living sober • Creating Peace Through Forgiveness

How Sobriety Benefits Relationships

May 12, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello, all! Happy morning to each of you and I hope this is an excellent day for you! The search term I liked has to do with the effect that sobriety has on relationships, and I will address that today.

In sobriety, one of the biggest benefits is the ability to get honest with yourself and with others. In this case, honesty refers to letting others know who you really are by sharing your true feelings in a kind way. Yet, even more importantly, honesty refers to looking at your behavior and owning it when it is less than stellar, i.e., when it is negative.

The ability to own your negative behavior will take you far in relationships. Instead of blaming another for things that got uncomfortable or went bad, you will learn to see what role you played in the event, and will be able to apologize for anything you did that was unkind or mean-spirited.

This is where conducting a self-appraisal is crucial. When you are in a relationship, whether it is romanic or not, I invite you to learn to keep an eye on your behavior and when you start the ball rolling in an argument, for example, or you do something that hurts the other, then take the higher road. Accept responsibility for your behavior and apologize.

Sobriety allows you to apologize without groveling or getting defensive, but merely, to humbly admit to your less-than-positive deed and to apologize for it. I can’t tell you how freeing it is to admit to your negative behavior. It sounds like it would be horrible to do, yet, it is liberating. And it makes for many fewer arguments.

If you like what I say in this blog or others, I invite you to check out my coaching services under the “Services” tab here on my website. I offer free 30-minute discovery sessions for us to discuss what issues you are struggling with, and to relay how we could continue to work together. Simply call me at 415-883-8325.

Being honest as I have described it is the biggest benefit I see to how sobriety benefits relationships. What do you see as the biggest benefit that sobriety has on them? I invite you to leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Self Improvement Tagged With: being honest, getting sober, honesty, living sober, relationships, Sober Living, sobriety

The Benefits of Sobriety

April 30, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you. I neglected to post yesterday; it was another day that got off and running and I was running all day. These types of days are becoming more and more prevalent. That’s a good thing… This morning’s search term that I am so fond of was “what are the good things you get from sobriety?” Ah, a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

When I think that I was severely hung over every day for seven years, and somewhat less severely for the preceding 20, it is a wonder that was not a deterrent for my excessive and massive consumption of alcohol! But it wasn’t. So, the most obvious and initial positive effect of sobriety is the lack of hang-overs. It’s glorious to wake up and be clear, no headache. Try it. It’s wonderful!

But the most positive effect from sobriety that you will enjoy is the healing of wounds, healing of emotional pain. This alone makes sobriety well worth it.

While working through those wounds, it will feel like sobriety is not worth it, that you were better off when you were drinking. But consider, sticking through the rough times in sobriety can reap you a reward so indescribably wonderful, I urge you to keep at it. When difficult emotions surface, which they will, think about how your sobriety will reap a big pay off soon.

Be with your emotions; let them flow through you. Allow them to be felt, which will allow them to move through you more quickly. Take note of the joy interspersed among the tough feelings, and look forward to the point when that joy returns, for it will.

When you discover emotional sobriety, you will know it in an instant. You will feel a tremendous calm settle over you. You will have a deep knowingness of peace and understanding of yourself and others. You will know you have arrived in a new dimension.

So, is sobriety worth it? Yes, without a doubt. Leave a message and share your experiences with the wonderful feeling of sobriety. We’d love to hear from you!

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

Is Sobriety Worth It?

April 21, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you and welcome to the start of a new day! I am once again drawn to the search term, “is sobriety worth it?”

Let me simply answer that question. The answer is yes, sobriety is absolutely worth it. That has been my experience, at any rate, and the experience of countless others in sobriety.

You may fear letting go of your good friend alcohol. You may wonder what in the world you ail use for entertainment, for relief from your hurts, your emotional pain. But consider, if you’re reading this, alcohol is no longer serving you, it is probably causing havoc in your life and you are searching for other ways to find relief.

If you are generating hell in your life and it is related to alcohol or drugs, you will find sobriety most appealing. Without alcohol or drugs, you will not have hangovers, a major benefit right from the start. As you sobriety progresses, you will discover things to do to entertain yourself – listen to music, read, visit with friends and family, exercise, write in a journal, and the list goes on.

Perhaps the thing that makes sobriety most worth it is the healing that will occur when you start to look at your emotional pain with clearer eyes. You will learn to be responsible for your own feelings instead of blaming others for your pain. Your feelings of pity for yourself will disappear, and you will find interest, genuine interest, in those around you.

The healing from the past that you experience is precious, simply precious, and you do not want to miss this benefit of sobriety. You will find a new peace, a new freedom, and you will revel in these feelings.

What is it that you fear most from sobriety? How do you think sobriety can help you? Leave a comment and let us know.

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

What Is It Like to Be Sober When You’re Hurting?

March 10, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you, and the day is long past dawn. It is bright and clear in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, and I am loving this weather!

Yesterday, I spoke of what it was like to be sober and I talked about all the positives. What about when it gets tough? You see, it does get tough. It’s not all a picnic. So, that’s what I want to talk about today… what to do when being sober is tough.

The thing about being sober is, you begin to feel your feelings. For years, perhaps, you have numbed them out, and suddenly your numbing agent is gone. The length of time for the difficult emotions to emerge will vary in the time it takes for them to appear and in intensity, depending on the depth of your pain.

For me, I was on a pink cloud, feeling wonderful, for about 6 months before the difficult emotions really hit me, and I mean REALLY hit me. Although, during that 6 months, I was still grieving the loss of an unrequited love, the thing which had led me to my bottom in the first place, when all I could do for several months was drink and cry. So, I was dealing with those feelings of rejection and even thoough I felt grand being sober, those feelings were hovering in the background.

I’m referring to the feelings that were buried deep inside, the ones of rejection from when I was a child, the feelings of worthlessness, shame, and despair that I carried throughout my childhood and then for most of my adulthood until I was 48, which was when I got sober. It was a bottomless well, a deep crevice and I felt like I had fallen off of a cliff many days.

How did I deal with it, you may ask, so you know how to deal with it when those feelings, or similar ones, come upon you? First and foremost, I resolved never to drink, although there were times in the course of my sobriety when I would yell, “Being sober is not better than when I was drinking!” Nonetheless, I kept holding on to my sobriety, I kept sober, and discovered that being sober was absolutely worth it! How did I do that?

I went to 4 or 5 support group meetings a a day for the first one and a half years of being sober. Every morning, I started my day with a brisk walk, followed by writing in a journal with my left, non-doiminant hand. I printed, actually. All sorts of deep feeliings flowed onto the page and I was able to have them to look at, to experience them. My writing helped me work through those feelings.

Plus, I talked to people a lot about those feelings that came up. And then, I read spiritual books voraciously. Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s The Invitation, The Dance, and The Call, Iyanla VanZant’s Until Today, Yesterday I Cried, and One Day My Soul Just Opened Up, Melody Beattie’s books on co-dependency – I forget the titles.

Later in sobriety, when I was facing the pain caused by my child abuse, I read all of Claudia Black’s books, It Will Never Happen to Me was a big one that helped me get through my feelings.

The point is, and this post is getting long so I will end with this, allow your feelings to come up and find some way to cope with them. It is okay to distract yourself at times, with healthy activities, such as reading, exercising, writing, yet you need to face the difficult emotions and feel them. The only way past difficult emotions is to go through them. The only way out is through… Stick with it, hang in there, get counseling if needed. Ah, that’s something else I did that was paramount.

Just remember, the end result is happiness and joy, peace and freedom, like you have never experienced before. Trust me on this. Just stay sober, and don’t pick up that first drink. I wish you well on your journey.

Filed Under: Sober Living Tagged With: being sober, freedom, happiness, how to be sober, how to find peace, inner peace, joy, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

What Is It Like to Be Sober?

March 9, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Hello, and good morning to you each! The day has dawned clear and sunny here in the northern San Francisco Bay Area. My kind of day. : ) I hope your day is filled with peace and joy.

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, I began to wonder if I’d gone too far with it, if I’d gone over the top. I worried that I divulged too much about my process, my actions of follow through with the director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project. I considered taking that information out of the post and re-publishing it.

After my panic subsided, I elected to leave Fred’s name up there, and perhaps, if you google him and his project, you will learn more about forgiveness and about the project and him. That would be a wonderful thing. Perhaps I could have even linked to him to begin with!

At any rate, I would love some comments about how the post sat with you, what your reactions were…

Let’s turn our attention in an different direction, as I talk today about what it’s like to be sober. Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart and I am happy to write about it, as the more that join in, the merrier!

It was scary as crap to think about never drinking again, and it was that fear which, for many years, kept me from getting sober. Drinking had pervaded every aspect of my waking life, and I could not conceive of being without it. What in the world would I ever do, for example, if I went to a party and didn’t have a drink? How boring would THAT be?

As it turns out, not boring at all. In fact, it was more exciting because I was present for conversations with others. That’s not to say that right away I felt comfortable at a party without alcohol; it took a few months to work up to that point. But it came fairly quickly for me.

The reality is, to be sober, to live without alcohol and drugs in your life, is cleaner, more simple, easier, more enjoyable and exhilarating, more freeing. It’s just the way I love living my life now. I don’t miss alcohol because I know where it takes me, and I don’t want to go there… to the being looped and not able to think or talk clearly. So, I elect to stay sober.

For those of you wondering what it’s like to be sober, try it out a bit, but don’t just try being without the liquor. Being sober involves a shift of perspective in how you view life and yourself. It involves seeing the world and yourself with new eyes. To get to that point, get involved with a local support group that deals with alcohol recovery. One of these can be found in your yellow pages, or online under local alcohol support groups.

If you want to experience freedom, peace like you’ve never felt before, and joy over the simplest things in life, I invite you to try getting and staying sober. You will not regret it once you clear out all the old baggage, the old “stuff.”

Being sober and the feeling it generates is the feeling I was looking for all those years that I drank. Isn’t it ironic that I finally found that feeling I so desperately sought, by being sober?

What are your concerns about getting sober? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Sober Living Tagged With: getting sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, stayng sober

Seven Effects of Sobriety

March 6, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to each of you! May your day be filled with goodness and peace inside. Today’s search term I chose is “effects of sobriety,” because it is my 12 year birthday today. Twelve years ago today began my amazingly joyful and sometimes excruciatingly painful journey into sobriety.

And regardless of what I was experiencing, I didn’t drink – no matter what. You can do that, too. Do you want a new life, better than any you’ve ever experienced? Then stick with it – no matter what.

You will find the journey more than worthwhile. You will find it very powerful, very healing, very awesome. The journey is all of these things and more. Some days, it is negative and extremely painful as you look at past experiences. Know that the experience and pain are being brought forth for your healing. Stick with it. Don’t drink – no matter what. It WILL get better!

So, let’s look at some of the effects of sobriety. I have spoken about these before from a different viewpoint…. today I present the end effect one might experience from sobriety.

1. You will begin to feel more self-respect when you don’t wake up all hung over, drooling puking, barely able to function as a human being. Imagine… waking up refreshed, able to get out of bed and function right away. Well, maybe after coffee. lol Seriously, waking up without a hangover did a work of good for my self-respect.

2. As you move through sobriety, you will begin to feel release from old wounds, old haunts, as you heal from the inside out. In addition to help from an alcohol support group, I needed private therapy help. I recommend this if you need it, as it will speed your recovery from old wounds much more quickly.

3. Your self-esteem and self-love will grow as you continue on this journey called sobriety. You will feel good about yourself for staying sober, and your esteem will grow as a result. The healing work you do will help you learn to love yourself; you will forgive yourself, and your self-love will grow even further.

4. You will feel true caring about the people around you. With your new-found sobriety, you will really care at a deep level for those who enter or are in your daily life. Yu will see others with compassion, see them as fallible human beings, and you will be able to forgive them their transgressions.

5. The blaming and self-pity you feel will diminish as you become more accountable for yourself and your feelings.

6. You will be able to see the world with new eyes… Gratitude for all your experiences, whether positive or negative, will fill you up and it will spill out to others.

7. And finally, you will wish to be of service to others rather than stay stuck in yourself and your woes, rather than blame others and feel self-pity. Because of that, you will feel freedom in your soul. It will soar, as will you!

The possibilities are endless if you maintain your sobriety! My hope for each of you reading this is that you do, indeed, try sobriety, and succeed at it. Speaking from experience, 12 years of it, I can honestly say that the journey is so well worth it. At last, I found happiness and peace. May you do the same.

Filed Under: Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, how to get sober, how to stay sober, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Effects of Sobriety

February 21, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Effects of Sobriety

February 9, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning to you all. Today I am going to address the effects of sobriety. I actually started this yesterday and the day got away from me…

What I will write here is an accounting of the effects I have gained from my sobriety. There is no guarantee you will experience all of these things, but chances are high that you will, if you maintain your sobriety and continue to make improvements in your life and with yourself.

The first and foremost effect of sobriety was the lack of hangovers. For seven years, I had experienced such horrific hangovers that the next day, I could not function till 3 or 4 pm. I did that every day for seven years… So, to awaken without a hangover was glorious and only improved over time as more and more alcohol was cleared from my system.

Then, the next effect of my sobriety was the disappearance of the sharp, stabbing pain I had been feeling in the area of my liver for 1-2 years. Later blood work revealed I did not have liver damage, so I am fortunate.

With sobriety came the feeling of feelings I had numbed for 26 years, and that was painful. Even though they were extremely difficult at times, the benefits of that were numerous. I was in so much pain that I had to journal every day which got my feelings out more quickly than anything I could have done. Also, by journaling with my non-dominant hand, even deeper feelings surfaced. Try it; it works!

Another benefit from the emotional pain was I was hurting so badly, I accepted help from a psychiatrist and a therapist. They diagnosed me with major clinical depression, PTSD, and panic disorder, and recommended I take medication, which I agreed to do. That has made my world manageable and put me at the same level emotionally that someone without those diagnoses enjoys.

Also, accepting help from the therapist helped me get through the pain more quickly, as she knew where to guide me. I looked for someone well-versed in the issues faced by an alcoholic, as well as with issues faced by children of alcoholic and abusive parents (ACA). We have a specific set of obstacles to overcome, you see, accessible by getting involved in a group that deals with ACA issues.

Over time in sobriety, my relationships improved immensely. I learned not to look to others to make me happy, which took the burden off of them. I learned to look at my own behavior instead of blaming others when things did not go the way I wanted or needed.

This is the biggest, single-most reason for my peace and freedom, in addition to learning how to forgive my parents for my upbringing. It’s huge, in fact, learning to look at our behavior, our actions, the ways in which we treat others and what’s behind that treatment or behavior, goes a long, long way to improve relations with others. Finally, I learned in sobriety to apologize for my bad behavior, to be humble instead of ashamed.

All of these things are the effects, the rewards, of my sobriety. I hope, if you elect the course of living sober, that you, too, experience them. May you discover in sobriety the great peace and freedom that I have discovered.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: emotional freedom, freedom, freedom of forgiveness, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

The Side Effects of Sobriety

February 1, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surrender in Sobriety

January 14, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 1 Comment

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

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

Surrender of Pretense

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Sobriety Leads to Joy and Peace

January 13, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Good morning! I hope this is a gentle and fulfilling day for each of you. I wish for you a sobriety that is filled with joy and peace. That’s the search term for the day about which I will blog today… the relationship of sobriety to joy and peace.

All my life I looked for joy and peace, peace-of-miind. I looked to alcohol and drugs to supply these for me, and I thought I had them when I was drunk and high. It was not until I started and lived a life of sobriety that I discovered I had no clue what joy and peace could really be.

Burst of Joy

In sobriety, I learned it was possible to heal my wounds from early life and this brought me great joy to be free of chains that bound me. My heart burst with joy when I discovered that I even COULD heal.

At first, life was quite painful in sobriety, as I was feeling my feelings without anything to numb them, to quiet them. Ah, and it was extremely difficult to stay sober, but with lots of prayer and attending support group meetings (4-5 a day), I was given the gift of continued sobriety.

The more sobriety I accumulated, the more I healed from emotional scars and pain, the more joy I felt. It was a wonderful feeling, and still is in present day. You see, every day I feel joy… joy about the life around me, joy about my peace-of-miind.

Yes, with the joy I had found, I began to experience peace. I think the biggest thing that led me to peace was learning to conduct a self-appraisal, and conducting one on a on-going basis.

At first, it was difficult to do an appraisal, as I felt shame over my behavior, my actions. Every time I thought of what I had done, or who I was, I felt shame. This was one of the negative effects of an abusive past.

Promise of Peace

After a while of doing an appraisal, however, I began to gain peace when I completed one. It began to feel really good iinside to identify my poor behavior and thoughts, and to right them. It felt good to “confess” them to another person, as part of the appraisal process involves telling another person what I had discovered.

I think that when one commits to doing an ongoing self-appraisal, one is offered the promise of peace. But the real thing that brought me to peace was when I discovered how to forgive my parents. The act of forgiveness really undid the chains that bound me emotionally.

At the end of each day, if I had done an appraisal and forgiven myself and others, I experienced the promise of peace. To this day, that is true for me, and so I gladly and without reservation perform an appraisal and look toward forgiveness.

All of this is possible because of my continued sobriety. And how about you? Do you experience joy and peace as a result of your sobriety? How does that look for you? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, joy, living sober, peace, sober, sobriety, soebr living

The Benefits of Compassion

January 6, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Keys to Sobriety

January 4, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

the van I rebuilt in cherrywood

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

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

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

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

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

Inspirational Thoughts for Feelings of Hopelessness

January 3, 2013 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

Ray of Hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rewards of Sobriety

December 28, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning on this foggy morning in the Bay Area. I was sitting on the front enclosed porch with my coffee, watching the day awaken, and the sky got a pink glow to it as the sun rose. Pretty soon, I was surrounded in pink. It was beautiful.

That is one of the biggest rewards of sobriety – being able to enjoy a sunrise without being hung over. I love not having hangovers. Used to be that I awoke and was badly hung over for about 6 hours, so much so that I couldn’t function, had to eat hot burritos from Taco Bell or a greasy thigh from Kentucky Fried Chicken. After I felt better, I functioned until 5 pm, when I started drinking and did it all over again.

What a miserable existence that was. I was missing out on experiencing things like sunrises. But in sobriety, I enjoy them and so much more. In sobriety, I find I am able to open my heart in a very genuine way to others and to myself. The feeling of really caring about another, seeing them with gentleness and kindness, is so soothing to my spirit.

Compassion is another emotion I am able to feel in sobriety and that allows me to connect with others in a very intimate way. My soul is fed when that happens. It has led me to forgiveness.

Perhaps the biggest reward of sobriety is my ability to look at myself – my actions, words, behaviors – and be responsible for them, fully responsible. It is humbling at times as I realize how I’ve treated another poorly, or treated myself poorly, had negative thoughts about myself, beat myself up. Being responsible for myself and my behavior has led me to inner peace, as I can settle the score with myself and others as I go through the day.

The reward of sobriety for me also includes being able to care for others in a deep and meaningful way. It’s hard to describe the feeling that evokes, but it feels great! I also have much more patience, and I allow others to be themselves, accepting them as they are.

So, a lack of hangovers, feeling more kindness, gentleness and compassion toward others, being self-responsible, and generally being more aware of my physical surroundings are my rewards of sobriety.

What are the rewards of sobriety that you experience? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, humble, humility, living sober, peace, peace of mind, rewards of sobriety, Sober Living, sobriety

Gratitude for Another Day

December 26, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and I hope your Christmas day was filled with gratitude – for the day’s blessings and for staying sober. One person searched for Christmas day, their first day sober. Today is their second and I hope it goes well for them.

Visions of Gratitude

Today I’m talking about gratitude for yet another day, and specifically, for my sobriety. I am very grateful for the day of sobriety on Christmas day. There were times in my life when staying sober on Christmas was very difficult, but I made it through by expressing gratitude throughout the day.

