How to Get Past Childhood Resentments

May 18, 2013 by 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.

 

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The Challenges of Forgiveness

May 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Good morning, all! I hope this is a beautiful day for each of you. Today, I liked the search term, “the challenges of forgiveness,” and will address this in today’s post. Let’s jump right in.

Many people are challenged with forgiveness because they think it means they are condoning what happened, that they are saying it was okay. Yet, this is not the case. When you show forgiveness, you are not saying it was okay; you are not condoning what happened. You are merely clearing your heart so you can free yourself from the chains of anger and resentment. You are releasing your anger.

The thing about forgiveness is, once you reach it, you discover the most incredible peace and freedom you have ever experienced. That is your “reward,” the goal toward which you are working.

To get to forgiveness, look at the person who harmed you as an emotionally wounded human being, with wounds far greater than you can comprehend. Once you see them as wounded, it is possible to see them with compassion. From compassion flows forgiveness.

Another challenge people have when it comes to forgiveness is recognizing that they have a part in it all. Sometimes, you have gotten the ball rolling by hurting someone, and they reacted, leaving you angry at their response and unable to forgive.

In situations like this, it is necessary to take an honest look at yourself and realize you started the whole thing, and you need to release your anger, forgive, and possibly apologize for the original offense. It takes humility and honesty to deal with these situations, but again, the rewards are great peace and freedom.

 

If you are having difficulty forgiving someone and are tied in knots over it, I invite you to call me to discuss my coaching program, which is designed to guide you through the process of forgiveness. You can reach me at 415-883-8325 or carolyncjjones@yahoo.com. My specialty is forgiveness, assisting with anger release.

How are you challenged by forgiveness? If I haven’t touched on your challenge, I invite you to leave a comment and share your it with us.

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7 – Day Forgiveness Challenge – Day 7

April 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Hello, and welcome to our final day of the forgiveness challenge! I am so glad you have come back to see how to complete the process of creating forgiveness in your life! Today I will talk about the one practice that will take you there… to forgiveness.

Yesterday, you wrote about looking at the whole situation from a 180 degree shift in attitude, looking with new eyes. This is necessary for you to create the forgiveness you desire. Remember, forgiving has nothing to do with the other person – it is all about you and making peace inside of yourself.

Having said that, let me relay a story… Soon after I became sober, about two years into it, I was doing a self-apraisal, focusing on the men in my life and how I had contributed to each relationship’s demise. I realized I used to get drunk and yell at them that they were worthless, would never amount to anything.

I was horrified to remember this! I had denigrated their soul and the thing is, I didn’t mean it about them, I meant it about me! Soon after that realization came a question. If I had said that these men were worthless and I didm;t mean it about them, I meant it about myself, was it possible that my father didn’t mean I was worthless and would never amount to anything when he said it all those years, he meant it about himself?

The answer was yes. It is possible, quite possible. Suddenly I saw him as a fellow human being, struggling with his own demons, his own wounds. I began to feel compassion for him, a wounded soul.

After about a year’s time, with continual returning to that compassion, I forgave him his transgressions. I didm’t condone what he did, still don’t, yet, I forgave him, recognizing he was dealing with what he, himself, had been told while he was growing up.

So, the final part of creating forgiveness in your life is to see the other person as a wounded human being who made a mistake. See them with compassion; hold them with compassion. Soon, that feeling of compassion will evolve into forgiveness. It will just happen one day, very quietly and with no effort on your part.

This concludes our 7- day forgiveness challenge. I hope you have found it useful. If you are struggling with any piece of it, then I recommend you call to speak with me to get clarity, and comfort from that clarity. Call 415-883-8325 for a free, 30 minute discovery session.

My hat is off to you for the forgiveness you have created May you have peace.

 

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How to Complete a Self-Appraisal

March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Good morning on this fine and clear day! May you have clarity and goodness in your day today!

Yesterday, I received an email from a dear friend who reads my blog, questioning things which I plan to address in today’s blog. For example, they asked about what to list out. I hope I have addressed that fully in this post. Then, the question was raised, what is honesty? I will further discuss that also.

So, how do you do a self-appraisal?

First, you gather willingness… willingness to look at yourself honestly. When I say honestly, I mean looking at your positive points first and giving yourself full credit for all your positive traits, all the positive ways in which you treat others and yourself. We often shy away from being honest about who we are, having been told that is conceited to do so. But we need to objectively assess who we are in our totality. We do this not to brag about ourselves, rather, to humbly look at who we are in our totality.

On the negative side, being honest means being willing to admit you screwed up when you did, that you treated others or yourself poorly. It is embarrassing to admit these things about ourselves, and that is part of being willing to be honest…

For example, I find myself sometimes acting in a very selfish manner, thinking of myself when I could be considering the other. In those situations, I seem to do things for others because there is something in it for me, before I give with no thought of what I’ll get out of it – giving without expecting or wanting in return.  That’s somewhat embarrassing to say, yet, it is honest.

What I do with that information, that realization, is to be aware in the future of when I start to do something for another. I can assess my motives and change them, as indicated, come at it from a different angle.

It is important to add gentleness and compassion when you look at your negative side, the side that needs improvement, or else you would beat yourself up unmercifully. Having said these things, let’s start with how to do the appraisal…

After becoming willing to get honest, list out your positive qualities and traits on a piece of paper. List them all out. Get generous with yourself. No one else is going to see this, so brag about yourself to yourself only. Be loud and proud on paper. Then sit with, “be” with, this list of traits. Let it sink in that this is you that you have listed out in all your goodness and glory. Get comfortable with feeling the light from seeing your good qualities and traits. You are trying to counteract any negative things you have been told throughout your life.

Now, take the past week and list out every good deed, kindness, and generous thing you did during the week. List it all out. If you had a kind thought about someone, list that out, too. Then allow this to sink in for a few days. Bask in your goodness. Know that at your core, you are light.

Next, turn your attention to your negative side, the side that needs improvement. We all have one, you know. List all the negative things about yourself that you do not like. Include the negative things you tell yourself. Consider the past week and list out all the mean, nasty, and unkind things you did or thought during that time. Don’t hold back, yet do not beat yourself up. Do it honestly, from an objective viewpoint.

Consider each point and look at each with compassion for yourself, a wounded person so much so that it led you to act in a negative manner. Now, right all wrongs. This may mean apologizing to some people. If this is the case, get humble yet not subservient. Drop the hostility, the defiance. Apologize with your heart and soul. Sometimes, apology is not advised; this is when it would hurt the other person more, cause them damage in some way.

When you have completed your self-appraisal, you will feel a cleanness about yourself. You will be right with the world and yourself. Resolve to keep an active and current eye on your behaviors, celebrating yourself for your wins and correcting the negative as you move through each day.

I hope this clarifies your questions, dear friend. Thank you again for raising them. : ) And I hope for all of you that by doing a self-appraisal, you find more freedom and peace. Leave a comment if you found this to be useful for you.

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Ways To Be Compassion to an Angry Person

February 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Good morning all! I was interested in addressing the search for “ways to be compassion to angry person.”

Let’s face it. We all experience angry people in our lives. And, we may even be that angry person. Look closely at yourself and be honest. Look at whether your anger is covering up hurt or disappointment. If this is you, you may want to change that anger and be honest about what the real issue is.

But we’re going to focus in this post on ways to be compassion with an angry persons, on ways to look differently at an angry person.

The first thing to consider is that anger is the emotion we usually revert to when we are hurt, frustrated, or disappointed.  We can have an understanding of this and that allows us to be compassion, to have compassion.

A further thing to consider when dealing with an angry person is to understand the hurt from which they are operating. What did they experience in their earlier life, for example, that is leading them to react with anger today? What is the pressure they are under in their lives that is leading them to be angry? We can have compassion for what they dealt with or are dealing with.

Interestingly, I am in the middle of such an experience… dealing with an angry person in a situation at home. I have to look at the situation and realize that, in some way, I invited the anger in the process of speaking up for my rights. Yet, I handled it poorly. So, I can have an understanding for their anger because I can see my behavior through doing a self-appraisal.

The point is, one thing we can do is to check our behavior first in dealing with angry people. Did we start it? Do we owe an apology? If so, we need to give it. In the situation I am dealing with, I can understand the pressure the other person is under, so I can cut some slack and I can apply compassion. I also apologized for behaving poorly.

Above and beyond that, we need to understand the effect that someone’s upbringing brings to the situation and we can have compassion. Through compassion, we can come to forgiveness.

What are the ways in which you can offer compassion to the angry person in your life? For me, I am needing to practice what I am suggesting. Leave a comment if you have a situation you are dealing with and how you are handling it.

 

 

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Letting Go of Childhood Resentments Against Our Parents

February 3, 2013 by 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.

 

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How to Show Compassion

January 27, 2013 by 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. 

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The Benefits of Compassion

January 6, 2013 by 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.

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How to Manage Resentment

December 27, 2012 by 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.

 

 

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Opening Your Heart in Sobriety

December 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Good morning. One of the search terms, the one we’ll talk about today, is opening your heart and I added “in sobriety.” You will find, as your sobriety progresses, that your heart will open. But there are specific things you can do to help this to happen.

The photo to the right is one from my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. The verse that accompanies it is:

“We spend our lives behind the barriers of a closed gate, protected from the hurt and pain that may come to us. If we allow our hearts to open, we will see things in a different light. We will grow through the barriers of our heart and be able to fully experience the richness of life.”

So, how do you let down the barrier of your heart that you have erected to protect yourself?

First of all, if you approach yourself and others with gentleness, your heart will begin to open more. Next, kindness to others and yourself will help. Then, there is tolerance, which will add to your ability to open your heart in sobriety. Being tolerant of others’ differences, being tolerant of yourself and your foibles, will aid your journey to an open heart.

The most important thing, though, for allowing your heart to open is the practice of compassion – for yourself and for others. When you practice compassion, your heart softens. Sometimes, to get to compassion, it helps to do a self-appraisal, so you can discover the things you do that others do, to annoy you.

For example, you may get angry at others for something and when you do a self-appraisal, you may discover that you do the very same thing. Instead of continuing to blame the other, you can open your heart and see you both as wounded humans, and accept the foibles you are both demonstrating.

In sobriety, these steps will aid you to open your heart. And certainly, you do not have to be practicing sobriety to do these things.

How do you open your heart? Let us know what you have learned in sobriety that allows you to open your heart by leaving a comment.

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The Joys of Sobriety

December 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

Good morning. I hope the two-part series on PTSD despair brought you solace… comfort, and that you were able to see there are actions you can take to help you out of despair.  Today nothing really jumped out at me in the search terms, and I am going to write about the joys of sobriety.

Perhaps the biggest joy initially for me was the lack of hangovers. Mine had been extremely severe for about seven years, so not having them was a very welcomed relief. Today, it is nice to wake up clear and wide-eyed, ready to enjoy the new day without nausea, without vomiting, without a splitting headache. You, too, will revel in this new-found result of sobriety.

The faces of my sobriety changed as time went on, and for about six months, I was on what is referred to as a pink cloud, where everything is grand, where everything was so exciting, seen for the first time in years with eyes of wonder and awe. Yes, I felt the pain of my grief from the unrequited love, but it was interspersed with the joy of sobriety, so much so that it gave me the overall sense of well-being for a few months.

You may experience the pink cloud. If and when you do, enjoy it to the fullest. It is helpful to combat the feelings of angst that will arise as you begin to feel more and more of your feelings. Speaking of the angst that will appear in sobriety, know that it is passing, it will pass, and what you are left with is incredible freedom, incredible peace.

Think of the period of angst as one in which you are healing from old wounds so you can start fresh, start anew with your life. Stick with sobriety through this difficult period because the rewards are tremendous. First is the lack of hangovers, as we said, and then the pink cloud. Then, there is a depth to everything you do, everything you see, where you feel connected to the world around you, as well as the people in it.

In sobriety, you become able to see others with softness, gentleness, kindness, and compassion. When you heal, you become more and more interested in helping others, in being of service. You think less and less about making sure you get what you want, because it just comes to you.  You become more in-tune with the physical world around you, as you begin to notice plant life, architecture, scenery.

