in spirit. Now I just have to figure out how to treat her for fleas, cause she’s scratching quite a bit this morning. It’s a difficult task to trick her into letting me pet her while I apply the flea medicine on her neck.

That’s ok, I’ll figure it out. I am just glad I was able to show her unconditional love and compassion, and that she has returned. What a great start to the day!

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain Tagged With: compassion, compassionate, how to be compassionate, showing compassion

Compassion – the Forerunner to Forgiveness

November 1, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I spoke about forgiveness and said that to get to forgiveness, one needs to feel and show compassion for the one who has wronged you. Compassion is sorrow for the sufferings of another, often accompanied with the urge to help. You can feel deep sympathy and tenderness for the other, but you might not want to help them, and that’s okay. You can still feel compassion.

I discovered how compassion can lead to forgiveness quite by accident. One day, after about 2 years sober, I was doing my second or third self-appraisal, in essence a performance evaluation. I was considering the few relationships I had had with men, and what I did to lead to their demise. One of the things I identified was the way in which I would get drunk and scream at these men how worthless they were, that they would amount to nothing.

I was appalled when I remembered this! I was responsible for the ravaging of their soul and it was a bitter pill to swallow. I felt compassion for them for having to endure what I inflicted. I also felt compassion for myself because I actually said those words to them, but I meant them about me; I felt worthless and that I wasn’t amounting to anything. I felt compassion for the wounded soul I was.

One day soon after this realization, the thought hit me that my father might have actually said those words to me repeatedly because he felt them about himself. After all, that had been the case for me, why not him also? I began to realize he endured his own wounds at the hands of his father. Suddenly, the door was opened a crack to compassion for him, another wounded soul.

With the door opened a little bit, I kept returning to that feeling of compassion and soon, after about another two years, I had found my way to forgiveness for both of my parents for the treatment I received while I was growing up. The feeling of peace that washed over me was tremendous. Years of pain and misery melted from me. The key to my forgiveness was the compassion I felt for my father as a wounded person himself.

You, too, can look with compassion at the one who wronged you. The chances that they received their own wounds is high. Think of them as you would think about any wounded person, feeling sorrow and sympathy for them. When you extend compassion to them, you will experience forgiveness, and this will lead to more peace.

How to Achieve Forgiveness

October 31, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“How to achieve forgiveness” is the search term which stuck out for me this morning. Interestingly, I just finished revising my report about forgiveness. You can get that report by leaving your email address to the right. The report details step-by-step how to get past anger and find forgiveness.

The thing is, if you are dealing with anger and grudges that you have held for a long time, they are affecting everything in your life. That anger winds its way into everything you do, affects everyone you talk to. You may be seeing the effects of anger in your relationships with your spouse, children, boss, or others. If you’re tired of this, then read on to find out the process of forgiveness.

Once you identify you have an underlying anger, you can make the decision to do something about it. Perhaps you are being forced into doing something about your anger, like… you are heading for a divorce or loss of your job. If something like this is the case, then you will want to read on…

To overcome anger and grudges, you need to look at forgiveness as a way to dispel that anger. Most people think that to forgive means you are condoning and pardoning what was done to you. That is not the case. You are not letting the other person off the hook, you are merely deciding to forgive because the anger is affecting your life.

To get a handle on your anger, your grudge, look at what is underneath the anger. It is usually hurt, or the pain of betrayal, for example. Allow yourself to feel that hurt, that pain. Then make a decision that you want something better for your life than a life filled with anger and bitterness. Make a decision that you want peace in your life.

Many people drink over their angers. In fact, resentments are the number one reason people drink, according to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the case for me; I drank heavily to fuel my anger, my indignation. I stayed a bitter person for 38 years as a result. Then I found sobriety and after a while, that all changed. I found forgiveness and then I realized I wanted peace instead of anger.

Actually, I stumbled across forgiveness one day. I realized I did the very same thing to others that had been done to me in childhood… I called others worthless and no good. When I realized I meant those words about myself, I began to wonder if the person who said those words to me actually meant them about himself rather than me.

That opened the door to allow me to consider that person with compassion. Through compassion, I was able to discover a way to forgive. I do not condone what happened nor excuse the behavior, but I can see why it occurred and that has made all the difference. It was possible through my decision to get sober and then lead a life of sobriety. In order to remain sober, I needed to let go of the anger. Luckily, I discovered forgiveness.

If you are looking at your anger issues and thinking you need to do something about them, then you may wish to read the in-depth description of how to find forgiveness that is in my special report. Get that report by leaving your email to the right. In exchange, you will receive an occasional, about once a month, email from me with tidbits about ways to maintain peace in your life.

Here’s to your ability to find forgiveness. It leads to freedom like you have never experienced. May you enjoy it!

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: dealing with anger, forgiveness, forgiving, How to Achieve Forgiveness, how to find forgiveness, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Living Sober Is Not Rewarding When You’re Dying Inside

October 29, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Living sober is not rewarding when you’re dying inside” is today’s search term that stuck out for me. How very true. When you’re in the middle of your healing, your growing, your awareness, living sober is harder than hell. It IS hell!

I can remember screaming at my sponsor that living sober was not better than drinking, that life was far better when I was drinking. It was at that time. However, I neglected to recall the emotional misery I was in inside during my drinking days. Also, I was not waiting for the pain to surface fully, to be healed, and then to dissipate. It does that, you know… comes upon us, makes itself known. We take action, or not, and the pain eventually gets less intense and soon dissipates. The more we take action, appropriate action, the faster it will resolve itself.

The best I can say when the going gets tough and the feelings get excruciating is to hang on and keep living sober. It gets better. It really does. It gets better and you begin to experience the rewards that I wrote about yesterday. Make it a mantra if you must… “it will get better. I am growing, and healing.” The thing is, the pain is being brought forward for you to experience so you can heal from the specific issue that is bringing you the pain.

The depth of that pain will vary from person to person and is directly related in intensity to the depth of the pain one felt with the infliction of the wound. To make it through, remember one thing: The depth of your pain is equal to the depth of the joy and peace you will experience. Notice I said “that you will experience.” That states that you WILL experience relief. And you will, as long as you stick with it and keep living sober.

In your efforts of living sober, I suggest you get help. Trying to do it alone is not necessary nor is it recommended. There is lots of help out there from support groups that deal with getting sober. For me, a 12-Step program worked wonders, and I was able to not only stop drinking as a result of my involvement, but I was able to heal emotional issues, as well. It will work if you are willing to hear with new ears and heart.

Back to me screaming at my sponsor that living sober sucked… As I stated, I was neglecting to recall the emotional difficulties I had experienced throughout my lifetime, the times when I was wailing… keening… in emotional misery. In my drinking and drugging days, I was searching for peace-of-mind, and it was ever-illusive. It was not until much pain had been brought up for me to deal with in sobriety that I began to feel better.

Of course, I had to take action. I had to put in the effort to heal. I had to look at how I was treated and come to grips with it. Coming to grips with it means I allowed myself to feel the pain of betrayal, confusion, hurt. There were losses I endured as a result of how I was treated… loss of safety, loss of trust, loss of a normal childhood. All of these losses had to be mourned and healed. I had to recover from them.

In order to heal from them, I had to feel them and it was awful. That may be where you are now in the process. If so, please remember, the depth of your pain is equal to the depth of joy and peace you will experience. Hang onto that thought through the rough times. Just keep living sober to the best of your ability.

Reach out to others; for the most part, they will feel closer to you and be anxious to help. Cry, wail, if you must, and wear yourself out. Do the dishes, take a nap, and don’t drink. Stay living sober. You will be rewarded in the end with feelings that exceed your wildest notions.

Where are you in the process? Are you dealing with difficult times right now? If so, I send you my heart-felt wishes that it works its way through soon, that the purpose of the difficult feelings is soon resolved. Remember that your difficult feelings are being raised so you can heal from the issue related to the original wound.

Take breaks from your recovery – some tasks can be healthy and can serve as distractions. Engage in them. Help another. Be of service. Know that you can define your purpose by telling another the message you have to relay to them, by speaking to them of your experience. Use your miserable times to set an example for another who is suffering, too. You’d be surprised how much inspiration your painful experiences can be to another because you will have demonstrated it is possible to be in the pain and not drink. Above all, keep on living sober.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how do I get sober, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Rewards of Sobriety

October 28, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Rewards of sobriety” is the search term I’d like to blog about today. I chose this term because there are so many rewards to sobriety which I would like to share with you in the hopes that you find it compelling enough to try sobriety.

I adore my sobriety. Right off the bat, I reveled in the lack of hangovers. You see, for the last seven years of my drinking, I drank myself into oblivion every night, and awakened with a horrific hangover every day. Every day for seven years I had trouble dragging my hurting head and sick stomach out of bed, so I would lie in bed watching movies on TVtill about noon. Then up I’d get and go to either Taco Bell or KFC for hot or greasy food to burn out or soak up the hangover.

It worked and I began to be able to function, even though still with a headache. I was extremely productive in those ensuing four or five hours until 5:00 pm, when I would start drinking all over again. A miserable existence, absolutely miserable…

I was always angry in an underlying sort-of-way. If I wasn’t grumbling about my dislike of something, how it wasn’t what I wanted or wasn’t good enough, then I was displaying full-blown tantrums, taking my anger out on others, usually my husband. I took it out on myself and it showed up as depression.

When you choose sobriety, you choose to awaken each day, awake and fully present and excited to greet the world, and greet it you will. You will delight in feeling physically fine, and especially get off on the clear-headedness you experience. Your attitude is one of gratitude, not anger, so your relationships with others are improved.

Then there’s the driving issue. Drunk, and even still while hung over, you are not all there to drive. In fact, you are dangerous to other drivers out there. I know, I know. You tell me you are just fine behind the wheel, a better driver drunk than sober. If you think about that for a minute while you are sober, you will hopefully see the falsehood in that belief.

When you choose sobriety, you can drive anywhere at any hour of the day and not have to worry about being pulled over for a DUI. You are TRULY a better driver, alert to what the other cars are doing around you, alert to where you are on the road in relation to them. Your reactions are quicker. But the best part of this reward is that you can drive at any time and feel safe behind the wheel.

Another reward of sobriety is the acute awareness you have for the world around you… the plants and vegetation, the architecture, other people. It is possible to focus-in intently on those things, and because you are able to do this, you will experience awe and wonder. These are pretty exciting to feel, especially for the first time and especially when you realize what is causing that feeling of goodness. It’s hard to look around you in the world and not be inspired, awed. So this is clearly another reward of sobriety.

Perhaps the biggest reward is your ability to see how your actions and behaviors have affected yourself and others. You begin to be able to see how you started a fight, for example, or are keeping a resentment going that was your doing in the first place. You also begin to be able to apologize to others for your harmful behaviors, your hurtful words. This reward will help your relationships to soar, as you discover a softer, more approachable side of others and yourself. You will be able to go down the road of forgiveness, both of others and of yourself. There are huge rewards and you will relish them once you learn how to practice them.

Ah, there is one bigger reward of sonority, and that is the ability to reach peace-of-mind and to live in grace and gratitude. This you will not want to miss…

What are the rewards of sobriety that you seek? Have I addressed them above? Leave a message and tell us what the rewards are for which you search.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Overcoming Feelings of Worthlessness

October 27, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. Please forgive my silence for the past three days. The days got away from me while planning and preparing for my workshop that is today. I hope you have enjoyed looking at the images and reading the verses… There were three searches for worthlessness yesterday, and I will address that today.

How did you learn or come to believe that you are worthless? In my case, I was told I was worthless and would never amount to anything every other day or so while growing up, and I got to adulthood feeling a great deal of worthlessness. It has been a lifetime of trying to overcome that, and on most days, I am successful.

How about you? You must be stuck in the feeling of worthlessness if you are searching for that term. Webster defines worthless as without value or merit. It is pretty devastating to believe you have no value, no merit. And the thing is, it is false. The truth is, you ARE worthy, you are of value and merit, simply because you are a human being alive on this earth, with experiences and wisdom to share with others.

Worth is further defined as that quality of a person that lends importance, value, merit, etc., and that is measurable by the esteem in which the person is held. Worth implies an intrinsic excellence; intrinsic means located within, not dependent on external circumstances. Worth is inherent… which means existing in someone as a natural and inseparable quality or characteristic. It is inborn.

So you see, just by definition, you are valuable and of worth, and can begin to shake off your feelings of worthlessness. Yet, it still needs to resonate with your heart that you are valuable, worthwhile. And therein lies the difficulty. Until you feel in your heart that you are worthy, that you have merit, then life is difficult and you are left feeling worthless.

What I have to offer as wisdom is what has worked for me to dispel, to hold off, my feelings of worthlessness. It is something I do in present day when I have feelings of worthlessness. The first thing to do is to practice being aware of when you are feeling worthless. For example, when I believe I have failed at something, the feeling of worthlessness accompanies that feeling of failure.

The problem could be that you don’t know when you are experiencing worthlessness. For me, I know I can slip to that space of worthlessness when I am feeling defeated, feeling that I goofed somehow, that I blew it. My thoughts don’t stop with those thoughts; instead, they continue twirling downward until I have decided that I have no value as a person, that what I offer is not wanted by others, that I suck as a person.

It is at that point that I need to stop and realize I have gone to that space. Actually, I need to catch myself before I get to that place. To do that, I recognize that my trigger to feeling worthless is a feeling that I blew it. When I feel that, I start talking to myself, building myself up, telling myself I am still a good and valuable person, telling myself I have experiences worthy of being shared with others.

So, I consciously go into the “build myself up” mode. That helps to hold off the feelings of worthlessness. Then I try to write about my feelings of failure, getting at what is behind them, and always, always, building myself and my abilities, my inherent values, up, always touting them. I don’t do it to brag or to admire myself. Rather, I do it to keep myself from sliding down the worthlessness hole. It works to keep me from going there.

You, too, can start monitoring your thoughts, starting with being conscious and aware of what triggers you to go to that space of worthlessness. Think of it as an adventure to solve the problem, to find the trigger(s). Once you do, stay aware of your behavior and your internal thoughts and feelings. When you reach your trigger point, start talking positive to yourself in an effort to prevent a slip into worthlessness. When you have tried this, leave a comment and let us know how that worked for you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement Tagged With: feeling unworthy, I feel worthless, not worthy, unworthy, worthless, worthlessness

Quotes on Life with Images

October 23, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

This, “quotes on life with images,” was a search term that found my website this morning. I recall using that as a keyword phrase, perhaps… What I what to really focus on is the term, because what I have to offer you today is quotes on life with images. They are taken from my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing.

Visions of Gratitude

When seen with eyes and heart that appreciate,

everything around and within me becomes more pleasing, more beautiful.

Moments of Wonder

Do you suppose there has always been such richness, such beauty in the world?

Perhaps it has been there all along,

waiting to be noticed, to be seen, with the eyes of the heart.

Invitation of Dialogue

If we as individuals cannot speak to each other,

how, then, can we as nations achieve peace?

Warmth of Humility

Rather than take on everyone else’s dreams, desires, and expectations,

can I not look humbly at what has been placed before me?

Openness of Heart

We will grow through the barriers of our heart and

be able to fully experience the richness of life.

Promise of Peace

When I practice the principles of love for myself and others,

the gates of my heart melt into the glow of dusk,

and peace rises to greet me.

Balance of Serenity

I am serene, carried by the winds to places where

I am held in balance with great beauty and strength.

Burst of Joy

My heart bursts with joy!