I keep my eye and heart on the abundance I am experiencing, rather than the scarcity. For example, my sister sent several gifts for me to put under the tree, and I am so grateful she did. It completed the feeling of Christmas. It led me to feel wanted, appreciated and I am grateful.

If I’d had no gifts, I could have been grateful for the tree and the joy it brings to the room. If I’d had no tree, I could have expressed gratitude for my home, my cat, food, and my health. The point is, there is always something to be grateful for, even if it is the smallest thing.

When I was first sober, I had difficulty showing gratitude for anything. I was too mired in the emotional pain I felt over my past. I went through a period of great anger and sadness over those feelings, those experiences.

It wasn’t until I’d done some healing work that I was able to write a gratitude list, listing out the basic things for which I was grateful. It included things like being grateful for my abilities at renovation. You saw the results of my renovation skills yesterday, in the picture of the van I rebuilt.

I am most grateful for those skills, as I am for other abilities I have. Today, I am grateful for my past, as it has made me into what and who I am today, with knowledge of what it’s like to be abused, so I can relate to others who have been or are being abused, so I can offer words of encouragement, support, so I can relay what happened to me to led me to be grateful for the abuse.

That story is another post. Today, I invite you to make a gratitude list, listing out the most simple and basic things for which you are grateful. When I made a gratitude list, I found that as I listed out those things, I was able to express gratitude for more and more things. It became a self-perpetuating situation, a little grew and grew until I was grateful for every little thing.

I wish for you gratitude for another day, another day of sobriety, if you are a sober person. If you practice gratitude, I hope it lifts your spirits. Have a pleasant day, filled with gratitude.

Filed Under: Joyous emotions, Principle of living Tagged With: attitude of gratitude, grateful, gratitude, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Staying Sober on Christmas Day

December 23, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Staying sober for the holidays can be a challenging thing if you have family that expects you to be there on Christmas, and yet, being with them threatens your sobriety. You know that staying sober will be nearly impossible to do if you visit for the day because there will be dysfunction, fighting, bickering, negativity.

If you experience these things when with your family, then perhaps it is time to think about staying sober first, and worry about your family’s wrath next. The prime thing of importance is your sobriety, and in this case, may mean not being with your family.

When they balk about you not coming, you can merely say that a party, a gathering, will threaten your sobriety right now. Convey that staying sober will be very difficult if you come for the day, and you are not wanting to find out just how much the gathering would affect your sobriety.

Does that mean you will spend the day alone? Perhaps. But you can be alone with yourself and not feel lonely. Be confident in the fact that you are making the right decision to stay away from family for the day. Feel good about taking care of yourself emotionally, about taking care of your sobriety.

Find a project to do that consumes your time and energy. Get totally immersed in it and revel in the good that you produce by being involved with that project. Give yourself a pat on the back that you are getting the project completed while still staying sober.

Get involved in service to others. Go to a nursing home and visit some of the residents to cheer them up on Christmas. Remember, the bottom line is your sobriety. It is the most important thing in your life right now. If your family gets angry at you, then allow them their anger without feeling responsible for it. Make them responsible for their own behavior and actions. Your primary goal is staying sober.

Keep all your attention on that, on staying sober, not on your family. I know this is difficult to do, to make a stand in the face of your family’s disapproval and anger, but you need to focus on your own self first. Are you having difficulty saying no to a visit to your family on Christmas day, feeling guilty about not going for the day? Talk about it, write about it, but stay away from the dysfunction for the day.

How do you deal with your dysfunctional family on Christmas day? Will you go to a known can-of-worms environment, or will you focus your attention on staying sober? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Sober Living Tagged With: how tro stay sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, staying sober

Fulfilling Your Dream in Sobriety

December 20, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Fulfillment of Dreams

Good morning! Today, I liked the search term “fulfilling your dream,” and I added “in sobriety,” because it has been my experience that in sobriety, dreams can and do come true.

I experienced one of my dreams – that of being in the big-time sailing world, when I lived aboard a sailboat for three years. I was still drinking at the time. In sobriety, the dreams I have fulfilled started as those of an emotional nature, and grew to be concrete things and experiences.

I had a dream, All of my life I dreamed of being happy, finding happiness and being at peace. I looked everywhere for these – in others, in experiences, in situations. But I never looked within for happiness, for peace.

Then, in sobriety, I began to learn how to find happiness and fulfillment from within. I began to experience more and more happiness the more I looked inside for it. If someone had told me I needed to look inside myself for happiness, for peace, for fulfillment of my dreams, I would have scoffed and turned away in disgust.

Now, in sobriety, I know that the only way to find fulfillment and, thus, happiness and peace, is ultimately through a self-assessment, a self-appraisal. In this process, I ferret out the things about myself that are keeping me from moving forward toward my dream.

In my case, my dream was to be a published author, and I have accomplished this with the publishing of my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. That dream was present as a child, and I apparently stated one day that I was going to write a book. I don’t recall that, but the desire remained with me subconsciously, and here we are – with a book I wrote, photographed, and published.

Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was a lead in the school musical, and from that point, I discovered I loved being on stage and vowed to become a speaker one day. That dream is coming true for me. I have launched myself as a motivational speaker, and have been speaking to a variety of groups. It is all possible because of my sobriety, and only my sobriety.

Through that state, the state of being sober, I learned more about myself to dispel the myths and lies I was told at a young age, lies that shaped me into a distorted and stormy being in adulthood. I had to learn to see my goodness as a person, my positive points, and once I became able to see myself in a positive light, with love, I became able to see others with gentleness and kindness, and I experienced happiness, peace.

Since we’re talking about peace, I’d like to say that although we have not achieved that state, I can pass along the peace I feel toward others in day-to-day contact with them. It leads to a peaceful existence in my world. So, I am in the process of fulfilling another dream in sobriety.

So, how can you fulfill your dream in sobriety? You can focus on your sobriety, on learning how to do a self-appraisal to uncover your goodness, and then you can learn how to show yourself kindness, gentleness, and compassion for the wounded person you were, for believing the negative things about yourself that you were told.

Once you reach this point, you begin to relax and start listening to the tugging of your heart, the whisper of your soul, telling you that you have a dream that wants to be fulfilled. Because you have positive thoughts and feelings about yourself, you come forth with self-confidene in your dream, following your heart’s messages, and soon, your dream has started to become a reality.

Sometimes, that day comes after years, because you have held your dream in your heart, reserving a little space for it, sending it attention every now-and-again. It commies suddenly, as you realize one day that you are living your dream. Only through your sobriety, though, can you access your urgings. Only in sobriety, do you have the courage to move forward in the face of fear, to fulfill your dream.

What is your heart’s desire and what are you doing to fulfill it? Have you mastered doing a self-appraisal, such that you can define your positivity? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

How to Overcome Hopelessness in Sobriety

December 19, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I have been silent for a couple of days and please pardon that. I tried writing a couple of posts, but the words just wouldn’t come. I needed a break, I guess… Today I am back with renewed vigor, and shall write about overcoming hopelessness in sobriety.

One of the greatest gifts of sobriety you will discover is feeling better about yourself, learning who you are at your core and learning to cherish what you find. It happens slowly, over time, often without you knowing it is happening, and one day, you just realize you are a good person.

When you get to this point in your sobriety, you begin to feel better. You have a new-found strength about you that helps you feel hope again. You are renewed with the ability to grow into hope for a better today, a better tomorrow. When you feel you have some redeeming qualities, you feel hopeful.

You can also begin to feel hope again if you provide service to others, specifically to those who are suffering from the same feelings you are. You can share with them how you have found hope again, and this will make your life meaningful to another. When this happens, you feel more hope. Remember, you only need to be two steps in front of them in the journey.

When you can be of use to another, the quality of your sobriety improves. As I said, the best way to do this is to be of service. It will help you get out of yourself for a time period and will show you that the experiences you’ve had are for a purpose – to help others suffering like you are suffering. When you are able to get out of yourself, you will be filled with more hope… hope that things can get better for you.

What shall you speak to others about that can offer them solace and hope themselves? How can you put your difficult experiences to use that are plaguing you? How will you be of service to another? Leave a comment and let us know.

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

How to Stay Sober During the Holidays

December 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Stay Sober in the Wake of the Connecticut Shootings

December 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opening Your Heart in Sobriety

December 14, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Openness of Heart

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.

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: compassion, Gentleness, kindness, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, tolerance

Dealing with LIving Sober

December 12, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Joys of Sobriety

December 11, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 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.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: attitude of gratitude, compassion, gratitude, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

PTSD Despair – the Conclusion

December 10, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Sobriety Worth It? Nine Reasons Why It Is

December 3, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. I read this search term and had a resounding “Yes! Sobriety is worth it!” slip out of my mouth. That has been my experience anyway. Let me tell you more…

First, there is the absence of hangovers. If you’re like me, you had bad hangovers every day. Bad nausea, that eye-splitting headache. Well, once you get sobriety in your life, you won’t be experiencing them any more, and that’s glorious!! There is nothing that feels better than to wake up with another day of sobriety before you and having a clear mind with which to do it.

Second, you will notice you are being present for all areas and parts of your life. Where before you were foggy, even high somewhat, now in sobriety, you will experience a clearness that you have not experienced in years. It brings you an aliveness that you haven’t felt since you don’t remember when! It feels fantastic!

In sobriety, you will thirdly be able to express and feel your emotions. You will feel feelings along the whole continuum, from great joy and pleasure to the depths of despair or sadness. You may not be experiencing despair in sobriety and if this is the case, I am happy for you, as it is the pits to be sober and be in deep despair. The point is, you will be able to feel what comes up for you, ever-changing, and in sobriety, you are present for these changes and states of feeling.

Fourth, you are available to do projects, to go places with others or by yourself. This is great fun, as you get involved in those projects you have avoided for years. With the time you have freed up from not drinking, you have more time to do things and go places. You begin to feel connected to others again, less isolated. And you can drive anytime, anywhere!

Fifth, you have the ability to hear what others are saying, to realize you don’t know everything. You look at everything with a beginner’s mind and you are teachable. This will expand your world tremendously and you’ll feel great about being able to let someone be important for the brief time you have listened to them. This does not mean you have to take the advice that is given. That depends upon whether or not it will further you in your goals, your purpose in life.

The sixth thing you will experience in sobriety that makes it worth it is your new-found ability to care for others. I mean really caring for them deeply, and wanting to reach out to help in any way possible, with your gifts.

That brings us to the seventh thing that makes sobriety worth it… and that is the discovery, acceptance, and nurturing of your gifts. You realize you have a purpose in life, and you begin to get clear on what that purpose is. You begin to see the uniqueness and beauty that is you, and, when you are practicing humility, you get a deep sense of satisfaction from this.

There is the desire to share your gifts, your time, your energy, your love, and that brings us to the eighth thing that makes sobriety worth it. You feel so grounded in yourself, so good about who you are that you want to share of this with others. You are over-flowing with the desire to be of service to others and that comes from a strong sense of self.

Finally, the ninth and not final reason is because you will begin to practice spiritual principles like gratitude, willingness, humility, compassion, and it feels so good to feel these, to practice them.

Here are several reasons why sobriety is so well worth it. How has it been worth it for you? Share about the pleasures you have experienced in sobriety. Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Living in Wonder in Sobriety

December 2, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I was going to take Sundays off, yet I am pulled to the keyboard this morning to write again about sobriety. I don’t see anything in the search terms that grabbed my attention. There were two about having no value, however, and I just cannot go there this morning. I will say to those of you who feel you have no value, hang in there, and if you are struggling with a drinking problem, I invite you to try sobriety.

Sobriety is a powerful tool against the feelings of worthlessness, the feeling you have no value. Oh, you may feel those feelings more intensely for a bit after you get sober, just as you will feel all of your feelings more acutely, including things like joy and wonder. In other words, when you get sober, you will feel your feelings again, and you have the capacity to feel all the feelings along the continuum, from the very difficult to the sublime and empowering.

The sublime and empowering feelings are available in sobriety, just as much as the negative and difficult ones, but we forget to access them because we get so mired in the difficult ones. They consume our energy. We would do well to practice seeing the joy, the wonder… seeing with gratitude when we can.

The more we can recognize the good and tender feelings in our lives, the sooner we will pass through the acuteness of the negative and difficult ones. Maintaining our sobriety is key during this process. When we keep on drinking, we delay the thing we need to do to get through to the other side… through to peace-of-mind. That thing is feeling our feelings, all of them.

Remember to look for the positive… the joy, the wonder in a flower along the way, or a child growing and experiencing life. Set the intention to look with those eyes, and soon, it becomes something we naturally do. This took me years to learn to do in sobriety, as I got really hung up on myself and my pain. I wish I would have had this input; it would have saved a lot of heartache, or at least, would have given me a welcome reprieve from the pain of my difficult feelings periodically.

How about you? Do you make it a practice to notice the joy, the wonder around you? Or, are you mired in the difficult, the painful? If you are experiencing the latter all the time, I invite you to try looking with new eyes, and letting us know what that was like for you by leaving a comment. By looking with new eyes, the eyes of wonder, you will enhance your sobriety so much, and you will know your own value. Are you in?

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how do I find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Gracefully Accepting the Path of Sobriety

December 1, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I added “of sobriety,” and chose “gracefully accepting the path” to talk about today because it raises the point of the positive. Showing grace, knowing when it has descended upon you, is a positive, as I see it. Only in sobriety did I even know grace existed! It took several years for it to reach me, for me to know I was experiencing it.

Let me explain to you one moment of grace that I am experiencing as I type. It is the wee hours of the morning and I just popped awake, so got up and started writing on my website, changing it around, especially the description of my speaking and coaching services. And it is raining… spurts of fast, staccato drops, interspersed with slow, lazy ones.

I am not fond of the rain, especially when I am driving in it. Makes me nervous, especially because my wiper blades are the pits and I can barely see. You could even say I hate the rain, which is true. I hate being wet and cold… soggy. So, what am I going to do about it? I have a choice. I can bitch and moan about it to everyone when it rains, or I can accept that I don’t like it and then take action.

I choose to take action, and so I go to the auto parts store and buy a new pair of blades. Oh my gosh! What a difference. I have been missing out on this pure delight for months now. I really digressed here… The point is, the fact that I am able to accept the rain as a fact of nature, and move forward in a positive manner, I define as grace. The fact that I can smile at the rain, knowing the season will end, and so being pleasant about it, is called grace.

Here’s another example. My sobriety is because of the grace of God. You can call that higher being, or source, whatever you wish, and the point is, it was their grace that led to sobriety. It was a gift and I choose to graciously accept it as such.

Grace is what allows me to “flow” in the, with the, present moment. For example, I just got done taking a dozen eggs off the stove where I was making hard-boiled eggs. I was multi-tasking, I admit, writing the blog, as well as doing small things around the house. I actually got sidetracked because I went to fill up my coffee cup.

Anyway, grace allows me to flow from one activity to the next, just doing the next indicated thing that’s presented for me to do, and being okay with that. It’s like a dance, this flow, this going from one indicated thing to the next, and when we learn to join in the ballet, we experience grace.

How do you experience grace in your life? Is it similar for you to what I described? You’re invited to share your thoughts. Leave a comment and let us know.

I see I have deviated from the topic implied by the title, and the discussion is equally interesting and valuable, I trust. Perhaps tomorrow I will address Gracefully Accepting the Path of Sobriety.

p.s. I notice a lot of people are visiting my website each day, and that number has been consistent lately. I am thinking that many of you are repeat visitors, following my blog. That’s cool! I’m thinking that the blog is useful to you, or you wouldn’t return. If that’s the case, my heart fills with joy, for this is my hope, my passion.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: acting with grace, grace, graceful, gracious, how to show grace, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

How to Maintain Your Sobriety

November 30, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The search terms about sobriety always jump out at me, and this morning, I have chosen how to maintain your sobriety to which I would like to respond, as there are many actions you can take to maintain it.

First of all to maintain your sobriety, don’t drink, no matter what. No matter if you have experienced difficult emotions, experienced the death of a loved one, or loss of a job or marriage, don’t drink over the feelings that arise. Instead, talk to someone about your feelings. Remember, a pain or struggle shared is a pain or struggle divided and conquered.

You can also journal about your feelings that have arisen. I recommend journalling with your non-dominat hand, as all sorts of things will surface when you do this. You will get to relief more quickly if you journal with your non-dominant hand.

Secondly, to maintain your sobriety, join a support group of your choosing. This is paramount to your success. You see, when you are part of a group that you attend regularly, you have at your disposal a release for your emotions. You can talk at group meetings about any pain or struggles you are experiencing, and in doing so, you will find relief.

Thirdly, in sobriety, it is necessary to learn how to take a long, hard, honest look at yourself – your strengths and good points, and then your negative traits and behaviors. It is especially important to keep an eye on your negative or bad behavior and to apologize when you recognize that you have erred. By keeping on top of your bad behavior, it offers the chance to practice humility and compassion for yourself.

Fourth, make the choice to see the world around you with joy and wonder and gratitude. Adopt these attitudes and you will go through your life with more grace. You will be more able to maintain your sobriety.

Fifth, be of help to another. Being of service helps you to get out of yourself and your woes. It lessens the chance to fall prey to self-pity. You see, self-pity is a real killer of peace and happiness, a killer of sobriety.

There is a sixth thing I’d like to mention and that is to be responsible for yourself in all ways. That includes taking responsibility for your healing. Whether you were wronged or not, you need to grab ahold of the ring and learn how to get through and past your hurts and angers, your sadnesses and grief. Your job in life is to heal from the wounds you sustained while growing up. You see, we all experience wounds in our early years, and our job is to get to the bottom of those wounds, and to heal and grow from them.

When you do these things, you experience both physical and emotional sobriety. Isn’t that what you’re looking for? If it is, then you can create it.

How do you maintain your sobriety? Leave a comment and let us know.

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

Maintaining Sobriety Day After Day

November 27, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Maintaining sobriety day after day” piqued my interest and I am going to write about staying sober this day… today. That’s the thing about it. You only need to stay sober today.

Sometimes, that day is long and treacherous. You may feel like drinking at some point during the day, and there are some things you can do to keep from following through on that desire. Those “things” can be boiled down into one thing… action. It’s about taking action throughout the day.

It’s about doing the next indicated thing to do, doing the next thing that presents itself to you. You will know what that is if you are being aware of what is going on around you, if you are paying attention to the cues of which way to go next.

What do I mean by that… what “cues” am I talking about? I’m talking about watching for when things go smoothly and fall into place easily, without any pushing on your part. When you experience this, you are on the right track with your actions. You are headed in the right direction. Sometimes, I have exhausted all the things I have to do, and I am still antsy. So, sometimes, doing the next indicated thing means washing the dishes, or taking a nap, or a walk.

Do you see that if you follow from one indicated thing to the next, you will be creating your path? You will be moving forward when the going is easy, moving in another direction when things get tough. In that manner, you create your future by shaping your present. If you elect to maintain your sobriety, then you will become more and more aware of how things are working in your life.

Yes, we have to plan ahead, make plans and get something on the calendar. Do that if it will move you forward in the present moment, if it will further and honor your goal. If it’s the next indicated thing to plan something, go for it. I caution against living in the future, paying more attention to it than the present. That leads to worrying, and that is something you can manage depending upon how well you can keep out of the future.

Think of it this way: make plans that further your goal, your mission, your purpose in life. This requires, of course, that you know what these are, and it is a useful exercise to figure out for yourself personally and in a business role. Doing this will strengthen your sobriety, as it will give you a focus and put an end to aimless wandering. Determining your goals is something we do when we work together. Once you realize your goal, your purpose, efforts can be made toward reaching that goal. Before you know it, day after day has accumulated and it has been twelve years! That’s how sobriety works.