Sobriety leads to a positive attitude, an attitude of gratitude. You see everything that comes along with gratitude… you are grateful for all that occurs, as you know it is for your highest good, even though it may not feel like that at times. Sobriety helps your relationships, as you are less judgmental and critical of yourself and others. You have less to argue about, less fault to find.

In fact, sobriety eventually allows you to take full responsibility for your feelings, your actions and behaviors, and you are fueled by this in your ability to maintain a positive, grateful attitude. You look forward to life unfolding for you, taking action, while letting go of results and letting life flow to you.

Yes, sobriety is filled with joy after you go through the angst of examining and repairing the past. Perhaps the best thing is the feelings of goodwill that you have toward yourself. Your self-pity will have resolved. You will feel good about who you are and you will recognize you are worthy of good things, that you are a worthwhile person, not the worthless one you were told you were.

There is a saying in recovery circles, “Don’t leave before the miracle happens,” and that is so true. I invite you to stick with your sobriety so that you, too, can experience the miracles and joys of sobriety.

 

 

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How to Open Your Heart More

December 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“How to open your heart more” was searched for 4 times yesterday morning, so I thought I’d address that. I apologize for no post yesterday… I started this and the day got away from me before I could develop the blog. So, here we are today, in this moment, and let me write about how to open your heart.

The first thing needed to open your heart is willingness to do so, willingness to go there. Once you are willing, the whole world opens up, and you are able to see the things around you that you couldn’t see before. You see your physical world more intently; you see others with eyes and heart of gentleness and kindness.

Once you are willing to open your heart, the next stage involves identifying the wounds you have endured during your lifetime, and the feelings that accompany these wounds. Look closely at your fear and how it holds you back in life. Look closely at grief you may be experiencing, a feeling associated with loss of any type.  Allow yourself the time to look at these feelings and try to be straight while you do so. Try to just “be” with them, without numbing them out with substances or activity.

Now, feel compassion for yourself for the wounds you have received and endured. See yourself with gentleness, kindness. Do not slide into self-pity… this is not a pity party I am suggesting. More, it is an objective assessment and acknowledgment of the damage you have received. Now it’s time to start seeing the world around you with gratitude. Be grateful for the simplest things and soon that gratitude will expend to larger things in your life.

Now you are equipped to begin a self-appraisal, looking first at your positive traits, behaviors, and actions. Really praise yourself for these things. Then, look at your negative behavior, the things you do for which you are mad at others for doing, when you do the very same things yourself. For your bad behavior that was hurtful to others, take ownership of that behavior. Be responsible and accountable for it by letting go of any resentments, and apologizing, if indicated.

This tool is invaluable as one to use on an on-going basis, throughout each day. It becomes second-nature to see yourself honestly, objectively. Rather than allowing this appraisal to be a jumping-off place from which to beat yourself up, use it instead as a method of keeping yourself right-sized… not bragging or boastful, nor insecure and self-reproachful. Use a self-appraisal to locate where you are in your world, both outer and inner.

Once you learn to follow this process, you will have opened your heart so very much. There is one more tool to use to get to deep peace and freedom, and that is forgiveness. Forgiveness allows you, without condoning what was done, to put to rest your heart-burning resentment, the thing that keeps you simmering with anger just below the surface. Once you come to forgiveness, you will begin to be really free, able to open your heart even wider.

So, this is the process to go through to open your heart. How does it work for you? Do you have a different method? What works for you? Leave a comment and let us know.

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The Purpose of Resentments

November 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Good morning! I hope today is a pleasant day for you. I was affected by three search terms this morning: why is it important to respect rights of others, what purpose do resentments serve, and how does compassion help. Wow. Three very important issue and I’d like to address all three today.

Let’s start with why is it important to respect rights of others? In a nutshell, my response to that question is because it is the considerate, kind, and appropriate way to treat others. We each, in my opinion, have the right as people to be treated as if we matter, to have our rights as people  treated with respect, to be respected for who and what we are. That is, unless we are harming others, and that I don’t respect.

But consider this, if we want our rights respected, we need to offer it to others first. Then it will come back to us. When we respect another’s rights, they thrive and grow, becoming all they can be. For example, my rights to have a safe and happy home, to be treated as a valuable being, were not respected while I was growing up. As a result, as an adult I had great difficulty being myself, let alone growing into my greatness. It was only after learning to respect myself that I overcame that early treatment and have been able to grow.

The rights we each have, in my opinion, are to be treated as valuable human beings, worthy of consideration and kindness. We have the right to be in safe environments, rather than ones in which physical, verbal, sexual, or emotional abuse are present. Consider that you want your rights to be respected and, therefore, you need to respect another’s rights for that respect to be returned to you.

Let’s look now at the purpose of resentments. In my case, my resentments served the purpose of keeping me a very closed and self-centered person, seeking attention in the form of pity. My resentments gave me something to spend my energy on. It gave me the free license to be critical and demeaning toward others.

Perhaps the most important role that resentments play for us is allowing us to avoid being responsible and accountable for ourselves. We place the blame for our woes or failures on another and that takes the attention and the heat off of us. After all, it is difficult to look at and own our own behavior, especially when it is poor behavior. This is the only benefit to keeping resentments and, in my experience, when cleared of them, I experienced great freedom and peace.

How does compassion help? Well, for me, compassion was the precursor to forgiveness. Compassion softens everything, allows us to see others as humans – fallible. Often, we can see our own behavior being played out by another, and that leads to compassion not only for the other, but for ourselves as well. Yes, compassion is a softening emotion, easily practiced when we look at our own foibles and bad behavior.

How does compassion help you? And do resentments serve a purpose for you? How about respecting the rights of others… what do you see as another’s rights? Leave a comment and let us know.

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How Showing Compassion Led to Renewed Affection

November 2, 2012 by 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!

 

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Compassion – the Forerunner to Forgiveness

November 1, 2012 by 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.

 

 

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Why Is It Important to Show Compassion to One Another?

October 1, 2012 by 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.

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Why It’s Important to Show Compassion

September 24, 2012 by 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.

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Living with Gates Flung Wide – Ah, Peace

September 15, 2012 by 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.

 

 

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Finding Compassion in Sobriety and Sobriety in Compassion

September 10, 2012 by 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.

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Compassion in Sobriety – Part 2

June 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The second part of the definition of compassion states that it is sympathy or sorrow shown toward another or others. I propose that this definition be expanded to include ourselves.

Our first thought may be, “this is selfish.” But if you think about it, why shouldn’t we each have access to the same sorrow and sympathy to which others have access, when it comes to our realizations about our downfalls and the wounds behind them?

By showing ourselves compassion in this case, we allow the grieving process to begin. If we grieve about our downfalls and the wound(s) associated with it, if there is a wound, we avoid going into self-pity. Thus, we keep ourselves from playing small.

Instead, we can step into being with our humanness. In other words, we see our flaws, our errors, and we take action to correct them, to improve the traits that need improvement.

When we’re in self-pity, we cannot take action. We become paralyzed because all of our energy is going into ourselves. This is when selfishness applies. Having spent most of my life in self-pity, I can now see that it was very selfish of me and it definitely kept me playing small.

The issue of playing small is one which I just learned about in a two-day intensive workshop called Double Your Practice in 90 Days, conducted by Jesse Koren and Sharla Jacobs. This seminar is part of a series referred to as Rejuvenate Training. I had the revelation that, in regard to my efforts in marketing myself as a speaker and a coach, I am playing small, rather than standing tall in the gifts that God has given me.

One such gift is the ability to see the details within the whole picture. It is that gift which allows me to see these details about how compassion aids the journey to sobriety and peace, while holding a space for the overall desire for sobriety and peace. And I have also been given the gift of being able to articulate my thoughts in writing, and then, in speech. So, coming from the space of wanting to be useful to others, I write and I will speak.

It has been fear that has kept me from doing more than the planning stage of my new endeavors to be a speaker and a coach, kept me from making calls to schedule talks, for example. I am afraid of the attention I may get, afraid of rejection, afraid I don’t know what I’m talking about.  These are the fears which hold me back. They are false evidence appearing real.

What can I do about it? I can apply compassion for that hurt child whose history includes the experiences which resulted in these feelings. I can experience the sorrow and grief I feel over the loss of a happy childhood. I can get angry over the rejection, the false statements.

In the end, when I’ve gone through the grieving process, I can get to a place of peace about it, a place of acceptance. And this allows me to heal, so that I can show up for myself in the world. When I can show up for myself, then I can show up for you, and I am able to become of service to you. It becomes a continual dance between showing up for each other and ourselves that is beautiful and evokes peace. So, tell me, why would showing yourself compassion be selfish?

Today, look at the list you created yesterday. Look at each way in which you feel sorry for yourself and figure out why doing that makes you small. Then trace that wound that leads you to be small, back to its origin. When you discover what that is, determine what feelings you are experiencing because of it. Apply compassion. Let yourself feel sympathy and sorrow for yourself and the person who endured the wound(s), and who experiences those feelings. 

This seems like a lengthy process. At first it may feel awkward and clumsy, and it may take time to do. With practice, it becomes easier and less time-consuming. I invite you to try it. It will further your sobriety and will contribute to your peace.

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Compassion in Sobriety – Part 1

June 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Fields of Compassion

If you’re new to this blog, welcome. The goal of this site is to help you to get and stay sober, and to find inner peace. To do that, I am going through my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, one topic at a time, one page at a time.

My book is a tribute to the resiliency and beauty of the human spirit. Using photographs of wrought-iron gates and inspirational prose, it tells the story of my journey that occurred as I went into and through sobriety, and how I reached inner peace.

Each day, I show the image from the book, and discuss the associated topic of that photo. Occasionally, I also share the verse that goes with the image.

Today’s topic is compassion. This follows on the heels of self-appraisal, a performance appraisal, if you will. We discussed the importance of doing such an evaluation and how doing one moves us forward in our sobriety. By doing the performance appraisal daily, it helps us to eventually find peace.

We then spoke about being gentle with ourselves when we do the appraisal. Now I’d like to suggest that we also show ourselves compassion as we unearth our undesirable traits, behaviors, and actions. To any embarrassment, shame, or remorse that arises, we send compassion.

What is compassion? Webster defines it as feeling pity or sorrow for the sufferings or troubles of another, accompanied by an urge to help. It is deep sympathy. I have two comments to make about this definition.

I don’t believe people want our pity.  Sympathy, perhaps, sorrow, yes, but not pity. Interesting then, how we pity ourselves for our shortcomings, our defects, our lessor traits of character… Maybe we want to look at that so we can learn not to continue doing it, for it is self-defeating, it makes us play small. It is not becoming of one who is sober, and it will restrict our ability to find peace.

Today, as part of learning compassion, return to the performance appraisal again and include, if you didn’t already, the ways in which you feel sorry for yourself. Get really honest about this. Look at it as a fact-finding mission, one which, when compassion is applied, will help you in your journey. It is illuminating when you shine the light on these thoughts, for then you can face them and apply compassion.

Join me tomorrow for Part 2 of Compassion in Sobriety, as I discuss how expanding the definition of compassion to include ourselves, leads us on our journey in sobriety and finding peace.

 

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Offer Yourself Compassion for Your Dream

May 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Fields of Compassion

You may be afraid to follow your dream. If so, offer yourself compassion for the fear, for that (likely) small child receiving that wound – terrified.

Then give yourself some compassion for the wounds that caused the fear. Let yourself feel the hurt and pain that wound produced, using doses of compassion when it gets difficult to feel your feelings.

Offer it to yourself because you are wounded. You have been struck with a sliver to the heart and it has festered all these years, creating a barrier for love to flow in and out , back and forth between you and the world.  

Compassion is your ability to feel sympathy or sorrow for another’s suffering, usually associated with a desire to help.

In this case, it is the sorrow your soul feels for the suffering you have had over the years. Have you been miserable emotionally, hiding that misery from others with things such as self-medicating, blaming others for it?

Know that you can admit to the feelings. In fact, it is better to acknowledge them, so you can feel and deal with them. Hopefully, you apologized to yourself for having the belief that you are alone in the world, for you are not. Know that there are people waiting to help and support you. 

Back to “getting over it.” When you are told  to just get over the pain and resentment, a disservice has just been done to you, and it is detrimental to your healing, in my humble opinion. Offer yourself compassion for that guilt you feel over the comment, for your thought that there is something wrong with you, that you “should” be able to get over “it,” whatever “it” is…

There is nothing wrong with you. You are experiencing your own timetable in your healing. This is assuming you are taking action to heal, as opposed to doing nothing and blaming.