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: being grateful, being humble, gratitude, how to find peace, humble, humility, inner peace, joy, peace, peace between nations, Quotes on Life with Images, serenity

Motivating Words to the Hopeless

October 22, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Motivating words to the hopeless” was a search term that found my site yesterday. It plucked at my heart strings when I saw this, as I know how horribly deflated one is when they feel hopeless. I just had to offer words of hope, because I’ve had it turn around for me, and if, through my sharing, it can turn around for you, then my heart is full.

I left a fairly rotten childhood with feelings of hopelessness. Yet, I woke up each day, hoping things could get better, searching for a way past the feelings that everything was hopeless. I went through my life, drinking and drugging to numb those feelings that I was hopeless, that I was hopeless, mind you, not that my situation was hopeless, although my situation certainly factored in.

It was not until the age of 48 that I got sober, and then it was 5-6 years into sobriety during which time I felt hopeless. While underlying everything was that feeling that I was a hopeless case, a hopeless person, it showed up as feelings of despair, not understanding what the purpose of my life was, seeing no purpose in my abusive childhood, for example, seeing no purpose to me being alive.

I started to pray to God to let me die because I was too afraid to commit suicide and fail. One day, I was at a meeting and afterwards was able to help a man who was struggling emotionally, just by sharing my story and how I had found the healing that I had up to that point. He was so grateful, tears came to his eyes.

I left and realized that my abusive life had had a purpose. If it hadn’t occurred, I never would have had the need to heal and recover from it, never would have learned what I learned, never would have been able to help that man. Suddenly, in an instant, as though struck by lightning, I realized that my life had a purpose, that I had a purpose, and that purpose was to speak to people feeling hopeless, in an effort to relay that hope is reachable, that it is possible to have, to achieve.

That’s how getting past feeling hopeless came to me. It was through my giving to another that I realized my worth and developed hope. For yourself, are you willing to go there? To be of service to another? Do some thinking about your level of willingness and write about it. If resistant, write about that, too, and see if you can get past it and resolve it.

Then search your lifetime for something you have overcome. If you haven’t overcome anything, then create something, overcome something. For example, you could become sober and need only be 2 steps ahead of the guys with no sobriety, and when you talk to that man or that woman about the benefits of your sobriety, it gives them hope. That becomes your purpose, to give hope to another person trying to stay sober for just one more day.

So, what if your thing is not drinking. Certainly, you have some obstacle in your life to overcome. Work with and on that. When you have overcome it, you have a purpose, which is to relay to others who are suffering from it, how to get past that obstacle. See how it works? Once you find yourself being of service to another, your life will change and your feelings of worth will increase, those feelings of being hopeless will fade away in the glow of your service. All it takes is one person with whom you share your gift.

What is the situation that leads you to feel hopeless? What is your obstacle you have or will overcome? How can you be of service to another and spread the word of hope?

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: hopeful, hopelessness, living sober, motivating words to the hopeless, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Dealing with Harsh Judgment

October 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Good morning. Two search terms stuck out for me today… “dealing with harsh judgment” and “to acknowledge oneself.” I’d like to address each of these, as they can flow, one into the other.

When is the last time you dealt with harsh judgment from another? Perhaps they criticized you directly, or they criticized your work. Either way, the result you are left with can be the same… embarrassment and shame, loss of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth, defeat… In short, the feelings you are left with after being harshly judged are not pleasant.

Old Building at the Wedding

I recently had a judgment made of the photos I took at my nephew’s wedding. Although not a harsh criticism, it brought forth all my “stuff.” All but one of the pics were great… nice composition, exposure, and subject matter. Yet, when I emailed them to another family member, the comment I got was, there were “some” good ones, but there were some that were bad.

First of all, permission was not asked to critique the photos. Yet, the comment came from one who is highly judgmental. Even though I know that person is like that, I resented the judgment of something which gave me great pleasure shooting in the first place. They were actually great pics and all the rest of the family members said so, yet I have the judgment of one-out-of-many stuck in my mind, my heart.

It’s the same all over again from earlier years when I was told by the same person that “a real nurse would be an ICU or ER nurse.” This comment was made in response to discussion about my work in State government, where I was working in the Medicaid department and initiated, designed, and operated a program that allowed technology-dependent Medicaid-eoigible children to be cared for at home with private duty nursing services, rather than stay in the hospital ICU. I needed to be a nurse to be doing this type work.

It was ground-breaking work at the time, and served to bring about great medical, developmental, and social gains for the children. And I was reduced to nothingness when that remark was made. Even today it has the power to grab me and send me to that pit of not being good enough. Nothing I do is good enough for this person because they judge everything so harshly. Nothing is just appreciated for what it is, as it is. They always want more…

I know this person is like this, highly critical and judgmental, and still, I am thrown by the unwelcome judgment. It brings up all the feelings from growing up that I am no good, never good enough. My excitement to share of the pictures plunged. I found myself asking other family members what they thought of the photos, if they were liked and appreciated. Everyone I asked told me they were great. Yet, I still am affected by that comment.

What can I do to get beyond the hurt, the lack of confidence, the anger at this person for their highly critical nature? This is where “to acknowledge oneself” comes in. I have to step in and consciously talk to myself, praising my work, in this case the photos. I have to let myself know that I did the best I could, that all but one of the pics I sent were of good photographic quality. I have to remind myself and accept that no matter what, this person will find fault with me and what I do.

To get back on kilter, I need to acknowledge myself with kindness, caring, gentleness… I need to hold in my heart the knowledge that I am good enough as I am, acknowledge that my efforts are pretty good. I need to stop judging myself, and I need to grieve the loss in my life of someone to praise me, to encourage me and my talents and instead, give those things to myself.

It hurts though, that ever-present criticism. Even as that hurt arises, I remind myself to acknowledge me and my talents, to look at things with a true sense of reality, rather than allowing me to be colored by the constant negative comments. Having done that, I can now apply the principle of compassion to this person who is always negative, for whom nothing is good enough. I feel compassion for one who cannot see the positive around him in his world. He’s missing out on so much…

When have you received harsh judgment recently or in the past? How did that feel for you? Try to identify those feelings in response to the criticism. Consider the source of the harsh judgment and know that the judgment is not true, not accurate. Acknowledge yourself for all the good that you are. Talk yourself up and believe it. How do you feel after doing those things? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: being judged by others, harsh judgment, judgment, self-judgment

More About Resentments – Living Free From Them

October 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Eeeergh! I just wrote a wonderful blog about resentments, but posted it into a new page, rather than a new post. I had to go in and copy the post from the page, and I did that, but forgot to save the new post before I went back to copy the title of the blog. In the process, I lost the post! The worst part is, I cannot remember what I said… again, eeeeergh!

Well, here I sit, trying to recollect what I did say…. and I am drawing a blank. So, I will start over. Speaking of resentments, I have one against myself, and that is, I resent myself for my loss of memory, my inability to remember from one minute to the next.

I could rail against myself, really get into the resentment and feel sorry for myself, but that leads to that slow churning gut I referred to yesterday, and I choose not to live like that today. I think about a seminar I attended a month ago, in which I learned that my years of drinking and drugging eroded my hippocampus, the center of the brain responsible for memory. So, I can now work on forgiving myself for all the years of substance abuse. I can make a joke about my memory loss, understanding that it just is what is; and I can accept it and move forward, despite the limitations it poses for me.

Speaking of substance abuse, I recall a portion of my post from earlier today. Do you know the CDC cited 11.8 million substance abusers in the US in 2011? That’s mind-numbing! It is a well-known and documented fact that resentments are the number one reason people drink. Therefore, it is startling to realize that for there are close to 1.8 million people who live with resentments on an on-going basis.

Boy, there are a lot of resentments flying around! My major one, the one I harbored and nursed with drugs and booze, the one that lasted 38 years, was against my parents for my upbringing. About six years into sobriety, I got into a deep despair over the futility of my life and the events that occurred as a child. I saw no purpose to it, to me or my life.

Then I had the opportunity to help a man who was in acute emotional pain. I talked with him after his share at a meeting and relayed resources I had discovered along my path that were helpful in my healing from childhood issues. He was so grateful, his eyes filled with tears. I was deeply touched, and I realized my past had been of use to someone else. There WAS purpose to my upbringing, I had purpose!

Since that day, I have had no difficulty with despair, and have continued along what I believe my path to be, which is to share my story in the hopes that it will be of use to another. If we can use the knowledge of our painful experiences for the purpose of helping another, it helps to diminish our resentments.

For example, you Vietnam vets can work with newly-returning vets and give them a proper welcome home, a thank you for their service. This you can do to make use of what you endured. Suddenly, you can see why you endured what you did… to be useful to another. You know how hurtful it was to be received so poorly, to not get a welcome home, that you do not want others to have to experience that. And that is how your experience can be of service to others. I understand one of the Vietnam Veterans of America’s purposes and activities involves working with new vets to welcome them home. Ah, such a beautiful way to turn around your pain, your resentment.

When we put to use our resentments by turning them around and doing good for another to so they can avoid what we suffered, it helps to dispel them. What a wonderful thing to be able to do! It is incredibly freeing and it leads to peace.

How are you using your resentments to good use? How are you helping another to avoid what you suffered? Leave a comment and let us hear how you are doing that.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, resentment, resentments, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

What Are Resentments and What Can You Do About Them?

October 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Today let’s talk about resentments… grudges, anger toward another. Webster defines resentments as feelings of hurt or indignation from a sense of being injured or offended.

When feeling resentments, one is overcome by bitterness and anger. It’s a slow burn in the gut. Much emotional energy goes toward justifying one’s resentments, leaving a feeling of incompleteness. There seems to always be a feeling that you are right and justified in feeling your resentments, but that does not provide relief from them.

If you experience resentments, you know what I am talking about when I say they produce a slow burn in the gut. You relive that anger again and again, over and over. Many people drink over their resentments. In fact, it is a well-known and documented fact that resentments are the number one reason people drink.

So, how does one get past them?

First, there has to be a feeling that you want to resolve your resentments. You are tired of that slow burn and the emotional havoc they play. To resolve a resentment after deciding you want to resolve it, you can follow the steps below.

Humbly look at the situation and determine if you did something to provoke another. Did you say something or do something to hurt another? If so, look at whether the other person responded in an expected manner in response to your actions or words. If this is the case, own your behavior. Recognize that you were in the wrong and give up the resentment. Apologize if that is indicated to set a situation right.

If you did not contribute negatively to a situation and can still say you were wronged, feel that wound, feel how devastating the event was. Grieve the loss from it… loss of trust, loss of safety. For example, the Vietnam vets who were wronged by the American people when they returned home need to consider how they lost their trust in the public. To come to resolution of their resentments, they need to grieve that hurt, that loss.

Now consider looking 180 degrees, with new eyes. Choose a life of peace rather than one filled with resentments and bitterness. To do that, hold yourself in compassion for being a wounded person. Before going on to the next step, allow yourself to feel that compassion for as long as you need. Try not to cross the line from compassion to self-pity. Compassion is open and expansive, while self-pity is closed and contracted.

Finally, consider that the other person was, in fact, wounded themselves and was demonstrating the humanness of a person in emotional pain. Offer them compassion for their pain. Keep repeating this process of looking at this person with new eyes until the resentment begins to lessen.

In the case of the Vietnam vets, consider that the American public was terrified, looking for something or someone to blame to lessen their frustration about what was happening at the time. In their ignorance and lack of ability to place blame in the right place, they unfairly took it out on the vets as they returned home. It is possible, even though that experience was horrible and highly uncalled for, to get past those resentments against the American people.

When you deal with your resentments in the above manner, you will find a freedom that is most rewarding. Your relationships will be more satisfying, and you will experience more peace-of-mind.

What has you trying to cope with resentments? Can you define one of your resentments? Follow through with the process above and see if that helps to lessen your resentments. If you notice a lessening of your resentments, leave a comment telling us of your success to resolve them.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement Tagged With: forgiveness, how to find peace, inner peace, peace, peace of mind, resentment, resentments, what are resentments

Curls of Kindness

October 14, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Yesterday and Friday I had the distinct honor of being in a holiday craft show at the park where I live. I offered my book and some of my framed images of gates. Everything was well received… many said my work was lovely… and few bought. Still, I had some great conversations with people… a few were very spiritual in nature.

The interesting thing was, I had the opportunity to relay to many people the story of how the book was born. You see, I did not write the verses to go with the pictures. It happened the other way around. I was photographing these gates, and then was titling them so I could sell them to galleries.

Separate and independent of my photo-taking was my journaling – daily writings to try and deal with feelings associated with my sobriety, my recovery. I wrote much about my thoughts and feelings in an effort to work through my emotional difficulties.

One morning, I wrote in my journal a phrase, a verse, that described a gate I had just titled Webs of Fear. I was quite taken-aback, and was prompted to search my journals for other writings that matched or described my titled gate photos. I found around 25 or 30 writings that matched up with images!

Imagine, having written these things before I even photographed the gates! It was all pretty amazing to me and I think, as a result, that the book was divinely inspired, divinely guided. That was in late November of 2004 when I discovered the prose and it was at that point that I realized I had a book I had written and could continue to write. I started working on coordinating verses with photos.

By 2008, I had the book pretty much pulled together, wanted to publish it, and I was terrified for people to read it. I felt very exposed, very raw and vulnerable. I was afraid to expose my story. It took me two more years before I could get up the courage to actually put the book in the hands of a publisher. They, however, rejected it and so I decided to publish it myself.

Curls of Kindness

I felt its message was too important to wait until such time as a publisher accepted it, so I went through the process of publishing it. One of the images from my book is Curls of Kindness. I’d like to share it and its verse with you.

”If now is not the time to be kinder and gentler to each other and to ourselves,

when will it be?”

This is just one of many verses that ponders the question of how we treat each other and ourselves. There are additional ones that invite us to act with more tolerance and respect, more compassion and gentleness. As a result of acting in such a manner, the book promises the experience of grace and hope, serenity and joy… and peace.

Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing is an accounting of my own journey into and through sobriety. It takes you along on the path from great angst, through self-awareness and into discovery of so many things which have allowed me to live with joy and peace in my life.

I invite you to check it out in more detail by clicking on the “About” button, and scrolling down to “The Book.” Order your copy today and I will send you a signed copy. Read it in its entirety as a pathway to peace or use it as a daily meditation book when each verse is read individually. May it bring you hope and peace.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: getting sober, how to find peace. sobriety, inner peace, keeping sober, kindness, living sober, peace, random acts of kindness, sober, Sober Living

Honesty, Openness, and Willingness – Keys for Sobriety

October 13, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Welds of Honesty

Honesty, Openness, and Willingness, the three things that are key for sobriety. Without these, sobriety is nearly impossible. With these, you have a chance for success.

It used to really irk me that people claimed I was not honest. After all, I did not steal from others, I report my taxes to the best of my ability and knowledge… I was an honest person. But what they were actually referring to was the way in which I presented myself to others. Was I showing to them who I really am, what I really think and feel? Or, was I taking on another’s opinions and beliefs, merely to “keep the peace?”

Hmmm. I was taking on my husband’s characteristics of impatience, self-righteousness, etc., because it kept the peace. I was not letting shine my abilities and beliefs of tolerance, respect, and love toward others. In the eyes of sobriety minded people, I was not being honest.

So, I took this new definition of honesty and began to assess my abilities in that area. Hmmm. I was not being myself, was not showing my true nature of kindness. It took me several years of healing work in sobriety before I was able to be honest with others about who I really and truly was and am. It was a beautiful awakening…

Openness of Heart

Being open, for me, refers to openness of mind as well as heart. One day, my heart just opened. It came after some time of being openminded. That open-mindedness came from a belief that everything that was being presented to me in the way of books to read, or opportunities, etc., was a gift from God. And I got that belief from reading the book Conversations With God, by Neale Donald Walsch.