How do you live in the here and now in order to maintain your sobriety? Leave a comment and let us know.

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

Moving Past Resentments in Sobriety

November 26, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Moving past resentments in sobriety” and “I promise you a life of joy and wonderment” were the search phrases that jumped out at me this morning. They go hand-in-hand, one follows after the other. When you get past your resentments, there IS a world of joy and wonderment out there.

In recovery circles, it is a well-known fact that resentment is the number one reason people drink. Interestingly, the CDC cited that in 2011 in the US, there were 11.8 million substance abusers. Wow. Assume that most of them have resentments, and that’s a lot of resentment flying around out there!

I found it possible in sobriety to get past my resentment I had held tightly for 38 years. It was against my parents for things that happened while I was growing up. I was very angry and bitter, but didn’t show it. I kept it all inside, bottled up. But when I drank, it came out, often big-time. in the form of rage or huge despair and wailing with grief from my losses.

My life became one of victimhood, living life as the victim, and “poor me,” “you’d drink, too, if you suffered what I did.” I was consumed by self-pity. Before sobriety, while I was still drinking, I had no clue that there was a way out of this nightmare. I had no ability to see that I was creating my own misery through the fueling of my resentment against the folks.

I was creating my own misery by failing to take responsibility for my own feelings, to heal from the grief and hurt. That took some time in sobriety to discover that it was my responsibility to do so. And, I had a choice to continue being bitter or to work myself free of the chains that were binding me. Ahhhhh, a choice… Sobriety led me down the path to freedom when it helped me realize I always have a choice in everything I do. We all do. Yes, even you.

What I found after I worked through my resentments, has been great joy and wonder at the world around me… the physical world and all Her wonders, as well as the people in the world, and all of their wonders. I learned to have greater kindness and tolerance for others… great compassion. The more I practiced those things, the more wondrous things became in what the person revealed to me about themselves, what they shared with me, how they treated me. Closer bonds have been established. It has been true joy and wonderment.

So how can you get from your resentment to that joy and wonder about which I speak? It’s a process… a process of looking at your wounds and feelings, and identifying where that keeps you stuck in present day. It’s about using that process to look with new eyes at the resentment and the person whom you resent, until you are able to reach forgiveness.

This is a process I guide people through in my one-on-one coaching. If you want to experience joy and wonderment in your life, you may be interested in learning more. Go to “Coaching” under the “Services” tab. We can work on that resentment that is keeping you from joy and wonder, and you can experience more peace during this holiday season.

I was indignant about looking at my “stuff.” After all, I was justified! I WAS a victim. That’s a fact. But there came a time in sobriety when I realized I just couldn’t carry my bitterness any more. It was affecting my ability to get to true sobriety, emotional sobriety. What I discovered was forgiveness and that helped me to find joy and wonder, peace and freedom.

How about you? How do you work through your resentments in sobriety? Have you reached joy and wonderment in your life?

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, joy, living sober, peace, resentful, resenting, resentment, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, wonder, wonderment

How to Open Your Heart More in Sobriety

November 25, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“How to Open Your Heart More in Sobriety” was in the search terms four times this morning. Well, the term was really how to open our hearts more, and I changed it a little, embellished a bit to add sobriety. I like adding the angle of sobriety in, because sobriety is so often what allows you to live with your heart more open.

Often, people who have been through the hell of hitting bottom and then getting sober, find that they can open their heart more than someone who has not been through hell. It’s as if the person who got sober knows what the other side is, and is so grateful to be out of there, out of that space, that opening their heart becomes a joy.

Perhaps one of the most valuable tools to use to open our heart more is that of honesty about ourselves… our actions and words, our behaviors. When drinking, we tend to be mired deeply in ourselves, concerned about how what everyone is doing is damaging or hurting us. In reality, we are manufacturing our own misery, but most drinkers would become engaged if you said that to them.

Anyway, back to honesty. When we take a real, hard look at ourselves and see our errors, our weaknesses, our bad behavior, we realize we have done the very same things we are mad at others for. In one way or another, we have. Wow. That’s a sobering realization! And once we realize we do the same things others do, we become humble, taking ourselves off that pedestal we’ve put ourselves on, making ourselves right-sized.

There is no need for shame at this point, thinking we’re a bad person. It’s just our behavior that’s bad, and that can be changed. So, once you are honest and open your heart to yourself, you can open it to others more, seeing them with different eyes, realizing that perhaps they, too, have wounds behind their bravado, their bad behavior. When you realize this, you can see with compassion and compassion helps you in your sobriety to open your heart more and more.

I don’t think that we can get to this point of having a truly open heart unless we are in sobriety. In other words, sobriety is what allows us to open our hearts more in life, to life. When we are drinking, we are too wrapped up in ourselves and our little (and big) dramas which we have created in some way or another, that we cannot get out of ourselves enough to see the surrounding world with tenderness, with compassion. We are mired in what the other guy has done to hurt us.

I am watching this very situation occur in realtime with a friend of many years. She lives out-of-state and so, everything I get is from her point of view, or the report of other friends. I have gotten the most recent update from a friend, and the truth is somewhere in the middle, but the drinking friend is driving everyone away through her bad behaviors and actions, and then claiming everyone is deserting her.

In reality, if she looked honestly at her own behavior, her own actions, she would see this and how she is reaping the consequences of her behavior. In other words, she is creating her misery. Tragic situation I am observing from afar, as I watch lives being ruined by the actions of one who is choosing to reject sobriety.

It is with a heavy heart that I wrote about that situation because I know if she took the route of sobriety, she would be able to open her heart more to others, to herself.

At any rate, after honesty is used to help open your heart in sobriety, openness of heart and mind follows. It is crucial to be open to suggestions and new ways of thought once you get into sobriety. And, of course, willingness is the key after honesty and openness are achieved. Willingness turns the key in the lock of a closed heart. You can have all the honesty and openness you want, and until you have willingness, you cannot put your sobriety to work for you.

Once you have looked at yourself with honesty, openness, and willingness, once you have added compassion to the mix, your sobriety will be enhanced and you will be able to open your heart more.

How about you? Are you able to open your heart more now that you are sober? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: being willing, honesty, honesty with self, living sober, open heart, open mind, Openness, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Willingness

A Day of Gratitude

November 22, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Good morning,” she says while it is still barely morning… and Happy Thanksgiving, a day of gratitude. It’s almost noon and I haven’t gotten around to blogging yet. Yikes! Today, let’s talk again about gratitude, seeing as this is the day of Thanksgiving. I’d like to share with you the things for which I am grateful.

First, my home. After having lived in a van for three years and often not knowing where I was going to park for the night, worried all the time about the police coming in the middle of the night, I am so grateful to have my own house. I am grateful for the way I have it decorated, for it feeds my soul.

I have much gratitude for my kitty, Izzy, for letting me pet her often. You see, she is a feral and is shy of me, even after seven or eight years. She will not allow me to hold her, nor does she come onto my lap, but she walks in front of me all the time for pets. I feel so grateful to be shown her affection and for me to have a being on whom I can bestow my overflowing affection.

My sobriety is a source of gratitude, hugely, if that is a word. Without my sobriety, I would be dead, most likely. And, if not, then I’d be out on the streets. I show gratitude every day for waking up without a hang-over, clear-headed… That gratitude stretches to the healing that has occurred in the past twelve years. Much of that occurred after the fifth and sixth years, and I am so grateful for that. I would like to express gratitude over the forgiveness I discovered, which has led me to great peace and freedom.

I have gratitude for my 91 Honda wagon with the purple interior and faded paint on the hood and roof, for it is a great car, still going strong with 190,000+ on it. It suits me so well and has lots of room to cart my books around, in addition to everything I need when I do a speaking gig.

I am grateful for my family and friends, that they have stuck by me through thick and thin. Again, I have so much gratitude for the forgiveness I accidentally discovered, and have been able to forgive my parents. That has set me free.

There are many more things for which I have gratitude… my clarity, my health, the ability to walk and talk, to reason, to feel my emotions, to feel both joy and disappointment, and more.

And how about you? For what do you have gratitude? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living Tagged With: grateful, gratitude, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Gratitude for Waking Up Sober

November 21, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Gratitude for waking up sober” just jumped off the page for me, so I want to address that today. Boy, where to start? It is hard to know, because I am so overwhelmingly grateful for my sobriety. But for me, perhaps the most prevalent thing I am grateful for is that I do not have a hang over. I awaken clear-headed and I have so much gratitude for that!

I have gratitude that I can drive any time I want to, and I am not under the influence. I have gratitude that I can feel the range and host of feelings that I do. I have gratitude today for just about everything. But it wasn’t always this way. Oh, no, it wasn’t.

It used to be that early in sobriety, when I was going to 4-5 meetings a day, I would often meet my roommate either coming or going to the meeting. The one going would ask the one coming what the topic was, and that person often said “Gratitude,” to which the one going would say, “Oh, not again!”

You see, when I was early in sobriety, perhaps until the first few years were over, I was unable to be grateful. Well, with the exception of my gratitude for not having a hang over, that is. I saw nothing for which to express gratitude. I was still so mired in my hurt, confusion, and rage over my up-bringing, my past, so filled with grief over an unrequited love. It colored everything I did, everything I thought. Even writing gratitude lists as suggested didn’t work for me.

What did work was allowing time to pass and with that, healing occurred. As I began to heal, I began to have the ability to look around, to really see what was around me – the people, the love and support. A whole new world opened up when I became grateful and today, I am grateful for just about everything that occurs around me. And at the core of that, at the core of everything, is my sobriety. It is from this that everything flows.

How about you? For what are you grateful? As we move into Thanksgiving, the day of gratitude, what are your reflections, what do you see? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Sober Living Tagged With: grateful, gratitude, gratitude for waking up sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, what am I grateful for

Willingness is the Key to Sobriety

November 19, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. I see that I forgot to write yesterday and I apologize to those of you who visited and found no new post. I think from now on, I will take Sundays off from blogging…

Today, the search term that caught my attention was “willingness is the key.” I wanted to write about this because it IS the key to sobriety and to so much more. Willingness is the thing that can bring so much into your life, when you practice it.

Webster defines willingness as the noun of willing, which is to act readily, cheerfully, and gladly. Notice it is to “act,” so willingness takes action on your part. I have found that to be willing, I have to approach situations with a new look, with new eyes. I have to let go of my idea of how things need to go, for example, take action and see what evolves as a result.

Willingness involves being open to what can happen in your life – open to change, open to new ways of doing things. It is a softening of your resistance so you can accept in the new. In the case of sobriety, it is being open to try it, to do it, to commit to it. If you are having trouble being willing, ask the Universe for the willingness to be willing to have willingness.

Once you show just a little willingness, the door opens wide and the ability to be willing comes flowing in to you. It is not just a softening of your resistance; it is also an excitement of anticipation of what can happen. In the case of sobriety, willingness will make or break your efforts.

First, you have to be willing to even get sober, to try sobriety. That involves acting readily to let go of alcohol as your friend and companion. Next, you will need to have the willingness to approach what you find in sobriety with an open mind – open to new ideas, new ways of doing things. It means getting rid of your contempt prior to investigation. The act of willingness allows you to look with excitement at what you are doing.

Along the way, you will need the willingness to feel your feelings without numbing them out with substances or activity, just being with them. If you show the willingness for this, the Universe will help you through your feelings. You will need the willingness to take others’ suggestions, even when you don’t want to. You may need to be willing to seek professional help, for example, to get through emotions related to the past.

Yes, willingness is truly the key to getting sober and staying sober. It is the key to open the doors in so many areas of your life. How do you practice willingness? Does it come easily to you, or do you struggle with it? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: being willing, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Willingness, willingness is the key

One Day at a Time in Sobriety

November 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Happens When You Surrender to Sobriety?

November 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overcome Despair with Sobriety

November 13, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life On Life’s Terms In Sobriety

November 9, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I would like to share an experience I had in sobriety. The thought came to me because I am without heat – can’t get the pilot lit – and I have the oven on and open so I can have heat. I am bundled up in a blanket as I type. The experience happened while I lived and traveled in my van that I gutted and rebuilt in cherrywood.

my home, the van

I was in Arizona, looking for a place to stay for the night and I saw a sign for a canyon. Thinking it was truly a canyon, ie, at the base of hills and mountains, I set out down that road. Soon I was traversing a hillside, climbing up the side of a mountain. Not a canyon in my book, but hey. Here I was, couldn’t turn around, so I continued.

At the end, at the top of the road was a clearing and flattened area as I reached the top of the mountain. (I say mountain, but, being from Colorado, it was really just a hill.) So here I am, having reached the top, and my rear tire blows – I have a flat. Freaking out, I try to call an auto repair shop to come up and fix it, but no one would do that. I try to fix the flat and couldn’t get the jack up enough to get the tire off the ground so I can pull the tire off. AND, I discovered that my spare was very, very low on air, if not flat itself. This was truly a challenge to maintain my emotional sobriety.

The fact that I would have to spend the night on top of the mountain then became evident, so I snuggled into bed, and lit the oven for heat. I awoke refreshed, ready to set out looking for help. So I did. As I walked, I did what was taught to me in sobriety… I prayed for help, prayed for God to remove my fear, to show me the way.

First, I came across a pickup truck, with the driver passed out over the steering wheel. I could see empty bottles in the bed of the truck. As I started to approach it, I realized that he could still be drunk and might be a mean or violent drunk. I could see myself getting accosted, raped even, killed, left to die, and no one would know what happened to me. I decided to continue searching for help.

At this point, I was talking myself through the twelve steps, trying to maintain my sobriety, my emotional sobriety. I decided to return to the van and leave a sign on the main road that I was in trouble. You see, I was tucked in a little clearing off of the dirt road that went through the area. I put a red T-shirt on a bush by the road, hoping someone would drive by, see it, and stop.

After about an hour, lo-and-behold if I didn’t hear a vehicle approaching, so I ran to the road. There was a van coming down the road! THEY’D have a jack that would work for me, or they could give me a ride to town with my flat spare. They stopped and determined that my spare had enough air in it to get down the mountain, and changed it. I then followed that van down the mountainside, and I went on to a local tire shop, where I got a new set of tires for my old and worn ones.

Alls well that ends well. What I learned from the experience that helped my sobriety was that when I take action on my own behalf, help comes in the least-expected way. If I don’t force things, but let them come to me, they work out better than I could have expected.

So, for your sobriety, here is my input: Continue on your path, doing the next indicated thing to do and take action on your own behalf. Don’t force things to go the way you think they need to go. Rather, keep taking action, one action at a time and things will work out better than you planned. You will maintain your sobriety, especially your emotional sobriety.

How do you handle difficult situations in your sobriety? Do you fret and stew, forcing a solution, or do you take action and then leave the results to God? Leave a comment and let us know.

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

Perseverance in Sobriety

November 8, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Let’s talk today about perseverance in sobriety. This was searched for this morning. Being successful in sobriety takes sticking to it, through the good and the difficult times. Both can be triggers to drink, so need to be addressed.

As in all things, practice brings progress, it moves you forward. If you set up a plan of how to manage things when you want to drink, or when your thoughts start to go haywire, you will be that much more ahead of the game.

When we are feeling good, doing well, we want to drink to celebrate, to feel even better. Therefore, we want to be vigilant when we experience good things, and fetch ourselves up if we are thinking about taking a drink. You can find someone to talk to or write your feelings of success in your journal.

Perhaps even more difficult is not drinking when we are experiencing difficulty, when our feelings are running amuck. In this case, again, you want to talk with someone; get support. A problem shared is a problem divided. The more you can share with someone, the more you will feel relief from the issue. Ask for support from others.

If you take a drink, then persevere and get back on the wagon as soon as you can. Try again to maintain your sobriety. But there are things you can do to avoid taking that first drink, such as thinking the drink through. Where will it take you? To jail? To the hospital? Think it through. Think where you will end up if you begin to drink again.

Above all, keep returning again and again to the maintenance of your sobriety. Do what you can to manage your emotions when they arise. As I said, talking to another is helpful. I also found it helpful to journal about my feelings, especially when I wanted to drink. That was frequent at first, as I was in huge grief over an unrequited love and I was flipping out emotionally. It was acutely painful and I wanted to numb it. Instead, I wrote about what I was feeling.

With action, prayer, and support from others, I was spared breaking my sobriety, and I am grateful about that. How do you deal with your sobriety when the going gets rough? How do you persevere? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Sober Living Tagged With: living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Practicing Honesty in Sobriety

November 7, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Today we’re going to talk about what it means to have honesty in sobriety, or to be honest any time, for that matter. When you thought of honesty, your thoughts went to stealing or telling lies, right? If you don’t steal and lie, you are honest, right? Possibly. Possibly not.

It depends. Are you practicing honesty in your sobriety about your feelings and about who you are? It is easy, even in sobriety, to not be honest, to not tell the truth about your feelings, to not speak up for yourself when needed. Honesty means owning your bad behavior… identifying and taking responsibility for it by apologizing if you hurt someone.

How can you know if you are being honest? Well, you can ask yourself these questions… “When I am feeling badly, do I say that, or do I say, in a huff, ‘I’m fine?’” If you say you’re fine when you’re not, you are not practicing honesty in sobriety because you are not saying what is true for you in that moment.

You can ask, “When I have intentionally, or even unintentionally, hurt someone else, am I apologizing for what I said or did… am I taking responsibility for my bad or hurtful behavior?” If you apologize in these situations, then you are showing honesty in sobriety because you are sharing your feelings of remorse, you are being honest about what you are feeling in the moment.

Honesty in sobriety is all about unveiling who you are at your core. It is about who and what you are in each moment. For example, I spent the majority of my life being dishonest. Oh, I didn’t cheat and only told a few lies here and there to protect others, but I considered myself honest. Then, I had to look differently when I got sober and I re-assessed my honesty in sobriety.

I discovered many things. First, when I was hurting or hurt, I did not relay that to the other person, thinking I it was better not to hurt the other person or to bother them. The thing is, the energy behind that deception came out in other ways, usually by being a bit standoffish in my approach to them, or making snide comments to them. Being passively aggressive. Whoa! It’s embarrassing to admit that, but it was true.

The fact is, I was not relaying my true feelings because of fear. I was afraid that if I displayed honesty in sobriety, then the person would get mad at me and harm me in some way because of that anger. Now, I find myself learning to tell others how I am feeling in the moment, and I say it especially gently if I think it will be difficult for the other person to hear.

That’s just one example of how to practice honesty in sobriety. I could go on, yet I’m sure you get the gist and my point. In case I didn’t make my point, it is that you can be ever-aware of your feelings and relay them to others when they occur. First, however, you need look at what is behind those feelings. If what you discover is something that will not harm the other to divulge, then be honest with them about what you are feelings.

If. on the other hand, you discover a personal problem or issue, then you will not want to tell the person your feelings. For example, someone said something that hurts your feelings and you, upon reflection, realize your old wound of feeling “less than” was triggered. You can consider that the hurtful comment was not said to harm you, and you were sensitive it to it because of your wound; you can consider not saying anything. You can also consider saying to them that an old wound was touched when they said what they said, and that you are having difficulty dealing with it.

By divulging that much about yourself, you open the way to share your honesty in sobriety, to share who you are at a deep level, and you further the relationship’s deepening with your action. That is practicing honesty in sobriety at its deepest level.

How do you display your honesty in sobriety? Leave a comment and let us know.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: being honest, honesty, honesty in sobriety, how to be honest, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Judging Others

November 5, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“Why do others judge me so harshly” is the search term that stuck out for me this morning. Most likely, it’s because I have spent a great deal of my life being judged harshly by another… I won’t say who, but you may be able to figure it out as we go along. Ay any rate, I have a sense of why people judge others so harshly because I know how I’m feeling when I am judging others.