It has been my experience that I needed to look at my emotions carefully. That was nearly impossible, as I couldn’t even identify them, let alone name them. It took longer for me than for other people.

At times, the people I would vent to were unavailable , either not present physically or emotionally. I cannot blame them. In fact, I send them my gratitude for their compassionate hearts and offer THEM compassion for the draining times they had listening to my woes.

Well, I have meandered with this concept of compassion and offering it to ourselves. I love free-form writing, stream-of-consciousness… One other thing to note is that compassion is an integral part of forgiveness, which, if we want to make peace with our lives, we need to extend to others and to ourselves. Compassion is a salve to use during this process.

How do you show compassion to yourself? Have you ever used it to get to peace?

 

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How to Handle Self-Doubt About Your Dream

April 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Shadows of Doubt

How do we handle self-doubt about our dream, our heart’s desire? This is, interestingly, something that has come up for me in relation to my own dream of becoming a speaker. It seems like I am going through the process of the book with you in relation to following our heart’s desire to fulfill our souls. 

Just like the image to the left, the right side of the image is like our mind when we go into self-doubt. It is filled with “stuff,” chaos, everything going which-way. On the other hand, when we are out of self-doubt, when we are confident in our endeavor, our mind is light and airy, like on the left side of the image.

How do we get to that point? We start by identifying our feelings of doubt. We need to allow them to be, without ignoring or numbing them. As we feel that feeling in the pit of our stomachs, what is going on?

For me, that was sheer terror when I felt that feeling. In looking at it further, I whittled it down again and again until I determined that what I was terrified about was having to speak without my notes, that I would forget what I was talking about, and that I was terrified I would look stupid to the audience, like I had no clue what I was talking about.

Ah, the old ego comes into play. So, I had to ask myself why I am so terrified of looking stupid and I trace it back to repeatedly being told that I WAS stupid, pretty much my entire life. When one hears such words reinforced so much, one begins to believe them.

Now I can look at myself and all the times I was told I was stupid with great compassion. I can hold that child, that adult, in my heart and wrap her with love and compassion. I can tell her that it was a lie, that it was said by troubled people who felt that about themselves, perhaps. But none-the-less, troubled people.

And then, I can look at the others with compassion. Holding us all in a space of compassion allows me to get into my heart instead of my mind. It is at that point that I am able to remember why I am doing this dream in the first place. I remind myself I am becoming a speaker to share my message with people who are struggling, to relay how I got through some very rocky times, and that they can also.

My people are waiting for me, just like your people are waiting for you with whatever gift you have to offer. It becomes about the other person and when it does, your thoughts are off of yourself and your terror, if it is fear which you are feeling. It becomes instead how you can be of service to another. Suddenly, confidence replaces the self-doubt, and you can move forward with your actions in the direction of your dream.

 

 

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How to Handle Self-Doubt About Your Dream

April 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Shadows of Doubt

How do we handle self-doubt about our dream, our heart’s desire? This is, interestingly, something that has come up for me in relation to my own dream of becoming a speaker. It seems like I am going through the process of the book with you in relation to following our heart’s desire to fulfill our souls. 

Just like the image to the left, the right side of the image is like our mind when we go into self-doubt. It is filled with “stuff,” chaos, everything going which-way. On the other hand, when we are out of self-doubt, when we are confident in our endeavor, our mind is light and airy, like on the left side of the image.

How do we get to that point? We start by identifying our feelings of doubt. We need to allow them to be, without ignoring or numbing them. As we feel that feeling in the pit of our stomachs, what is going on?

For me, that was sheer terror when I felt that feeling. In looking at it further, I whittled it down again and again until I determined that what I was terrified about was having to speak without my notes, that I would forget what I was talking about, and that I was terrified I would look stupid to the audience, like I had no clue what I was talking about.

Ah, the old ego comes into play. So, I had to ask myself why I am so terrified of looking stupid and I trace it back to repeatedly being told that I WAS stupid, pretty much my entire life. When one hears such words reinforced so much, one begins to believe them.

Now I can look at myself and all the times I was told I was stupid with great compassion. I can hold that child, that adult, in my heart and wrap her with love and compassion. I can tell her that it was a lie, that it was said by troubled people who felt that about themselves, perhaps. But none-the-less, a troubled person.

And then, I can look at the other with compassion. Holding us all in a space of compassion allows me to get into my heart instead of my mind. It is at that point that I am able to remember why I am doing this dream in the first place. I remind myself I am becoming a speaker to share my message with people who are struggling, to relay how I got through rough times, and that they can also.

My people are waiting for me, just like your people are waiting for you with whatever gift you have to offer. It becomes about the other person and when it does, your thoughts are off of yourself and your terror, if it is fear which you are feeling. It becomes instead how you can be of service to another. Suddenly, confidence replaces the self-doubt, and you can move forward with your actions in the direction of your dream.

 

 

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Cultivate the Differences We Find In Others

March 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Cultivation of Differences

One of the more exciting behaviors we can adopt to maintain our sobriety and bring us peace, is to cultivate the differences we find in others around us. It is exciting because we are always in a state of wonder about others when we decide to live this way. 

Just like we would with a garden, we tend to the differences we discover. We go out into the world looking for those differences, and we celebrate them when we find them. We honor others when we do this.

We start with the obvious differences… sex and color. We adopt the philosophy of “live and let live,” and we realize that “One is not more beautiful than another. Each has beauty in its own right, if we will only look… if we will only see.”

Once we discover and cultivate the differences we find in others, we can apply all the behaviors we have learned up to this point, like tolerance, respect, compassion, and kindness. We practice these principles freely.

When we do this, we will know a solidarity to our sobriety, and we will know peace. 

Today, look at the people around you and celebrate their differences. Know that their value does not detract from your own. Like the gates, “what thrives in one spot does not grow in another.” Remember that we want to cultivate the differences we find in others. Celebrate when you find these differences, as they add to the fabric of your life. 

 

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How to Use Compassion – Part 1

February 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

If you’re new to this blog, welcome. The goal of this site is to help you to get and stay sober, and to find inner peace. To do that, I am going through my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart : A Journey of Healing, one topic at a time, one page at a time.

My book is a tribute to the resiliency and beauty of the human spirit. Using photographs of wrought-iron gates and inspirational prose, it tells the story of my journey that occurred as I went into and through sobriety, and how I reached inner peace.

Each day, I show the image from the book, and discuss the associated topic of that photo. Occasionally, I also share the verse that goes with the image.

Today’s topic is compassion. This follows on the heels of self-appraisal, a performance appraisal, if you will. We discussed the importance of doing such an evaluation and how doing one moves us forward in our sobriety. By doing the performance appraisal daily, it helps us to eventually find peace.

We then spoke about being gentle with ourselves when we do the appraisal. Now I’d like to suggest that we also show ourselves compassion as we unearth our undesirable traits, behaviors, and actions. To any embarrassment, shame, or remorse that arises, we send compassion.

What is compassion? Webster defines it as feeling pity or sorrow for the sufferings or troubles of another, accompanied by an urge to help. It is deep sympathy. I have two comments to make about this definition.

I don’t believe people want our pity.  Sympathy, perhaps, sorrow, yes, but not pity. Interesting then, how we pity ourselves for our shortcomings, our defects, our lessor traits of character… Maybe we want to look at that so we can learn not to continue doing it, for it is self-defeating, it makes us play small. It is not becoming of one who is sober, and it will restrict our ability to find peace.

Today, as part of learning compassion, return to the performance appraisal again and include, if you didn’t already, the ways in which you feel sorry for yourself. Get really honest about this. Look at it as a fact-finding mission, one which, when compassion is applied, will help you in your journey. It is illuminating when you shine the light on these thoughts, for then you can face them and apply compassion.

Join me tomorrow for Part 2 of How to Use Compassion, as I discuss how expanding the definition of compassion to include ourselves, leads us on our journey in sobriety and finding peace.

 

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Life Offers A Realm of Possibilities

January 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Realm of Possibilities

Realm of Possibilities

“If I climb the steps, anything is possible. Anything.”

This is the photo that appears on the cover of my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. It is representative of the many possibilities available to us if we climb the steps.

And what are the steps we are to climb? All of the things we have been discussing in this blog… first surrender, then awareness of the world around us. We next climb the step into trust of a power greater than us, which leads us to courage and humility. 

With honesty, openness, and willingness, we have the keys to continue up the stairway and we commit to our journey. We conduct a self-appraisal to discover our strengths and our weaknesses, doing so with gentleness and compassion.

These are things which we show for others around us, and we add in kindness. Once we have learned how to show compassion for ourselves and others, we are led to forgiveness, also of ourselves and others. We finally are able to accept ourselves and our lives as they are, and we feel hope. 

We persevere with patience, while we respect and acknowledge others. We treat them without judgment, and we engage in dialogue with them. When we do all of these things, we will experience grace and wonder. Throw into the mix a lot of gratitude, and the world is our oyster. We are prepared to do anything, as we will have grown stronger.

If we do all these things, we will discover when we get to the top of the stairs, that there are vast numbers of possibilities available to us. All we have to do is quietly take note. We can begin to bask in peace and our sobriety will be easier to maintain.

Today, while you practice all the principles of living we have discussed, find yourself at the top of the stairs and see how many possibilities there are for you. You will be delighted with the choices you have.

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Getting Past Hopelessness

January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This morning we continue on in my book and reach hope. We have now experienced ways for getting past hopelessness.

Ray of Hope

Ray of Hope

“A ray of light across the bars of my being lights my way, instills hope in my heart.” This is the verse that accompanies the photo on the left.

Hopelessness is defined as having no expectation of an event occurring, being despondent. Despondent implies being in very low spirits due to a loss of hope and a sense of futility about continuing our efforts.

Hope, on the other hand, is defined as a feeling that what is wanted will happen, a desire accompanied by expectation. It is hope which we want to cultivate in order to dispel hopelessness.

We have come a long way in our journey and have learned several tools and ways to act and behave that will be useful in combatting hopelessness. We have learned to surrender the pretense that everything is fine with us and we have discussed awakening to awareness of what is going on around and within us.

We have learned to trust in a power greater than ourselves, and to have courage and humility. Ways to treat ourselves with such things as gentleness, kindness, and compassion have been discussed.

We have become honest about ourselves and heave learned to practice willingness, to commit to the journey, to move forward. Finally, we have learned the tremendous tool of how to conduct a self-appraisal. Through that appraisal, we have come to forgiveness of both others and ourselves. Do you see how far we’ve come?

Now, after going through what we have, we have learned to accept ourselves. All of these things in combination provide for us a ray of hope that life can and will get better for us. Hopefully, it already has begun to do so.

We focus on that ray of hope as we work on getting past hopelessness, allowing hope to grow. We take a deep breath, reveling in this new-found hope, and we allow it to blossom.

Today, take a moment to reflect on how far you’ve come, and begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the way past hopelessness to sobriety and inner peace.

 

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How to Forgive in Ten Steps

January 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As we travel on in my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, we come to forgiveness. I shall talk about how to forgive, a way I discovered that worked on a 40-year resentment against others from my childhood.

Tiers of Forgiveness

Tiers of Forgiveness

Before sobriety, I spent most of my life angry at others for their mistreatment of me as a child. I drank heavily over it, and spent much time blaming them for my misery.

Then, once sober, I was conducting a self-appraisal, and I realized that I had done to my husband and other men in my life the very same thing that another had done to me… called me worthless.

I was appalled, as I realized I had not meant that. I had said it because I had felt worthless about myself. I began to have compassion for the hurt being and mentally sick person I was in the moments that I said that.

Then I realized that if I had felt that about myself, maybe that other person did also. Maybe he called me worthless because he felt that about himself.

My compassion expanded to include him. From that, I was able to forgive and years of resentment began to melt away. For me, it occurred over time, in tiers, or stages.