Armed with the belief that gifts were being presented to me, I was able to be open to get help from others, to accept medication and EMDR, for example, for my panic disorder, major depression, and PTSD. When I was openminded toward these things, and they turned out successfully, bringing me more and more lightness, that feeling invaded my heart. I could not help but open it, too, to the blessings and gifts I was experiencing.

Wow. What a whole different way this was to look at tinges and to live. A world of difference from the bitter and angry person I had been for some 35 years, blaming my parents for my emotional difficulties. I liked it, and I continue to like it. It took an open mind and an open heart to be able to look at things differently, to be able to be responsible for my own emotions, to be able to take action on my behalf.

But there is nothing that could or would have happened had I not been willing to see things differently. That’s why I believe willingness is the key to sobriety, to a changed life. I believe willingness opens the gate to your heart. It did mine, and that was a miracle, given how angry a person I was.

Once I opened the door and allowed willingness to express my heart more authentically to play out, things began to flow more smoothly for me. I became willing, for example, to consider forgiveness for my parents. This, of course, came after a lot of healing and pre-forgiveness work, a lot of therapy. When I was in it, I could not see a way out, it was excruciating at times.

On the other side of it, I can see why events and learning situations happened as they did. I see why they, for example, were so painful, because I was clearing out years of pain and heartache. Years of shame and feelings of worthlessness. It was difficult to address my grief over the loss of trust I had in my parents, how badly that wounded me. With willingness, I became able to view things differently. It has made the entire difference in my life of sobriety.

How about you? How do you practice honesty, openness, and willingness in your life, in your sobriety? How does it manifest for you? Leave a comment and let me know.

Key of Willingness

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: honesty, honesty openness willingness, living sober, Openness, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Willingness

The Story Behind My Sobriety – Conclusion

October 12, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

It took me five or six years to get through the acute grief I felt over the unrequited love. During that time, there were days when I just screamed that sobriety was not better than drinking and I wanted to get drunk badly! I would holler at the top of my lungs that life was much better when I was drinking, but I was neglecting to factor in my emotional state during my drinking days.

With six additional years of sobriety, I discovered that life was definitely much better as a sober person. Very occasionally, I have an urge to drink. For example, I just visited Tampa for my nephew’s wedding and, while waiting in the airport for my flight, I walked by a bar and had the thought that I should go in and get a beer. No one would ever know. But I knew where it would end for me… I would continue drinking on the plane, get obnoxious, and then not be able to drive home from the parking lot where I had parked my car. I elected not to drink.

The thought to drink came from nowhere and it really surprised me, as I typically do not want a drink. I am quite clear that I love my life as a sober person. Even when I am out among people who are drinking, I don’t want to drink. In fact, the smell of alcohol turns my stomach, and the sight of people getting drunk leads me to think what fools they are making of themselves, how stupid they sound when drinking. And I become more grateful for my sobriety, more convinced that I want to maintain a sober life.

For those of you who are considering stopping your drinking, I wish for you a world of blessings. It is emotionally difficult to look at the things that led you to drink, and on the other side, when you have done your acknowledging and grieving, lies a place so magical, so calm and peaceful, it is hard to describe. But it is so well worth the journey into sobriety. You will love it, too!

If you want to cut down or stop completely, I invite you to seek help to do so. Go to a support group such as AA. Be prepared to do some soul-searching. Drinking is but a symptom of that which lies deep within, the pain that is intolerable which led you to drink in the first place, and you will need to confront the pain and painful experiences. I’m telling you though, life is so much better sober. Sobriety allows you to do the healing work you need to do. It leads you to peace. I wish you well on your journey.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Becoming Sober – The Story Behind My Sobriety

October 11, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

It was 1974, spring quarter of college at Kent State University where I was studying to be a nurse. I had just received a letter form the man I was supposed to marry, saying he’d been married to another woman. I was devastated! Nothing could console me… In their desperation to help, my roommates took me out to “drown my sorrows.” That was the beginning of an era of drinking.

Although I started drinking because of the letter from George, it did not take me long to figure out that alcohol deadened the emotional pain I had as a result of being an abused child. You see, I reached adulthood filled with terror, shame, worthlessness, hopelessness, and despair. When I drank, those feelings went away.

I spent 26 years drinking and drugging, trying to drown out the memories of childhood and all my other feelings of insecurity, low self-esteem, and fear. Along the way, I got married to another alcoholic. We had some great times partying. On the outside, the marriage looked great… we had a nice home in the foothills outside of Denver, had nice cars, a sailboat, and we had well-respected jobs. On the inside, it was verbally abusive… very demeaning, critical, demoralizing, and just plain nasty at times.

Toward the end of the marriage, a 20 year union, we moved from Denver to a sailboat in Sausalito, California. After three years of living aboard, things had reached an intolerable level for me. Both the drinking and the fights were escalating. My soul was dying. I had had it, and left the marriage.

I met another man whom I fell deeply in love with, and I thought he was my soulmate, the love of my life. I believed with every fiber of my being that he reciprocated my feelings. Then, in November of 2000, he told me in a humiliating way that he did not care for me. Again, I was devastated over the rejection by a man.

The next several months were spent drinking and crying. I couldn’t care for myself, could not feed myself. All I could do was drink and cry. Finally, I realized at a deep level that if I did not stop drinking, I would die. One thing led to another and I found myself planning a road trip to “find myself.” The first stop was San Diego, where my old bartender had moved and was getting sober herself. I went to stay with her for a couple of weeks to “get a handle on my drinking,” and I stayed one-and-a-half years, learning to live as a sober person and to begin the struggle out of deep grief.

It was March 6, 2001, when I rolled into San Diego and rented a room in a local Motel 6. There I proceeded to write a letter to the man who’d rejected me… and I got drunk for the last time. Despite many emotional roller coaster rides, I have been sober since then.

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion of what it has been like for me to remain sober.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

We All Look For Acknowledgment From Others

October 9, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I’m back after a whirlwind weekend. I had planned to blog yesterday, and I found I needed the day to debrief. Thank you for your understanding and your patience…

It was a lovely weekend, and still, I am left with incomplete, sad feelings about things which occurred… and in this case, didn’t occur. I found it difficult that I received no acknowledgment for what I am doing in my life. In conversations with people, we talked about them, and then, there was little interest in what is happening with me.

Hmmm, I have this thought and wonder if I am being self-centered by wanting acknowledgment. Then I think of the fact that we all wish to be acknowledged, and there is nothing wrong in that. It is a basic human desire, and perhaps even a need. My belief is that most of the time when we are upset or down or joyous, we just want to be heard about those things… we want acknowledgment.

As I consider that I am a little upset that I didn’t receive acknowledgment, I recognize that I need to be responsible for my own feelings instead of blaming them on the people who didn’t show me acknowledgment. So I accept responsibility for myself by doing a self-appraisal.

In that, I recognize that I might be seeking approval because I am feeling “less than” or/and that I am looking for approval. Ahhh. Perhaps the crux of the issue. I may have been seeking acknowledgment because I needed to build myself up,

Wow. Looked at in this light, my heart softens toward the others who did not show an interest in me and my activities. You see, I was beginning to resent them for their lack of caring about me, about what I’m doing. With a softened heart, the fact that I did not receive acknowledgment has less sting, less resentment attached to it.

This is how it works for me when I take responsibility for my feelings. I start by being pissed, hurt, slighted, and I end up with an open and softened heart. All by showing myself acknowledgment by examining my feelings, my motives. I am reminded that the weekend was not about me… and I can get out of myself.

Yes, it would have been nice to have conversations with acknowledgment about what I’m doing in my world, and there was not really the time or opportunity, as we were into what was happening right in front of us. We were involved in the task at hand… marrying Brian and Amy. I am reminded that I need work on my confidence level in regard to the path I have chosen to follow, to pursue.

As I look back upon the weekend, when I am honest, I must humbly admit that there were snippets of time in which people were showing me acknowledgment… I just wanted more. I needed more reassurance that I am okay the way I am. But that is an inside job,a nd I see I have more work to do in this area.

It is always a matter of learning to pay ourselves acknowledgment… of giving ourselves what we seek from others. In that act, we become complete, whole, and more at peace.

What do you need and want acknowledgment for in your life? Your accomplishments and successes, your plans and aspirations? Are you seeking acknowledgment, or are you taking responsibility for your own feelings? Leave a comment and let me know how you are being responsible for your own feelings rather than blaming them on others.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement Tagged With: acknowledge others, acknowledgment, acknowledgment from others, how to find peace, inner peace, peace

Combatting Feelings of Worthlessness, No Value

October 4, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. I wanted to pick up where we left off yesterday… after the point of worthlessness, at that place where you are feeling in your deepest recesses that you have done or said some good things – even just one. I hope you did the exercise from yesterday and come armed with the results, the feeling of personal goodness in at least one area.

Take that feeling into the next part of the process, which is seeing the wounds that have led to the feelings that you have no value, the wounds that reinforce your worthlessness. What you want to do here is to start writing about the earliest time you can remember when you were criticized or denigrated. Remember who said or did what… write it down and take a deep breath…

Allow yourself to feel those feelings, just noticing the emotional charge they have for you. Then, decide to look at things from a different viewpoint, with new eyes. Become willing to choose to believe that what was told to you was a lie, told by a wounded person themself. Feel that all the way to your toes… that what they said was wrong. Replace the language that was used against you then, and now replace it with a positive statement about yourself.

It bears repeating here that what was told to you was a lie, incorrect information, based on someone else’s woundedness. It may take some time to incorporate that into your heart, for when you take that belief into your heart, you have years of blaming that needs to fall away, years of negative self-talk to combat and reverse.

This is no easy task, but then, what you are currently dealing with is not easy either. And, no doubt you feel miserable about yourself… that’s why you’re reading this. If you stick with it and commit to sticking with it through all that comes up, you will reap the most awesome beliefs and feelings about yourself on the other side.

You will feel more alive than you have felt for some time. That aliveness is self-perpetuating and cumulative, and it only firms up your new belief that you are good at that one thing, just that one thing… It becomes easier to believe in your light, your goodness, as you go through this process.

What do you wish to be in your heart? Whom do you wish to be? Look at that dream, that desire, and envision yourself living it. What is your “wow?” What does that look like for you? How does it feel? Write your answers…

You are now headed on the course of discovering what makes you shine. It is a discovery of your “wow,” of your light in the world. Follow this process again and again to clear out old messages and beliefs. Be gentle with yourself, and don’t beat yourself up. Allow those gremlins to stay away. When you meet resistance, write about it, even if it is only to simply notice its presence. After you have had a chance to get to your deeper self, let me know what that was like for you by leaving a comment. I wish for you many blessings on your journey.

Oh, and one last thing. I forgot to mention numbing-out during this process. If you stay straight, you go through the process more quickly than if you numb out. You get to the other side more quickly when you’re sober. I invite you to practice sobriety during this process of healing.

And finally, I will be going to my nephew’s wedding in Tampa over the weekend, leaving at 3:30 am tomorrow, so I most likely will not blog tomorrow. I definitely won’t be blogging Saturday or Sunday either, cause I’m not taking my computer. Wow! A true vacation!! Enjoy the weekend and see you on Monday.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: getting sober, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, worthless, worthlessness

Combatting Worthlessness and Feelings You Have No Value

October 3, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I was taken aback by a search term… “I have no value.” My heart went out to the person who wrote this, in a state of worthlessness. Oh, it would be easy for me to say, yes, you do have value! But unless you believe that in your heart and soul about yourself, it is to no avail. I wish for you who believe you have no value, a turn-around in beliefs about yourself…

Two other search terms had to do with hopelessness. So, I want to write about feeling no value, and the worthlessness and hopelessness that those feelings generate.

I spent the majority of my life feeling I had no value, in a state of worthlessness. As a result, I felt a great deal of hopelessness A large part had to do with the fact that I was told by a parent every day that I was worthless… well, maybe every-other-day. The effect it had on me has been lasting, and I continue to struggle with it, even today… somedays.

My solution to stop the horror I felt over my worthlessness, having no value, was to drink… heavily… I started at age 22 and continued until age 48, at which time I got sober. Sobriety has been with me for close to twelve years and it has changed the way I see myself. Today, I see my value, my worth. It was a struggle to get to that point, so I understand you may be going through the same thing now. Take a deep breath…

When you are feeling worthless and of no value in the world, each day is an extreme effort… an effort to get up, to get dressed and to eat. Each activity becomes a dreaded chore. It is a challenge to live each day. There is no point in living, existing in this space of worthlessness and no value. If you are like I was, you are afraid to commit suicide and so you are praying to God to let you die. Deep breath….

What changed that around for me in about the fifth or sixth year of sobriety was finding my purpose in life. I had the opportunity to help someone out who was suffering emotionally. I did that by sharing my own story and how I had healed partially from my difficulties. The information I gave to the man was useful for him and he was grateful, so much so he almost started crying.

From that experience, I felt I had something to offer someone and I felt grand about being able to help him out… I felt a purpose by telling my story of physical, verbal, and emotional trauma early in life, and how I healed from the effects of it, how my sobriety helped that endeavor. You see, people are interested in you and your story when it involves something they can use in their life to make themselves feel better.

If you think about another… their difficulties, their struggles… and truly reach out to help, maybe by sharing what you have been through and how you came out the other side, you feel better about yourself and you begin to realize your value, for you and your story are of use to others and that gives you value. Just by being a human on the earth, you have value. Your lessons learned are of value to others. Take a deep breath…

To get out of myself, I had to first have a sense of who I was, what I felt about myself, so I identified my feelings of despair, anger, hurt and decided I wanted something different in my life or I WOULD die! So I looked at all the good things I had done with and in my life, and there were many that I’d kind of brushed aside, so I stopped and really considered them.

Like, I was a nurse and provided genuine, caring services to my patients for 22 years. No, I did not do direct patient care much of that time, and yes, I had an impact on the quality of people’s lives. I identified and felt my caring and compassionate nature and I gave myself credit for those things. I began to feel I may have some redeemable character traits.

The bottom line is, do some honest soul-searching, a deep look at yourself, and identify one thing about yourself that you do well. Revel in it and amaze yourself over that ability. Just be with it for a day or so… Take a deep breath…

Then go on to the next thing that amazes you about yourself. If you have to use what another has said about you to find something positive, then do that. The point is to see yourself in a positive light and to really look closely and gently at that. With great compassion for the little child that feels so badly about herself, himself. Smile for that child… give them some hope…

Continue the above exercise until you are seeing evidence of your value, your worth in the world. Let that settle into your heart. Just sit with that for days and days… Then move onto the next part, which I will talk about tomorrow….

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: despair, hopeless, hopelessness, living sober, no value, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, worthless, worthlessness

How to Conquer Fear by Getting Sober

October 2, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

There were three searches about fear yesterday… conquering it, conclusions about it, and overcoming it. I’m going to take fear one more step and apply it to becoming sober. It has been my experience that I was only able to conquer fear when sober, so that’s what I’ll speak to.

It wasn’t until many years sober that I realized how much fear had ruled my life as a child and then during my drinking days. Basically, everything I did was dictated by fear of some sort… fear of not being good enough, that you wouldn’t like me, that I would make you mad or bother you… and the list goes on.

Let’s turn our attention now to the days I have been sober, my days in sobriety. It has taken me many years as a sober person to drop my fears that I am not good enough, although I sometimes return there, even today. What I have found in sobriety is that I experience the fear, but then I use faith to gain the courage to move forward, despite the fear. I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I do that.