Are you guilty of judging others harshly? If so, what are you thinking and feeling when you do? For me, I am thinking harshly of another when I am feeling the most insecure about myself. I would do well to fetch myself up when I start judging others and think about how I am feeling that led me to be so critical.

I hold others to my standards. The down side of that is that my standards are high and unachievable by some. Sometimes, they are even unachievable by me. They are unrealistic and at times, often, they are my parents’ standards. Boy, will I ever be free from the influence they had over me while growing up? I keep working on that, weeding out what is my belief, what is theirs.

I find I am judging others when I am feeling less than, insecure, and down on myself. Perhaps, that is true for others, too. So, when someone is judging you harshly, consider they are really reflecting their negative thoughts about themselves. That might make it a little easier to bear…

The other option, of course, is that they feel superior and will try and hold you to their standards. The trouble with that is, like I said, they are usually too high and unachievable.

I find that people are so busy paying attention to others, judging others, that they forget to pay attention to themselves and how they are in the world. Hmmm. Now, there’s an interesting thing for them to do with their time… to be aware of themselves in the world. Aware of their behavior, aware of how they treat others and themselves. Think of the harmony that would exist if that were the case…

The difficulty is, of course, that we can do nothing to change or guide the behavior of another. What our job really needs to be is watching ourselves… our behavior, how we treat others and ourselves. Sometimes, even treating others the way we what to be treated is not enough because we are not interested in treating ourselves very well. Aa a result, the “do onto others…” practice would not fare well.

At any rate, I find that since I have become sober, I am much less judgmental of others. From my participation in sobriety, I have gained the ability to hear what a person has to say, to bring up kind, loving thoughts about them in my head, rather than criticizing them for how they might look, for example.

I used to have this thing about tattoos and people with them. (Sorry if that’s you…) I frowned on them and the people with them. Then one day, I heard a highly tattooed guy share the most profoundly beautiful words and concept. My frown flew out the window, as I realized how my judging others almost kept me from hearing what this man was saying, and I would have missed out on a beautiful opportunity to grow, to see another human being in great depth.

Of course, judging others leads right to comparison. We compare one to another and find fault with “another,” demanding that “another” be more like “one.” In that process, we squash the spirit of “another,” and totally miss the beauty they have to offer the world, to offer you.

I will write more about comparing one to another tomorrow. To close, I would like to share two images from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing and the corresponding verses that go with them. They relate to judging others, and comparisons.

Practice of Tolerance

“I have the most difficulty being tolerant of others when I am feeling inadequate, insecure, and uncomfortable with myself.

Yet, when I am able to look beyond the imperfections of others, I discover great beauty and worth in them.

And, I discover that another’s value does not diminish my own.”

Cultivation of Differences

“We ask, require, demand, that others around us be like us, share our attributes, our beliefs. And in so doing, we compare… one to another. In that process, do we not squash the spirit of the one who is different from us – one whose thoughts and dreams and talents lie in a different place?

We are like the gates. Although similar in design, what thrives in one spot does not grown in another. On one, there is rust or corrosion or patina, while on the other is mellowed brass.

One is not more beautiful than another. Each has beauty in its own right, if we will only look… if we will only see.”

Have a day filled with lovely thoughts.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: judging others, judgment of others, judgment of self, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

How to Achieve Forgiveness

October 31, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living Sober Is Not Rewarding When You’re Dying Inside

October 29, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rewards of Sobriety

October 28, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motivating Words to the Hopeless

October 22, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Power of Gratitude

October 21, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

When put to use, gratitude is very powerful. Even more so, it is magical.

I will move into gratitude today for two reasons – 1) it was a search term and 2) it enhances everything you do in life, and it can help you maintain sobriety. Gratitude assists in the forgiveness process, too.

What is gratitude? According to Webster, it is a feeling of thankful appreciation for favors or benefits. To me, gratitude is pleasing and I am thankful for what I have received, whether I have asked for it or not. I am thanking a higher being, or source, showing and sharing my gratitude.

There was a long period in sobriety during which I could not be grateful for anything. In fact, my roommate and I used to meet each other while one was on the way from a meeting and one was on her way to a meeting. The question would always be, “What was the topic?” The answer invariably was “Gratitude,” to which the other would exclaim, “Gratitude AGAIN??”

The thing is, I could not get past the hurt and pain of my past enough to be grateful for anything. It took me several years sober before I seemingly overnight, began to have extreme gratitude. Oh, but I remember the incident vividly. It is the same day that I realized my life’s purpose and my calling.

Once I did, the whole world changed for me in my ability to be grateful for all the gifts I was receiving. In fact, I began to look at my experiences as gifts from which to learn and grow, to heal and thrive.

I still do today… look at experiences as gifts for my learning, healing, and growing, and I see them with gratitude. Sometimes, when I am in the middle of it, I don’t see it as a gift, though. But it works its way through, and I begin to see the gift. Staying sober helps a great deal with that, and that’s the topic of another blog.

If you’re having difficulty being grateful, expressing gratitude, then try this. Every morning when you wake up, whether you lie awake for awhile, or bound right out of bed, feel gratitude for waking up. That’s it, just for waking up.

Even if you would rather not continue with life and not waking up sounds like the solution for you, set that aside for a bit if you can, and just be grateful you woke up on this day, that you have one more day to hope that things will turn around today, or one more day to stay sober. Whatever your difficulty, think of it as one more day to have things change.

It takes courage, and a lot of willingness. And if you’re beat down so low, perhaps those are the only games in town. You have a choice to grab hold of willingness and courage, or keep with the status quo.

Back to our daily exercise. Practice greeting the day with gratitude for two weeks. For the following two weeks, keep doing that and add this: throughout each day, remember back to waking up and being grateful that morning. When you can remember what that felt like for you, be grateful you were able to experience gratitude, able to be grateful. Be grateful for the courage and willingness you used.

After a while, you will find yourself showing gratitude for getting great parking spaces. It works to elevate your mood, and it’s easier to be around others, and they around you. Remember, gratitude begets gratitude.

How does gratitude manifest for you? Are you able to express it already? If not, was the exercise helpful? Leave a comment and let us know.

Are you resistant to this or even to the exercise?

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: being grateful, getting sober, grateful, gratitude, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Is Sobriety Worth It?

October 20, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Is sobriety worth it? During early sobriety, I didn’t used to think so. The feelings that were surfacing were very painful and it was worse than when I was out there drinking. But, by the grace of God, I stayed sober and discovered that sobriety is soooooo worth it!

To start with, you will wake up without a hangover. This is so glorious! Awakening clear, bright, not hurting… these are all things you will want to experience.

You will have clarity throughout the day, thinking clearly about things which come up. This may not occur for a while, though, until after your head clears from the fog of the alcohol. Give it time… you will clear up.

There will be more time for you to devote to tasks and projects. Some of you may not have projects to do, may feel a bit lost with all this newly-found free time. Use it to write in a journal, to take walks, to clean the house, sort through old papers… The point is, find yourself things to do to replace your drinking time.

Those are some of the things you will physically experience. What about emotionally, mentally? That’s where it gets really exciting. If you are like me, you will start noticing the world around you in more detail. You will have the time, and will take the time, to admire the flowers growing in your yard, the neighborhood, along the freeway. You will delight in the beauty of nature, awed by its intricacies.

After a bit of time and work in sobriety, you will notice that you are calmer. You are able to be more introspective, noticing things about yourself and your behaviors that you missed out on before. This is an excellent time to do a self-appraisal, to praise yourself for the positive things you do and say. Instead of getting embarrassed and ashamed of your negative behavior, you will critique your behavior and actions, wanting to set right what you have bungled with others.

If you get into spirituality in order to maintain sobriety, you will lose yourself in it, reveling in the literature and spiritual authors. Ah, yes, yet another thing to do with your new-found time. Reading… it is very calming, or can be. I read Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s book The Invitation. It resonated with me at a deep level. That was my first book in sobriety and I added to it Iyanla Van Zant, Melody Beattie, Eckhart Tolle, to name a few. The amazing thing is, you will be clear enough and calm enough to read.

Then, there is the issue of your relationships with others. No doubt you are no longer being as obnoxious as you were while drinking, and people will be more willing to spend time with you. You will have less arguments, and are more able to look at disagreements rationally, with fairness, taking into account your own behavior and how you contributed to a situation.

These are just a few of the marvelous things you will experience in sobriety. It is truly an amazing journey, filled with awe and wonder. It may take some time and work to get to that point… look at healing your old wounds and hurts. Look at your resentments and try to resolve them through compassion and forgiveness.

For you who asked if sobriety is worth it, I give a resounding “yes!”

If you are considering sobriety, I wish you well on your journey and I hope you choose to get sober. It is an amazing life and you will learn to clear out all the old “stuff.” Yes, sobriety is well worth it! It will lead you to peace.

Filed Under: Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, is sobriety worth it, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

What Are Resentments?

October 19, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Resentments are grudges or angers we hold against another or ourselves. They can be major or minor.

This is the start of my post yesterday, Thurs the 18th of October. Then, nothing came to me, and I decided to wait till the afternoon to write. I forgot… This morning got away from me and I had to leave for my volunteer job. My apologies for no post yesterday or earlier today. I hate to have you come here and not find a new post when that is what you’re looking for…

Many people carry huge resentments… years old. I did. I carried mine against my parents for 38 years, and fueled it with drinking and drugging. I was one wound-up, angry woman! Provoke me and watch out… My husband got a lot of my wrath, and in all fairness to me, I must say he slung his mud my way, too, and many times that’s what I was reacting to. Mostly, I kept my mouth shut. All that did was build the resentment I had against him for his verbal abuse, and many other things. Life was filled with drama…

Is this a familiar story for you? Sound like your life with different circumstances, perhaps, but the same gist? How is your life working?

Maybe your resentments are smaller than a full-blown rage against Uncle Harry for something he did years ago. Maybe, it’s an issue in traffic, when someone cuts in front of you and then slows down to 5-10 miles under the speed limit. Do you do the slow burn in that situation? I do sometimes… Or how about the neighbor who plays loud music late at night… do you begin to momentarily resent those things?

The point is, we deal with even minor issues that lead us to generate resentments, which are things we go over and over and over again in our mind. If we have a momentary anger and were able to resolve it by taking action of some sort, that is not a resentment. The on-going thinking of the offense is what makes it a resentment.

What are we to do with these annoyances, these little things that get under our skin? Ah, there is relief. Let’s take the example of the driver who pulls out in front of us and then slows notably. This driver is oblivious, unconscious. Don’t you have to have compassion for someone who is so clueless in their life? I’m saying “in their life” because if, while performing a function in which one wants to be fully present, they are so absent, chances are they are like that in all areas of their life.

I feel compassion that they miss out on all the miraculous things that occur in front of us all day, every day. The beauty, the mystery, the bad experiences that lead to good outcomes… They are leading a life similar to the one I led before sobriety, before I learned to deal with resentments by learning to manage all the things I mentioned above. But at least I was a conscious and aware driver.

The next time you get peeved about something that seems small, yet it develops into something that consumes you, try offering compassion. You will begin to see many things about which to be compassionate. It takes some practice, and is so worth the effort in the end. It offers you peace and calm.

Does this give you some idea of what a resentment is, you who searched for this term yesterday morning? I hope so. How does my suggestion to see the other person with compassion sit with you? Does it resonate, or make you angry and resentful that I would suggest compassion as a course of action? Leave a comment and let me know.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, resentment, resentments, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, what are resentments

More About Resentments – Living Free From Them

October 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curls of Kindness

October 14, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curls of Kindness

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

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

when will it be?”

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

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

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

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

Honesty, Openness, and Willingness – Keys for Sobriety

October 13, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Welds of Honesty

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

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

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

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

Openness of Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key of Willingness

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

The Story Behind My Sobriety – Conclusion

October 12, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Becoming Sober – The Story Behind My Sobriety

October 11, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Combatting Feelings of Worthlessness, No Value

October 4, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Combatting Worthlessness and Feelings You Have No Value

October 3, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Conquer Fear by Getting Sober

October 2, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Positive Effects From Sobriety

September 30, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not Sure Sobriety Is Worth It…

September 29, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

“not sure sobriety is worth it” was the search term from yesterday that caught my eye. So, I wanted to share with you a story about that, about B… a delightful 91 year old gentleman for whom I have the honor of being his caregiver. Wait till you hear about this amazing elderly man. He has so much spirit.

B… is this slight guy, stooped, about 5’5″ because of that stoop. Thin, with huge veins in his arms. I notice this because I used to be a nurse and did lab draws… drawing blood. I notice everyone’s veins in their arms… Anyway, B… lives alone in a 3 bedroom house with lots of plants throughout. Ah, a man of my own heart. I also have lots of plants in my home.

He spends a fair amount of his time looking for his cane, so he can take the food out to the deer family he feeds… a doe and her two growing fawns. They like lettuce and red cabbage, so we always make an extra trip to the grocery store that carries red cabbage. I drive his car and he doesn’t complain about my driving! What a bonus. In fact, he agrees with me that I’m a fairly good driver. No, a good driver.

Yesterday was my day to prepare meals for him, so I was cooking away while he was trying to fix the screen door on the door between the gagare and the kitchen. The little arm at the top of the door that holds it open was slipping and wouldn’t keep the screen door ajar. He tried for about an hour to get that to work, but to no avail.

The thing is, I was a witness to this elderly man, trying again and again and again. I was touched by his tenacity, his patience. It fits with his soft-spoken nature.

You may be wondering what B… and his kitchen door have to do with sobriety? Here it is. Unless I was sober, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate B… and his door, or his deer. If I was still drinking, although not on the job, I would still be hung over for my shift from 1-4 pm. I would have been irritated to have to go to the extra grocery store… such a pain. Out of my way…

And I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate this gentleman’s love of nature and the deer. I would have found it irritating to have to keep track of him while he was out there, on my watch. And I would have intervened yesterday with the door… wanting to get it fixed so he would stop fiddling on a lost cause.

Because I’m sober, I see everything differently, however. Instead of being irritated, I feel honored to be able to drive this man to the extra grocery store to support his efforts with the deer. I am able to be grateful for my job, for the honor, the delight, of witnessing this man and the actions of his heart.

I am able, as a sober person, to allow this 91-year-old to be as independent as possible, knowing he may fall, which he has outside while feeding them, cutting his elbow badly… twice. But I can offer him respect and trust in him as a person. Letting him maintain as much independence as possible.

Same for the door. I was able to respect his perseverance instead of getting irritated with it, taking delight in watching him continue to try and solve the problem. I didn’t have to step in and do it for him cause I was feeling insecure in myself. My self-confidence allowed me to have respect for him and his need to be active.

Not Sure Sobriety Is Worth It… well, for me, if I wasn’t sober I wouldn’t be experiencing these fabulous things with this elderly gentleman. I would have gathered myself into a huff, a snit, feeling put-upon. From my perspective, sobriety is absolutely worth it, if you wish to live a life of peace and happiness, awareness and caring for another… free from anger and bitterness. Sobriety is the first step to getting there…

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: getting sober, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, Not Sure Sobriety Is Worth It, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Self-Appraisal Leads to Inner Peace

September 28, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Well, it’s been a few days of a heavy topic, and today I’m going to lighten things up. I’m going to talk about my experience at a networking event last night, and my discovery of how a self-appraisal saved the evening.

I had a vendor’s table at a women’s networking event and it was a shopping extravaganza… except at my table. Oh, I had several lookers, but no one bought my book, nor any of the numerous photographs of wrought-iron gates I had displayed. It was very disappointing, very disappointing indeed.

I had come armed with a full box of books (weighing 56# I might add…), a box of framed photographs, and a box of flyers and other info to lay out. Luckily, the tables were 8 feet, so I had room to create a pleasing arrangement of all my wares. The people that stopped by were admiring of my work, but no one bought. I was occupied with my own table, and didn’t see if they were buying from other vendors.

I could come up with all sorts of excuses why I didn’t sell, but I think I know why they didn’t buy. I think it was because I had too much on my table, too many choices. Like the monkey that has two bananas to choose from and can’t make up it’s mind so chooses none, so I believe it was with my table.

Anyway, throughout the course of the evening, I was chosen to come up in front of the audience and state what I do, so I said I work with Vietnam vets to help them find forgiveness of the American people for how they were treated when they returned home. Afterward, a man approached my booth. I could see from his name tag that it was Stan.

Stan outstretched his hand, and said, “I’m a Vietnam vet and I want to thank you for the work that you are doing.” Boy, that made the evening worthwhile, to have let another vet know there is hope on the other side of the resentment, the bitterness. I was humbled. He even took my card to pass along the word of my work.

Earlier in the day, I had stumbled across a site that was a group of Vietnam Vets in San Quentin. I wanted to become a part of the volunteers who visit these men at that prison. I had, after all, visited a friend in Quentin for several years, so was familiar with going into the prison. I discovered, to my disappointment, that because I had been a visitor, I could not be a volunteer. Boy, and I was so excited to be able to go in and talk with the group… So my disappointment of the evening was a continuation, in part, of earlier news.

Let’s look for a minute at the lack of sales last night. I could use excuse after excuse, but as I said earlier, I believe it was because I had too much on the table, too many choices. In other words, I found a reason why what I was doing was not working, rather than blame it on everything else… like, they gave me a bad spot, etc.

The ability to look at myself, to look at my actions and how they contributed to a negative outcome has just occurred for me in sobriety. Being able to do that has been very freeing. No longer do I go seething about, looking for something outside of myself to blame. I can hold myself accountable. I can do a self-appraisal, a performance eval, and see how I contributed to a situation. Again, how very freeing this has been.

It took some practice over time, but my ability to go to seeing my part in something by doing a self-appraisal has been finely honed and I go right there, well, almost right there. The cool thing is, I have 2 more big events coming up during which I can test my theory by having just a few things on my table. I’ll let you know how that works.

Today, when you are tempted to blame everyone and everything around you for your difficulties, take a look at what role you played in the affair. How did you contribute to the negative outcome? Take a look, be humble and willing to accept responsibility for your part. It all starts with a self-appraisal, and a smile at yourself.

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, performance evaluation, self-appraisal, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Inspiration For Hopeless Despair Over PTSD

September 27, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What It Was Like Getting Sober – Part 3

September 22, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

My van

To continue… I must say, I hope you stick with this post. It’s long and I really hated to do a part 4.

The first year and a half of getting sober was difficult, as my feelings were extremely raw and I had nothing with which to numb them. I did a LOT of writing. I took several brisk walks a day.

After several months of doing these things as well as going to 4-5 meetings a day, God brought me the old van I ws telling you about earlier, and I dove in, gutting it, redoing the plumbing and electrical systems in addition to all the woodworking. I designed the interior bulkhead walls and the bookshelves. This project was a life-saver. It eased the difficulty of getting sober and feeling all my emotions.

I left San Diego in the spring of 2002, and headed back to the Bay Area, where I got a job. Soon after, I fell and injured my right, dominant wrist, so much so that I could not write with that hand and started journaling with my non-dominant, left hand. All sorts of deep feelings welled up, out of nowhere.

In fact, some of what I wrote now appears in the book I wrote and photographed, Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. In 2004, I discovered that the writings matched perfectly with some gate photos I had taken earlier in the year, describing their physical characteristics perfectly. I did not plan this; it just happened, which is why I believe my book was divinely created, guided.

Anyway, after returning to Marin and injuring myself in 2002, I could not deal with the weather that winter; the rain was blowing sideways and the van was leaking, getting my journals and books wet. I lost it and became suicidal. After reaching out to the crisis line and getting stabilized, I returned to San Diego and proceeded to receive treatment for my wrist injury.

Surgery was necessary, and I spent the next 3 years trying to find a place to live where I could be and not use my hand for a month following the surgery. It was going to be pretty extensive… First I went to Colorado and then to a friend’s home in Washington state, but these places did not work out and I found myself back in Marin in 2005, having surgery.