Holding resentments is the number one thing that keeps us from maintaining our sobriety and finding peace. They keep us blaming others instead of taking responsibility for ourselves. In order to gain forgiveness, I suggest the following:

  1. we identify the person(s) against whom we have a resentment
  2. we identify the reason why we feel that resentment
  3. then, we do a self-appraisal and ferret out times when we may have done the very same thing to others for which we resent the person identified in #1.
  4. we are honest about this, and shine the spotlight on our behaviors and own them
  5. chances exist that, at one point in life, we may have done the same thing that was done to us
  6. we look at ourselves with compassion, recognizing our mental anguish at that time
  7. then. we turn our attention to the one we resent and consider that they were feeling mental anguish like we did
  8. we see that person(s) as a sick individual at the point in time that they harmed us
  9. we extend our compassionto include the object of our resentment
  10. in stages, or tiers, we allow for forgiveness to this mentally unbalanced person

In my experience, this is my way of how to forgive. For today, try this exercise and see if it gives you some relief from your resentments. Let us know what happens by leaving a comment, so we can all learn from what you found.

 

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What Is Kindness and How Do We Practice It

January 9, 2012 by 2 Comments

“What is kindness?” is perhaps a question we want to ask ourselves more frequently. I say this because I overhear people speaking to each other in an unkindly manner all-too-often.

Curls of Kindness

Curls of Kindness

What IS kindness? According to Webster, it is nothing more than being sympathetic, generous, friendly, gentle, loving, tenderhearted, and affectionate. Sometimes, we are better at these ways of being to strangers than we are to those we have been with for a long time. I wonder why that is…

Perhaps, it is because we have grown tired of the relationship and the other person. Or, maybe it’s because we are feeling grumpy at the point in time that we are unkind and we think it’s okay to take it out on the one we love the most. Is that fair? Probably not…

So how do we prevent that? We learn about ourselves more, about our tendencies to blow up at another when we’re irritable, or not getting what we want. We do our self-appraisal and we make amends, when appropriate. We begin to consciously practice all the ways that Webster defines kindness, as I’ve listed above.

Then there is the issue of how we treat ourselves, which is often harsher than how we treat others. We call ourselves stupid, for example, when we make a mistake.

How do we practice kindness, you ask? The answer to that is that, perhaps, we don’t. But we can, simply by choosing to look at another with respect, tolerance, and love, so that kindness just naturally flows from that point. It may not be a simple matter for us to do that, in which case, we can work on that. It’s practice, not perfection.

What is kindness to ourselves and how do we practice that? First, we can begin to note our negative self-talk. Then, we fetch ourselves up shortly when we are talking to ourselves in an unkind manner. We remind ourselves that we want to treat ourselves differently – with more kindness. So, we replace the negative criticism with some compassion, perhaps, or we pay ourselves a compliment for what we DID do right or well. With practice, we can change our interior thought-world.

When we learn to be kinder to others and ourselves, we will have just that much more chance of getting and staying sober, and we will begin to feel more peace.

I just have one question and it happens to be the verse from my book which goes with the photo above. “If this is not the time to be kinder and gentler to each other and to ourselves, when will it be?” 

 

 

 

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How to Show Compassion to Ourselves

January 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday, we talked about how to show compassion to others. Today, we shall talk about how to turn that compassion toward ourselves. Remember, our goals are sobriety and inner peace. And, I’d like to add the goal of gaining a balance in our lives.

We always do the best we know how at any given moment, with the tools and knowledge we have at that time. Always. Therefore, when we do something for which we are not proud, or something hurtful to another that we regret, we can stop and remind ourselves of this.

Instead of beating ourselves up or feeling remorse, we can look at ourselves with compassion. We can understand that we did the best we could, and vow to change our behavior in similar situations in the future. This does not condone or excuse the hurtful things we do; we still need to apologize and then change our behavior.

But we can soften how we see ourselves, and not harshly criticize. Harsh criticism gets us nowhere except into shame. Shame gets us nowhere except into a negative space, and that is detrimental for us. Remember, we did the best we knew how to do at that moment. If we knew better, we would have done better.

Life is filled with lessons. Instead of looking at things as failures on our part, we can instead look at all situations as learning experiences, ones from which we can grow and heal. I believe that’s why we are presented with difficult situations – to learn, grow, and heal.

A word of caution about self-pity. It is detrimental and fuels our desire to drink away that for which we are pitying ourselves. Self-pity excuses our responsibility to see ourselves with honesty, to make amends, and keeps us blaming others for our transgressions. Beware of self-pity; it is toxic for us.

Today, practice viewing yourself with compassion. Consider yourself a wounded individual and acknowledge those wounds. Realize that that’s why you were unkind or unloving to another or yourself. Apply compassion, which is nothing more than sympathy, and see how your self-talk softens. You will feel more love for yourself, which will ward off the temptation and desire to drink about what you did or said, and you will know more peace.

 

 

 

 

 

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How to Show Compassion to Others

January 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As we travel through my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, the next topic is compassion.

I put compassion after gentleness because compassion is another behavior we want to cultivate in our dealings with others and ourselves. If we practice compassion and gentleness, we will go a long way toward our goals of staying sober and finding peace.

Webster defines compassion as sorrow or deep sympathy for the sufferings or troubles of another, often accompanied by a desire to help. It also says compassion is pity for the person, but I disagree with this. I think that to show pity for another is to degrade and negate them as beings.

Pity differs from compassion in that it sometimes is accompanied by contempt because the object of our pity is regarded as weak or inferior. At least, that’s what Webster said when I looked up pity. People do not want our pity, but they may welcome our compassion. 

How do we show compassion? In the book, the verse talks about my dealing with a homeless man and my inability to acknowledge him because I did not have money to give to him. I was ashamed that I couldn’t even smile, or give a nod of acknowledgment. After all, each of us wants nothing more than to be acknowledged for our difficulties. It offers validation for our pain and suffering.

Fields of Compassion

Fields of Compassion

In the book, the verse goes on to say, “All it would take is a look, a smile, to let this man know I care about him, feel his plight, want to help. I can offer a fellow human being a smile, a hand, and fill a vacant field with compassion.” 

To show compassion, we can say to the person something like, “I’m sorry you are needing to deal with this.” That offers acknowledgment and validation for his/her pain. It often is all that is needed for the person to continue on in their grieving process.

We can also ask, “How can I be of help to you?” if we are, in fact, willing to help in some way. Another way to show compassion is through silent means, such as donating something that will help another, such as food or money.

The point is that we get out of ourselves and offer something we have in excess, whether that be our time, our sympathy, a shoulder to cry on, or money.

How do you show compassion to one who is suffering? Do you look away or do your reach out to them? Just for today, try to offer condolences to someone who is suffering and see how it benefits both them and you. 

Tomorrow, I will talk about ways in which we can show compassion to ourselves.

 

 

 

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Dealing With Fear in Sobriety – 2 of 3

December 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As an addition to yesterday’s post, I’d like to point out that me worrying about whether you would find me stupid for what I blogged was worrying about the future. I didn’t have my mind on the present. That takes practice, remembering to be in the moment, yet it’s an excellent tool for dealing with our fear in sobriety, and ultimately brings us much peace and serenity.

Back to the continuation of yesterday’s topic, the old hurts and wounds behind why being called stupid bothers me… It’s based upon repeatedly being called stupid about everything I did and thought. It was the past, will not change, and was not the truth. I tell myself these things. So do I need to say “get over it and move on?” There are many who say just that.

I am not one of them because that didn’t work for me. That is what I drank heavily over – to hide the feelings associated with the hurts. I believe we do disservice to one who is struggling emotionally and is stuck, repeating the same thing again and again, when we say “get over it and move on.” It does not acknowledge their pain, their grief, and they feel alone in the world in their misery with no hope for improvement.

On the other hand, it gets difficult to listen to over and over again over a long period of time, when we have seen no action taken on the part of that person to deal with their pain. Maybe they are drinking heavily, and we’re focused on that.

The thing is, I think we can gently acknowledge the suffering person’s pain by saying we know it exists and it is valid. And now it’s time to look forward, we gently say. We then can encourage any action they take to get past their pain, however small.

This is especially true for somone who has elected to get sober, as that is the beginning of being responsible for their wound healing, even though they will probably be totally unaware of that.

So, pardon the digression, but I wanted to say that… Back to the issue of the wound’s origin. I need to look at the situation from a different angle, with the new eyes of a 59 year old sober woman instead of a 10 year old scared child. When I do that, I realize something important. It was said by a man whose view of the world was narrow. I think about this a long while, and I feel it in my heart, my soul.

I discover I can, and do, have compassion and sadness for that man, because he misses out on so much. I have been graced with that compassion, and, over time, it has led me to forgiveness.

The thing is, I got to this place of acceptance, peace, compassion, and forgiveness by getting and staying sober. We saw an example of growth in sobriety by dealing with false evidence appearing real, and now we see another way of dealing with fear in sobriety, looking at the old story with new eyes, the eyes of the heart.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to choose the other way, the new way, because that brings me serenity, that brings me peace.

Tomorrow, another way of dealing with fear in sobriety.

 

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Improving Your Communication Skills

December 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Invitation of Dialogue

Invitation of Dialogue

“If we as individuals cannot speak to each other, how, then, can we as nations achieve peace?”

Such is the verse for our topic today, improving your communication skills.

Let me be clear about the fact that I am not a communications expert, but I do observe people and their communication, and I do know what prevents me from communicating with others.

What I observe is a lot of bickering, bullying, and putting others down. Why do we do that to each other? Why can we not speak with gentleness and kindness to others?

I think of the reasons that I do not communicate well to another and it is usually when I am feeling low, or “less than” about myself, or when I am very shy. I retreat inside, unable to come out and participate in dialogue.

I am talking about the kind of dialogue where each party is free to express their feelings or thoughts without fear of ridicule or belittlement. How can we, as listeners, be active participants?

First of all, we can show respect for another as they are talking to us, remembering that each person is unique and worthy of our respect. Remember, we are focusing on cultivating differences between us and others.

Secondly, we can show tolerance for that person, allowing them to have their own opinion, even if it differs from ours. Remember, just because they say something of worth, it does not detract from our value.

Third, we can show kindness and gentleness as we set about talking to others. Remember, we each just want to be acknowledged for who and what we are, so we can pay attention to those around us.

Fourth, have compassion for another as they trudge with purpose through their life. Remember, show ourselves compassion also, for the frightened people we may be when it comes to approaching others and talking.

With respect, tolerance, kindness, gentleness, and compassion, we can engage in dialogue with others, allowing ourselves to show that tender side of ourselves. When we practice these things, we can also listen well, which is the other part of communication. Remember, listen to what others are saying and hear with your heart.

How do you engage in communication with others? Do you need a brush-up on your communication skills? Do you do all the talking, or do you allow room for others to talk? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

 

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Altering Your Mind with Inspirational Quotes About Life

December 4, 2011 by 2 Comments

It’s hard to think that inspirational quotes about life can alter your mind. Usually, when we think of mind-altering, we think of substances like drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine.

These substances bring us a euphoria, an escape from emotional pain and stress. It is with these that we get away from the demons in our mind, sometimes engaging in their use until we are numb and can no longer feel. This can occur when we are experiencing deep emotional wounds.

At the very least, this behavior of over-indulging can be self-destructive, especially if substances are used for the purpose of numbing. At its best and in moderation, altering our minds with substances gives us a bit of a respite – a breather, so-to-speak. Is this not the same thing we would all like to feel when we get stressed from the daily trials and tribulations?

Instead of using substances, consider that we can alter our mind with inspirational quotes about life. We hear the words of another, whether that person is famous or not, and we relate to them at a deep, personal level. They resonate with our being. Ah, a connection is made.

The words bring us hope – hope of better times, hope of release of stress in our mind. Often, the quotes are strong enough to bring forth empowerment. When this occurs, we are inspired  to take action on our behalf.

Oneness

Oneness

Stirring inspirational quotes about life bring us to compassion for ourselves and others. The words can lead us to want to show concern and empathy for those in our world.

Inspirational quotes about life lead us to gratitude as we express our thankfulness. We begin to feel oneness with others and ourselves, as we open our hearts.

It is that feeling of oneness that arises when we read these inspirational quotes that is so sacred, so spiritual in nature. Perhaps, allowing in the spirituality of the quotes changes our mind chemistry, such that it alters our mood.

So, the next time you have a need to alter your mind, try some inspirational quotes about life. Bask in the hope, the compassion, the gratitude you find, and experience that feeling of oneness with yourself and the world.