I’m talking about little things that don’t scare many people… like calling or introducing myself to people to let them know who I am, what I do, and to inform them of my services. I get all fearful, and yet, I need to just do it, like Nike says. So I do, and everything turns out well, just as it was intended to be.

The fear which keeps you from getting sober warrants discussion. What about getting sober scares you? Define that for yourself, in all the possible ways. For me, it was not knowing how I would exist without alcohol in my life… how would I spend my time? It was fear of the unknown. Loss of a lifestyle, even though my current life was detrimental to my spirit and well-being, it was still familiar and, in a sick way, comforting.

At a deeper level, I resisted getting sober because a piece of my heart knew I had to drag out all the heartaches of my life and look at them. I didn’t want to do that and I avoided it. Heck! I drank to escape those feelings!! It took me many years of sobriety to realize that in the end, “those feelings” I was escaping were joy and peace.

So, how can you move forward past your fears? Consider the action or result that your fear is preventing. Define a task that will accomplish your desired action/result. Break the task down into smaller parts or sub-tasks, and do one piece at a time, one phone call at a time, one day at a time. The key here is perseverance. When you accomplish a sub-task, praise yourself with positive self-talk.

Getting and staying sober has allowed me to persevere in countless situations, numerous times. It has allowed me to move forward with courage rather than being stuck in my fear. Heck, I just sent a letter, two actually, to Michelle Obama, inviting her to open a dialogue about her activities with the Vietnam vets. Talk about getting past fears! I needed information and our differences in roles in the world made no matter, as I was reaching out person-to-person, one human to the next.

The thing about getting sober is that, if you stick with it and persevere, you will reap so many emotional benefits in addition to conquering your fears. To conquer your fears, first list them out. Then write out what you think will happen in each given situation. Then write about what you want to be different and how that looks for you. See if the fears have lessened…

The thing about conquering fear is that, if you look it in the eye, acknowledge it, and then befriend it, just notice it, it lessens. How can you move forward in your life, despite fear? What is the one major thing you have been putting off, procrastinating, due to fear? I invite you to leave a comment.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: courage, courage form fear, fear, freedom from fear, getting sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Why Is It Important to Show Compassion to One Another?

October 1, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

why is it important to show compassion to one another? This was the search term that got my attention this morning. The reason I wanted to write about it is that I feel so strongly that we need to show more compassion to others in our lives. It benefits us and it benefits them.

Showing compassion is having a softness in your heart for the plight of another, a softness for their woundedness. When we see each other as wounded people, we can begin to understand other’s actions and behaviors. That does not mean we condone what they have done necessarily, it just means we can understand someone a little bit more. As with anything that is wounded, we offer compassion.

This has two benefits. First, it frees us up of our angers and resentments, and allows us to travel in our heart to forgiveness. This is an emotionally freeing experience, at least it was for me after 35 years of huge rage and bitterness. Not only is forgiveness emotionally liberating; it has health benefits, as well. People who have forgiven have less chance of developing cancer and their risk for heart disease is lessened.

While forgiveness through compassion benefits you, compassion shown to another allows them to feel noticed and acknowledged for their pain. Often, all we each want is acknowledgment for our strife, the difficulty we are experiencing. We just want to know we are heard, that we are not alone. So to extend words such as, “I’m sorry you are experiencing difficulties,” reassures another that they matter, that they have been heard.

Compassion is important to show to others because it evokes peace among us as people in the world. I think it’s that simple. What are your thoughts? I invite you to leave a comment.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living Tagged With: compassion, compassionate, forgiveness, how to finned peace, how to forgive, how to show compassion to others, inner peace, peace

More Positive Effects From Sobriety

September 30, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 1 Comment

To echo yesterday’s topic, is sobriety worth it, let me tell you another story.

I spent a large number of years in great anger and bitterness over my upbringing. I was filled with self-pity over the shame and degradation that was done to my soul, my spirit. I lived as a victim, always justified in my victimhood.

And I was a victim. But what I learned in sobriety was to heal from the shame, the feelings of worthlessness, the anger and rage. In sobriety, I became willing to seek professional help for my mental difficulties, which led to the realization that I’d had PTSD all those years. That was one reason for the explosive anger. With EMDR treatment, it has lessened a great deal.

The other reason for my anger was just generalized rage against the folks. After several years of healing work, I stumbled across forgiveness. It came to me over time, little bit by little bit. The end result has been full forgiveness of my past, and even being able to see the purpose for my past. I discovered how to put it to good use.

I discovered that my life’s purpose is to help others learn to forgive, so that they, too, can experience the wonderful freedom that exists on the other side of forgiveness. Without the abuse in childhood, I would never have had to struggle with my anger and rage, and I would never have stumbled across forgiveness, which is something I can help others to find.

All of this is possible because of sobriety. I didn’t have a fighting chance to heal while I was still drinking because I was stuck in the victim role. I couldn’t see past my anger, my pity. Only in sobriety have I been able to do that.

You, too, can find healing and freedom from anger and rage, heartache and pity. It starts with your sobriety. Are you willing to take that journey? Let me know in the comments section…

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: forgive, forgiveness, getting sober, how to find forgiveness, living sober, Sober Living, sobriety, the art of forgiveness, the path of forgiveness

Inspiration For Hopeless Despair Over PTSD

September 27, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

It has been a heavy past couple-of-days posting… difficult topic, and you may need some inspiration for hopeless despair about your PTSD that you may be feeling after the discussion. I can do that. I can provide inspiration about PTSD from my own experience with it.

As I have said, I was diagnosed with PTSD at the age of 54 or 55, so lived from the age of childhood with it. It went undiagnosed all those years, with me confused about my anger at everything, my rage. It was like a switch that went on when I was triggered by others’ words or behaviors toward me.

At the time that I was diagnosed, I happened to meet an EMDR therapist. (Eye Movement Desensitization and Retraining) We had a discussion, a deep one about my abusive childhood, about the difficulties I was experiencing with rage, hyper-vigilance, flashbacks, etc. She relayed to me I had PTSD, which a physician then confirmed, and that EMDR was a treatment being widely used with documented success.

It was roughly $100 per session of about an hour, and having no medical coverage, that was a lot of money for me. Still, when I heard it was being used with Vietnam vets with success, I scraped up the money. I think I had 3 sessions.

They were tremendously helpful and through the success of the treatments, I was able to see my parents with compassion and to grow to forgive them. What it did with my PTSD is this: it tamed the symptoms. I had less flashbacks and when they did occur, they did not cause extreme memories. The memory was softened, not intense. Instead, I saw two people with compassion and sadness.

My hyper-vigilance has also decreased and, in fact, I must say it has almost disappeared. I still, however, do not like to sit with my back to anyone at a meeting or what-have-you. But I do it when I go to seminars and sit in the front row so I can hear and pay better attention. I don’t feel nervous or panicked like I used to with my PTSD in full force.

The point I am trying to make is there is hope for you if you are experiencing hopeless despair about your own PTSD.

Another up-and-coming treatment for PTSD is called Emotional Freedom Tapping, or EFT. EFT uses accupressure and tapping along the body’s meridians, lessening the charge of the memories that trigger your PTSD. I am not clear on why it works, but apparently they are having good results with it.

I had to accept anti-depressants to treat my major depression which accompanied the PTSD. It took me a long time to be willing to do this because I thought that to take them would be a sign of weakness, and I was a JONES, damn it! And that meant I, we, could rise to any occasion without help of any sort. I felt it was “cheating” to take meds, that I was masking my emotions.

How wrong I was. What has happened is, the antidepressants correct my screwed up brain chemistry so I have a fighting chance to live a peaceful and calm life, unruled by my depression. It puts me on the same level as others in my ability to cope with life. I do not feel any mind alteration. I am able to function without the hopeless despair I felt all the time before that, even in, especially in, sobriety.

Speaking of sobriety, none of this recovery and decrease of my PTSD would have been possible if I had not been sober. Consider, if you are a drinker and drugger, that those substances affect PTSD a great deal, and worsen the effects of it. If you are drinking to numb the pain, the hurt, the symptoms of PTSD, then think again about your actions. What exists on the other side of some rocky times is so well-worth getting sober. On the other side is peace like you’ve never experienced. I kid you not.

Today, look at your options for treatment and management of your PTSD and then take action to follow up on receiving it. Take responsibility and reach out. I believe the VA Hospitals have programs for people with PTSD. The relief you will feel is immense, at least it was, has been, for me. There are groups out there to help you with any substance abuse. I recommend using one of them. I wish you well in your healing.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: EFT, EMDR, getting sober, hopeless despair, inspiration hopeless despair, living sober, PTSD, Sober Living, sobriety

PTSD and the Vietnam Vet – Part 2 of 2

September 26, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

To continue from yesterday… we are talking about PTSD as it relates to the Vietnam vet. It probably relates to you if you are a veteran from another war, also. This information is based on an article I found on the web about PTSD, written by a Vietnam veteran. This is a terribly long post, and I am hopeful it will be useful to any of you veterans reading it.

First, though, I need to say what I was reminded by a Vietnam vet that I forgot to say to you yesterday, and that is the words, Welcome home. I am glad you made it and am hopeful you have and are resolving your difficulties associated with the war. Yes, I know these words are long overdue, and it is my first opportunity to say them to you publicly. I hope you will accept them.

The author of the article I found goes on to describe in detail the symptoms. Anger is the most prevalent. It is free-floating, with no real target. Everyone and everything become the cause of the anger. People with PTSD go right to rage, especially soldiers who are taught to react and not think about things. On the other hand, “normal” people experience a slow progression to rage… from anger, to angrier and angrier, to rage. Not so with the veteran.

People around you who are displaying rage walk on eggshells, never knowing when you will “go off” on them. The author relays that a way to deal with this is to have conversations with all who are involved, talking about your anger and the effect it is having on others and yourself. He further claims that the way to deal with anger issues is to learn how to manage it, without trying to figure out the cause. Anger management classes are useful for this.

The author made a distinction between flashbacks and hallucinations, stating that flashbacks are reliving the events in your mind, while hallucinations are seeing things that are not there. These are common with those of you dealing with PTSD.

Fear is a common symptom, and it is often paranoia. Every action by those of you experiencing PTSD has fear attached to it. Dread is also common, especially dread about death. The author stated that there are so many Vietnam vets in prisons because the dread of death within 6 months was so strong, that they engaged in reckless behavior for the adrenaline rush, that it led to crime.

Hyper-vigilance is a big one. You Vietnam vets feel unsafe in public, the author states, because the American people became the enemy upon your return home. He makes the point that when you spent so much time securing an area and watching for “Charlie,” that you never stop watching for Charlie. You, as well as I, have a tendency to sit with your back to a wall, near exits.

When your anxiety level is increased, all PTSD symptoms increase. If you keep an eye on your anxiety levels, you will know when to call a friend, a therapist, or get to a hospital for help.

What is learned in combat is never lost, the author states, and, therefore, you vets have difficulty trusting people. You fear intimacy and yet need intimacy, as all of us do, and your inability to trust leads to superficial relationships, one night stands, multiple partners, and extramarital affairs.

Drug and alcohol abuse is very prevalent among you with PTSD, and unfortunately, PTSD symptoms are enhanced when using. You from Vietnam were the first who actually returned home already addicted, and that was a new thing for the VA to deal with. Alcohol, drugs, and the need for adrenaline rushes are a deadly combo and jails, prisons, and graveyards are filled with Vietnam vets so afflicted.

Sleep disorders are a common problem, as are night terrors, nightmares, and night sweats. The author relayed that most of you return to combat in your sleep… He didn’t really discuss a relief for those things other than learning how to manage PTSD in general.

Guilt is a biggie, as part of war is doing things you are not proud of. You are rewarded for your kills during war, and to come home and function as if nothing happened is a huge disconnect. He suggested talking about this to others. Survivor’s guilt is also a problem, as you feel that when something bad happens to you, like a failed marriage, loss of a job, or an accident, you deserve it.

“Why am I the one who lived?” is a common belief. To alleviate this, I suggest you consider that you were intended to live to be of service to others in some way or another. Perhaps, as you heal from your wounds, you are intended to share how you did that, so that others can benefit and heal themselves.

Memory loss that occurs to you, and to me big time, is related to damage and a loss of function in the hippocampus… the part of the brain that controls memory and learning. When I discovered this, I felt a huge relief about my memory loss.

Intrusive thoughts invade your life, the author says, and the way to deal with this is to stay busy with other tasks and projects. Helping others is especially useful to “get you out of yourself.”

It is not at all surprising that, given all the above things you are dealing with, that you experience depression. This can be controlled with nutrition, drug therapy, talk therapy, and being in a safe, loving environment.

To summarize, the triggers for your PTSD symptoms can be learned, as can the things to do that help you with those symptoms. The biggest thing the author stressed is to get it out… talk about it and feel the feelings. This is the first step to healing. Nutrition plays a big role, also. The bottom line is, controlling your symptoms with drinking and drugging is slow suicide and is avoidable.

Above all, the tone of this article was one of taking action and getting help. I hope you do that, and I wish you well on your continued journey.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: Nam Vets, post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

PTSD and the Vietnam Vet – Part 1 of 2

September 25, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Wow and OMG. I have just spent the last couple of hours on a veterans’ website and discovered a wealth of information in an article by a Vietnam vet on PTSD. Even as a PTSD-diagnosed person myself, it opened my eyes to the plight of the veteran, and specifically to that of the Vietnam vet. It renewed my desire to reach out to you Nam vets. It seems to be my calling…

You guys who fought gave not just of your life to serve; you have been forced to give of your whole remaining lives dealing and coping with the aftermath of the war. I am in awe and deep appreciation. To say thank you for your service seems so trite. Perhaps instead, I could be saying, thank you for dedicating your entire life to this country.

I have nine pages of notes from the article written by an author whose name does not appear on the article. I couldn’t find it anyway. How do I narrow it down to a blog post and leave the meat of the article intact? I can’t, which is why I have provided the link to the article. Nonetheless, I will summarize what I read.

PTSD is a physical illness, with chemical changes to the brain. It is not the sign of a weak person. It stands for post traumatic stress disorder and can be acquired from battle, or chronic abuse. Mine was diagnosed at the age of 54 or 55, having dealt with its symptoms since the age of 20, so that’s 34-35 years. It was a result of my repeated physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. But I’m here to talk about PTSD and the Vietnam vet.

The point is, you can go for years before it jumps up and slaps you in the face. Some of the signs of PTSD include difficulty getting along with others, abusive behavior toward authority figures, poor sleep patterns and inability to rest, and excessive hyper-reactivity… or an increased startle reaction, anger, flashbacks, severe fear and dread, hyper-vigilance, anxiety, and problems with intimate relationships.

People living with PTSD initially feel like they’re living in a fog, have decreased concentration, and things don’t make sense. If caught when it’s acute, treatment and cure are possible. If it’s chronic, not recognized until years after a traumatic event(s), then it is not curable, only treatable. In the latter case, PTSD sufferers will need to learn how to manage their symptoms and through that, recognize when to reach out for help from a friend, therapist, or hospital.

People with PTSD often self-medicate with alcohol, drugs, and engage in activities that produce adrenaline rushes… doing dangerous and illegal things. Many Vietnam vets with PTSD, the author claims, are in jails and prisons because of this combination. Vietnam produced vets that came home addicted already, so if you were one of them, you either sought help or you’re still drinking and drugging. I know I medicated with drugs to combat the high degree of flashbacks I had, as well as my anxiety, fear, and depression. The problem with that was that all of those things were intensified during my drinking and drugging days. I simply refused to admit it at the time.