My emotional recovery continued, as I delved deeper into my psyche. I got assistance from a therapist. But I still was experiencing great, deep despair over my childhood. I felt the pain I had endured was for no purpose in my life, other than to make me miserable. That despair continued until one day, I discovered my purpose in life.

What I discovered was that my story, my abusive history, was of help to another when I talked about it and relayed how I had begun to heal from it. Suddenly, I saw the reason for the abuse. It was to help others by talking about my experience of healing so that they, too, could begin to recover from their abuse, their pain that they had endured. Suddenly I had purpose, my life had purpose.

After realizing my life’s purpose, my whole attitude and belief in myself changed, and I have not felt despair since that discovery, that day. In fact, my recovery has progressed to the point that I am stable and flourishing. Initially after surgery and for 2 years, I pulled together my book. Then I spent the next 2 years publishing and marketing it. It didn’t really take off, despite the fact that everyone who reads it, raves about it.

In 2008, I bought my humble little home in Marin, so now I am a long-term resident in a place that I love. An opportunity and calling came about, working with the Vietnam vets to help them through the suffering they still experience. What I have to offer today that I didn’t have 38 years ago is a way through grief, as well as how to get past anger and bitterness that is long-standing.

You see, I was finally able to forgive my parents for my upbringing. I carried that deep resentment around for 33 years, and am well-versed in how to forgive a long-time hurt. This is one of the major things I talk about when I work with the vets.

I conduct workshops now, as well as coach others. The topics are as I’ve discussed… grief recovery and forgiveness. I love my life and most of all, I love it when, after talking with someone, I see their eyes light up with hope after being sad and listless, void of all hope. That wonderful peace that I have found is something which I love to pass on… how to get there, how to look at the world and oneself with new eyes, 180 degrees from what one saw before.

You, too, can have a healing journey through all of your grief, your anger and bitterness, through all of your despair and hopelessness. It all starts by getting sober, giving up the drink for a kinder and softer way. Come join me. It is a wonderful life. Learn how to start on that path by coming to my workshop Finding Freedom In Forgiveness on National Forgiveness Day, October 27th. For more information and to register, go to http://findforgiveness.eventbrite.com.

If you are hurting enough, and you want something different in your life, then you are ready, perhaps, to embark upon a new journey. Reach out. Get help. You were not intended to do life alone in a vacuum, by yourself. It is a sign of strength and courage to reach out for a hand. There is love out there, brought to you by God’s countless angels. I wish for you to discover it.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: Carolyn CJ Jones, getting sober, how to find peace, how to get sober, inner peace, living sober, Nam Vets, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

What It Was Like Getting Sober – Part 2

September 21, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

To continue… So, Brad and I were friends and palled around for about a month. During that time, the thought to go on a road trip to “find myself” came to me, so I began preparing my little Audi Quattro (a 1985 runnin’ strong with 350,000 on it) for the trip. My first stop was San Diego where my old Sausalito bar tender was now living, getting sober herself. I packed up the car, made drawers and shelves in the back seat for clothes, pots and pans, and finally left Marin County, planning never to return. I had had it with Marin!

The ironic thing is that I am back, have been since 2005, and now own property in Marin. lol Just goes to show you that you never know where life is going to take you! My trip to San Diego was leisurely, as I stopped at several camp grounds along the way. I would drink my six-pack and go roller blading around the camp grounds, a hobby I had taken up at Brad’s encouragement. (He was a roller blader).

I spent my evenings reading Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. And drinking, of course. From the book, I formed the belief that there could be a God and that He was constantly sending help and messages my way through other people, songs, ads, etc. I became very open to suggestions by others, seeing that it might be God at work for me.

When I got to San Diego on March 5th, 2001, and spent the night in a Motel 6 in Chula Vista, south of San Diego, I had my last six-pack as I wrote a letter to the man who did not reciprocate my feelings of love. It was a letter explaining the events that occurred that had made me believe he cared, in an attempt to get clarification from him. I became a sloppy and teary-eyed drunk that night, and awoke with a bad hangover, as usual.

I headed to my friend’s on March 6, 2001, and we proceeded getting sober for the next seven days, at which point she claimed she was going to a support group and did I want to join her? As I was taking everything that came along as a sign from God, I said yes. I will never forget that first group meeting I went to. Everyone was going around the circle, claiming to be an alcoholic and giving their name. What would I say when it came my turn!!?? I was terrified to speak.

Miraculously, when my turn came, the words “Hi, I’m Carolyn and I’m an alcoholic,” rolled out of my mouth with no effort or hesitation at all. I cannot tell you what relief that I felt, what weight was lifted form my shoulders. No more hiding. There. Everyone knew, or would know. That meeting was the start of my recovery to a much better place. First though, I had to go through a lot of healing.

It started with looking at my resentments and examining them. After my parents and my ex-husband, came the “white man” for his treatment of and crimes against the Native Americans, and then came the American public for how they treated the Nam vets when they returned home. I was tremendously upset and angry about those things. They were some of the things I drank over.

Speaking of the Vietnam vets, what was my interest in them? Well, I vowed 38 years ago that I would give back to them even a little of what they lost when they returned home. Back then, I had nothing to offer. At this point in my sobriety, I still had nothing, but that changed, and I’ll explain how, tomorrow. Hope to see you then

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: get sober, getting sober, how to get sober, living sober, Nam Vets, Sober Living, sobriety, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

What It Was Like Getting Sober – Part 1

September 20, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning and welcome back. I am hoping that the last two days of blogging about getting sober have been helpful and useful to you. It’s quite a low point when one realizes it’s time to stop drinking or actually die. At least it was for me. The thing that’s needed is, being convinced that it’s worth living.

Ah, yes. I remember being in this space for several months, drinking more and more, seeking relief from my grief, my confusion over the unrequited love. Finally realizing I would die if I continued, it was with desperation that I prayed to a God I didn’t even believe in, asking for help. God answered. He sent Brad. Today I know that Brad’s coming into my life was a God-thing; back then I didn’t have a clue. Brad was my angel sent from God.

It got to the point when I was drinking that I’d start my afternoon at about 3 pm, at the local bar. I was there for margueritas… two of them. Then I walked to the grocery store across the street for a six-pack of beer, and then back to the boat I was living aboard at the time. It was an anchor-out, meaning it wasn’t attached to the docks, meaning I had to row back and forth to get to and from it.

I had to transport fresh water to the boat, had to monitor the electrical system and charge the batteries every 2 days, and other such tasks for survival, like watching the anchor in a storm to be sure it didn’t drag, allowing the boat to drift. Thankfully, I never had to reset the anchor in a storm; it always held fast..

I lived aboard from November 2000 to February 2001, through the winter months in Sausalito, California. Winters are pretty rainy and really nasty windy in Sausalito that time of year. I clocked some storms with 80 knot winds. Nighttime most often found me out of beer by about 7 or 8 pm, so I’d row in and go to the liquor store for one more six-pack. Miller Lite. Someone once told me that that was not beer! Well, it did the trick for me quite nicely… Anyway, my rowing in and out during the storms was suicidal.

Back to Brad. He was this young guy, in his early 30′s (I was 48 at the time), who rode his bike past the bar where I sat on the deck every afternoon. We’d wave to each other. One day, soon after I begged to God, Brad stopped and asked how I was. It was when I responded “Just fine,” and he replied gently “No you’re not,” that I began to cry.

We became friends and his friendship helped me start the long journey back from deep, debilitating despair. He helped me gain back a sense of reality, of what was real about my thoughts, my feelings. And I continued to drink, just not with such desperation. I contemplated getting sober many times and was terrified to let go of what was familiar in my life.

Miserable as I was with my drinking and the results of it (severe hangovers every morning), I knew what to expect in life. I didn’t think I could feel my feelings any more than I was already doing when I was drunk, and I was terrified of having to deal with more pain in my heart if I quit drinking. I didn’t know if I could stand it.

What I didn’t know at the time was that, once I asked for help from God, that included helping me through those feelings, giving me relief when they became unbearable, when I wanted to drink again. He brought me a major project to do, to occupy myself in a healthy manner… renovation of a 1982 Dodge full-sized van that I gutted and rebuilt in cherrywood. That became my pride and joy, my masterpiece, my business card when I tried to get varnishing jobs. That all happened in early sobriety… and I have jumped a bit ahead of myself.

This post is getting long and there’s still more to come. So, I shall continue tomorrow. Come back and find out how this relates to the soft spot I have in my heart for the Vietnam Veterans.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: finding sobriety, getting sober, how to get sober, living sober, Nam Vets, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, Vietnam veterans, Vietnam vets

Sobriety Brings an Open Heart – Part 2

September 19, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I described a bit about what it was like for me prior to sobriety. Today, I’ll continue with my story.

To get sober, I traveled from Sausalito, California, to San Diego, where I lived with my old Sausalito bar tender who was also getting into sobriety. For a year and a half, we lived together and had a healing home. What I mean by that is that we talked a great deal… about our childhoods and the left-over “stuff” from the experience. We both did a great deal of emotional work on ourselves. At times, it was quite difficult…

My “stuff” included a very poor sense of self-worth. I had no esteem what-so-ever. Well, I did, and it was negative. I was in a great deal of shame about who I was as a person, about my body. These were all a result of being shunned until the age of 17 because I was not an intellectual person like my father and two sisters. I was a creative and excelled at writing, crafts, and music. Music was the only thing my father deemed worthy of support. The rest of my abilities were harshly criticized.

When I was 17, I was a lead in our high school musical, and blew the socks off of everyone, including my father. Finally, there was something I did which he praised and encouraged. Finally!! All those years of criticism about who I was took their toll, however, and I was a pretty damaged person. From the young age of 22, I began drinking… like an alcoholic, and I found it numbed my dealings of worthless, hopelessness, and despair.

Back to San Diego… During early days in sobriety, I continued to be in acute grief over the unrequited love, and I tried desperately to figure out how I had mis-interpreted the guy’s signals. Never did figure that one out. To soothe myself so I could sleep, I listened over and over again to a CD of Jens Kruger, a classical banjo player. The beautiful music lulled me to sleep.

During the day, I wrote for hours, and read spiritual stuff voraciously. Melody Beattie, Iyanla VanZant, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Eckhart Tolle… I couldn’t read fast enough. My heart started opening up and it was acutely painful. To deal with my feelings, I also walked briskly 2-3 times a day and went to 4-5 meetings a day.

It took about five years of sobriety before I felt relief from my grief over the unrequited love, and to begin to feel ok about myself. But before that happened, I was diagnosed with PTSD form all the verbal and physical abuse I’d endured as a child. I had been dealing with PTSD for most of my life until the age of about 53.

Getting diagnosed with PTSD was a major eye-opener. It explained my hyper-vigilance, my startle response, my extreme anger. I sought EMDR treatment and that resolved the PTSD. I still had difficulties, however, with my feelings of despair. I felt the child abuse I had endured was for no purpose, that I had no purpose in life.

These feelings dragged me down and staying sober was difficult during these years. I wanted to numb out so badly! Finally, one day I stumbled across my life’s purpose, which is to tell my story about how I healed, so others might be helped. Since then, my heart has really opened up and I have begun to flourish.

Life has continued to get better from that point forward and my heart has continued to open, to expand. Today, it holds great gratitude for just about everything about my life. I was able to discover how to forgive my parents for how I was treated as a child. I was able to overcome that deep and debilitating grief over the unrequited love.

I have even been able to find self-love, self-worth, and self-esteem. I am so open to others… to helping them out, being of service. I am a happy person today, calm and at peace. Sobriety has brought me healing and with it, an open heart.

Are you dissatisfied with your life, with who you are, bitter about the past? And are you drinking heavily over it? Have you considered stopping drinking? If not, then have you heard of the glorious riches that occur when you embark upon sobriety? I highly recommend a life lived with an open heart, and if you’re a heavy drinker, I invite you to explore the reasons behind this, and to take action to resolve those feelings. I invite you to open your heart through sobriety. Above all, I wish for you happiness and peace.

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

The Right to be Respected and Respect Others

September 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The right to be respected and respect others… one of the search terms that led someone to my blog yesterday. I felt compelled to speak of this topic… respect of self and others…

What is it about respecting ourselves and others that has so many people stumped? I mean, they don’t do it easily. That is evidenced by all the fighting that occurs… between people, between nations, between our own ears. Why is it so difficult for us to respect ourselves and others? That’s what I want to know.

I suspect it is fear… fear of something and I’m not sure what. Usually, behind shunning or disrespect is the inability to live and let live, to accept the differences of others and delight in the differences that they present. You see, the differences that others present is the rich fabric of our lives. The more we engage in celebrating the differences of others, the more respect we can offer them.

Maybe people are unable to respect others because they feel insecure in themselves. Perhaps, they need someone to put down in order to build themselves up. That’s a sad commentary, isn’t it? The fact is that we are all different and unique and in that uniqueness, lies our beauty. “One is not more beautiful than another, if we will only look, if we will only see.”

These are the words from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. The title of the verse and photo which are paired with these words is Cultivation of Differences. The photo shows the knobs of a gate and the knobs, three of them, are black, brown, and yellow. Clearly, I am making a statement about cultivating the differences between people of different color.

In my book, I go through a process of how to get to the point of respecting and tolerating not only others, but ourselves as well. I wonder whether we stumble in our self-respect and tolerance because we are feeling unworthy as a being. Feeling unworthy is not a fun place to be. It leads to all sorts of maladies, and lack of self-respect is just one of them.

So, if you are one who feels unworthy about yourself, showing no self-respect, then what can you do? How can you move through that? One thing you can do is a performance appraisal, a self-appraisal. Specifically, do the part of the appraisal where you identify all your good points, all of the positive things about yourself.

From that, determine what you do in your daily life to honor those positive points about yourself. Is not respect for who you are warranted? I suspect it is. In fact, I know it is, for we are each worthy, valuable, and to be respected. Look at how you treat yourself. Is it with respect or do you speak of yourself, treat yourself, poorly, with condemnation?

This is not advisable, for it erodes your spirit, your soul. It erodes the essence of who you are at your core. At your core is beauty, uniqueness, worthiness. Are these not issues to be respected for? I think they are.

Look at yourself. Take a hard and deep look within and see what you are doing in your life to respect yourself and others. Once you can show respect for all, you will know a new kind of peace. Sobriety is easier to maintain when you begin to respect yourself and others.

Just remember one thing… someone else’s importance or traits does not detract from your own greatness. The world is big enough to hold all of us in our greatness and this is worthy of respect.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, performance appraisal, respect, respectful, self-appraisal, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, tolerance

The Right to be Respected and Respect Others

September 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The right to be respected and respect others… one of the search terms that led someone to my blog yesterday. I felt compelled to speak of this topic… respect of self and others…

These are the words from my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. The title of the verse and photo which are paired with these words is Cultivation of Differences. The photo shows the knobs of a gate and the knobs, three of them, are black, brown, and yellow. Clearly, I am making a statement about cultivating the differences between people of different color.

Just remember one thing… someone else’s importance or traits does not detract from your own greatness. The world is big enough to hold all of us in our greatness and this is worthy of respect.

To Have Hope In Hopelessness

September 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

To have hope in hopelessness… Ah, yes. The ever-illusive hope. The crawl from hopelessness to a semblance of peace and calm inside. The search term which struck me from yesterday was “to have hope in hopelessness.” There were actually two queries related to finding hope from hopelessness, so I thought I would address one way in which to do that.

Hope is defined as a feeling that what is wanted will occur or happen; it is desire accompanied by expectation. It is that state in which we all wish to live, as our desires and expectations are met. In this case, the desire is for peace-of-mind. You keep your hope because you expect your desire to have emotional peace will be met.

What happens when it isn’t? What happens when you slip into hopelessness? First of all, it has been my experience that you don’t just “slip” into hopelessness. In my journey, hopelessness came after repeated and seemingly endless desires that were not met. Being continually let down

Hopelessness is the state of having no belief that things can get better, the belief that your situation is impossible to solve or deal with. It often slides into despair, which is utter loss of hope and the resulting dejection that occurs. Often, when you are in despair, you think about dying.

I got to a point of utter hopelessness and despair about five or six years into my sobriety. I could see no purpose in having had to endure what I did as a child, other than to make me miserable in my life. I had sustained PTSD as a result of the chronic abuse; it went undiagnosed until I was 53 years old, so I lived with it all that time.

I saw no purpose in my childhood experience, no way that it added to my growth or evolution as a human being. I wanted to die. Afraid I’d fail in my attempt at suicide, I started praying to God to let me die. I became despondent when that didn’t happen.

So, where do you go when you are feeling hopeless, despondent and despairing? In my case, it was over a bad childhood. If you are a Vietnam Veteran, it may have been the degradation of your honor, based on how you were greeted and treated when you returned home. Whatever the cause, hopelessness is devastating and erodes your spirit, your very soul.

Quite by accident, I stumbled upon a solution. Frankly, I don’t think it was an accident; I believe it happened by divine intervention… I had an experience that melted away my terrible hopelessness and despair. I had an opportunity to be useful to someone else who was suffering emotionally, someone else who felt hopeless from his years of treatment he received as a child.

After I had been of service by sharing my similar experience and how I had healed thus-far, I realized that, without my experience with childhood trauma and the will to try and get out from under its long-lasting effects, I never would have been able to help this man. I never would have been of service to him.

Suddenly, the experience of trauma made sense. It happened so I could be of service to another. The trauma had a purpose. I had a purpose. It was to help out a fellow human being. On that day, I believed in a flash that my message is God-sent, and is intended for you who are feeling, or have felt, hopeless in their lives. My message is one of hope that your experiences can be made purposeful if you turn around and help another through their troubles, sharing what you have learned.

Not only did I see in that instant that my history served a vital function; I also saw that my message of hope was meant for many people. Within my message of hope comes the ability to forgive after years of anger and bitterness, the recovery from long-standing and debilitating grief.

You will need to search the corners of your heart and determine what difficult life lessons warrant sharing with another or others. How can you take your experiences and be of service to others? Even just one other person… I invite you to take action by figuring this out and carrying out that service. It is the most satisfying feeling to be of service to another. It offer them hope in hopelessness.

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

Living with Gates Flung Wide – Ah, Peace

September 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 1 Comment

Yesterday, I talked about how to forgive… an actual process to use to get there. Once you find forgiveness, you will move into all the wonderful benefits of freedom and peace. You will begin to live with the gates of your heart flung wide open.

What do I mean by this? Well, first of all, you will begin to see the world around you with wonder… awe and wonder. You will seek out that attitude, applying it to everything you encounter.

When you find forgiveness and begin to see things around you with wonder, you will live in grace. Grace is a feeling of goodwill and is a favor which is bestowed upon you. It is a virtue given to you by the powers of the Universe, or God, or whatever you call the divine in your life. It settles quietly… gently… like a soft and comforting cloak.

It is hard to describe what it feels to live in grace, but one thing that happens for me is that everything falls easily into place. I have a deep sense of knowingness that life in its essence is perfect, and I sort of float from one thing to the next, not in a dizzy state, rather, in a calm and conscious way.

When you can find forgiveness, your life begins to be lived in joy… great happiness. Joy is a feeling of great pleasure or delight. You know when you are living with joy in your life when the little things become so pleasurable for you, that you wear a smile on your heart throughout the day.

And, finally, you will know peace. This is a feeling that all is well. It is felt at a deeper level. Regardless of the strife that arises, you know that everything is as it is intended to be, and you are alright in the world. It is a sense that pervades all others.

These are the things that you will experience once you go through a self-appraisal, and begin to learn to express compassion for others and yourself… once you find forgiveness for others and yourself. It is a truly beautiful space in which to live each day.