 

 

 

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Inspirational Quote About Life and Grace

December 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As we move forward in my book, our next topic is grace. Today’s inspirational quote about life and grace from the book is “Gently, quietly, an unearned favor of great beauty and pleasure is bestowed upon me.”

Sweep of Grace

Sweep of Grace

There is nothing quite like living in grace. It is a spiritual experience, for me. It is swept upon me quietly, gently, as the quote says, and as the photograph shows.

The thing about grace is that it is unearned, it is a favor. The more you strive for it, the more elusive it is. It is a gift that settles upon you. It just feels like the world is in alignment, that all is right for you.

Webster defines grace as an attractive quality, feature, or manner. It is beauty or charm of form, composition, movement, or expression.

How do you live in grace? Since it is nothing you can originate, since it is bestowed upon you, living the principles of living that we have been discussing will lead to grace.

For example, living with honesty, and with an open and willing heart will lead to grace. So will it if you live with tolerance, compassion, and kindness toward others and yourself.

Live with these qualities today and see if you experience grace, that wonderful veil that descends upon you, gently. Let us know if you experience it and what it feels like for you.

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Offer Acknowledgment to Others and Bring Peace to You Both

November 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Perhaps the biggest service you can provide is to offer acknowledgment to others, and to yourself.

Acknowledgement of others

Acknowledgment of Others

“It is a never-ending circle of acknowledgment – of each other, and of ourselves.”

“We go within so we can reach out to others and we reach out to others so we can go within.”

“We just need to be seen, to be noticed by those around us. We need to matter to each other, and to ourselves.”

“We do not need to do this alone. We need to help each other.”

Such is the verse that goes with this photograph. The photo shows how it’s never-ending, always repeating. Our backs are curled away from another, so we can reach within to gather strength to give to others.

Then, we are curled toward another, so we can offer acknowledgment to the other, letting them know that we see their value as a human being. In so doing, we feel good inside, feel good about ourselves.

Acknowledgment to another is as simple as you offering a smile, a nod of the head. We all just want to be noticed by you, as the verse says. It is so simple, so easy, and when you do it, it promotes peace in the world around you. It makes you feel good inside.

To offer acknowledgment to ourselves, to yourself, is more difficult sometimes. For example, you may not give acknowledgment to your feelings, especially ones of hurt. You tell yourself to “get over it,” instead of holding yourself tenderly and gently, showing yourself compassion.

When you do these things for yourself, that’s when you really get over it, because your soul is comforted and it can heal from hurts. To acknowledge your hurts is to show your soul that you, too, matter as a human being.

Perhaps it is fear which prevents you from acknowledging another. Or guilt. In the case of a homeless person on the corner, you may not wish to offer money. So you look away, you avoid eye contact. But that says to them that they are not of value to you.

Perhaps they are not, and yet, they are a fellow human being, just trying to make it through. A smile will brighten up their day. When you offer that acknowledgment to them, you will feel your heart swell with goodness.

In similar fashion, when you offer acknowledgment to your feelings, your heart swells with goodness. You feel you matter to yourself, that you are important. 

Go into your day and offer acknowledgment to others and to yourself, and feel the peace it brings you. Feel that goodness in your heart. Then, go within yourself to gather strength and gentleness to do it again, for the next person that you encounter. Tell me, doesn’t doing these things feel good inside; don’t you feel peace? 

 

 

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Inspirational Quotes About Life and Hope

November 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Ray of Hope

Ray of Hope

One of the inspirational quotes about life and hope for today is, “A ray of light across the bars of my being lights my way, instills hope in my heart.”

Another is, “You feel hope when you feel that what you want will happen.” That is Webster’s definition…

For you who is learning to love yourself and to overcome low self-esteem, depression, worthlessness, or despair, you begin to believe that you can overcome these things, that you can feel self-love.

Now that you have seen yourself with kindness and compassion, forgiven yourself and others, learned to have humility and willingness, and accepted yourself as you are, you realize that you have hope for better times, a better feeling about yourself and your life.

You have hope that you can move forward in life, that inner peace and happiness can be yours. Breathe in intention – to move forward in your life. Breathe out manifestation – you experience peace and happiness today.

All it takes is that little ray of hope that you see in the photograph, and soon the sun shines even more brightly across the bars of your being, dissolving doubt, washing away fear. You bathe in that ray and drink in the hope that it brings to your soul. 

That’s right… go ahead and drink in hope, relish it, revel in it. Let it open your heart. Believe in yourself and let your light shine in your world and the world around you. 

Can you feel that hope? Are you breathing in intention and breathing out manifestation? Let your soul be lightened and washed clear. Is your soul feeling more clear? It is my hope that it is. Now, have a peaceful and happy day as you bask in hope today… then tomorrow, and then the next day, and the next… one day at a time…

 

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Building Self Confidence by Accepting Yourself

November 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Today we’re going to talk about building self confidence by accepting yourself. This is the next topic in the book, and the verse is:

Building self confidence through Acceptance of Self

Acceptance of Self

“Have we really changed throughout the years, or do we merely hold within our heart and mind and soul the essence of who we are, while our physical form changes?

Can we recapture the delightful being we have always been, as we allow and celebrate our strengths, our flaws, our spirit?”

You start out as a delightful being, delighted yourself with the world and your surroundings. Over time, you are hurt by others, perhaps told in one way or another that you are not good enough, that you are worthless. You are belittled, criticized. These things erode your self confidence.

You start believing all the negative things you have been told or been shown about yourself, and you start putting yourself down. You are not what someone else wants you to be, so you begin not accepting who you are. 

These things are all crazy-making within your heart, your mind. You end up being a confused and hurt person, lacking confidence and wanting to be someone different than you are. This is damaging to your soul.

What if you were to start over and reclaim yourself and who you are? Re-examine the delightful things about yourself and applaud them. Identify your strong points, just as you identify your weak points needing improvement.

Accept that it is all who you are. No need to be ashamed for your weak areas, your negative behavior. Accept that that is who you are and be willing to change those things, but know that that is who you are in the moment.

The more you run away from who you are at this very moment in time, the less likely you will be able to accept yourself and to reclaim self confidence. Seriously, accept that you are that generous, kind person, just as you are a selfish, hurtful person sometimes. Own it – all of it. 

If you do not identify and accept who you are at the current time, if you are always denying your bad points, you cannot make changes in yourself. It is in correcting your bad and weak points that you can help grow your self confidence.

When you do your self-appraisal, have the courage and humility to admit to the good that you are and that you do. Go ahead. Praise yourself, pat yourself on the back. Allow seeing your positive points to add to your self confidence. Stand tall in who you really are. Be honest with the world.

Remember to be humble, though. This exercise is not meant to emphasize your superiority, but to enhance the way in which you see yourself so you can raise your self confidence.

Do good for others. This will raise your self confidence immensely. There is nothing like seeing the look of appreciation on another’s face when you do something kind and giving for them.

In short, reclaim that delightful spirit that you are. Take responsibility for your flaws. Do good for others. Most importantly, find kindness, gentleness, compassion, and forgiveness for yourself.

How have these actions helped to raise your self confidence? Have you accepted who you are in both your darkness and your light? Has doing esteem-able acts helped you with your self confidence? Leave a comment. Let us know.

 

 

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How to Find Forgiveness

November 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I spoke about how forgiveness found me. It was quite by accident. Now, I know how to recreate that for myself and I thought I’d share it with you how to find forgiveness.

Tiers of Forgiveness

Tiers of Forgiveness

It happens in tiers, or stages, over time. There are many emotions to deal with, and the original anger and resentment will resurface for you to look at. It gets easier if you apply the following process.

  • Identify the original anger. Recognize it as hurt and let yourself feel that hurt. Be willing to feel it.
  • Don’t get into how justified you are about your anger. Allow yourself to hurt.
  • Take a look at yourself and determine if you may have done something to provoke the other person. Be really honest about that, even if it is embarrassing to admit. Better to know this up-front. Be willing to look honestly. Be willing to be responsible for your own actions and words.
  • If you did do something to provoke the other person, perhaps an apology is in order. Drop your pride and apologize if you were the one who set the ball in motion.
  • If that is not the case, then look further at yourself and examine whether you have ever done the very thing for which you are angry.
  • Chances are, you have in some form or another. Think about how you felt about yourself when you did that. Were you feeling badly about yourself and took it out on another in some way?
  • Have compassion for yourself for how badly you were feeling about yourself when you did that act, or said what you said to be hurtful to another. Really hold yourself and give yourself comfort. Be willing to show yourself compassion.
  • Now, think about the other person and consider that they most likely were feeling badly about themselves when they did what they did to you.
  • Now, try to see them with the eyes of compassion for the wounded soul they were at that moment that they hurt you.
  • Don’t condone the hurtful actions. Forgiveness is not about condoning the hurtful actions or words of another. It is about freeing up your heart from the resentment you harbor. It is about clearing your heart.
  • Once you see with the eyes of compassion, try to bring forgiveness into your heart.
  • Know that they were doing the best they could at that moment, just as you always do the best you can in any moment, even if you are hurtful to another.

Try this series of ideas for one with whom you are angry and resentful, one whom you are unable to forgive, and see if it is helpful. See if it shows you how to find forgiveness.

If it is yourself you need to forgive, the same stages of self-examination and compassion apply. If you try this method, let us know the results. Leave a comment with your success, or let us know if it just didn’t work.

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How I Found the Gift of Forgiveness

November 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

There was a definite advantage for me in finding the gift of forgiveness. It is a gift for you, as it frees your heart of the resentment, anger, and hurt which you harbor. When you forgive, it adds a great deal of inner peace to your life.

According to Webster, to forgive is to give up resentment and the desire to punish someone, to pardon them, to overlook one’s transgressions. This is not to say you condone what another has done. Yet, you give up the need to punish them with your silence, or scorn, or anger.

Finding the Gift of Forgiveness

Tiers of Forgiveness

Forgiveness for me happened in tiers. And it involved many years of tears. There was a period of years in my life when I endured much physical and verbal abuse; the details are not important.

What is noteworthy is that I was told repeatedly during those years that I was worthless, no good, and would never amount to anything. Needless to say, I started to feel very worthless.

I went on with life, resenting this person who had bestowed the extreme physical and emotional hurt upon me. I seethed inside. I made snide comments to punish them, or withheld my love and attention as a way to further punish. 

Then I became sober. I had to look at what was done without having alcohol to numb the pain, and it was excruciating to do so. I did it because I had no choice but to go through the pain if I wanted to heal. And I wanted desperately to heal. 

I was doing a self-appraisal one day, looking at all my relationships with men that I had had over the years. I realized that for each of them, I would get drunk and scream at them how worthless they were, that they were no good, and would never amount to anything.

I was horrified to remember and to admit this to myself! What a horrible thing to have said! I realized I did not mean it, that I was feeling those things about myself, and just took out my anguish on them.

Suddenly, I wondered if the person who said those things to me felt the same way – felt worthless and no good about themselves, and that is why they screamed those words at me.  I saw myself with compassion, knowing what extreme pain I was in at the time. This allowed me to believe that the person who abused me was also in great pain at the time, and I was able to feel compassion for them, also.

This didn’t excuse my behavior, and I have since apologized to these men, but the psychological and spiritual damage was done. Yet, by acknowledging how I said these things, and applying compassion to both myself and the person who abused me, I was able to forgive myself, and the person who had said them to me. Years of anger and  resentment slipped away. I have since gained peace from years of abuse. 

What are the ways in which you are withholding forgiveness? Is it getting in the way of your peace of mind? Tomorrow we will look at ways you can learn to offer forgiveness, so you can gain peace, too.

 

 

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What is Kindness

November 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment
What is Kindness

Curls of Kindness

“If this is not the time to be kinder and gentler to each other and to ourselves, when will it be?” This is the verse from my book, and the next topic we will be discussing today – what is kindness?

Friendly, gentle, tenderhearted, sympathetic, generous, and cordial are all terms Webster uses to define “kind,” with “kindness” being the state or habit of being kind. So that answers what is kindness…

How do you treat others with kindness? Perhaps by using many of the things we have discussed up to this point. Things like being gentle, having compassion, being willing to be kind, and having an open heart can all contribute to acts of kindness.