This post is getting too long and I have more to say, so I will stop here for the day. I invite you to join me tomorrow for the conclusion of the blog.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: Nam Vets, PTSD, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

Why It’s Important to Show Compassion

September 24, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Two people searched for issues related to compassion, so I thought I’d address it today. It has been my experience to find relief from angst once I started showing compassion for myself and others.

Compassion is the pre-cursor to forgiveness… Once you can experience and offer compassion, you can move on rather effortlessly to forgiveness. Webster defines compassion as the sorrow felt for the sufferings and troubles of another, usually accompanied with the desire to help. It is beneficial when shown for yourself, as well as for others.

When I experience compassion, my heart softens toward another. I am able to consider their plight, the difficulties they have had to experience in life. When I come at it with that attitude, I feel sorrow for them, knowing that they, too, suffered. I say “too” because I am usually steeped in my own sorrows.

Yet, when I can get out of myself and consider another’s difficulties, it is with a softened heart and mind that I do so. As I said, compassion leads to forgiveness. I feel especially compassionate when someone has dealt with the same things I have dealt with that caused emotional pain. For example, when I realized that my father had been told as a child that he was worthless, it helped to understand why he was telling me I was worthless, which led to me feeling worthless about myself. My heart was able to soften when I realized he was reenacting his own wounds, that his words were said in pain.

What about compassion for yourself? How does it apply to you? Well, if you look at the situations which have caused you emotional strife, then you can feel sympathy for yourself. Be careful, however, not to slip into self-pity. There is a fine line between self-pity and sympathy for yourself.

Sympathy, compassion, is expansive, while self-pity is contracting. Feeling sorry for yourself gets you nowhere except into the victim mentality. You do not have to be a victim in life; you can be sympathetic toward your woes, which leads to compassionate beliefs toward yourself.

Some wonder if it is not being selfish to feel compassion for themselves and I say it is not. It is self-ful, a way to fill yourself up with positivity, a way to celebrate yourself and your needs. Anything which helps you grow and heal is not selfish, it is preferable behavior to feeling sorry for yourself and being bitter.

Today, look with a softened heart at all your difficulties, to the difficulties of the people around you who are suffering from their own wounds. Feel their woes, or yours, with your heart. Offer others and yourself compassion. It is a way to “be” in the world that will soften your feelings and outlook.

Since compassion is the pre-cursor to forgiveness, I invite you to learn how to further sympathy, turning it into forgiveness. I invite you to sign up for my free forgiveness article, there to the right of the blog. I believe it will be of use to you.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: compassion, compassionate, sympathy

How to Live In Serenity

September 23, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Balance of Serenity

Good morning. How to live in serenity was one of the search terms from yesterday and I thought it would be a great topic to blog about, given that that we just finished posts about getting sober.

The picture to the right suggests that when we are in serenity, life is balanced. Webster defines serenity as the state of being serene and serene is defined as not disturbed or troubled, the state of being calm, peaceful, tranquil.

Living a life of sobriety can lead you to serenity. In fact, being sober leads directly to the ability to have serenity. Once you work through all the muck that you drank over, or that you fret about if you don’t drink a lot, then what is left is an abiding calmness, tranquility… serenity.

I think the forgiveness of my parents led in large part to my ability to experience serenity. I was no longer angry at them and I became able to look at the past with calmness, with softer eyes and heart.

You, too, can find serenity, if that is what you seek. The steps to get there include letting go of the need to be right all the time, or to get your own way. It involves learning how to forgive, and my article on forgiveness may be helpful to you. To receive the article, sign up to the right of this post and you’ll receive step-by-step instructions to gain forgiveness.

I stress forgiveness because we all hold grudges and angers/hurts against others at one time or another. In my own life, when I forgave, life became much sweeter, much more easy. It’s like I just glided along from one moment to the next.

Living by the principle of live and let live is another thing you can adopt in your life that will assist you to find serenity. Live your own life as you wish, as long as you are not harming yourself or others, and let others be free to live their life as they wish, as long as they are not being harmful to themselves or others.

Practicing acceptance is another thing you can do to gain serenity. Learn to live with the realization that things are as they are, and unless they need changing, accept them as they are. Accept the fact that your life is not serene, and with that realization, you open the door to allowing serenity in.

Often, simply acknowledging a feeling will get the energy flowing and will allow you to get unstuck from that feeling. It’s like, once the light is shined on a feeling and exposes it, the Universe has the opportunity to step in and dispel the feeling.

Practice a few of these techniques and you, too, will soon be experiencing serenity in your life. It is truly a pleasant place to be.

Today, allow yourself to live and let live. Learn how to forgive others and yourself. That’s a biggie… Practice accepting life exactly as it is and see how much you gain serenity.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: getting sober, how to find peace, how to get sober, how to live in serenity, inner peace, peace, serene, serenity, sober, sobriety

What It Was Like Getting Sober – Part 3

September 22, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

My van

To continue… I must say, I hope you stick with this post. It’s long and I really hated to do a part 4.

The first year and a half of getting sober was difficult, as my feelings were extremely raw and I had nothing with which to numb them. I did a LOT of writing. I took several brisk walks a day.

After several months of doing these things as well as going to 4-5 meetings a day, God brought me the old van I ws telling you about earlier, and I dove in, gutting it, redoing the plumbing and electrical systems in addition to all the woodworking. I designed the interior bulkhead walls and the bookshelves. This project was a life-saver. It eased the difficulty of getting sober and feeling all my emotions.

I left San Diego in the spring of 2002, and headed back to the Bay Area, where I got a job. Soon after, I fell and injured my right, dominant wrist, so much so that I could not write with that hand and started journaling with my non-dominant, left hand. All sorts of deep feelings welled up, out of nowhere.

In fact, some of what I wrote now appears in the book I wrote and photographed, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. In 2004, I discovered that the writings matched perfectly with some gate photos I had taken earlier in the year, describing their physical characteristics perfectly. I did not plan this; it just happened, which is why I believe my book was divinely created, guided.

Anyway, after returning to Marin and injuring myself in 2002, I could not deal with the weather that winter; the rain was blowing sideways and the van was leaking, getting my journals and books wet. I lost it and became suicidal. After reaching out to the crisis line and getting stabilized, I returned to San Diego and proceeded to receive treatment for my wrist injury.

Surgery was necessary, and I spent the next 3 years trying to find a place to live where I could be and not use my hand for a month following the surgery. It was going to be pretty extensive… First I went to Colorado and then to a friend’s home in Washington state, but these places did not work out and I found myself back in Marin in 2005, having surgery.

My emotional recovery continued, as I delved deeper into my psyche. I got assistance from a therapist. But I still was experiencing great, deep despair over my childhood. I felt the pain I had endured was for no purpose in my life, other than to make me miserable. That despair continued until one day, I discovered my purpose in life.

What I discovered was that my story, my abusive history, was of help to another when I talked about it and relayed how I had begun to heal from it. Suddenly, I saw the reason for the abuse. It was to help others by talking about my experience of healing so that they, too, could begin to recover from their abuse, their pain that they had endured. Suddenly I had purpose, my life had purpose.

After realizing my life’s purpose, my whole attitude and belief in myself changed, and I have not felt despair since that discovery, that day. In fact, my recovery has progressed to the point that I am stable and flourishing. Initially after surgery and for 2 years, I pulled together my book. Then I spent the next 2 years publishing and marketing it. It didn’t really take off, despite the fact that everyone who reads it, raves about it.

In 2008, I bought my humble little home in Marin, so now I am a long-term resident in a place that I love. An opportunity and calling came about, working with the Vietnam vets to help them through the suffering they still experience. What I have to offer today that I didn’t have 38 years ago is a way through grief, as well as how to get past anger and bitterness that is long-standing.

You see, I was finally able to forgive my parents for my upbringing. I carried that deep resentment around for 33 years, and am well-versed in how to forgive a long-time hurt. This is one of the major things I talk about when I work with the vets.

I conduct workshops now, as well as coach others. The topics are as I’ve discussed… grief recovery and forgiveness. I love my life and most of all, I love it when, after talking with someone, I see their eyes light up with hope after being sad and listless, void of all hope. That wonderful peace that I have found is something which I love to pass on… how to get there, how to look at the world and oneself with new eyes, 180 degrees from what one saw before.

You, too, can have a healing journey through all of your grief, your anger and bitterness, through all of your despair and hopelessness. It all starts by getting sober, giving up the drink for a kinder and softer way. Come join me. It is a wonderful life. Learn how to start on that path by coming to my workshop Finding Freedom In Forgiveness on National Forgiveness Day, October 27th. For more information and to register, go to http://findforgiveness.eventbrite.com.

If you are hurting enough, and you want something different in your life, then you are ready, perhaps, to embark upon a new journey. Reach out. Get help. You were not intended to do life alone in a vacuum, by yourself. It is a sign of strength and courage to reach out for a hand. There is love out there, brought to you by God’s countless angels. I wish for you to discover it.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: Carolyn CJ Jones, getting sober, how to find peace, how to get sober, inner peace, living sober, Nam Vets, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

What It Was Like Getting Sober – Part 2

September 21, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

To continue… So, Brad and I were friends and palled around for about a month. During that time, the thought to go on a road trip to “find myself” came to me, so I began preparing my little Audi Quattro (a 1985 runnin’ strong with 350,000 on it) for the trip. My first stop was San Diego where my old Sausalito bar tender was now living, getting sober herself. I packed up the car, made drawers and shelves in the back seat for clothes, pots and pans, and finally left Marin County, planning never to return. I had had it with Marin!

The ironic thing is that I am back, have been since 2005, and now own property in Marin. lol Just goes to show you that you never know where life is going to take you! My trip to San Diego was leisurely, as I stopped at several camp grounds along the way. I would drink my six-pack and go roller blading around the camp grounds, a hobby I had taken up at Brad’s encouragement. (He was a roller blader).

I spent my evenings reading Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. And drinking, of course. From the book, I formed the belief that there could be a God and that He was constantly sending help and messages my way through other people, songs, ads, etc. I became very open to suggestions by others, seeing that it might be God at work for me.

When I got to San Diego on March 5th, 2001, and spent the night in a Motel 6 in Chula Vista, south of San Diego, I had my last six-pack as I wrote a letter to the man who did not reciprocate my feelings of love. It was a letter explaining the events that occurred that had made me believe he cared, in an attempt to get clarification from him. I became a sloppy and teary-eyed drunk that night, and awoke with a bad hangover, as usual.

I headed to my friend’s on March 6, 2001, and we proceeded getting sober for the next seven days, at which point she claimed she was going to a support group and did I want to join her? As I was taking everything that came along as a sign from God, I said yes. I will never forget that first group meeting I went to. Everyone was going around the circle, claiming to be an alcoholic and giving their name. What would I say when it came my turn!!?? I was terrified to speak.

Miraculously, when my turn came, the words “Hi, I’m Carolyn and I’m an alcoholic,” rolled out of my mouth with no effort or hesitation at all. I cannot tell you what relief that I felt, what weight was lifted form my shoulders. No more hiding. There. Everyone knew, or would know. That meeting was the start of my recovery to a much better place. First though, I had to go through a lot of healing.

It started with looking at my resentments and examining them. After my parents and my ex-husband, came the “white man” for his treatment of and crimes against the Native Americans, and then came the American public for how they treated the Nam vets when they returned home. I was tremendously upset and angry about those things. They were some of the things I drank over.

Speaking of the Vietnam vets, what was my interest in them? Well, I vowed 38 years ago that I would give back to them even a little of what they lost when they returned home. Back then, I had nothing to offer. At this point in my sobriety, I still had nothing, but that changed, and I’ll explain how, tomorrow. Hope to see you then

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: get sober, getting sober, how to get sober, living sober, Nam Vets, Sober Living, sobriety, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

What It Was Like Getting Sober – Part 1

September 20, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and welcome back. I am hoping that the last two days of blogging about getting sober have been helpful and useful to you. It’s quite a low point when one realizes it’s time to stop drinking or actually die. At least it was for me. The thing that’s needed is, being convinced that it’s worth living.

Ah, yes. I remember being in this space for several months, drinking more and more, seeking relief from my grief, my confusion over the unrequited love. Finally realizing I would die if I continued, it was with desperation that I prayed to a God I didn’t even believe in, asking for help. God answered. He sent Brad. Today I know that Brad’s coming into my life was a God-thing; back then I didn’t have a clue. Brad was my angel sent from God.

It got to the point when I was drinking that I’d start my afternoon at about 3 pm, at the local bar. I was there for margueritas… two of them. Then I walked to the grocery store across the street for a six-pack of beer, and then back to the boat I was living aboard at the time. It was an anchor-out, meaning it wasn’t attached to the docks, meaning I had to row back and forth to get to and from it.

I had to transport fresh water to the boat, had to monitor the electrical system and charge the batteries every 2 days, and other such tasks for survival, like watching the anchor in a storm to be sure it didn’t drag, allowing the boat to drift. Thankfully, I never had to reset the anchor in a storm; it always held fast..

I lived aboard from November 2000 to February 2001, through the winter months in Sausalito, California. Winters are pretty rainy and really nasty windy in Sausalito that time of year. I clocked some storms with 80 knot winds. Nighttime most often found me out of beer by about 7 or 8 pm, so I’d row in and go to the liquor store for one more six-pack. Miller Lite. Someone once told me that that was not beer! Well, it did the trick for me quite nicely… Anyway, my rowing in and out during the storms was suicidal.

Back to Brad. He was this young guy, in his early 30′s (I was 48 at the time), who rode his bike past the bar where I sat on the deck every afternoon. We’d wave to each other. One day, soon after I begged to God, Brad stopped and asked how I was. It was when I responded “Just fine,” and he replied gently “No you’re not,” that I began to cry.

We became friends and his friendship helped me start the long journey back from deep, debilitating despair. He helped me gain back a sense of reality, of what was real about my thoughts, my feelings. And I continued to drink, just not with such desperation. I contemplated getting sober many times and was terrified to let go of what was familiar in my life.

Miserable as I was with my drinking and the results of it (severe hangovers every morning), I knew what to expect in life. I didn’t think I could feel my feelings any more than I was already doing when I was drunk, and I was terrified of having to deal with more pain in my heart if I quit drinking. I didn’t know if I could stand it.

What I didn’t know at the time was that, once I asked for help from God, that included helping me through those feelings, giving me relief when they became unbearable, when I wanted to drink again. He brought me a major project to do, to occupy myself in a healthy manner… renovation of a 1982 Dodge full-sized van that I gutted and rebuilt in cherrywood. That became my pride and joy, my masterpiece, my business card when I tried to get varnishing jobs. That all happened in early sobriety… and I have jumped a bit ahead of myself.

This post is getting long and there’s still more to come. So, I shall continue tomorrow. Come back and find out how this relates to the soft spot I have in my heart for the Vietnam Veterans.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: finding sobriety, getting sober, how to get sober, living sober, Nam Vets, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

Sobriety Brings an Open Heart – Part 2

September 19, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I described a bit about what it was like for me prior to sobriety. Today, I’ll continue with my story.

To get sober, I traveled from Sausalito, California, to San Diego, where I lived with my old Sausalito bar tender who was also getting into sobriety. For a year and a half, we lived together and had a healing home. What I mean by that is that we talked a great deal… about our childhoods and the left-over “stuff” from the experience. We both did a great deal of emotional work on ourselves. At times, it was quite difficult…

My “stuff” included a very poor sense of self-worth. I had no esteem what-so-ever. Well, I did, and it was negative. I was in a great deal of shame about who I was as a person, about my body. These were all a result of being shunned until the age of 17 because I was not an intellectual person like my father and two sisters. I was a creative and excelled at writing, crafts, and music. Music was the only thing my father deemed worthy of support. The rest of my abilities were harshly criticized.