This is a state-of-mind that I have looked for all my life. I tried for 26 years to find it in alcohol and drugs and I thought I was experiencing joy all those years. What I realized after a few years of sobriety is that I didn’t have a clue what joy was, what wonder or grace was, and I certainly never experienced peace while I was drinking.

In other words, what I have found since forgiving and doing my grief work is a feeling that is so far greater than anything I had ever imagined possible. The journey to get to this point becomes well worth it once you get to this point.

For those of you who are dealing with long-standing anger or resentment, it is possible to get through that to another place, a place where you feel relaxed with others, with yourself, with the world around you. I wish you well in your journey and hope for you the path to forgiveness and peace.

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

Finding Compassion in Sobriety and Sobriety in Compassion

September 10, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Very interesting the search terms that were used yesterday to find my site. Two of ten known ones were about how to show compassion and six of the ten were about sobriety. I was planning on continuing today with compassion, so that’s why it’s interesting what showed up in the results.

Over half counted were interested in sobriety, so I will include sobriety in my discussion… I am always happy to talk about sobriety because it is such an awesome addition to the journey.

Compassion is another one of the actions you can take that will help to push open the gates of your heart. That compassion, once you learn how to do it, is needed for both others and yourself. It’s a double -laned highway on the way to forgiveness. Through forgiveness, you will find peace. I am jumping ahead. Let me refocus…

As you develop new ways to be in the world for others and yourself, consider adding compassion to the tools you use to promote peace within. I found I had no clue what compassion was nor how to show it until I was a few years into sobriety. At some point, I began to notice the wonderful feeling of goodwill I had toward others, where my heart went out to them in a truly genuine way.

Without sobriety, I was too into myself… my fears, my ego, myself. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to be much concerned with what was going on with you. I am talking about concern that was more than superficial. I am talking about concern that makes me want to hear more of your plight, in an effort to determine how I can be of service to you.

This same concern for others that I show has to be shown to myself, also, in order for me to stay sober and to find more peace in my life. The same is true for you. You have to start learning to show yourself compassion in situations, for example, where you behaved badly because of some wound that was touched, some chord that was struck.

In that situation, if you can recognize that you were a wounded person in the moment you erred, needing some love and understanding, triggered to return to an original wound, then you can offer yourself compassion. Even, especially, offer yourself compassion for the ways in which you err against yourself with your negative self-talk, the criticisms, and beating-yourself-up.

This is virtually impossible to do if you are drinking and drugging, which is why sobriety becomes so important. You see, once you realize you have a wound that needs to be healed, the pain from that wound is exposed to the light and the pain may be intense. You want to deaden that pain, and perhaps use substances to do so.

But deadening the pain only prolongs the process you need to go through to heal and get to the other side of your angst. I experienced many times, again and again, that by exposing my pain and being willing to look at it, and to feel it, that it dissipated, resolved. I’m not saying the pain wasn’t excruciating at times, because it was and I wanted desperately to drink or dull the pain in some way or another.

Yet, my sobriety was my number one concern and I did not want to go back to the horror of my last several months of drinking. I did a LOT of journalling, brisk walking, and attending meetings of my support group. I did that for the first year and a half of sobriety. It helped. I also had a CD of soothing music, classical banjo and guitar, and I played it non-stop in the evening and night to soothe me.

I was showing myself compassion at the time, but didn’t know it as such.

You, too, can begin to become aware of how to treat yourself and your wounds, with great compassion. It will add to your sobriety, and your sobriety will add to your ability to show compassion to yourself. It feels really good. I invite you to try it for yourself.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: compassion, compassion for myself, compassion for others, compassion for ourselves, how to find peace, how to show compassion, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Creating Peace-of-Mind Using a Process I Discovered

September 3, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. It is pre-dawn and I am anxious for the day to proceed, while at the same time, savoring every moment. Living in the moment… Now there’s a concept about which I had no clue before I started on my journey of self-discovery and healing. I had no clue at all that doing such a thing was an option for me.

I was always worried about the future or the past. Worried that I’d screw something up, or make someone mad, or look stupid, or not get what I wanted, and then I could flip back to wondering what someone thought of me in a recent encounter. I was so worried about my self-image.

It took me several years of sobriety to be able to recognize that I was doing that and I finally got that it was related to my woundedness, to my past. Today, I live more in the moment, more concerned about connecting my message to the world, and less about what I look like, whether I’m bothering you. In other words, I have grown as a result of my healing.

That’s part of my message for you today – that it’s possible to go from emotional turmoil, living in the past and the future, to emotional calm and peace-of-mind. In fact, I help people , and a large amount of veterans, transform from grief, guilt, or anger to emotional calm and peace-of-mind. It is the process I went through to reach that state about which I am going to blog for a few days.

It all starts with willingness, this self-discovery stuff does. Are you willing to take a journey to wholeness, to peace? Is that frightening for you? Why is that? I know it was scary for me, and I wondered if you were experiencing that same fear of the unknown, that same resistance to change?

Make that determination now. If you discover you are not willing to embark on, to commit to, the journey, ask the Universe, Source, for the willingness to be willing to have willingness to commit to the journey. Repeat that again and again to yourself… slowly… It will eventually make sense.

Much of what I say relates to my recovery from alcoholism, so I mention sobriety a lot. I also have experienced that, without being sober, I didn’t stand a chance to do this healing work. Matter of fact, I used my drinking as an excuse to avoid looking at myself and my life for fear of the pain I would uncover, for fear of the need to make changes in my life.

You have to trust someone, so it may as well be me when I say that uncovering the pain, making changes is, in fact, painful. I won’t deceive you. It is difficult to look at those very wounds which scar your heart, even when wounded years ago. AND, what lies on the other side of the healing, the part of the journey where you’ve gotten past the pain, is so glorious it’s hard to describe. In other words, the journey through the pain is well worth it. So is the venture into the unknown.

The first key to discovering the gates of your heart involves looking at all of your wounds… the old ones, the new ones. List them all out, starting with the incident and then putting a word to how you felt at the time or how you feel today about the wound. For example, I had the wound of being called worthless every day, and from that, I felt worthless and shame for who I was. So, I would write down “being called worthless” and my two words about how I felt would be “worthless and shame.”

Try to make a comprehensive list and just be with it. Be honest. Be with any feelings that arise. Try to do this without self-medicating or you won’t have a chance to do this exercise. Go ahead… list out your wounds, the ones that still affect you today. I’ll see you tomorrow to continue in the process that will lead you to more peace-of-mind.

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

Do You Feel You Have No Value?

September 2, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

One of the search terms that led an enquirer to yesterday’s blog was “I feel I have no value.” My heart stopped when I read that, first because it went out to that person; I know what that feeling is like. My heart did a double-take I suppose because actually, I am feeling that a bit about myself right now.

I am curious why no one answered my questions from yesterday, and I can get myself to the place of feeling that I have no value because no one responded. I equate people’s responses to me with my value as a person. The problem with this belief is that the two have nothing to do with each other.

You see, we are all valuable simply because we exist on this earth, because we are human beings. Because of your unique story, for example, you bring to the world the lessons you have learned from which others can benefit.

What lessons have you learned that you can share with others to be of service? I know that I have learned the lessons of how to get past rage and bitterness, past grief and guilt. And I know that those lessons are of use to you if you’re dealing with these emotions.

I know this because I have created a process that begins to take you past anger, past bitterness. It starts the steps of grief recovery and it looks at how to give forgiveness to yourself so you can begin to deal with guilt.

I mix talking about how to stay sober in with my information about how to feel more valued because that is a huge part of my story… my sobriety is. It may be one of the things with which you are struggling also. If so, I invite you to join me.

I say, come on over and start reading my blog where I am about to go through the process I have created… the four strategies. Whether you are a veteran or not, the information will transform your life when you apply these strategies. The process did for me and it can for you, too.

To you who feels no value, I gently invite you to join the journey written about in this blog. I wish for you those feelings of having no value to begin to lessen and, eventually, to be replaced with a strong sense of value and purpose.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Healing Emotional Pain, Self Improvement Tagged With: I feel like I have no value, living sober, sense of purpose, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, value, veteran, veterans, Vietnam veterans

To Stay Sober Just Go to Bed – Part 2

August 31, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

In yesterday’s post, I told the tale of my friend who is struggling with tremendous feelings and who is wanting nothing more than to pick up a drink. As I said yesterday, I suggested she first think the drink through to what would happen if she did take it. Today, I will tell you what else I told her…

Next, I invited her to allow herself to feel her feelings of despair and sadness as they arose, and to let them move through her. Difficult feelings will move on you know, if you just acknowledge them. “Oh, I feel so sad to remember my life back when I got this…”

When she looks at an object that makes her sad to remember that point in her life, I invited her to consider the good feelings she had about that same period of her life, those feelings of positivity that occurred when she got that object. Take a minute to reflect on those good feelings, to be grateful for those good times she experienced… then decide to get back to the task at hand and decide to keep or sell it.

I invited her to allow herself to grieve the loss of her life before it turned south. I suggested she stay acutely focused on the project, to not let her mind wander from that project and when it did, to gently return to the task-at-hand. In order to stay sober, she needed to stay focused on the moment in front of her, the task in front of her and not drift into the future or the past.

So, if you’re trying to stay sober yourself, I invite you to follow these steps I’ve described so far. Realize that you can only do what is being placed before you to do in that moment. When it is time to move to the next thing, the Universe will make that fact known to you by bringing something else that needs your attention. At that point, you will focus your attention on the thing that has been placed in front of you to do.

When you do all these things and you are still distressed and wigging out, then go to bed, go to sleep. Just go to bed. If you haven’t eaten, drink a protein shake… no meal prep, minimal clean-up, and you get your nutrition.

Very simple, and yet, we sometimes forget to do just that. More to the truth is we don’t even think of this as an option…

One of the things I stressed to my friend was that she only had to do today what was being placed in front of her to do. She didn’t have to create more things for herself, she didn’t have to think ahead to “what will I do if…” All she had to do was sort through her belongings and when that got to be too tough, all she had to do was to go to bed and sleep.

As far as the fear, I forgot to suggest to her a remedy, which is: breathe through it, then ask for help, and finally, take action. That is how to deal with fear.

Today, if you are faced with wanting to drink, follow these steps and you will find that taking the first drink is not something you want to do. When stuck and in doubt, just go to bed to stay sober.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: living sober, Sober Living, sobriety, stay sober

Stay Sober By Just Going to Bed – Part 1

August 30, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Just stay sober. That’s what people tell you. But when you are emotionally distraught, really stressed out, those words mean very little. They are like saying, just breathe. They take away the security blanket you have used for years to cope with stress and distress.

Imagine this. Your husband just tried to strangle you last month… to kill you. He was put in jail for a month over it. Meanwhile, your life has fallen down around your feet and you are forced to foreclose on your house because of huge debt. You are going through a house where you have lived for 40 years, sorting out what to keep and what to give away or sell.

Your husband got out of jail yesterday, you have no idea of his whereabouts, and you are scared for your life despite the restraining order you have out. And I want you to stay sober? Yeah, right!

Yes, right. I do want you to stay sober through all of this.

Does the above example seem extreme? Yes, it does and, yet, it is the reality of a friend of mine to whom I was speaking last night. She said the only thing she wanted to do was to go get a drink, to go to the liquor store and get something to deaden all the feelings that were surfacing.

Did I have some input for her, having learned to get sober through extreme heartache and distress and to stay sober for the last 11 1/2 years? You bet I did! I still remember how difficult it was initially, wanting to just drink a 6-pack to deaden the edge. Being so agitated and frenzied as a result that all I could do was scream that learning to stay sober was not worth it. Life was better when I was drinking.

Ah, but I forgot about my emotional state, how beaten down emotionally I was at the end of my drinking. I selectively wasn’t remembering how all I could do for several months was drink and cry, not even able to feed myself. I forgot about how I had lost touch with relaity and was psychotic.

I forgot about the years of issues from my childhood coming up for me to look at, creating hell in my mind and heart. I was forgetting about these things. Trust me… I remember what it was like to stay sober at first.

So, what in the world did I tell this poor woman who is going through absolute hell? This is what I invited her to do, to consider… Think the drink through. What will happen if you take a drink? What will it lead to? Most importantly, what will it solve? Will it make the current situation go away? No, she would just have to deal with it when she sobered up, and then maybe have to deal with a hang-over as well.

I invited her to sit with those thoughts for a bit, and I’m going to ask you to do the same in your efforts to stay sober. Tomnorrow I will continue what I suggested to her so she could stay sober.

Filed Under: Difficult emotions, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, stay sober

The Freedom of Choice in Sobriety – 2

August 29, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Let’s continue with yesterday’s post. I was talking about how powerful it was to realize my pain had been useful to another. In fact, it was so powerful, that I gained the understanding at a deep level that my purpose in life was to take the experiences that led to my misery and help others to get past theirs, simply in the telling of my story and the healing work I was doing. That realization is what continues to fuel me 3 years later.

What happened that day when I realized my true calling in life? Well, I made the choice, although unconscious, to look at my misery from a different angle. I chose to see that misery and my struggles because of it as learning experiences for me, in order to prepare me to be useful to others. I chose that path, and I continue to choose it.

How do you get past your struggles, your anger, bitterness, and misery? You, too, can choose to see those events with new eyes, as learning experiences so you can then reach out and help another, and another… and yet another… Unlike me, you can choose to do it consciously. Tell you what, it’s freeing. You get released from the misery, the struggle… the bitterness and anger.

For example, are you a Vietnam Veteran, struggling with resentment about how you were treated when you returned home? Drinking over it, perhaps? You may think that I’m going to tell you to get over it. I don’t believe in that philosophy. Instead, I say choose something different.

Identify the feelings that series of events evoked in you, and use that knowledge to help a vet now returning from war. Make sure that what happened to you is not repeated in current day. It is my hope that you will find, as you help others, your resentment will lessen.

It’s all about what we choose to focus on… in our sobriety, we are able to choose to believe in better things, different things. We are able, in sobriety, to seek out a positive outlook, to consider the benefits of our experiences and how we can be of service. It is freeing to have choice.

It leads the way to more peace-of-mind.

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

The Freedom of Choice in Sobriety – 1

August 28, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The day dawns bright and sunny in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ah, another warm day. Another good day in sobriety. I say that because I know it will be true. It will be true because I choose to make it so. You see, it’s all about choice for me.

This is a new thing for me, the practice of choice. I didn’t learn it until about 5-6 years into sobriety, 4-5 years ago. Until that point, I felt I had no choice but to be miserable. After all, I was angry and bitter at my parents for the way I was raised and I was justified. Right?

Yes, I was victimized and yes, I had negative feelings about myself and others because of it that I needed to look at and feel. However, in sobriety, I learned that in my misery, especially in my misery, I had a choice and the ability to look at my experiences with different eyes. I became able to look at bad experiences from a 180 degree view point.

How did THAT happen??? Well, I became more healed from my childhood issues and, at the same time, discovered that I could decide how I wanted to spend my time… in misery or in happiness. Seems like a no-brainer, but for me, a woman who stayed angry and bitter for 50-some years about stuff that happened almost that long ago, it was not evident. It was not on my radar.

Oh, I went to meetings to deal with my sobriety, and I heard people share about the choices they had in their lives. I used to get pissed when I heard that. That was all well and good for them, but it wouldn’t work for me. I was DAMAGED, don’t you know? I had justification for my anger, my bitterness, my indignation.

The thing is, I say with great gentleness, that I was graced with the ability to look at my wounds in a different light. Since I had been getting help professionally, I had slowly healed. One day, I spoke to another alcoholic who was in misery from his childhood, and I was able to relay what I’d learned so far about healing.

After I did, he was so grateful, he almost cried. I realized that my experiences growing up had been of use to another, because he was able to relate to my pain, and the healing words I spoke resonated with him. I realized my misery was useful to another. That was very powerful.

The story continues, but it makes for a really long post, so I will continue this tomorrow. Come back to find out how I dealt with this realization.

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: choice, how to maintain sobriety, how to stay sober, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, the freedom to choose

How to Maintain Sobriety When You’re Newly Sober

August 27, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning. I truly apologize for the lack of post yesterday. You may have visited expecting a new one, and it wasn’t there. I got sidetracked with the preparation for a workshop I was presenting later in the day. I was preoccupied with practicing my talk, and totally spaced blogging. So, please accept my apologies.

The fact is, there were only two people there, three including the assistant, who had never heard me present. I felt it went so-so. I have to refer to notes because I have absolutely no memory of what I want to say, so I use my notes. While I did it seamlessly at home, in front of my meager audience, I stumbled and lost my place more than I would have wished.

This is the type of thing I would have drank over in an effort to numb my feelings of embarrassment, failure, and fear. In current day, I have no desire to drink over this. I am, instead, I am mulling over my feelings, and actually handling them as they come and then seem to resolve themselves. It’s actually pretty cool to be aware of my feelings so well. That’s come after about 11 years of sobriety. I notice I am gently flowing from one to the other, with a gradual increase iin my confidence and decrease in feelings of failure and fear.

This is a reward of sobriety. That’s exactly what I wish to address today. I got, bless her heart, a comment! Wow, I am honored. No One ever leaves comments, which kinda bums me out, but that’s another story… She is newly sober and dealing with all sorts of emotions generated by very difficult circumstances. I have great compassion for her plight.

It raised memories with me. Specifically, I remembered being in extreme agitation early in sobriety. Not only was there the tremendous grief I was experiencing over an unrequited love, but I was in rage over the feelings that were coming up over childhood issues. I wanted to drink SOOOO badly, but something in my head said I’d die if I did. Here’s how I coped with that.

My day started sometimes with a brisk walk. Sometimes not. Then, I set about coffee and journaling for 2-3 hours with my non-dominant hand. All sorts of things come up when you write that way… research has shown this to be true, they say. Then, talking with my roommate about recovery in which we were both involved or going to an early meeting.

Then to a noon meeting after a brisk walk. Afternoon, writing more, more walks, then a 5 pm meeting. After that, it was hanging out with my roommate and getting into the spiritual realm of life, which was fascinating to me… I resonated with it. I found I was thirsty for it and read spiritual books voraciously. Add reading to the activities listed above, plus usually a 9 pm meeting as well. Of course, I had frequent crying jags throughout the day.

At night, I listened over and over and over to my favorite CD, which was Jens Kruger’s Over the Bridge. He’s a classical banjo player and he and his brother on guitar have teamed up to make this incredibly lovely music. This is what lulled me to sleep.

After about six months of hanging on, my commitment to staying sober increased, and my desperation had also decreased a bit. I decided I was going to continue my road trip, so bought this full-sized Dodge van and rebuilt it inside with cherrywood. I got into the woodwork, the plumbing, electrical, and water. All the systems. It absorbed hours of my time and it was a delightful diversion.

The point is, hobbies can be a healthy diversion in which to engage. Remember, the whole point is to maintain sobriety, while still allowing ourselves to feel and experience our feelings for the first time in many years… our REAL feelings.

This is what I can say on my experience and I am hopeful it is useful to you. Believe me when I say that it is worth sticking it out so you can experience what’s on the other side. Thoughts?

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

Image Management – the Need to Look Good

August 25, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Good morning and happy Saturday! May it be a wonderful day for you!

I’d like to share today about a situation in which I found myself the other day, and what I finally figured out from the experience. The lesson to be learned actually came to me through someone’s share at a meeting yesterday. It has to do with image management.

At the meeting, I shared about my recent experience at a Coalition Meeting for Veterans. I was asked to speak to the coalition. I thought it was comprised of veterans, as well as service providers and that’s who I geared my talk for.

When I got there, I discovered I would be speaking to only service providers and I realized in a flash that my talk was addressed to the vet, instead of the provider. My heart began to gallop; I started to sweat. What to do, what to do?

Not being very good at thinking on my feet (I need to write things first), I decided the only thing I could do was give the talk as prepared and I proceeded to do that. Except, there were blocks of words I left out, as they REALLY sounded dumb to say to this audience. So, my talk appeared scattered. I had to refer to my notes more than usual.