Having a good sense of who you are is also needed for you to be kind, both to others and to yourself. When you feel more at home with yourself, you have less need to strike out in anger, defensiveness, and fear, or to cut yourself down.

The next time you feel the urge to say a disparaging word about someone, hold that thought and allow your heart to soften. Allow in a kind thought, and say something kind instead. Become willing to do this.

In like fashion, every time you catch yourself saying unkind things to yourself about yourself, come into awareness that you are doing that. Make the choice to stop, and think something kind about yourself instead.

This all may sound easy, yet it takes consciousness and practice. When you have the urge to be unkind, or if you actually are, do a self-appraisal and examine what you were feeling at the time that prompted you to act unkindly. If you were feeling “less than,” treat yourself with compassion and gentleness.

What is kindness to you? What are the ways in which you are kind to others? How about to yourself?

 

 

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What is Compassion?

November 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Our next stop as we work our way through my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing is compassion. And what is compassion? It is the ability to feel sympathy or sorrow for another’s sufferings and is usally associated with an urge to help.

what is compassion

Fields of Compassion

To interject, the interesting and very unique thing about my book is that I wrote three-quarters of the verses that appear in it before I even discovered the gates and photographed them.

Such is the case for the verse that accompanies Fields of Compassion. I wrote the bulk of the verse in Colorado in 2003, immediately following an uncomfortable experience with a homeless man, and I found the gate image in Napa Valley, California in 2005. I later re-wrote the last stanza, which I quote below. I rewrote it because the original was just a demonstration of self-pity for my shame.

What happened in 2003 was, I stopped at a light in Denver and there was a homeless man on the corner. I didn’t want to give him money, so after a brief encounter of our eyes meeting, I looked away with shame and avoided further eye contact.

I felt horrible that I couldn’t even acknowledge this man, another human being who was struggling. After I went through the light, I stopped and wrote the verse that goes with the image, in which I talk about how I could not even show my compassion to this man, and that I cried for the lack of compassion we show one another. 

The end of the verse reads, “All it would take is a look, a smile, to let this man know that I care about him, feel his plight, want to help. I can offer a fellow human being a smile, a hand, and fill a vacant field with compassion…”

Back to our definition for the question what is compassion? You can have sorrow for another’s plight, and you can take it one step further by acknowledging them. All it takes is a smile, a nod of the head. Sometimes you wish to reach into your pocket to help with money, but even if you do not do that, you can display your sympathy, your compassion. This goes for anyone who is suffering.

It even holds true for yourself when you are suffering. You can show yourself sympathy when you are healing and dealing, for example, with grief, sorrow, or remorse that arises.  You can fill your empty field with compassion.

Compassion is not to be confused with pity, feeling sorry for others, and especially feeling self-pity. Now, Webster includes pity in the definition of compassion, yet, in my experience, I have found that self-pity was very destructive for me. It perpetuated my blaming of others for my woes, kept me drinking over it, and it kept me from moving forward and taking action. It stopped me from being useful to others. And pitying others I found to be demeaning. 

I hope I have answered for you the question what is compassion. How do you show compassion to another or yourself?

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A Promise of Peace

October 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Peace at Dusk

Promise of Peace

And, so, we are brought to the last topic in my book “Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing.” It is peace. The verse in the book is: “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.”

Even as I type that and read it aloud to assure it’s correct, I feel a deep, calm and settled  feeling in my heart. Knowing what path my life took to get me to this peace, it feels like a miracle and makes it all the more special.

Has it really been ten years ago that I was in deep depression and in the depths of despair, only able to drink and cry over an unrequited love for which I left my 20 year marriage? At the time, I thought I wanted to die, and stopped feeding myself to that end. Later, I would realize that the unrequited love got me out of my highly dysfunctional marriage. So, it was a gift for me.

But I couldn’t see that at the time and, so, proceeded to drink myself into oblivion every day for months. Finally, I got the spark of a will to live, and during that moment of clarity, I realized I needed to stop drinkiing. So, I set off to San Diego from the San Francisco Bay Area, to live with a girlfriend and get sober.

Now it is ten years later and life has become a gift and a blessing, filled with great joy and inner peace. In the interim, I have been through hell and back as I have had to feel my feelings and pain without numbing them with alcohol and drugs. In the process, I have developed a whole new awareness of myself and the world around me.

I have been reconfigured into a different person. I have learned to love myself and then others. Compassion, tolerance, and respect have filled my life and heart. I have found the peace for which I searched in my marriage and my drinking. Funny how I had to leave both behind to find it…

The journey I took is what is reflected in my book. It uses photographs of wrought-iron gates I took and verses with inspirational quotes about life that I wrote, to show the path I took in my travels to wholeness. It’s not a how-to book, yet if you purchased it and followed the steps I took along the way, perhaps you would find peace, also. And if you’ve found peace within, then join me in to book for a quiet , yet, triumphant celebration.

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Healing Emotional Pain By Noticing Your Growth of Character

August 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Healing emotional pain can occur when you look at your character, the parts of you that make up your morals, your beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Where and how has your character grown over the years? What is the progress you’ve made in becoming a more compassionate, tolerant , and kind person?

If you look at yourself from that light, you will most likely see growth that has occurred over the years, especially if you have been working consciously to improve yourself. You need to consider that growth as you continue healing emotional pain.

Growth of Character

Just as you look at your own growth of character, it is necessary to consider the growth of another’s character. Look at how they have grown over the years, the strides and changes they have made in themselves. Once you identify these changes, it is easier to get to compassion and forgiveness of another.

Try looking at all the moss and lichen that has grown over the years. Consider it beautiful, for both yourself and others. Perhaps you will gain some healing of your emotional pain.

 

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Inspirational Sayings About Overcoming Insecurity and Low Self-Esteem

May 6, 2011 by 7 Comments

Overcoming insecurity and low-self esteem is a process. It takes conscious, focused, and consistent attention, especially if we have an extra-low esteem or very high insecurity. I believe the answer lies in learning to accept ourselves, just as we are. Hence, the title of the photo on the right, which is Acceptance of Self.

First, we need to be aware of how we currently see ourselves. We can ask ourselves questions about our esteem, our confidence. If we think of ourselves as “less than” others, then we are dealing with a low self-esteem and insecurity. We accept that and give compassion and soothing to ourselves. We treat ourselves with gentleness as we explore these feelings.

We understand that we are human and we embrace that. Not as an excuse for poor behavior, actions, or thoughts, but, instead, to allow ourselves to make mistakes, to be human, to have failings.

When we have erred, we can examine the situation and our part in it. Then we can apologize to the other, or ourselves, and we change our behavior. This action is our responsibility and, when performed, helps us feel better about ourselves, merely because we are being responsible for things we did that we didn’t like.

Another way to boost our esteem and lessen our insecurities is to do things for others. Sometimes, that’s as simple as smiling at someone as we pass, saying hello. It could be offering help to one in need, whether a stranger or someone we know. We take responsibility for being useful to others. This works well to increase esteem. It is said that if you want esteem, do esteem-able acts.

These are the things I have done that have allowed me to better my self-image and esteem, both of which were shattered when I came to sobriety. It has taken years, and I committed to the process which I have outlined. The result was tested last week in Allen, Texas, while at a signing event for my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing.

I was well-received and people were giving me compliments right and left. In days before I felt comfortable with myself and who I am, I would have pushed away those words, discounted them, with sarcastic or humorous responses to another’s compliment. Now that I feel positive regard for myself, I was able to humbly accept what was coming my way, taking it in with gratitude and joy, knowiing that my message of hope had been heard. That made me feel good about myself, which, in turn, lowered my insecurity.

If you are dealing with overcoming insecurity and low self-esteem, try what I have described. You may find it helpful. Just remember that it is a process, one which takes time and persistence. I wish you well.

 

 

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How Does Compassion Lead to Forgiveness

April 7, 2011 by 6 Comments

How does compassion lead to forgiveness, you might wonder. Compassion is defined by Webster as sorrow felt for another’s suffering or troubles, coupled with an urge to help in some way, deep sympathy. They also say pity, yet, I believe we don’t have to pity another in order to have compassion For me, it manifests as very soft and tender thoughts for another, often coupled with a deep knowingness of or wanting to understand one’s troubles so I can offer help of some sort.

Compassion leads to forgiveness when we recognize how we have done the very thing for which we are angry at or hurt by another. This powerful realization happened to me. I was doing a self-appraisal of all my relationships, and I recognizd I used to get drunk and yell at my partner at the time how worthless they were, that they wouldn’t amount to anything.

I was horrified to remember this! I didn’t mean those things I said. I was feeling badly about myself, which is what prompted the words in the first place. Then I realized they were the very words that were told to me as a child. I began to wonder if the person who uttered them to me also felt badly about himself at the time he yelled those words.

I felt compassion for myself, for the deep-seated feelings of worthlessness that led me to say these wounding words. Suddenly, I saw the man who said those words to me, as a suffering human being, hurting like I hurt, lashing out like I lashed out. I had great compassion for both of us, both wounded souls. I began to realize that I would like forgiveness in this situation, and believed that to be true for my perpetrator, as well. I softened  to both of us, and brought forth all the compassion I could muster. I understood why the words were said. They had nothing to do with me or my worth. Years of hurt and pain were washed away, as my compassion gave way to forgiveness.

So tell me, how does compassion lead to forgiveness in your life? Does it? Can it if you look with compassion?

 

 

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Can You Look at Yourself with Gentleness

March 29, 2011 by 2 Comments

Todays’ topic is gentleness, which is reflected in this photo titled  Bed of Gentleness, as in bed of ivy. This appears in the book right after Search of Self for a very specific reason.

It has been my experience that when we look at ourselves, do a personal inventory, we often then turn around and beat ourselves up for who we are, for what we said or did, or for mistakes we have made.

That response is incompatible with and defeats what we find when we do that self-appraisal. For example, we identify the areas which could use some improvement. If we are doing a comprehensive inventory, we will have also uncovered many good things about ourselves as well. So, when we beat ourselves up or have remorse about ourselves, our behaviors, we are negating our positive side.

Rather, we might  look upon ourselves with some tender and gentle thoughts. In my experience, when I do this, it leads me to compassion because I recognize my humanness. When we see with compassion, we can smile and soothe ourselves. And, it just automatically translates into gentleness. Once we are gentle with ourselves as we learn, grow, and heal, we can be gentle with others, and isn’t that the name of the game?

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Carolyn CJ Jones is the author, photographer, and publisher of the book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. Using photographs of wrought-iron gates and uplifting prose, this book chronicles Carolyn’s own personal healing journey that occurred in sobriety, from the depths of despair and praying to die, to joy and inner peace. The book is available on this site, or through Amazon. Additionally, the bookstores which carry the book are listed on this site.

Also on this site is one selected image each month to be printed as a limited edition. This can be ordered as a print, a matted print, or matted and framed.

 

 

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Life Is A Journey – Join The Journey of Life

February 22, 2011 by 1 Comment

What does it mean to join the journey of life? What is the journey anyway? I use that term to include the series of events and experiences that occur in our life as we go about living it, from day to day. In that definition is the inclusion of living a spiritually-based life, believing in some force greater than yourself that keeps the “ball” rolling.

For me, it also includes committing to a journey of sobriety, of living life according to principles of living without drinking, living a better life in my head, being a better person in the world. It involves adopting ways of treating myself and others, such as with tolerance, respect, and love. It embraces a life filled with behaviors such as forgiveness and compassion.

When I say join the journey of life, I refer to taking on the challenge to be involved in our lives… the leaves that have fallen, the leaves that are grown, and the buds yet to form. Life is a journey – climb the stairs and join it.

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Carolyn CJ Jones is the author and photographer of the book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. More about the book can be seen above under “The Book,” or in the videos on the sidebar. “About Me and My Work” above reveals more about her. Carolyn is now offering limited edition professional prints, either as prints, matted, or framed which can be viewed above. February’s limited edition print is Visions of Gratitude.

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Inner Peace Leads To World Peace

December 7, 2010 by 2 Comments

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.

So it is when we practice kindness, tolerance, respect, compassion, forgiveness, etc.- the principles of living. If we start by providing these things to ourselves, it leads to inner peace. We allow ourselves to be human, while learning to assess our thoughts and behaviors, constantly loving ourselves and others.