When I was 17, I was a lead in our high school musical, and blew the socks off of everyone, including my father. Finally, there was something I did which he praised and encouraged. Finally!! All those years of criticism about who I was took their toll, however, and I was a pretty damaged person. From the young age of 22, I began drinking… like an alcoholic, and I found it numbed my dealings of worthless, hopelessness, and despair.

Back to San Diego… During early days in sobriety, I continued to be in acute grief over the unrequited love, and I tried desperately to figure out how I had mis-interpreted the guy’s signals. Never did figure that one out. To soothe myself so I could sleep, I listened over and over again to a CD of Jens Kruger, a classical banjo player. The beautiful music lulled me to sleep.

During the day, I wrote for hours, and read spiritual stuff voraciously. Melody Beattie, Iyanla VanZant, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Eckhart Tolle… I couldn’t read fast enough. My heart started opening up and it was acutely painful. To deal with my feelings, I also walked briskly 2-3 times a day and went to 4-5 meetings a day.

It took about five years of sobriety before I felt relief from my grief over the unrequited love, and to begin to feel ok about myself. But before that happened, I was diagnosed with PTSD form all the verbal and physical abuse I’d endured as a child. I had been dealing with PTSD for most of my life until the age of about 53.

Getting diagnosed with PTSD was a major eye-opener. It explained my hyper-vigilance, my startle response, my extreme anger. I sought EMDR treatment and that resolved the PTSD. I still had difficulties, however, with my feelings of despair. I felt the child abuse I had endured was for no purpose, that I had no purpose in life.

These feelings dragged me down and staying sober was difficult during these years. I wanted to numb out so badly! Finally, one day I stumbled across my life’s purpose, which is to tell my story about how I healed, so others might be helped. Since then, my heart has really opened up and I have begun to flourish.

Life has continued to get better from that point forward and my heart has continued to open, to expand. Today, it holds great gratitude for just about everything about my life. I was able to discover how to forgive my parents for how I was treated as a child. I was able to overcome that deep and debilitating grief over the unrequited love.

I have even been able to find self-love, self-worth, and self-esteem. I am so open to others… to helping them out, being of service. I am a happy person today, calm and at peace. Sobriety has brought me healing and with it, an open heart.

Are you dissatisfied with your life, with who you are, bitter about the past? And are you drinking heavily over it? Have you considered stopping drinking? If not, then have you heard of the glorious riches that occur when you embark upon sobriety? I highly recommend a life lived with an open heart, and if you’re a heavy drinker, I invite you to explore the reasons behind this, and to take action to resolve those feelings. I invite you to open your heart through sobriety. Above all, I wish for you happiness and peace.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: EMDR, how to find peace, how to get sober, inner peace, living sober, peace, PTSD, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Sobriety Brings an Open Heart – Part 1

September 18, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, all! I wish for you a happy and productive day.

Yesterday’s search that found this blog was “sobriety open heart,” and this is a topic about which I’d like to write. You see, I have a distinct difference in the state of my heart before sobriety and then after I became sober and was sober for a few years.

It was a slow dawning in sobriety, a slow awakening, before my heart really opened up. For the several months prior to becoming sober, I was in a state of deep and debilitating grief and despair. It was a situation of an unrequited love and I had thought to my core that the man reciprocated my feelings so to be told he didn’t care for me came as a severe blow to my psyche, to my heart. I responded by losing touch with reality and drinking/crying for several months. I couldn’t even feed myself. I belonged in a psych ward, truly.

Prior to that experience, I was married (had been for 20 years) and lived aboard a 45 foot sailboat. We were fixing it up and planning to go cruising one day. The only problem was the relationship and, specifically, my emotional state. I was acutely unhappy in the marriage and had been for some time. It was verbally abusive… a soul-crusher. Of course, I did not have enough awareness at the time to know that it was ravaging my soul. At the time, I didn’t even know I had a soul. Also a problem were my long-standing negative beliefs about myself, in direct response to an abusive upbringing.

In the marriage, I had long since stopped listening to my heart, and was resigned to stay in the relationship because everyone, including my husband, expected me to stay. In response to my dissatisfaction, I drank… very heavily. But I worked a regular job and didn’t start my drinking until 5 pm. Even so, I was usually pretty drunk by the time my husband got home at 6 or 7 pm because I was drinking on an empty stomach.

An argument usually started when he arrived and it was typically because I was drunk. He would join me, however, and soon he was also drunk and, therefore, the fact that I had been drunk became okay, it didn’t matter. There then was usually some sort of put down for the work I was doing, both in my paying job and in my work on the boat. This was accompanied with digs about what a loser I was.

You see, my husband and I had a history of renovating things… houses, cars, and boats. I was the woodworker and painter – I did all the wood refinishing, varnishing and painting fiberglass with linear polyurethane paint. Nasty stuff, that LP, but I loved working with chemicals, so was okay with it. (I wore a respirator…) My husband’s complaint was that I was not bringing in enough money from my job, that I was only working part-time while he was busting his ass, but what he failed to give me credit for was the amazing amount of work I was doing on the boat. The boat was an old traditional one, with tons of teak wood trim. It was in a state of disrepair when we bought it.

While working on the boat, I was fulfilled, for varnishing and painting were very meditative things for me. I really got into the tedium of it; it soothed my soul. While I was working on a project, my emotional state was okay and I could tolerate the slams from my husband, but when I wasn’t working on a project, I responded to his slights and digs by getting drunker. The last seven years of my drinking, I drank until 2-3 am, into oblivion.

Eventually, I had had it, and one day, I just left. I had been threatening to do so for years, so he was quite surprised when I did leave. I even refused counseling, as I didn’t see that he could change who he was, and who he was, was not the person I wanted to be with. I soon met and fell deeply in love with another man at the docks, and then came the unrequited love incident which drove me to my bottom. I finally sought sobriety out of desperation and the firm belief that I was going to die if I didn’t stop drinking.

This post is getting long, and this is a good stopping point. Join me tomorrow as I talk about my journey into sobriety, and the discovery of my heart and soul.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living

The Right to be Respected and Respect Others

September 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The right to be respected and respect others… one of the search terms that led someone to my blog yesterday. I felt compelled to speak of this topic… respect of self and others…

What is it about respecting ourselves and others that has so many people stumped? I mean, they don’t do it easily. That is evidenced by all the fighting that occurs… between people, between nations, between our own ears. Why is it so difficult for us to respect ourselves and others? That’s what I want to know.

I suspect it is fear… fear of something and I’m not sure what. Usually, behind shunning or disrespect is the inability to live and let live, to accept the differences of others and delight in the differences that they present. You see, the differences that others present is the rich fabric of our lives. The more we engage in celebrating the differences of others, the more respect we can offer them.

Maybe people are unable to respect others because they feel insecure in themselves. Perhaps, they need someone to put down in order to build themselves up. That’s a sad commentary, isn’t it? The fact is that we are all different and unique and in that uniqueness, lies our beauty. “One is not more beautiful than another, if we will only look, if we will only see.”

These are the words from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. The title of the verse and photo which are paired with these words is Cultivation of Differences. The photo shows the knobs of a gate and the knobs, three of them, are black, brown, and yellow. Clearly, I am making a statement about cultivating the differences between people of different color.

In my book, I go through a process of how to get to the point of respecting and tolerating not only others, but ourselves as well. I wonder whether we stumble in our self-respect and tolerance because we are feeling unworthy as a being. Feeling unworthy is not a fun place to be. It leads to all sorts of maladies, and lack of self-respect is just one of them.

So, if you are one who feels unworthy about yourself, showing no self-respect, then what can you do? How can you move through that? One thing you can do is a performance appraisal, a self-appraisal. Specifically, do the part of the appraisal where you identify all your good points, all of the positive things about yourself.

From that, determine what you do in your daily life to honor those positive points about yourself. Is not respect for who you are warranted? I suspect it is. In fact, I know it is, for we are each worthy, valuable, and to be respected. Look at how you treat yourself. Is it with respect or do you speak of yourself, treat yourself, poorly, with condemnation?

This is not advisable, for it erodes your spirit, your soul. It erodes the essence of who you are at your core. At your core is beauty, uniqueness, worthiness. Are these not issues to be respected for? I think they are.

Look at yourself. Take a hard and deep look within and see what you are doing in your life to respect yourself and others. Once you can show respect for all, you will know a new kind of peace. Sobriety is easier to maintain when you begin to respect yourself and others.

Just remember one thing… someone else’s importance or traits does not detract from your own greatness. The world is big enough to hold all of us in our greatness and this is worthy of respect.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, performance appraisal, respect, respectful, self-appraisal, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, tolerance

The Right to be Respected and Respect Others

September 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The right to be respected and respect others… one of the search terms that led someone to my blog yesterday. I felt compelled to speak of this topic… respect of self and others…

These are the words from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. The title of the verse and photo which are paired with these words is Cultivation of Differences. The photo shows the knobs of a gate and the knobs, three of them, are black, brown, and yellow. Clearly, I am making a statement about cultivating the differences between people of different color.

Just remember one thing… someone else’s importance or traits does not detract from your own greatness. The world is big enough to hold all of us in our greatness and this is worthy of respect.

To Have Hope In Hopelessness

September 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

To have hope in hopelessness… Ah, yes. The ever-illusive hope. The crawl from hopelessness to a semblance of peace and calm inside. The search term which struck me from yesterday was “to have hope in hopelessness.” There were actually two queries related to finding hope from hopelessness, so I thought I would address one way in which to do that.

Hope is defined as a feeling that what is wanted will occur or happen; it is desire accompanied by expectation. It is that state in which we all wish to live, as our desires and expectations are met. In this case, the desire is for peace-of-mind. You keep your hope because you expect your desire to have emotional peace will be met.

What happens when it isn’t? What happens when you slip into hopelessness? First of all, it has been my experience that you don’t just “slip” into hopelessness. In my journey, hopelessness came after repeated and seemingly endless desires that were not met. Being continually let down

Hopelessness is the state of having no belief that things can get better, the belief that your situation is impossible to solve or deal with. It often slides into despair, which is utter loss of hope and the resulting dejection that occurs. Often, when you are in despair, you think about dying.

I got to a point of utter hopelessness and despair about five or six years into my sobriety. I could see no purpose in having had to endure what I did as a child, other than to make me miserable in my life. I had sustained PTSD as a result of the chronic abuse; it went undiagnosed until I was 53 years old, so I lived with it all that time.

I saw no purpose in my childhood experience, no way that it added to my growth or evolution as a human being. I wanted to die. Afraid I’d fail in my attempt at suicide, I started praying to God to let me die. I became despondent when that didn’t happen.

So, where do you go when you are feeling hopeless, despondent and despairing? In my case, it was over a bad childhood. If you are a Vietnam Veteran, it may have been the degradation of your honor, based on how you were greeted and treated when you returned home. Whatever the cause, hopelessness is devastating and erodes your spirit, your very soul.

Quite by accident, I stumbled upon a solution. Frankly, I don’t think it was an accident; I believe it happened by divine intervention… I had an experience that melted away my terrible hopelessness and despair. I had an opportunity to be useful to someone else who was suffering emotionally, someone else who felt hopeless from his years of treatment he received as a child.

After I had been of service by sharing my similar experience and how I had healed thus-far, I realized that, without my experience with childhood trauma and the will to try and get out from under its long-lasting effects, I never would have been able to help this man. I never would have been of service to him.

Suddenly, the experience of trauma made sense. It happened so I could be of service to another. The trauma had a purpose. I had a purpose. It was to help out a fellow human being. On that day, I believed in a flash that my message is God-sent, and is intended for you who are feeling, or have felt, hopeless in their lives. My message is one of hope that your experiences can be made purposeful if you turn around and help another through their troubles, sharing what you have learned.

Not only did I see in that instant that my history served a vital function; I also saw that my message of hope was meant for many people. Within my message of hope comes the ability to forgive after years of anger and bitterness, the recovery from long-standing and debilitating grief.

You will need to search the corners of your heart and determine what difficult life lessons warrant sharing with another or others. How can you take your experiences and be of service to others? Even just one other person… I invite you to take action by figuring this out and carrying out that service. It is the most satisfying feeling to be of service to another. It offer them hope in hopelessness.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: hope, hope in hopelessness, hopeful, hopelessness, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Living with Gates Flung Wide – Ah, Peace

September 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 1 Comment

Yesterday, I talked about how to forgive… an actual process to use to get there. Once you find forgiveness, you will move into all the wonderful benefits of freedom and peace. You will begin to live with the gates of your heart flung wide open.

What do I mean by this? Well, first of all, you will begin to see the world around you with wonder… awe and wonder. You will seek out that attitude, applying it to everything you encounter.

When you find forgiveness and begin to see things around you with wonder, you will live in grace. Grace is a feeling of goodwill and is a favor which is bestowed upon you. It is a virtue given to you by the powers of the Universe, or God, or whatever you call the divine in your life. It settles quietly… gently… like a soft and comforting cloak.

It is hard to describe what it feels to live in grace, but one thing that happens for me is that everything falls easily into place. I have a deep sense of knowingness that life in its essence is perfect, and I sort of float from one thing to the next, not in a dizzy state, rather, in a calm and conscious way.

When you can find forgiveness, your life begins to be lived in joy… great happiness. Joy is a feeling of great pleasure or delight. You know when you are living with joy in your life when the little things become so pleasurable for you, that you wear a smile on your heart throughout the day.

And, finally, you will know peace. This is a feeling that all is well. It is felt at a deeper level. Regardless of the strife that arises, you know that everything is as it is intended to be, and you are alright in the world. It is a sense that pervades all others.

These are the things that you will experience once you go through a self-appraisal, and begin to learn to express compassion for others and yourself… once you find forgiveness for others and yourself. It is a truly beautiful space in which to live each day.

This is a state-of-mind that I have looked for all my life. I tried for 26 years to find it in alcohol and drugs and I thought I was experiencing joy all those years. What I realized after a few years of sobriety is that I didn’t have a clue what joy was, what wonder or grace was, and I certainly never experienced peace while I was drinking.

In other words, what I have found since forgiving and doing my grief work is a feeling that is so far greater than anything I had ever imagined possible. The journey to get to this point becomes well worth it once you get to this point.

For those of you who are dealing with long-standing anger or resentment, it is possible to get through that to another place, a place where you feel relaxed with others, with yourself, with the world around you. I wish you well in your journey and hope for you the path to forgiveness and peace.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: compassion, forgiveness, grace, how to find peace, how to forgive, inner peace, joy, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Forgiveness – Step-by-Step How to Get There

September 13, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. For some reason, this did not publish yesterday and I thought it did. I even read it on the website, I thought. I apologize for any confusion and now offer the how-to’s of forgiveness. Here is what I wrote for yesterday.

Good morning. Welcome back to the continuation of our discussion about forgiveness. Two days ago, I talked about what it was like to discover it. Today, I will present a process that could serve to move you from anger and resentment to forgiveness and peace.

I say “could” because the process will work when you are open and willing, with your action and participation. Let’s look at a system I stumbled upon that worked to move me into forgiveness; I am confident it could happen for you, too.

This is going to be a write-along today. I invite you to do the exercises that are defined below… It looks like an endless list, and much of what is written is explanation or information for you. I would strongly urge that you allow your mind and heart to be clear by avoiding the use of substances while you do this. Otherwise, you will never move forward to peace. Know that if you get stuck in any one spot, there is support and assistance available. That’s what I do… guide people over the hurdles on the way to forgiveness.