At the end of the talk, I was sweating profusely, and had cried at one point in my talk. (I always cry when I talk about the Vietnam vets being spat upon when they returned home.) Anyway, I was acutely embarrassed. Felt really awkward, really like a failure. Here I was, talking to the people who had the power to ask me to speak at their organizations and I blew it big time.

Let’s put it this way… I would never ask myself to speak to my organization, given how I did. So, add defeat to the emotions I was already feeling.

I have been sitting with these feelings since I spoke on Wednesday, and yesterday I decided to go to a meeting and share about it. After all, this is the type of thing I would have drank over in the past. I went and shared. Then toward the end of the meeting, a guy shared. He spoke of times in his life when he was embarrassed about something he had done, just like I was embarrassed about my talk.

What he did was look more closely at that embarrassment and realized he was embarrassed because he was obsessed with how he looked to others. Hmmm, did that resonate with me! In a flash, I realized that I do that very thing… worry about how I look to others. I do this continually in my life. I don’t wish to appear stupid or foolish, so am always worrying about how I come across to others.

Ah, so here’s a trait I can work on, give more thought to. My need for image management is incredible, and I need to find the way to let go of that need. Knowing it comes form childhood lessons and experiences is helpful to know, but does nothing to alleviate it.

What can I do then? I can pray and ask that that trait be removed. I can stop and recognize it as it happens, and hold myself in compassion for the wounded little girl I was that makes me want to deal with image management. I can tell myself that what I am doing is perfectly fine, and is as God intended it to be in that moment. These are the things I choose to do to deal with the issue, and I will put them into play.

So you see, there is always something behind our need for image management. What is behind your need to manage how you look to others? Do you do that, or are you confident in the things that you do in front of others? Leave a comment and let me know.

Filed Under: Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: image management, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

What Treasures Does Your Day Hold?

August 24, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning, all. It has been a few days of intense subjects and today, I want to lighten things up a bit. I thought you might like to know what I’m up to in my life.

My life is heavily entrenched in my work. Why, just last night, I traveled to the opposite edge of the Bay Area from where I live to attend a networking event, The Bright Side of Life. I fought the commute traffic on the way there, taking almost two hours to arrive.

Now, I am baffled by rush hour traffic. You go along, bumper-to-bumper and suddenly, for no reason, you are rolling along at the speed limit. No accident, no stalled car, etc., that was holding things up. It makes me want to knock on the driver’s side window of the lead cars and say, pay attention and just press on the gas!

That is one pet piece I have. Another is how the traffic slows up going up a hill. Oh! And the worst is when the cars in front of me slow down to the exit ramp speed before they even get to the ramp! So, they’re rolling along in a 65 mph zone, doing 45 or 50. A hazard… And then there is the slowed-to-a-crawl traffic while everyone slows down to see what is going on in the opposite lanes when there is an accident or something. I feel like saying, mind your own business and just drive!

So, here I was, caught in rush hour traffic on my way to this event, and it gave me time to reflect on my up-coming two hour workshop that is this Sunday, from 2-4 pm, 100 Roblar Drive, Novato, CA 94949. That’s in northern Marin county, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The event, Four Secrets to Creating a More Calm and Peaceful Life, deals largely with grief recovery, how to complete a self-appraisal, and forgiveness.

If you’ve read my home page, then you know how I have come though deeply debilitating grief, and it is the process I discovered with allows me to talk about the subject. Forgiveness is something I learned accidentally one day, a few years into sobriety. I teach the process I realized worked to dispel a lifetime of anger and bitterness toward the ones who traumatized me physically, verbally, and emotionally.

If you are interested in attending the workshop, please call me to register at 415-883-8325. Or, you can email me at carolyncjjones@yahoo.com. I get in a “zone” before I speak, and that works to ground and center me. It helps me to be more effective in passing along information that will lead you to a calmer, more peaceful feeling about yourself and the world around you. If you like what I blog about, then you will love this workshop.

Today, I will be practicing my talk. At some point, I am visiting the daughter of the elderly gentleman to whom I provide assistance. She is in from Seattle, visiting her father and she and I want to meet. I suspect she is about my age, which is what I’d call upper middle-aged.

What treasures does your day hold? What are you up to? Leave a comment and let me know. In any case, enjoy!

Filed Under: Joyous emotions, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Rewards of Sobriety

August 18, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

You will have your own experience of sobriety, of course, and all I can do is to relay what has happened with me. That’s what I have been writing about… my experiences. You will accumulate your own days, weeks, and months of sobriety… over time. As long as you keep focused on the desire to stay sober, the time will pass pretty quickly. That’s what happened for me, anyway.

I remember being new to sobriety. At the time, I was an emotional mess over an unrequited love. I was in huge grief and tremendous confusion over the signals he had been displaying that, to this day, I still swear were indicating that he cared for me. When he said he didn’t, I went immediately to a loss of reality, and, of course, huge grief over the loss of my hopes, dreams, and expectations of a relationship between us.

I was also in huge anger and bitterness. The anger was more like rage at the injustices that were done to me in earlier years… repeatedly. When I became sober, those feelings were so raw, so searing, that the flame engulfed me and all I could do was hang on by a thread and remain sober. Something helped me with that, some higher source, something stronger and more powerful than me. Writing in my journal became my solace, as did walking and meetings. I wrote again and again about my confusion, trying to regain a sense of reality.

If you are dealing with a similar or equally devastating experience, hang on tight to that dream to live without being numb from alcohol or drugs, for it is so worth it! You may find, as I have, that life is really wondrous in all its beauty and splendor. Even the hard times will turn to experiences that move you along on the path to healing.

The rewards of sobriety that I have experienced include the ability to forgive those with whom I was angry and bitter for my whole life. I have been able to see them as fallible, wounded human beings, just like me, wounded from their childhood and never healed. That has been one of the biggest rewards of sobriety.

Another is the way in which I have been able to view the world with kindness and gentleness, seeing it with wonder in all it’s glory. Not only is nature beautiful and awesome, but the people I run across in my life are generous and loving people as well. In their presence, I feel honored to be around them, appreciating them, seeing them with great respect in all their differences and uniqueness.

Of course, the best and most obvious reward has been the lack of hangovers every day, so bad, that I could not function. These I treated with Kentucky Fried or Taco Bell… hot or greasy food to soak up the alcohol. Living without hangovers has been delicious and that fueled me to continue with sobriety!

Sobriety has left me with feelings of peace, and the desire to maintain and continue it. You, too, can feel these feelings, yet, you need to keep sober to do so, to reach that point. You can do this! You can keep your sights on the rewards of sobriety and make it through one day at a time. I wish you well in your journey.

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

Sobriety Brings the Freedom of Choice

August 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Good morning! I hope the day is going well for you.

Celebration of Choices

Today, I’d like to talk about how to exercise the freedom of choice that we have, now that we’re sober and feeling more peaceful. Once we get sober, we see that we have the choice to choose our actions, behaviors, and thoughts. Yes, even thoughts, even our attitude.

I went through my life not realizing that I was the one who could control how I was feeling just by allowing myself to filter out the negativity and to choose a more positive attitude. This realization occurred after I did some healing work around my childhood issues.

Until the thought came to me that I could choose how I felt, I played the victim. I spent my lifetime playing victim… blaming everyone else for my emotional state. I learned I had a choice to heal myself from my childhood wounds and to be a survivor, not a victim.

That healing I experienced is what my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart; A Journey of Healing, is all about. In the book, I go through the process I went through to get from miserable and bitter, very angry, to calm and peace-of-mind.

We can choose to participate in our own recovery. That is what you are doing, perhaps, by reading my blog every day… you are choosing to engage in an activity that affects your recovery, that strengthens it. All your efforts at healing are conscious, maybe even unconscious, choices.

Become aware of when you are choosing… in other words, always be alert to the choices you are making. To do nothing is a choice. When you do nothing, you are sometimes making the choice to stay stuck. The thing is, you have the option of getting unstuck through your actions, behaviors, and thoughts.

It is so freeing and exquisitely exciting to exercise your option of choice. Are you in an abusive relationship, for example? Is that what you really want for your life? Can you change your behavior in any way that will minimize or eradicate the abuse? If not, is it time to get out? Sometimes, we decide there is no option and we stay, but it is a detriment to our soul, which wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.

I stayed in a bad marriage, verbally abusive, for 20 years… about 15 years too long, as it got bad right about then. I stayed because I didn’t want to be alone. It scared me. I didn’t want to be lonely. Heck of an unfair thing for my husband… totally dishonest of me. When the opportunity to leave the relationship occurred, I took it, but unconscious to the fact that I was making a choice.

Years later, I see that my leaving was the best thing for me, as it allowed me to become sober. You, too, can exercise your choices, even when they seem impossible. It’s like, the Universe will support you when you take action for your higher good. But you need to first make the choice for change in your life.

Today, look at the ways on which you are not exercising your ability to choose, all the ways in which you keep yourself miserable. Then, choose to make a change, even a small one. Celebrate that choice once you make it. That will make it easier to make a choice the next time. Happy choosing!

***************

Two things. First, I think that a lot of you are regular visitors to my site. If that’s the case, thank you so much. Will you please support me further? You would be a tremendous support if you would sign up to receive a free article on forgiveness by leaving your email to the right. I would be most grateful if you would do that. I send out communication about once a month or less.

The second thing is, if you are in the Bay Area in California, I have a free workshop coming up on August 26th, Sunday, from 2-4 pm in Novato. Here are the details I offer to you so you can register if you are looking for more peace in your life. http://creatingpeaceinyourlife.eventbrite.com/ Hope to see you there.

Have a great day!

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

Fulfilling Your Dream in Sobriety

August 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Fulfillment of Dreams

Now you have come to peace-of-mind through your efforts of living in sobriety with love in your life. It is a glorious place in which to hang out, to rest. It is a haven of calmness.

Once you can live with more peace in your mind and heart, then you are able to focus more on your dreams. What are your dreams, or even just one dream? Go ahead. Think to yourself what that dream is… say it out loud or write it down.

When you speak your dream out loud or in writing, you open the door that allows the Universe to start presenting you with that dream. It’s the Law of Attraction in motion.

The thing is, you will need to take action to fulfill your dream. Notice things that are presented to you on which you can follow-up, things that get you closer to that dream.

As you take action and follow-up on what is presented to you, you will know you are headed in the right direction because things will fall easily into place. You will get the green light to continue on that path.

For example, my dream, one that I’ve had since the mid-80′s, was to go sailing and to live aboard a sailboat. My dream was to do that in the Caribbean. The opportunity to own a used 26 foot boat came about, and my husband and I acted on that by buying it. We spent the next 3-4 years sailing on weekends in the summers on a Colorado lake. We even renovated the boat.

We held the dream to cruise one day, and soon the opportunity to move to California came to us… my husband was offered a job in the Bay Area. We took the opportunity, and moved from Colorado. After a year, we found a 45 foot boat that needed a lot of work, work that we were skilled enough to do ourselves. So we bought and renovated it, and moved aboard, still with the dream of cruising one day.

Here I was, living the first part of my dream. Unfortunately, there was a lot of verbal abuse and after three years of living aboard, I left the failing marriage and continued on my own. I do not yet have a boat of my own, nor have I sailed in the Caribbean, and I still hold both of those dreams in my heart. One day, I believe one or both of those things will happen.

The key is to keep your dream in your heart, and speak it out loud periodically. Talk to other people about your dream, which sets the intention to the Universe. Keep taking action that moves you further to your dream, and recognize those opportunities as they arise. Thank Source when they arise.

What is your dream? Go ahead, dare to say it out loud, as far-fetched as it might be. Talk to others about it, then start noticing things that occur which, if you follow-up on them, will lead you closer to that dream. Thank Source for listening and hearing your intention. Keep doing that again and again, and one day, you will see that your dream has come true.

You will need to take some risks, perhaps, which will be a test of your commitment. You will need courage most of the time; in sobriety, you will find that courage. In sobriety, you can be honest with yourself about your dream.

The thing is, once you are living your dream, which I believe is your true purpose, life will take on an even calmer state. You will experience even more peace… a deep knowingness that what you are doing is correct. So, go ahead, dare to dream and reach for your dream. Surprise yourself!

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Sober Living Tagged With: dream, fulfilling my dream, how to find peace, inner peace, living in sobriety, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Sobriety Will Lead You to Peace

August 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones 2 Comments

Promise of Peace

Ah, we have finally made it to what we have been searching for. We have made it to 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.”

As the verse says, all you have to do is practice the principles of love for yourself and others. If you are kind, tolerant, gentle, compassionate, and respectful toward all beings, including yourself, peace will flow in.

There is a stilling of the mind and heart when you reach peace. It’s like the calm of a lake as you look out across the waters.

In order to get to peace, you have had to remain sober. You have had to work at your sobriety, learning and practicing the principles of love.

Forgiveness plays a huge role in achieving peace, for when you forgive, you free yourself… your mind and your heart. You feel washed clean.

Do you feel more peace in your life? Like the pink glow in the sky, has peace gradually descended upon you, catching you unaware? If so, revel in this feeling. Know that it is a place to which you can return when you practice the principles of love.

Today, enjoy the feeling deep in your heart. Enjoy that quietness and stillness of spirit. Stop struggling and be still. It will descend upon you. My hope for you is that you know peace.

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

Finding Serenity in Sobriety

August 13, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Balance of Serenity

“I am serene, carried by the winds to places where I am held in balance with great beauty and strength.” This is the verse that accompanies this image in my book, Opening the Gates of the Heart A Journey of Healing.

Serenity is defined as the art or state of being serene, which is defined as un-troubled, calm, and tranquil. It is a space you find yourself living in when you go through the process which has been presented in this blog.

When living a life of serenity, you find yourself unruffled by calamity; instead, you are able to take things in stride. You do not become freaked out, or “wigged out” about things in your life when they go awry.

You are able to calmly assess situations and react with assuredness and certainty. Certainly, you are still concerned about difficult things that arise, but they no longer throw you off-kilter.

To get to this place of serenity, you have looked at yourself and have begun to heal old wounds through the practice of acceptance and forgiveness.

You no longer attract to your life the drama that you were involved in before, thus allowing you to remain serene through difficult times. Your ability to be in that space of serenity strengthens your sobriety, and the more you stay sober, the more serenity you experience.

All of this is achieved through using the process that has been described in this blog, from the development of trust in a power greater than yourself, to courage. Then you throw in honesty, openness, willingness, and humility, and you are able to look at yourself through a self-appraisal, in order to discover things that need to be corrected, righted, or changed.

Once this occurs, you are able to offer kindness, gentleness, tolerance, and respect to others and to yourself. You learn the art of forgiveness and you are set free to live your life, fulfill your dreams.

Today, look at how far you have come on your journey to serenity and peace. Be humble, yet commending of the actions you have taken to get to this point. Notice how your sobriety is strengthened. Enjoy your serenity today.

**************

Good morning. Yesterday, I neglected to blog because I was at a conference out-of-town. I hope you continued to enjoy the joy article from the preceding day. I am wondering how you liked the forgiveness article. If you haven’t received it yet, then sign up, to the right of this text. I think you will find some valuable information that will help you be guided to a whole new level of peace, as you forgive yourself and others. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, peace of mind, serene, serenity, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

How Sobriety Leads to Joy

August 11, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Burst of Joy

If we’ve stuck together through all of the stages and changes in thinking that have occurred along the way in these blogs, we have begun to see how sobriety leads to joy. We have begun to see that, if we have stayed sober, we are experiencing joy.

Joy is defined as a very good feeling, happiness, a great pleasure, delight, and anything causing such a feeling.

If joy is not happening for us, perhaps we want to examine our willingness level. Perhaps we’re stuck on a self-appraisal, or are having trouble forgiving. If so, we need to return to those topics and look again.

“I never thought this could happen. My heart BURSTS with joy!” This is the verse that accompanies the photograph of a gate’s center section, which is a diamond with rays, or bursts, of metal coming from the center, reaching upward and outward.

I never DID think I could feel this level of happiness. All my life, I had looked to others to supply it for me. Suddenly at one point in my recovery, it dawned on me that my happiness comes from inside and it is what I choose to make it. Soon after realizing this, I started experiencing joy.

Happiness and joy were the effects, the feelings that I sought from alcohol and drugs, yet, I never could find them there. So to have found them in sobriety, in much bigger levels than I ever dreamed possible, is something for which I am grateful every day.

You, too, can find this incredible joy. It come from within your being. It is a choice you make. If you are grateful for every little thing that occurs and surrounds you in your life, you cannot help but look at the world in great wonder, great awe, and from that grows joy.

I hope for you to stay the course, to stay sober through all the rough times. It is so worth it on the other side. Once you find joy, you will know serenity and peace.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Sober Living Tagged With: fiinding joy, how to find peace, inner peace, joy, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Fulfilling Your Dreams in Sobriety

August 10, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Fulfillment of Dreams

From my experience, I have determined that, in sobriety, it is possible to live your dream that you have held in your heart forever.

Even when not in sobriety, our dreams can come true, although we may not be grateful for them at that time. Instead, we want more than is given.

But, if we remain sober, do our healing work, and take action in the direction of our dreams, one day we just find ourselves in the middle of them.

The key is taking action in the direction of our dream, saying yes to ourselves, and acting upon those things that come across our path to align us with that dream.

It takes courage, despite the fear we feel. It takes being self-responsible and holding ourselves accountable for our stumbles. It takes surrender to and acceptance of where we are being led.

We each, after all, have our own unique gift that we are intended to share with the world and when we align ourselves with our unique gift and stay sober, opportunities will arise for our taking.

When we begin to see our dream coming through, our sobriety allows us to express constant gratitude, which results in abundance that further leads us on our path. You may not be sober and your dream still comes true. It will have a different feeling than if you were sober.

For example, while I was in the middle of my drinking heyday in 1995, I moved from Colorado to California to live aboard a sailboat and to go cruising one day. I did live aboard for three years, at which time I left my troubled marriage and the boat.

I had held in my heart the dream to sail since the mid-eighties. Suddenly, here I was, about to live my dream to cruise and enjoying the boating lifestyle in the meantime.

Instead of spending each day in gratitude and wonder that my dream was a reality, I was always finding fault and wanting more. More things, a nicer boat, more happiness… I could go on, but you get the idea, I’m sure.

This picture is in such sharp contrast to what I am experiencing today in sobriety. As a result of God’s grace and keeping sober, my childhood dream to become a photographer has been fulfilled. I photographed and published the book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing.

Now, I am living my 1980s dream of being a speaker, empowering others to gain the serenity and peace I have found. All I am doing is taking the next indicated step that comes along my way that moves me toward my dream.

Today, get or maintain your sobriety. Reach in your heart and find your dream that is held there. Make the decision to live your dream. Gain the courage to stay sober and to take action on those things that will further your dream.

Don’t push, just let things evolve naturally. Do the things in front of you to do, day in and day out. One day, you may be surprised to find yourself living that dream.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: dream, dreams, finding your dream, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, living your dream, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

The Gift of Choice in Sobriety

August 9, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Once we have realized the realm of possibilities open to us, we discover the gift of choice in sobriety. Like the little man in his top hat pictured to the left, we can raise our arm high and celebrate the choices that we have.

The reality is that we have a choice about everything that occurs in our lives. Even when we think we have no choice, we do.

When I was in the throes of my healing work, I thought I had no choice about my feelings of angst. The fact was, I was exercising my choice, allowing those feelings to overcome me.

At the same time, I was choosing to heal, simply because I chose to get sober, and because I chose to do the healing work. If we are working on self-improvement, then we have made the choice to heal and to grow. Even if we’re not consciously aware of it, we have made a choice.