Fueled by a full and overflowing heart, we can them be at peace with those in our immediate surroundings, which, in turn, leads to those people gaining inner peace and so forth. There is no end result. The cycle repeats itself endlessly, furthering world peace.

It is a nice scenario I weave, is it not? Yet, it was possible and happened that way for me. Once I was able to love, value, and repsect myself, I was able to truly love, value, and respect others. I gained peace I never thought I would find, both within and with those in my world.

It works. It really does!

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Share the words of inspiration and hope in my book. Give a copy to a friend, or to yourself. Share in the process I went through to reach inner, and then outer, peace. I am having a holiday celebration and am selling the book for $25.00, including shipping and tax for California residents. This is a reduction from $29.95 plus shipping and applicable tax.

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Pursuit of Serenity

December 2, 2010 by 3 Comments

Balance of Serenity

I am serene,

carried to places where

I am held in balance

with great beauty and strength.

In the pursuit of serenity. do we try too hard? Is it something we do not need to actively pursue because it is a feeling with which we are graced?

The definition of serene is a state of being calm, tranquil – without agitation, free from disturbance. Ah, can’t you just feel being in that state? Don’t you wish to live there most of the time?

Perhaps the way to get there is to take certain steps that have been discussed throughout this blog… such as starting with searching ourselves, identifying our fears and the cause of them, assessing our behavior with others and ourselves. Is it kind, loving?

Then we can choose to adopt principles of living that are loving, such as kindness, tolerance, respect. We learn to live with compassion and forgiveness. The result is living in love, and serenity is a by-product of that. It’s a lovely place to live.

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Our book topics draw to an end, just as the holiday season begins. I’d like to let it be known that I will be offering a special holiday rate of $25 for my book, including shipping and tax for CA residents. This is a holiday special you don’t wish to miss! Whether for yourself or another, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing makes an excellent gift! What a wonderful way to start the new year!

This special rate will run from approximately Dec 6th (I have to check with my webmaster), through December 31st. I will keep you posted of the start date. And remember, I will sign each book.

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Experience Grace

August 31, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Sweep of Grace

Grace is a state of being that sweeps down upon us. It is an unearned favor of great beauty and pleasure that gently and quietly is bestowed upon us.

When do we know we’re in grace? Perhaps it is having that great sense of knowingness inside that lets us know we are experiencing grace. There is a quietness to that feeling, where everything else tunes itself out and we are left with a deep smile in our soul. Everything falls nicely and easily into place, without needing to push on our part; it only requires us to take action. Then we let go of the results and more to the next thing which needs our attention.

How do we reach grace? We practice the principles of living which we have discussed… such as tolerance, respect, gentleness, kindness, compassion… We show these things for others, as well as for ourselves. To get to the place where we are able to do that, we look at ourselves – our actions, behaviors, thoughts, beliefs – and we do a self-appraisal of these things, looking at the things which block us from being a more loving person… to others and to ourselves.

We look honestly, even if it hurts, even if it is embarrassing. And when we do, we take action to correct those thoughts and actions to be a kindlier person; by doing this, we experience grace. What does grace look  in your life when you experience it?

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Author statement: It is my intent in bringing you this blog, to acquaint you with the topics in my book. I present them in the blog in the same order in which they appear in the book. The sequence of topics reflects my own healing journey in sobriety, from deep despair and feeling worthless, to joy and peace. I hope you find in these pages that which you seek.

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Hopefulness As A Way of Life

August 13, 2010 by 2 Comments

Ray of Hope

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

As we blog our way through the topics of my book, we now arrive at hope. We have begun with great angst – fear, sorrow, and despair. Then, we became aware of ourselves, our situation, how we are in the world. Courage was bestowed upon us when we turned to a sacred force for assistance.

We became willing to look at ourselves with honesty and openness as we performed a self-appraisal, which led us to accept ourselves. As we looked at ourselves, we applied compassion and kindness, the same of which we bestow upon those we meet on our path.

Once we have a sense of ourselves in the world, our role, our interactions, we begin to have hope  - that we are okay as a human being, that others can be trusted, that we can find happiness in ourselves and the world around us. This hope has occurred because of the process we have been through up to this point.  We are beginning to feel more complete and whole, which spurs our hope. We continue to feel hope as we repeat the steps discussed up to this point. It is an on-going cycle that breeds more hope.

What are the ways in which you feel hope in your life?

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As the award-winning author and photographer of her book of inspirational prose and photographs of wrought-iron gates, it is said by others that Carolyn CJ Jones’ book offers inspiration, hope, and empowerment to those in transition, to those souls in the corner who struggle. View the video about the book; stroll through the pages, both of which are located to the right of this blog. Buy the book from Carolyn’s website  and receive free shipping and your personally autographed copy.

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How To Accept Yourself

August 12, 2010 by 1 Comment

Acceptance of Self

“Have we really changed throughout the years, or do we merely hold within our heart and mind and soul the essence of who we are, while our physical form changes?

Can we recapture the delightful being we have always been, as we allow and celebrate our strengths, our flaws, our spirit?”

Perhaps the biggest, most revealing, and most rewarding thing we can do in the process of accepting ourselves is to perform a self-inventory, an appraisal. This needs to encompass everything about you – your strong as well as weak points, positive as well as negative, the things you hate and the things you adore.

Armed with this information, we can apply the “being human” factor. This is how we consider the negative behaviors and beliefs we have displayed. Rather than beat ourselves up for them, we can begin by recognizing that our being human played a part in it. We acted like a human being that is fallible. We can have compassion for ourselves for thinking ill of that person, ourself, who was being human. This compassion helps us to forgive ourselves.

When we can forgive ourselves, we can begin to accept who was are, with all our quirks and imperfections, as well as the delightful things about us. Don’t we discover, in this process, that we are merely the person we have always been in our goodness, at our core? We now have more life experiences and, thus, wisdom from which to draw. We have grown over the years, yet, we remain the same in a body that changes.

From our inventory, we can identify when we were wrong and we can promptly admit it. We can make amends to those we have hurt, as long as it won’t hurt them or someone else. We begin to respect and like ourselves more when we can change our beliefs and behaviors to be more kind, tolerant, and respectful.

These good things we derive from making positive changes in our lives leads us to accept ourselves more. We resign ourselves to who we are, yet it is not with an air of resignation with which we do this. It is, in fact, with a new-found knowledge of our essence, our spirit, that we meet the world. We have a sense of calmness, of knowingness.

This is a formula for happiness, as Evelyn Roberts Brooks talks about in her blogs. We can relax. We can enjoy the company of others, and of ourselves, more fully. We are led to peace…

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How To Try To Forgive

August 11, 2010 by 6 Comments

Tiers of Forgiveness

“The moisture of our tears encourages a blanket of softness to grow over the rocks of resentment which, over time, cleanses and dissolves the hardness. Over time, we become able to forgive others.

Softness continues to expand, hardness continues to melt. Over time, we are even able to forgive ourselves.”

Why is it important to try to forgive? Perhaps the main reason is to achieve freedom from the anger and resentment that we feel toward one who has wronged us. This is not achieved because we condone what the other did, nor is that advocated. Forgiveness is more about us and the effect our continued resentment is having on us.

Resentment and anger are exhausting. They suck the very spirit out of us, preventing us from experiencing unencumbered joy and peace. We continue with tension, tight muscles, a churning stomach, high blood pressure…

Given that our energy is used in such a manner, why do we continue? Often, it is because we feel justified, feel that the misery created is our badge to be worn, to display to the world that we have had a hard time and that is what has made us what we are. Unfortunately, this belief keeps us in the victim role, often feeling sorry for ourselves. This is detrimental to our very spirit. It is draining for those around us.

How can we try to forgive? It is helpful to do a self-appraisal, to look at one’s own responses in a similar situation. Sometimes, we may realize we are doing the very thing for which we are angry. When we can realize this, we are able to have compassion for ourselves, which then leads to compassion for the other person. We are able to see them as fallible human beings, perhaps in acute emotional pain. Armed with compassion, forgiveness happens. The rocks of resentment melt.

This takes time and is not an overnight matter. The process begins with feeling the pain of the offense, admitting how hurtful it was to us. In other words, we need to acknowledge the detrimental feelings. We need to grieve any loss associated with this, such as the loss of a happy marriage, a happy childhood. This process is more effective if one elects sobriety over a habit of numbing one’s feelings with alcohol.

What do we gain when we try to forgive? We discover a joy and peace such as we have never known, a knowingness inside that all is well. We can let down our guard and, in so doing, we experience deeper relationships with others. We heal and we grow.

Do you need to try to forgive someone? How is that working for you?

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Self-Appraisal-The Start of Responsibility

August 5, 2010 by 3 Comments

Search of Self

Why is self-appraisal, self-inventory, the start of responsibility? Because we become aware of the ways in which we have affected ourselves and others, both adversely and  for the betterment. It’s a major undertaking and the basis of taking action in the process of recovery from addiction of any sort. It scares us. We wonder if, once we look, there will be anything left of ourselves about which to feel good.

The miracle of an inventory is that we get to see the things we did wrong or the things we did to harm others, even spiritually, and we can begin to hold ourselves accountable for our bad behavior. We begin to see how we do some of the very things that another has done for which we hold a grudge. We begin to feel compassion for another, for ourself.

The more we feel we are being accountable, the more our confidence, and hence, our self-esteem grows. As our esteem improves, we have less need to prove ourselves to others, and, thus, we become more authentic, more able to show our positive side, more able to risk sharing who we are with those around us. We become freer and gain more serenity and peace.

The verse that goes with this image asks the question, will we discover our clear heart, sining brightly and truthfully, right in the middle of our swirls and curls of darkness, shadows, and light? The point being made is that often when we look at ourselves, we are not honest. We do not acknowledge ourselves for our good points. A self-appraisal is not honest, not complete, until we do that.

When we look at our positive traits and characteristics, we feel good about ourselves, and we want to continue with, or share with the world, these goodnesses. We shine to those around us and in so doing, give permission to those others to shine also. More love, more dialogue, is generated. Peace occurs. We are each responsible for creating peace in our world…

How do you accept the responsibility for creating peace in your world?

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As the author and photographer of her book of wrought-iron gates and accompanying prose, it is said by others that Carolyn CJ Jones’ book offers inspiration and empowerment to those in transition, to those souls in the corner who struggle. View the video about the book, which is located to the right of this blog. Buy the book from Carolyn’s website  and receive free shipping and your personally autographed copy.

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How to Deal With Self-Doubt

July 8, 2010 by 1 Comment

Shadows of Doubt

I am mired again in the shadows of my dount, my fear.

I circle and circle and circle around the stones of my heart, caged, unable to pass through to the place where my heart is bathed in light.

When we doubt ourselves, our actions, and our beliefs about who we are, we erode our self-esteem, our self-confidence, and our very soul. If we know that doubting ourselves leads to these things, why do we do it?

Perhaps it is a reflection, an indicator, of our state of self-worth, our value to self and to the world. With low esteem and confidence levels, we are not stable enough, not strong enough, in who we are to ward off self-doubt. It erodes our very being even further. We question everything we do, perhaps always looking to others for validation rather than to ourselves, or to a power greater than ourselves.

How do we conquer this, this insidious doubt?  Perhaps it begins with a self-appraisal in which we identity the ways in which we doubt ourselves. If we can identify that, we then have a change to correct or change it. In doing the self-searching, it is necessary to be really honest with ourselves, to admit that the way we fell about ourselves is not honest. For if we were honest, we would see that we are delightful beings, fine just the way we are. We are enough as we are.

If, however, we see that we are doubting ourselves inappropriately, we can make the choice to change our beliefs. How do we do this? By recognizing and admitting each time we doubt, and examining if it is true. When we admit the doubt is false, then we consciously make the choice to change that doubt into a positive statement or affirmation about ourselves. Over time, with diligence, we begin to see our doubts diminish and our esteem and confidence rise. We begin to accept ourselves as we are, making changes when we feel it’s necessary. In this process, it is important to be kind, gentle, and compassionate with ourselves.

How do you deal with doubt when it arises? Do you see this method as being useful?

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How to Develop Awareness

June 26, 2010 by 2 Comments

Birth of Awareness

I tap into my ability to persevere, to walk through the gates of my despair to reach my passions and desires… the things about myself and the world around me in which I delight, to which I connect.