Here’s the process:

Identify the person who wronged you and how they wronged you. List them.
Determine if you provoked the other person and if you did, then own it, be accountable for it. It’s time to be humble, give up on the anger you hold, and forgive. Apologize if you have hurt another.
Determine if you have ever done the very same thing that was done to you. Own it and be accountable if you have. Write down the circumstances – what you did and how you were feeling at the time.
Feel compassion for yourself, an emotionally damaged person at that time
Now consider and believe that the person who wronged you was also emotionally and spiritually damaged.
Let compassion fill your being; feel compassion for their spirit, their soul.
Even if you have not repeated their wrong, feel compassion for them.
Stay in that space of compassion you would have for any wounded person. Hold it for both you and the other person.
Allow one chunk of anger and heartache to melt away and replace it with just a little bit of forgiveness.
Consciously notice any relief that you felt by the small amount of letting some anger go.
This is the gift you’ll experience. Write it (or them) down.

This is a process you can do over and over, and it will gently erode away your resentment, your bitterness. It will leave you eventually, the resentment will, if you keep at this.

If you are successful in shedding your anger and resentment, I applaud you. This all occurred through your creation. You created your own peace by forgiving and accepting what is. Nice work.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement Tagged With: finding forgiveness, forgiveness, how to find peace, how to forgive, inner peace, peace, the art of forgiveness

Forgiveness is the Key to Your Inner Peace

September 11, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Do you live in the space of anger at others for things that happened long ago. resenting the heck out of them? Or, do you live in the realm of forgiveness, having moved through your resentment to the other side?

There is another side, you know, a side where there is freedom from the physical and emotional aspects of anger, resentment. I don’t know about you, but when I was angry for all those 36 years, I was tight as a drum in my muscles, went around with a scowl on my face a great deal of the time.

Emotionally, I was always in a turmoil, a continual thought process about how I’d been wronged by so-an-so, who had hurt me, whose fault it was. I definitely did not have inner peace. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. Peace? Being at peace in my heart, my mind? What’s THAT?

What I discovered after about 5 years of sobriety was true forgiveness and the effect of that forgiveness was that 36 years of anger and rage slowly receded. One day, I just noticed how my energy was being spent watching the world and other people around me, and that I was a witness to miracles, every day. This realization bred a great deal of joy for me.

All this was possible and had occurred, because I was willing to consider forgiveness when it looked me in the eye. It looked me in the eye when I realized I was doing to the men in my life the very same thing that had been done to me when I was a child. I used to get drunk and scream at them that they were worthless. I was heartsick and mortified when I remembered this, because I so denigrated their soul.

The thing is, I didn’t even feel that way about THEM, I was feeling worthless about ME. After realizing that, I was given the grace to feel compassion for myself, a small child being told she was worthless, and the permanent scars that these words caused in her life.

One day it dawned on me… if I didn’t feel the men in my life were worthless, instead that I was worthless and said it uncontrollably, then is it possible my father hadn’t meant it about me, but instead, about himself and was unable to keep those feelings of worthlessness inside? Suddenly, the door was opened ever-so-slightly. Through that crack, I saw a man, just a man, young at that, with lots of responsibility for a large family, under lots of stress, having endured the verbal abuse himself at the hands of his father.

I saw all of that through the crack in the door, and slowly, it crept open and compassion flowed in. Well, it actually trickled, but steadily flowed. Forgiveness came over me slowly, gently, with God’s grace and my actions and thought processes. Willingness and being open minded and open hearted helped a great deal.

Suddenly, I began to experience what I described before… the ability to observe the miracles happening all around me. I put my toe in these waters, slowly, cautiously, not sure if I was dreaming or if the feeling of freedom would be rudely yanked away. Time showed me that it was permeant and that I loved it as a space to hang out in.

You, too, can discover the willingness to consider looking at things with new eyes. That’s all it takes. Willingness to consider something and someone differently. Then it takes compassion and being willing to extend it to another. What lies through this all is peace, inner peace. And freedom. Join me tomorrow and I’ll walk you through the process of how to find forgiveness for not only others, but yourself as well.

My day would feel incomplete to me if I did not say this… May we hold a screed space for those who were directly affected by the events of 9/11, and also for those of us who stood helplessly watching… horrified. Many blessings for those brave souls who sprang into action to help.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: forgive, forgiveness, how to find forgiveness, how to find peace, how to forgive, inner peace, peace, Willingness

Finding Compassion in Sobriety and Sobriety in Compassion

September 10, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Very interesting the search terms that were used yesterday to find my site. Two of ten known ones were about how to show compassion and six of the ten were about sobriety. I was planning on continuing today with compassion, so that’s why it’s interesting what showed up in the results.

Over half counted were interested in sobriety, so I will include sobriety in my discussion… I am always happy to talk about sobriety because it is such an awesome addition to the journey.

Compassion is another one of the actions you can take that will help to push open the gates of your heart. That compassion, once you learn how to do it, is needed for both others and yourself. It’s a double -laned highway on the way to forgiveness. Through forgiveness, you will find peace. I am jumping ahead. Let me refocus…

As you develop new ways to be in the world for others and yourself, consider adding compassion to the tools you use to promote peace within. I found I had no clue what compassion was nor how to show it until I was a few years into sobriety. At some point, I began to notice the wonderful feeling of goodwill I had toward others, where my heart went out to them in a truly genuine way.

Without sobriety, I was too into myself… my fears, my ego, myself. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to be much concerned with what was going on with you. I am talking about concern that was more than superficial. I am talking about concern that makes me want to hear more of your plight, in an effort to determine how I can be of service to you.

This same concern for others that I show has to be shown to myself, also, in order for me to stay sober and to find more peace in my life. The same is true for you. You have to start learning to show yourself compassion in situations, for example, where you behaved badly because of some wound that was touched, some chord that was struck.

In that situation, if you can recognize that you were a wounded person in the moment you erred, needing some love and understanding, triggered to return to an original wound, then you can offer yourself compassion. Even, especially, offer yourself compassion for the ways in which you err against yourself with your negative self-talk, the criticisms, and beating-yourself-up.

This is virtually impossible to do if you are drinking and drugging, which is why sobriety becomes so important. You see, once you realize you have a wound that needs to be healed, the pain from that wound is exposed to the light and the pain may be intense. You want to deaden that pain, and perhaps use substances to do so.

But deadening the pain only prolongs the process you need to go through to heal and get to the other side of your angst. I experienced many times, again and again, that by exposing my pain and being willing to look at it, and to feel it, that it dissipated, resolved. I’m not saying the pain wasn’t excruciating at times, because it was and I wanted desperately to drink or dull the pain in some way or another.

Yet, my sobriety was my number one concern and I did not want to go back to the horror of my last several months of drinking. I did a LOT of journalling, brisk walking, and attending meetings of my support group. I did that for the first year and a half of sobriety. It helped. I also had a CD of soothing music, classical banjo and guitar, and I played it non-stop in the evening and night to soothe me.

I was showing myself compassion at the time, but didn’t know it as such.

You, too, can begin to become aware of how to treat yourself and your wounds, with great compassion. It will add to your sobriety, and your sobriety will add to your ability to show compassion to yourself. It feels really good. I invite you to try it for yourself.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: compassion, compassion for myself, compassion for others, compassion for ourselves, how to find peace, how to show compassion, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Find Peace By Doing a Performance Appraisal

September 9, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Standing strong in your truths is the search term from yesterday that applies to today’s post. Today we’re going to talk about one way to find peace through conducting a performance appraisal, a self-assessment. It requires that you stand strong in your truths about who and what you are, how you act and behave toward others and yourself. It requires that you be honest with yourself about yourself.

I have a friend who is all balled up over this issue. He has pushed away people that have been friends for 40 years. He is indignant about being called on the carpet for being verbally abusive to his wife. He has now disowned all his friends and his son for pointing that fact out to him. The thing is, he is not taking responsibility for his bad behavior toward his wife.

He WAS verbally abusive to his wife during a gathering of friends in Vegas last year. He is not taking responsibility for that bad behavior, though. Instead, he sees that his woes are caused by everyone else… his friend and his son when, in fact, he brought the critique on himself through his actions and words.

Many people do not look at their part in a situation, instead blaming others for their woes. Nine times out of ten, they are experiencing their woes because of their own behavior. In other words, they brought their woes upon themselves. If this is ever pointed out to them, they get huffy and indignant, like, “How dare you say such things to me.” What the person is failing to do in this situation is to get humble, and admit to their shortcoming(s).

To do a performance appraisal, find a block of time where you can do some writing and reflecting. Start by listing all of your positive points down. Then, list out your positive actions and behaviors for the past week or the past month. The objective is to identify the good things that make up who you are at your core.

Next, list out your negative behaviors and actions, including negative thoughts about yourself. Be honest. Be humble and accept that you are a human being who is human and who erred. Accept responsibility for your actions… be accountable for yourself.

Once you are, you may find that you owe another an apology. Do so and relay to them the way in which you were wrong. Don’t beat yourself up for your behavior; just vow to not repeat it if you can help it. Use it as a learning tool, a tool of self-discovery.

Once you complete your performance appraisal, you will begin to know more peace of heart, more calmness of mind. As you go through each day, continually be on the lookout for ways in which you have erred, have hurt another, and right that wrong quickly.

Today, as you reflect upon your performance appraisal, recognize that you are a human being on a journey of self-discovery, working toward inner peace. I invite you to take responsibility for your actions and words, how you treat others and yourself. See if that doesn’t lead you to more peace-of-mind.

If you are having difficulty doing a performance appraisal, consider setting up a coaching call with me and I can help you through the process. See how by clicking on the “Coaching Services” selection under the “Services” tab above.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, peace, performance appraisal, self-appraisal, slef-assessment

Find Peace – Keys to Unlock the Gates of Your Heart

September 8, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Good morning! I hope this finds you well, and on your way to creating peace in your life!

Yesterday’s search term that caught my attention was “an invitation to the opening.” Very interesting, given that we are dealing with the keys to unlock, then open, the gates of your heart. And, I invite you to join in our journey, the search for peace about which I am blogging.

The journey involves first using the keys to unlock the gates of your heart. These can be used all the time. In fact, I recommend that you DO use them all the time. It will further your ability to create peace in your life.

The first and most important key is willingness. You must be willing to take the journey, willing to look at things with new eyes. Are you willing? You can be willing at any time, all the time… willing and eager for new information. I cannot stress how far willingness will take you.

Then there’s surrender. I used to think surrender meant giving up in despair. But it means giving in, letting go, of just about everything… the need to control and manage everyone and everything, the need to control and manage your feelings, to look good to others. It means letting go of trying to control the course of your life.

This is different than taking action. You want to take action in all areas of your life, but then, after taking that action, you will want to let go of the results and let them occur naturally. If things are meant to happen, they will, without your prodding and pushing.

The next key to unlock the gates of your heart is gratitude. Gratitude turns your life to gold, everywhere you look, with everything you touch. You see, if you are grateful for the little things, the littlest of events, your life will begin to transform and you will experience peace more and more. If you have difficulty seeing the world with gratitude, practice waking up and being grateful that you woke up, given the chance to live another day.

When you’re in despair or having feelings of worthlessness, waking up won’t be something to be grateful for, most likely. I know I experienced that, at any rate. In that case, learn to be grateful for one little thing in your life and hang onto that gratitude. Openly thank Source for that one thing, over and over again. Over time, you will be able to expend that gratitude to other things.

There will even become a point when you will be grateful for even the tough times, as you will realize there is a gift in them, a lesson to be learned. When you reach this point, then you will have mastered gratitude. Work toward this goal and when you reach it, you will be knowing peace.

But don’t try to fake it. Be real and authentic with your thoughts and feelings that you tell yourself or others. Admit to having a bad day. Be careful not to slip into self-pity, however. Just state facts about your situation, without pity, without remorse. Be sad or whatever you are at the time, but catch yourself short of wallowing in pity for yourself. This is a non-productive and energy-sucking place to go.

These are the three main keys to unlock the gates of your heart that will lead you to peace. There are other keys, such as humility, courage, honesty, and having an open heart and mind. Over time, as you practice these keys, they will become automatic. They are something you can do all the time.

Today, take some time to practice being willing, surrendering, and being grateful. These three things alone will lead you to more peace. I wish you well in your efforts to unlock the gates of your heart.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: gratitude, how to find peace, inner peace, peace, peace of mind, surrender, Willingness

Dealing with Despair and Hopelessness

September 7, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Spaces of Courage

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start. The search terms that stood out for me yesterday were how to gain emotional strength when someone put you down and inspiration quote for hopelessness. So, hopelessness and a downgrading of one’s spirit. These lead into today’s topic of despair.

Hopelessness and despair often happen together. It is the feeling that nothing is worth it, that there is no point in continuing. You have reached the end of your rope and don’t know how to move forward. An assault on your character can sometimes lead you to hopelessness and despair.

How do you move past these? How do you regain a feeling of worth and goodness? The first thing to do is to just keep moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other, believing with some part of your heart that things will improve. and actually, they will. I know that’s hard to believe, but read on.

For me, getting past this hopelessness and despair happened when I learned what my life’s purpose was. I discovered that my purpose is to share my story from great despair and praying to die, to joy and peace, so that others might benefit from it. My purpose is to be of service. Perhaps that is yours also. Look at what you have suffered in your lifetime, and how that can be useful to another.

Perhaps the one thing that talks about the despair the most is my verse from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. The verse is Spaces of Courage and it offers solace and a viable solution. I would like to share it with you today.

“We all hold feelings of hurt, disappointment, grief, and despair deep within from which we desperately seek relief. We repress it, drink it away, or turn to another to make it right.

“Perhaps, rather than cast the pain out of our heart or give it to another, it would be better to find the courage to touch that oh-so-vulnerable spot, to hold the pain gently, tenderly… with great compassion.

“If we find the courage to invite in a sacred force to embrace those deep wounds with us, perhaps, we will be graced with the ability to befriend our pain and then, to heal.”

This verse suggests to us that asking for spiritual assistance can help. I have found this to be true. I have discovered that when I feel these emotions, I can turn to my Source for comfort. Then, it is up to me to place one foot in front of the other and take some sort of action to further help myself. Usually, that action involves talking to someone else about my feelings.

You, too, can follow this formula when you are feeling despair and hopelessness. Connect with your Source for comfort and solace, then take action. Try asking for help from someone you trust. You’d be surprised how many people are wanting to help.

Beware, however, of those who wish to do nothing more than to tell you what to do. Find someone instead who will listen and show compassion for your feelings, who will relay what worked for them without pushing it on you. You will discover some relief when you do this.

Hopelessness and despair are difficult at best, yet, there is a way through them. Do not give up. Try what I suggest and see if that helps. I am hopeful it will.

The feelings we have discussed… fear, grief, and hopelessness/despair, are difficult and I hope the input I have provided will be of some use to you in opening the gates of your heart. Tomorrow, I shall start to deal with using the keys to unlock those gates. Until then… many blessings.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: despair, hopelessness, opening the gates of your heart

Creating Peace-of-Mind – Walking Through Grief

September 6, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Yesterday, the search terms that jumped out at me were how to try to forgive, and inspiration when self-esteem is low. To speak to these two issues… We are working though a process that will improve your self-esteem, so join in and follow along this blog for the next several days. One of the things we are working toward is forgiveness, both of others and ourselves. The point is, I can address both of these issues…

So far, I have spoken about identifying wounds that form your feelings, and the fear associated with your behavior that keeps you stuck. Today, we will move through the feeling of grief.