I allow myself my grief and sorrow, my sadness and anger. Then I turn my attention to the lushness I see beyond the opening…

I decide to walk through the gate.

What is meant by awareness? In this case, it is first and foremost the awakening to one’s feelings and emotions – recognizing them, acknowledging them, experiencing them, and then moving on to all that surrounds us.  It is a process that occurs over time, and it can be painful as one deeply feels one’s feelings.

After this, awakening refers to becoming acutely aware of one’s surroundings – the dew on the grass, the luscious smell of a rose, the beauty of a redwood tree, reaching majestically to the sky.  And it is not just nature where awakening is found. It also occurs by observing the design of a building, the beautiful lines of an old automobile, the gentle light thrown by a lantern or candle. It encompasses everything around us.

In the final stages of awareness, one looks at others with the eyes of the heart. From this attitude springs the ability to be compassionate and kind to others, tolerant and respectful – all in a very authentic way.  Awareness of another’s humanness can lead to better understanding and acceptance of that person.

Once these things develop – when one become acutely aware of others – and all of these things develop, one begins to see one’s self with kindness, compassion, tolerance and respect.  That’s right – we are brought back to the beginning of the cycle, and the process repeats itself, endlessly, if we allow it.

It is helpful to slow down, to just stop and do a sweeping assessment of all that surrounds us, considering what we see with love in our heart. And this is how awareness is born – by repeating this cycle over and over and over again.

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Tips For Finding Peace

June 1, 2010 by 5 Comments

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.

It seems I have inner peace when I practice the principles of living, when I practice loving others and myself. It manifests itself as calmness, quietness in that moment. It is composed of one instant of peace following another, until a block of time has passed and I have maintained that peace.

Letting go of the way I want things to go, surrendering, adds tremendously to the ushering in of peace. It’s not something that I say consciously, “I want to be peaceful.” Rather, it seems to be a by-product of other attitudes and behaviors.

For example, practicing gratitude also leads me to peace by letting me feel that all is well; practicing compassion softens my heart to myself and others, and brings me peace.

I looked for this type of peace all my life, but I was looking for it in others, in a bottle, in all that was around me. It wasn’t until I quit drinking and got sober, that I began to learn that happiness and peace come from within me. This took a long time of soul-searching and self-appraisal before I reached a point of acceptance about who I am.

When I reached this point of self-acceptance, life seemed to change from that point forward. It was then that I began to experience periods of peace within. I think the fact that I learned to take responsibility for all my actions, behaviors, and feelings led to the development of peace. Suddenly, there was no one else to blame for the situations in my life. That was very freeing and evoked a peaceful feeling because there was no more drama in my life, or at least, very little.

As I said, I have searched for this in many places and in many ways. But when I let go, practice kindness, compassion, tolerance, and love for myself and others, and take responsibility for myself, peace rises to greet me.

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Living With Serenity

May 27, 2010 by 4 Comments

Balance of Serenity

I am serene, carried by the winds to places where I am held in balance with great beauty and strength.

Serenity. That feeling of calmness, even amid storms. It is a prevailing attitude, one which overshadows and, thus, contributes to all other attitudes that follow. For me, it comes when I am in alignment with the powers of the Universe, that which is greater than myself. It is a realization that all is well, that I am being provided and cared for.

I got to serenity through the experiences and changes I’ve discussed in this blog. You have traveled through the book with me and read of the trials and tribulations associated with getting to this point.

Perhaps you related as we moved from worthlessness, sorrow, and despair, through awareness to self-appraisal. Past forgiveness and on to principles such as compassion, tolerance, and gratitude until we have reached a point of joy and serenity. What a journey it has been.

As we finish the book, it is time to start over and I am putting out a “request for proposals.” When I go through the book again, is there any specific tack you would like me to take? My thought was to share about each topic in a general way, not relating to my own experiences. I welcome your thoughts. Please share them.

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How to Access the Possibilities of Life

May 12, 2010 by 1 Comment

Realm of Possibilities

“If I climb the steps, anything is possible. Anything.”

This gate caught my attention because it was flung open as far as it could go. The stairs welcomed me, beckoned me to climb amidst the intricate and pleasing stone work. I marveled at the retaining ability of the wall. I wondered what was at the top of the stairs, wondered what I would find if I climbed…

Interesting how, for me, this gate and those thoughts relate to life. The Universe welcomes me to join in and participate. There are pleasing sights everywhere I look. There are amazing examples of engineering and artwork, merged in purpose and design.

I wonder what is going to happen in my life… this summer, next week, tomorrow, this afternoon. I cannot see where the path will lead, and still, I am asked to trust. Isn’t that a lot like life?

Once I trust, once I become committed to the journey, committed to really observing what is around me, I see that the possibilities for action are endless. Whether it’s a change in attitude, a belief about myself or another, or taking action to further a goal, I find the day is filled with steps of action. If I climb those steps, I reach the horizon and all that the world has to offer. There is a realm of possibilities. Anything can happen. Anything. We never know. It may not happen today, but it may happen.

All I need to do is take action and leave the results up to the Universe. Sounds easy but at times it’s not. Taking action, for me, involves looking at myself and my actions/behaviors with honesty, choosing to be open-minded, open-hearted, and practicing willingness.  It takes adding humility to the mix, as well as kindness and compassion for others AND for myself.

I must be willing to take these steps if I want to experience all that the Universe has to offer. I have learned how to do that in my healing journey, in my sobriety. I have discovered that when I do, there is a wide world of possibilities that exists. I wish for you to experience that in your life, also.

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Tips For Improving Your Character

April 13, 2010 by 3 Comments

Growth of Character

“Do we notice the character of another? Do we recognize the traits and qualities of another, grown, over time, on the wall of one’s being?

Do we notice our own character, evolved, over time, on our own beautiful wall? Do we groom the moss and mold, encouraging new growth to flourish?”

growth of characterToday, because of my journey in sobriety, I am able, even excited, to discover things about others. For me, that brings us closer as we recognize ourselves in each other. And still, each has one’s own unique character and that’s where the fun of discovery come in.

To look at one’s character traits is to look at wisdom, I have found. Once past my fear of others and my self-doubt, I became able to open my heart and consider the other with respect and compassion, cultivating the differences between us. What a joyful experience this has been!

It is interesting that when I wrote the above prose, only the first stanza existed. Then, one of the book’s advance readers asked, “What about our own character, improving it?” She was right. The second stanza was born. I have learned to take responsibility for grooming my own mold and moss, if you will, to strengthen and grow my character. Again, I learned how to do this because of my healing journey and my  journey through sobriety.

It took me willingness to do things differently, to listen to others, to ask for help. It took soul-searching and looking honestly at how I treated myself and others. It took forgiveness of others first, and then of myself. It has been a process over time… years, in my case. And the pruning has been worth it.

How did you learn to groom and grow your own beautiful wall?

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Self Improvement Through Self Acceptance

March 4, 2010 by 3 Comments

Acceptance of Self

self“Have we really changed throughout the years, or do we merely hold within our heart and mind and soul the essence of who we are, while our physical form changes?

Can we recapture the delightful being we have always been, as we allow and celebrate our strengths, our flaws and our spirit?”

I saw this gate and immediately saw a little being with his arms in the air, celebrating his personhood. It made we wonder if people celebrated themselves… Behind celebration, perhaps, comes acceptance. We accept ourselves before we can celebrate who we are.

If you are like me and have a lot of negative self-talk, it is difficult to find self-acceptance. That, at least, has been my experience. Today, I am able to accept who I am. Even with my human failings, I am able to smile at myself with compassion. How did this come to be?

Once sober, I did a self-appraisal, an inventory, if you will.  On it, I listed all of my negative traits.I listed my fears, my grievances and sorrows about my behaviors and myself. Someone had to remind me to include the positive points about myself. I found that quite difficult, but I followed their advice.

It took me years to believe the positive things I had written about myself, really believe them with my heart. It also took years to stop talking down to myself about my failings. It was a process that evolved  over time, one in which I struggled to be honest with myself about who I am. I was ashamed about my foibles and my humanness; I felt it conceited to think well of myself.

I’m not sure what changed over the years that has led me to accept who I am, to celebrate my being. I do know I have continued to pray to the powers that be to remove my negative self-image. In response, I seem to have been guided to develop compassion for myself. This has led me to accept who I am without shame. It has also allowed me to like many things about myself without feeling I am being conceited by doing so. In fact, I find it necessary to have a good foundation of love of self before I can truly love others.

We come to acceptance of self perhaps over time, depending upon one’s wounds. With time and some sprinkling of compassion and gentleness, we can find that delightful being we have always been.

How do you find acceptance for yourself? Is that something that has come naturally for you, or do you struggle with it?


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How to Achieve Forgiveness

February 28, 2010 by 5 Comments

Tiers of Forgiveness

tiers of forgiveness

Forgiveness has been difficult for me. For most of my life, I have blamed others for my woes – my parents, my husband… I had no softness in my heart for the wrongs I felt I had endured at the hands of others. How, then, have I come to forgiveness?

About two years into sobriety, I was contemplating my past relationships with men, what my part was in their failure. I realized I would get drunk and yell at them that they were worthless and a failure. I was horrified to remember this. I didn’t mean those things! I actually was feeling those things about myself and was projecting my pain on the other person.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that if I didn’t mean those things when I said them, if I said them because I was wounded, then perhaps others didn’t mean it when they said that to me. Perhaps they, also, were wounded and projecting their pain.

This stopped me in my tracks. In an instant, I was able to see that people I was blaming were nothing more then human beings, like myself, living with wounds and pains. I began to develop compassion for them. This began the first level of my forgiveness, the first “tier.”

Since that time, my heart has softened even more toward those I felt have done me wrong and I have been able to reach another tier of forgiveness. It has been a very freeing experience and has lightened my heart tremendously. I have a new level of relationship with those I have forgiven, which is a new experience I am enjoying.

The final tier to reach is the forgiveness of myself. This has been harder and my work with it continues. I am able to see myself as a human being with my own foibles and failings. This has led me to compassion for myself, as well as for others.

The widening circle continues… the more I accept my humanness, the more compassion I feel for myself and others; the more compassion I feel for others, the more I can forgive.

How do you experience forgiveness? Is it something with which you struggle?

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Spaces of Courage – Some Inspirational Sayings

December 20, 2009 by 99 Comments

courage

“The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage.” Thucydides

“A person of courage is also full of faith.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Compassion allows you to build courage and courage allows you to be more compassionate.” Gary Loper

“Courage is fear that has done its push-ups.” author unknown

“Always do what you are afraid to do” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I related to these quotes and wanted to share them with you…

Welcome to the journey through my book. Each blog is a new topic, based on the pages which appear in the book. Today’s topic is courage.

I discovered this image in Colorado in 2005, on the back roads from Pueblo, Colorado to Taos, New Mexico.  I liked the symbolization of a higher power, a Divine force, if you will, that is depicted in this scene. And I especially liked it because it fit with the prose, which, amazingly enough, came to my mind when I stumbled across this gate.

I wrote the prose in 2003 while traveling in my van with my cat in Baja, Mexico. This was before I started taking photographs of the gates. I was newly sober, trying to deal emotionally with the rejection of the man I spoke of early on in our journey through the book. The verse for this image, which I wrote while in great emotional agony, talks about the pain in our heart which we try to get another to fix, or we drink it  away, we  repress it. The verse goes on to say that if we could find the courage to embrace that pain, find a Divine source to enter that oh-so-vulnerable-spot with us, perhaps we would be comforted and we would be healed.  That is the essence of the prose that matches this image.

I have found, over time,  that when I am lacking courage, frightened, afraid to do or say something, I apply this principle, and it helps. I try to pause, identify and acknowledge my fear, my resistance.  Then I ask God to join me in that space of fear. I am often graced with the courage to go ahead and do something, say something, despite the fear that continues.

I have intentionally placed myself in experiences in order to gain courage and get past my fear.  A prime example is traveling alone in Mexico. I was extremely frightened and, yet, did my research to plan safe travel and then went even though in fear. The fear abated the more time I spent in that beautiful country, interacting with such gracious people. The experience boosted my self-confidence and esteem. And that even occurred before my realization to bring God in.

How do you find your courage?  Does it come easily, or is it difficult?

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Filed Under: Principle of living, Sober Living Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,