Grief is defined by John W. James and Russell Friedman in The Grief Recovery Handbook: 20th Anniversary Edition as the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. So, grief can occur from the death of a loved one, as well as loss of a job, divorce, or a move to a new location.

They believe there are no stages that one goes through in grief, and that each person’s grieving process is totally unique to them. It is dependent on the ways they saw grief handled when they were growing up.

The messages we were told when growing up were: don’t feel bad, replace what was lost, grieve alone, just give it time, and be strong for others. These messages lead us to isolate and to hold in our pain when we grieve, neither of which serves to move us through the process to wholeness.

John and Russell advocate reading their book and doing the exercises with another person who is going through the grieving process, so each can be a support and a sounding board for the other.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross defined five stages to the grieving process which can occur in any order, but generally follow the path of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These she defines in relation to the death and dying process. They occur as a “dance,” with an intermingling of the stages, completion of one or two, then return to the first, then move to the third, and so forth.

Depression when you experience a loss is normal. To not be depressed is unusual. After all, what you are coping with is depressing. It is not clinical depression, however, if you have underlying depression to begin with, you may wish to consult a professional to see if anti-depressants are warranted for you.

There is no fast and easy way through grief. It takes time and the recognition of our feelings. Furthermore, it involves the expression of those feelings to someone, be it a therapist, a trusted friend or family member, or someone else who is grieving. Since we learned at a young age that no one wanted to hear about our grief, this is especially difficult for most people, yet, it is necessary for the process to flow forward.

One way to also let your feelings be heard is to journal. I suggest writing with your “other” hand, the one you don’t typically write with, your non-dominant hand. By doing this, you exercise the other side of your brain and all sorts of deep feelings well up. This is an especially safe way to express yourself, but it is still crucial that you express your feelings to another being.

In the end, acceptance is what is gained. To quote Kubler-Ross about acceptance, “Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being ‘all right’ or ‘okay’ with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel okay or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality.”

It is possible to get past and through your grief, as long as you can identify and speak about your feelings. They are not wrong or stupid to have, and you are not bothering another to talk about them.

Today, look at all the losses you have suffered in your lifetime. Draw a timeline of your losses, beginning with the first recollection you have in life. Your loss may involve the grief from the lack of a normal childhood, or it may involve the loss of a pet, a divorce. Whatever the reason, it is important to bring those feelings to the forefront to examine and feel, and then to share them with another. I wish you well in your journey.

New layer…

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: grief, how to grieve, how to recover from grief, ways to express grief

Creating Peace-of-Mind – Getting Past Fear

September 5, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. Yesterday, one search term was fear conclusion. I am thinking that means getting to the conclusion of fear. That’s what we’re going to discuss today. Fear… and how to get past it.

Fear… that you’re not good enough, that you look or act stupid, that you are a bother to others, that you are ugly, etc. Whatever you tell yourself that sounds like these, it is destructive to your soul. It erodes your spirit.

Yet, fear serves a purpose which is to protect you and keep you safe. Fear happens automatically in situations where you might be in danger. We often get stuck in the fight, flight, or freeze mode. This just automatically happens. When you recognize fear is happening, you can breathe. Breathe, Then ask for help with your fear. Finally, take action, however small. Just take action.

Because you go to that mechanism of survival when you feel fear, you have to get out of the mechanism of survival and then speak or art. When you get stuck in fear, you go to your old patterns of behavior. The key is to get out of that pattern, and this is best done by using the breathing, ask for help, and take action formula. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is actually quite courageous.

The next thing that you can do to shift from that fear state is to acknowledge you are experiencing fear. It will dissipate when you shine light on it.

The third step is to make the choice to stay in that fear, or to leave it. This is a conscious decision, made after you recognize your fear and acknowledge it.

Fear often shows up as procrastination. It’s not that you’re lazy as much as you may be having underlying fear.

It doesn’t work to tell someone to get over their fear It doesn’t work that way. You need to identify your state of mind and get unstuck from that point.

Fear keeps you from your dream. I ask you, what would your life look like if you were living your dream instead of your fear?

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement Tagged With: fear, fear conclusion, fear resolution, fearful, how to cope with fear

More About Creating Peace-of-Mind

September 4, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello again. I have begun to pay more attention to the search terms used to find me, and I see that yesterday, three were used that I’d like to address.

The first is “what to do when you’re in despair.” Actually, to the one that wrote this, I invite you to hang out on this blog for the next several days, and you will read about how I went from great and debilitating despair to an eventual experience of peace-of-mind.

The second is “emotional pain is necessary for emotional growth.” There is some truth in this. Often, we do not look at ourselves or have the desire to grow until we are faced with such emotional pain that it forces us to look, to consider new things that lead us to want to tackle change that we know is coming as a result of our struggle and search. In a way, you can welcome emotional pain because you can be assured you will grow and improve as a result of it.

Finally, “sober through effort and perseverance” was the third term that caught my attention, because I am all about effort and perseverance in relation to drinking and getting sober. Effort is taking action, contemplating, making the decision to make changes in your life, to stay sober while doing it, and taking action.

As far as perseverance, we must return again and again and again to the healing ground, that place of freedom and peace-of-mind that we are trying to locate. So, we return again and again to our sobriety, our trying over and over each day to stay sober. It’s not easy sometimes while we’re healing, and I applaud your efforts in this area!

From yesterday, I asked you to identify your wounds and the feeling associated with each wound. Take that list and look at it, one emotion or feeling at a time, applying the following actions to each.

First, acknowledge that the feeling is there, that you are feeling it. Just say hello to it. Often, just by acknowledging a feeling, it begins to go away, or to ease in intensity. So go ahead. Spend some time acknowledging one emotion.

Then, feel it. I mean, really allow yourself to feel it. I not only invite you, but I also urge you, to do this without numbing yourself with substances, as that will block the process and you won’t get the results that you could get if you are sober or clean and clear-headed.

Feeling the pain, the wound and the associated feeling, is difficult, and, yet, necessary in the process. Sit with it, with the feeling, and it will eventually pass. Respect that the feeling is trying to tell you something. If your feeling is anger, look beyond the anger and try to find the hurt or whatever lies behind the anger.

Maybe your pride was hurt, in which case, you need to fetch yourself up and realize your ego was bruised. You can become humble about having your ego bruised and realize that, perhaps, what was said about you was/is true, and now you have a chance to improve upon yourself as a person. See how that works? It is possible to transform that feeling of anger just by looking at what is behind it and by looking with new eyes.

Certainly, there are other emotions you are experiencing other than anger, but this is a common one, and I wanted to address another way to look at it. We will be addressing it further down the road.

Now that you have felt and respected your emotion, go one step further and realize you are not weak for feeling what you feel. For example, if you feel fear, that is a human reaction that comes from the part of our brain that works automatically to keep us safe. So fear pops up for us to determine if we need to go into fight, flight, or freeze mode.

But fear can become destructive to you. Fear that you are not good enough, or that you will be looked at as weak or stupid, is destructive to your soul and you want to ferret those out, recognize them, so they can dissipate when light is shined upon them.

After applying awareness and respect to your wounds, you will feel some relief from them, just by having admitted they are there. Now you can go on to the next part of the process, which is looking in more depth at your fears. I do this because fear often rules us and the reactions we have, the words we say, or the actions we take.

Return tomorrow and I’ll talk about fear and how to deal with that emotion. Tell a buddy who is struggling about this blog, so s/he can get the benefits from the process I am guiding you through. See you tomorrow where we will further the journey to peace-of-mind!

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how do I find peace, how to stay sober, inner peace, peace, peace of mind, sober, sobriety, stay sober

Creating Peace-of-Mind Using a Process I Discovered

September 3, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. It is pre-dawn and I am anxious for the day to proceed, while at the same time, savoring every moment. Living in the moment… Now there’s a concept about which I had no clue before I started on my journey of self-discovery and healing. I had no clue at all that doing such a thing was an option for me.

I was always worried about the future or the past. Worried that I’d screw something up, or make someone mad, or look stupid, or not get what I wanted, and then I could flip back to wondering what someone thought of me in a recent encounter. I was so worried about my self-image.

It took me several years of sobriety to be able to recognize that I was doing that and I finally got that it was related to my woundedness, to my past. Today, I live more in the moment, more concerned about connecting my message to the world, and less about what I look like, whether I’m bothering you. In other words, I have grown as a result of my healing.

That’s part of my message for you today – that it’s possible to go from emotional turmoil, living in the past and the future, to emotional calm and peace-of-mind. In fact, I help people , and a large amount of veterans, transform from grief, guilt, or anger to emotional calm and peace-of-mind. It is the process I went through to reach that state about which I am going to blog for a few days.

It all starts with willingness, this self-discovery stuff does. Are you willing to take a journey to wholeness, to peace? Is that frightening for you? Why is that? I know it was scary for me, and I wondered if you were experiencing that same fear of the unknown, that same resistance to change?

Make that determination now. If you discover you are not willing to embark on, to commit to, the journey, ask the Universe, Source, for the willingness to be willing to have willingness to commit to the journey. Repeat that again and again to yourself… slowly… It will eventually make sense.

Much of what I say relates to my recovery from alcoholism, so I mention sobriety a lot. I also have experienced that, without being sober, I didn’t stand a chance to do this healing work. Matter of fact, I used my drinking as an excuse to avoid looking at myself and my life for fear of the pain I would uncover, for fear of the need to make changes in my life.

You have to trust someone, so it may as well be me when I say that uncovering the pain, making changes is, in fact, painful. I won’t deceive you. It is difficult to look at those very wounds which scar your heart, even when wounded years ago. AND, what lies on the other side of the healing, the part of the journey where you’ve gotten past the pain, is so glorious it’s hard to describe. In other words, the journey through the pain is well worth it. So is the venture into the unknown.

The first key to discovering the gates of your heart involves looking at all of your wounds… the old ones, the new ones. List them all out, starting with the incident and then putting a word to how you felt at the time or how you feel today about the wound. For example, I had the wound of being called worthless every day, and from that, I felt worthless and shame for who I was. So, I would write down “being called worthless” and my two words about how I felt would be “worthless and shame.”

Try to make a comprehensive list and just be with it. Be honest. Be with any feelings that arise. Try to do this without self-medicating or you won’t have a chance to do this exercise. Go ahead… list out your wounds, the ones that still affect you today. I’ll see you tomorrow to continue in the process that will lead you to more peace-of-mind.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: emotional peace, how to find peace, how to get sober, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, stay sober

Do You Feel You Have No Value?

September 2, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

One of the search terms that led an enquirer to yesterday’s blog was “I feel I have no value.” My heart stopped when I read that, first because it went out to that person; I know what that feeling is like. My heart did a double-take I suppose because actually, I am feeling that a bit about myself right now.

I am curious why no one answered my questions from yesterday, and I can get myself to the place of feeling that I have no value because no one responded. I equate people’s responses to me with my value as a person. The problem with this belief is that the two have nothing to do with each other.

You see, we are all valuable simply because we exist on this earth, because we are human beings. Because of your unique story, for example, you bring to the world the lessons you have learned from which others can benefit.

What lessons have you learned that you can share with others to be of service? I know that I have learned the lessons of how to get past rage and bitterness, past grief and guilt. And I know that those lessons are of use to you if you’re dealing with these emotions.

I know this because I have created a process that begins to take you past anger, past bitterness. It starts the steps of grief recovery and it looks at how to give forgiveness to yourself so you can begin to deal with guilt.

I mix talking about how to stay sober in with my information about how to feel more valued because that is a huge part of my story… my sobriety is. It may be one of the things with which you are struggling also. If so, I invite you to join me.

I say, come on over and start reading my blog where I am about to go through the process I have created… the four strategies. Whether you are a veteran or not, the information will transform your life when you apply these strategies. The process did for me and it can for you, too.

To you who feels no value, I gently invite you to join the journey written about in this blog. I wish for you those feelings of having no value to begin to lessen and, eventually, to be replaced with a strong sense of value and purpose.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: I feel like I have no value, living sober, sense of purpose, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, value, veteran, veterans, Vietnam veterans

The Freedom of Choice in Sobriety – 2

August 29, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Let’s continue with yesterday’s post. I was talking about how powerful it was to realize my pain had been useful to another. In fact, it was so powerful, that I gained the understanding at a deep level that my purpose in life was to take the experiences that led to my misery and help others to get past theirs, simply in the telling of my story and the healing work I was doing. That realization is what continues to fuel me 3 years later.

What happened that day when I realized my true calling in life? Well, I made the choice, although unconscious, to look at my misery from a different angle. I chose to see that misery and my struggles because of it as learning experiences for me, in order to prepare me to be useful to others. I chose that path, and I continue to choose it.

How do you get past your struggles, your anger, bitterness, and misery? You, too, can choose to see those events with new eyes, as learning experiences so you can then reach out and help another, and another… and yet another… Unlike me, you can choose to do it consciously. Tell you what, it’s freeing. You get released from the misery, the struggle… the bitterness and anger.

For example, are you a Vietnam Veteran, struggling with resentment about how you were treated when you returned home? Drinking over it, perhaps? You may think that I’m going to tell you to get over it. I don’t believe in that philosophy. Instead, I say choose something different.

Identify the feelings that series of events evoked in you, and use that knowledge to help a vet now returning from war. Make sure that what happened to you is not repeated in current day. It is my hope that you will find, as you help others, your resentment will lessen.

It’s all about what we choose to focus on… in our sobriety, we are able to choose to believe in better things, different things. We are able, in sobriety, to seek out a positive outlook, to consider the benefits of our experiences and how we can be of service. It is freeing to have choice.

It leads the way to more peace-of-mind.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, how to stay sober, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

The Freedom of Choice in Sobriety – 1

August 28, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The day dawns bright and sunny in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ah, another warm day. Another good day in sobriety. I say that because I know it will be true. It will be true because I choose to make it so. You see, it’s all about choice for me.

This is a new thing for me, the practice of choice. I didn’t learn it until about 5-6 years into sobriety, 4-5 years ago. Until that point, I felt I had no choice but to be miserable. After all, I was angry and bitter at my parents for the way I was raised and I was justified. Right?

Yes, I was victimized and yes, I had negative feelings about myself and others because of it that I needed to look at and feel. However, in sobriety, I learned that in my misery, especially in my misery, I had a choice and the ability to look at my experiences with different eyes. I became able to look at bad experiences from a 180 degree view point.

How did THAT happen??? Well, I became more healed from my childhood issues and, at the same time, discovered that I could decide how I wanted to spend my time… in misery or in happiness. Seems like a no-brainer, but for me, a woman who stayed angry and bitter for 50-some years about stuff that happened almost that long ago, it was not evident. It was not on my radar.

Oh, I went to meetings to deal with my sobriety, and I heard people share about the choices they had in their lives. I used to get pissed when I heard that. That was all well and good for them, but it wouldn’t work for me. I was DAMAGED, don’t you know? I had justification for my anger, my bitterness, my indignation.

The thing is, I say with great gentleness, that I was graced with the ability to look at my wounds in a different light. Since I had been getting help professionally, I had slowly healed. One day, I spoke to another alcoholic who was in misery from his childhood, and I was able to relay what I’d learned so far about healing.

After I did, he was so grateful, he almost cried. I realized that my experiences growing up had been of use to another, because he was able to relate to my pain, and the healing words I spoke resonated with him. I realized my misery was useful to another. That was very powerful.

The story continues, but it makes for a really long post, so I will continue this tomorrow. Come back to find out how I dealt with this realization.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: choice, how to maintain sobriety, how to stay sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, the freedom to choose

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