All choices have consequences. For example, I chose to stay in a dysfunctional marriage in which I was bullied, demeaned, and criticized continually. It took me a long time to choose to leave it behind, and even then, I wasn’t acting consciously with purpose.

The consequence of me staying in that marriage was a wounded self-image and esteem. I was accepting an assault against my being, rather than getting out and moving away from the relationship. That was a choice I was making.

When we look at the choices we are making, consider the consequences to ourselves and others. In the journey to serenity, peace, and a strong sobriety, we want to make choices that are in our highest good. Sometimes the consequences of those choices are difficult, yet, if they’re for our highest good, we will get help from our Source.

Today, look at all the choices you are making in your life. Are they in your highest good? If not, what is keeping you from making a different choice that IS in your highest good? Walk through your fears with faith and courage, and consider making a different choice. See the gift of choice that is yours, and exercise it.

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

With Sobriety Comes Possibility

August 8, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Realm of Possibilities

Having experienced all that we have, we now discover that there are a wealth of possibilities in our lives that we can tap into. There is nothing to stop us, except ourselves.

The gates are flung wide, offering us a stairway to climb that leads to serenity and peace. It leads to a stronger sobriety for us. The way is beckoning us.

All we have to do is keep climbing, taking with us the wonder and gratitude that surround us in our lives. We just keep practicing these, along with honesty, willingness, openness, compassion, kindness, and all the other positive ways to live in the world.

What we will find is a softening of out heart, our soul. As we recognize some possibilities, more will appear to us. Soon we are surrounded with possibilities in our lives.

The thing about our sobriety and possibilities is that we become able to discern our choices. We will not be numb, and therefore, can recognize the possibilities when they appear. We will recognize them, while before, when we were drinking, we could not.

Today, look at all the possibilities of ways to be in the world, with yourself and with others. Revel in all of these possibilities. Choose a couple to follow up on, and you will begin to feel more serenity and peace. Notice how, as you follow up on those, that more possibilities appear to you. Notice how smoothly your sobriety flows.

********************

I don’t know why, when I clicked on the image while it was in the pre-insert-into-the-post-mode, that it created a new page… I guess you can view that great photo twice!

To all of you who are faithfully viewing and reading my blog, I want to thank you. I hope with all of my heart that what I say is helpful to you. Now I have something more to offer for you, and it is my article on forgiveness. It goes into how to find if, along with exercises designed to guide you to that place. I invite you to sign up to get it… there to the right of this blog. Let me know what you think after you read it.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, serenity, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Enhance Your Sobriety with Gratitude

August 7, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Visions of Gratitude

Good morning. I have been gone for several days, getting my old computer more up to snuff, keeping at bay the need to get a new one… Thank you to those of you that continued to visit , despite the lull in new posts.

As a result of the lull, we have had a break in the flow of my posts and I am afraid that will have broken the momentum we had going.

I was going to do a review, in order to get our momentum back, yet the next topic about which to write is gratitude, and I believe we can slide back into the swing of it with this topic. Allow me to continue…

When we see things with eyes that appreciate, everything around and within us becomes more pleasing, more beautiful. Such is the case with gratitude. It becomes a way of life, whereby we are grateful for everything we have and do.

When living a life of gratitude, we begin the day by being grateful for another day, for waking up. Then we can be grateful for our sight, that we can see a myriad of colors and objects when we awake in the morning. And so forth throughout the day.

When we can live this way, our sobriety becomes easier and richer, and we are able to find serenity and peace.

But if you’re like I was in early sobriety, you are not able to be grateful. You do not see anything for which to be grateful. However, if you have followed the process we have been discussing, in the order it was presented, then you will have had a chance to look at old resentments, and hopefully, to resolve them.

With them resolved, hopefully you were able to forgive. Even if you have not gotten to the forgiveness stage, however, it is possible to see the world around you with gratitude.

Start by making a gratitude list every morning or every evening, whichever is the time for you that writing flows. Your list will be obvious things at first, like… you are grateful for a home, food, family and friends, your job. Keep doing this every day.

Really reach within for things about which you are grateful. After a while, you may notice a change in your list. You may begin to add things like your sobriety, your belief in a power greater than yourself, the guidance you receive from that power.

You may begin to feel gratitude for things such as the expansive feelings in your heart that you feel toward others you meet in your day. You may be grateful you are an alcoholic, for it brought you to this journey of healing.

Gratitude may well up inside as you consider that your difficult past occurred so that you could heal from it and then pass your message of healing along to others, to be of use to them.

When you can live with gratitude as the foremost thing in your heart, the road becomes easier and joyful.

Today, consider all the things for which you are grateful. Make a list of those things. Let your heart sing as you write each thing down. Really feel that gratitude as a deep feeling. If you are having difficulty with this, just start where you are and write down what you can.

Continue this as a daily practice until being grateful for the things in your life is second nature and happens easily. Feel that freeing feeling, that feeling of deep satisfaction and peace. You are experiencing gratitude as a way of life.

Filed Under: Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Sober Living Tagged With: gratitude, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Experiencing Awe and Wonder in Sobriety

July 31, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Moments of Wonder

Ah, I am back from the computer’s little vacation. I hope you are enjoying the new look of my website… The forgiveness article is yet to come, and I appreciate your patience.

In our pursuit of sobriety, serenity, and peace, living a life filled with awe and wonder will get us closer to our desired goal. It will lighten our heart, and delight our being.

All it takes is a decision to look at every little thing around us and find awe and wonder in it. For example… the star in the photograph to the left. I did not see that when I snapped the photo, nor did I see it for about nine months after that.

Then one day, I had all my gate photographs leaning up against the wall, and I was standing back, looking at them. I looked at this photo and saw the star, beaming at me from across the room.

I stopped in amazement! In that moment, I was struck with awe and wonder. Hence, the title for the image.

Since that time, I made the resolve to notice the small things around me. I do this every day, and every day, I notice something that strikes me with awe, and I feel wonder at the creation I am observing. It can be an object or another person, but I always find something about which to be in awe and wonder. It just comes naturally now.

We can all do this. As I said, it takes a decision, and then it takes slowing down each day to notice the world around us. If we start with something like a flower, we will notice its delicacy, its beauty, and we will be touched with awe and wonder. When we are, our sobriety softens and we find our way to serenity and peace. We will find that we are useful to others because we are often inspiring to them.

Today, take the time to make the decision to look at the world around you more closely than you currently do. Make the decision to see it with awe and wonder. Don’t you feel lighter, filled with awe and wonder? If you do this, it will help your sobriety and your journey to serenity and peace.

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: awe, awesome, how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, wonder

Celebrate Your Growth of Character in Sobriety

July 18, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Growth of Character

When we engage in all of the things about which I have been blogging, we cannot help but see our character growth. At least, it will be growing and we can take notice. Often, we don’t, and we don’t see our individual growth, the growth of our character.

It seems like we get so engrossed in our lives that we forget to stop and step back to see where we have been and where we are now. Undoubtedly, when we do this, we will see character growth. We will see some changes.

We will want to allow ourselves this process of looking at the “then” and the “now,” not to wallow in things, or to be smug, but to humbly offer ourselves acknowledgment for our accomplishments, and to thank Source for assistance. We want to renew and refresh our energy so that we can continue on.

What we shall most likely find is a growth of interesting character, much like what is growing on the wall of the stairway in the photo above. Like the gentle and bright lichen on the wall, our new character traits show up and rise above the darker moss that also grows on the wall.

The lichen, our character and spirit, are lighter than the moss and we will be feeling lighter by this point in our journey. We need to allow this character growth, this spirit growth, and then we need to recognize and acknowledge it.

We use this information to be of use to others by talking about where we have been and where we are now. This gives them hope and permission to feel better about themselves.

And, it serves to spur us on in times of discouragement or despair. These times will most likely occur during the course of our sobriety, and we can be ready for them. It all starts with recognizing our character growth.

Today, look at how far you have come. Recall where you once were, and where you are currently. Recognize your character growth. Deeply breathe in that feeling of goodness about a job well done. Feel the more mature feel of your sobriety, and know peace.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, ineer peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Tolerance Adds to Our Sobriety and Peace

July 17, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Practice of Tolerance

Today’s topic is practicing tolerance of others. Tolerance is the ability to recognize, respect, allow, and permit another’s values, beliefs, and practices, even if we don’t like them.

However, if one is treating us with disrespect or abuse, we do not tolerate that behavior. If that is us being disrespectful and abusive to another, we do not tolerate that behavior in ourselves; rather, we attempt to change that about ourselves.

Similarly, we do not tolerate abuse and disrespect that we dole out to ourselves, as that denigrates our spirit. We learn how to be respectful of ourselves, and we go to whatever length we need to, in order to accomplish this. We engage in such activities as journaling about it, talking to another, or seeking counseling.

The thing about tolerance that is freeing and that adds to our sobriety and our path to peace, is that once we learn to tolerate others, we no longer feel like we have to defend ourselves and who we are. We can live and let live.

In our practice of tolerance, we can even get to the point of finding another’s differences interesting, exciting, as we recognize the added richness those differences bring to our lives.

We even discover that another’s differences do not diminish our own value. We no longer need to compare ourselves to others.

Today, practice the art of tolerance. Experience that gentle feeling and warmth toward others that comes when you do. If in an intolerable situation, consider moving away from it, emotionally or physically. When you practice tolerance, feel how you are freer, more settled in sobriety, on the pathway to peace.

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety, tolerance, tolerance of others, tolerance of ourselves

Judging Others Affects Our Sobriety Negatively

July 16, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

The obvious thing about judgment is that we want to halt our malicious judgment of others. Judging others and ourselves harshly, while denigrating the spirit, adversely affects our ability to stay sober, as well as to find peace.

We want to find a way to cease judging others negatively. Certainly, we need to assess that we are safe in any given situation, and so we will judge others to that end. But I’m talking about judgment borne of fear, hatred. We cannot maintain our serenity when we are busily judging everyone. It is this which we want to learn to curb.

When we judge others negatively, we denigrate that person’s spirit. It is character assignation.

Absence of Judgment

This is all very valid when it comes to the topic of judgment, yet, I wish to look at the issue of how we judge any given situation in our lives as good or bad. When we are going through a tough time, for example, we wonder why this is being done to us, why Spirit or Source is taking us through the anguish and strife.

We struggle to get through the rough times, sometimes even getting angry at Source, or denouncing It. The thing is, we can practice the principle, absence of judgment, in these situations. What do I mean by that?

To explain it, let’s start at the end. Once a difficult situation has resolved, and time has passed, we can look back and see how the incident made us stronger, or saved us from a bigger evil, or was for our highest good. We can even consider that we were given opportunities.

We begin to see how Source chose to bring us these opportunities, that without that specific incident, we wouldn’t have paid attention. Sometimes, our lessons are harder because we did not heed earlier signs that we were going down the wrong path.

Eventually, we realize that within these difficult times are gifts, as they contain lessons for our betterment. This belief helps us through those hard times because we are looking for the lesson, the gift. Knowing that when we have survived the event, we can help another through similar circumstances, gives us purpose.

Today, see if you can find a silver lining in a rough experience you have had in your life. Identify the lesson, the gift. Does that help with your sobriety, bring you peace?

Filed Under: Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, inner peace, judgment, judgment of others, living sober, peace, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Respect the Individuality of Yourself and Others

July 15, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Respect of Individuality

Perhaps the most kind and loving thing we can do is to show respect for individuality, both our own and another’s.

When we respect others, we promote peace and harmony in the world. When we respect ourselves, we gain emotional peace and the desire to stay sober.

“We ask of others to follow our dreams, to be like us. Why?” If you are like me, you were never celebrated for my individuality in your early years. If you were like me, you were compared to your siblings or others and found to be deficient, every time.

If we are doing that to another, we need to stop, as it kills the spirit. If we are disrespectful of ourselves and our talents, our attributes, we need to stop. It is killing our sense of purpose and our will to follow our dreams.

Instead, let’s celebrate the talents and skills and differences of each other, encouraging others and ourselves to greatness, to be unique, to be individuals.

When we do this, we will know a much richer life. And we will know more emotional freedom and peace. We will wish to stay sober to experience all of it.

Today, practice respecting the uniqueness of others, their individuality. Practice respecting your own individuality. Experience the peace.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: how to find peace, individuality, inner peace, living sober, peace, respect of individually, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Acknowledgment of Others – A Way of Living Sober

July 14, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

I apologize for my lack of consistency in posting daily. Again, I got side-tracked…

Acknowledgment of Others

As we continue through the journey to sobriety and emotional peace, we have come to a point where we feel better about ourselves. We feel more complete and accepting of ourselves and our feelings of goodness begin to overflow to those around us. For the next few days, we will examine ways in which we can be more loving to others.

Today, we will talk about acknowledgment. On the one hand, we want to show acknowledgment to ourselves for our characteristics, our feelings, our quirks. ”We go within so we can reach out to others.”

We also want to show acknowledgment to others, simply because they are human beings sharing this space we call Earth. “We reach out to others so we can go within.”

There is nothing more loving than to be walking along, passing someone, and showing them acknowledgment with a smile or a nod. It’s as if our heart is bursting with so much love that it pours forth to others, and we show them that we see them, that they matter, simply because they are another person, moving through life as best they can.

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

We can do a lot for our sobriety and peace simply by acknowledging others. Remember, this occurs freely when we have acknowledged ourselves.

Today, take those good feelings about yourself and share with others by offering acknowledgment with a smile or a nod. Doesn’t that feel nice to do that, to connect with another in this way? Don’t you feel more at peace?

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: acknowledgment of others, how to find peace, how to get sober, inner peace, living sober, peace, Sober Living, sobriety

The Benefit of Perseverance in Sobriety

July 11, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Rolls of Perseverance

As we continue through the book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, we come to perseverance. It is the next step in our journey to sobriety and inner peace.

I must first interject an acknowledgement about my lack of postings for the past two days. I get involved in the morning in a project and before I know it, it is 4:00 pm. And I discover I have not yet blogged.

Thinking that it’s too late in the day to blog, I decide to save it for the next day. And then the next day, I do the same thing. That is what happened the past two days. I am involved in my script for my talk that is occurring this Sunday in Novato, CA. http://carolyncjjones.eventbrite.com/

It’s not an excuse; rather, it is a way of letting you know what happens to me on the days I don’t blog. And so I apologize if you came to visit and were disappointed. I am hopeful you found past articles to satisfy you.

Now, back to perseverance and why it’s important in sobriety…

If we fail at any of our attempts in the process of getting and staying sober and finding peace, we just keep moving forward… we persevere in our attempts. We do not beat ourselves up because we have not reached the vision of who we want to be.

Beating yourself up and putting yourself down for not finding success in your attempts on your first try are self-defeating. Think, rather, that you choose to keep moving through any unsuccessful attempts.

Keep trying until you are successful in your endeavors. Repeat over and over, if necessary. Celebrate your attempt that you took in the first place. In other words, celebrate the trying.

“I struggle to not become discouraged, or to think I am a failure, because I have not achieved in my first few attempts the vision of myself as I wish to be. Instead, I try to hold tightly to that vision, awaiting my efforts to catch up with the way I am seen by my heart.

“Through practice and perseverance, I am learning and growing.”

Whatever your endeavor, whatever you are trying to achieve in your sobriety and your path to peace, keep trying until you are successful. Think of it as learning to walk, and recall how that took continual practice and “failure.”

I put “failure” in quotes because nothing is a failure… it is just another attempt to grow and heal, to keep sober and to find peace. So keep trying until your actions and thoughts match your desires. Keep persevering.

Continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no prospect of success. This is what persevering means, according to Webster. If you are continually running into blocks and walls, however, consider that you’re headed in the wrong direction. I invite you to change course.

I wish you well on your efforts to become the person you wish to be. May it enhance your sobriety and help you on your journey to peace.

From Hopelessness to Hope in Sobriety

July 8, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Ray of Hope

We have come to the point that we believe in and accept ourselves, and we have done this in part by doing a self-appraisal, a performance appraisal.

To do that, we have had to be honest, open, and willing to look at ourselves, to make changes in our lives.

On top of that, we have gained courage to move forward, and through that, have developed our ability to be humble.

We have learned how to offer forgiveness, and we have begun to feel emotional peace.

Now that we have come to all of these beliefs and realizations, we have learned to treat ourselves with compassion and kindness.

If we have made it this far, to the place that we are beginning to love ourselves and practice all the things I have mentioned, then we have begun to have hope.

We are now moving from hopelessness to hope. All of this is helping our sobriety, helping us stay sober, one day at a time.

It is my deepest wish that you are following along, and are beginning to dawn hope in your heart. That is the purpose of the links in today’s post, to remind yourself of where we have been, and to revisit any, if necessary. May you find hope in the pages.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Sober Living Tagged With: hope, hopelessness, hopelessness to hope, living sober, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

Self-Acceptance Leads to Confidence and Esteem

July 7, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Acceptance of Self

Now that we have learned to forgive others and ourselves, we are ready to accept ourselves, which boots our self-confidence and self-esteem. We are traveling on the path of acceptance of self.

We have completed our performance appraisal, our self-appraisal, and we are now ready to make right any wrongs we have done. We want to do this so we can feel self-confidence, self-esteem. This will help us stay sober and get to emotional peace.

Along the path of accepting ourselves so that we may experience self-confidence and esteem, we may reflect upon who we were in our early days, when we had confidence, had a positive esteem. We may have been children then; I was. At least, I glean from my pictures of the era that I was a happy child when I was about three.

And I ask you, “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?”

What if the only change we’ve experienced throughout the years is an assault on our being by others, and then by ourselves, so much so that the self-confidence and esteem we had as a child have eroded away? And what if our being is waiting for us to reclaim who we are, with great self-confidence and self-esteem?

So, how can we begin to fulfill the wishes of our being, to stop playing small, to step into who we are at our core? We just take action. We look at what is behind our playing small, our lack of confidence and esteem. If it is old messages that denigrate us, we know that those were lies, said by a spiritually sick person. We can think differently now about those disparaging remarks.

Then we practice honesty, and look at all our traits, both positive and negative. In other words, we do a performance appraisal. We apply compassion to the negative traits, and then set them aside, knowing that we have displayed our humanness. We focus on our positive traits, and we become humble, thanking Source for all the gifts which have been bestowed upon us.

And we begin to believe that Source gave us those gifts with the intention that we share them with the world around us. That means playing small no longer will work, and we must step into our full being, with confidence and esteem. We don’t want to flaunt, and practicing humility will counter that tendency.

All we want to do is to celebrate the talents and gifts we have been given and humbly present them to the world around us. When we do this, our self-confidence and esteem will rise. Staying sober will become easier and more desirable. We will become more accepting of ourselves. We will be that much closer to emotional peace and serenity.

Today, practice stepping into all that you are. Accept who you are at your very core. Apply compassion for being human. Identify your special gifts and talents, and celebrate them with your world. Bring back that self-confidence and esteem that have been absent from your life for so long… Accept yourself at a deep level of knowingness…

Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: confidence, esteem, living sober, self esteem, self-confidence, sober, Sober Living, sobriety

The Art of Forgiveness

July 6, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

We are starting today at the first tier in the forgiveness process. This is the place where we have defined why we are withholding our forgiveness and from whom. Overnight, we sat with the emotions that arose for us.

This morning, we have become willing to look at the resentment we hold against those who have wronged us because we want emotional peace and we want something different for ourselves in our sobriety, in our life.

Forgiveness is for us, not the other person. Yet, it does often benefit the other person as well. By forgiving, we are in no way condoning what occurred as right. It was not. Yet, we can get to a place of forgiveness even though that is true.

Having said all of that, let me say that there is tremendous freedom in forgiveness, and that is what allowed me to reach emotional peace in my sobriety. This is how it happened.

I was about 3 years sober and was doing a self-appraisal about my romantic relationships, looking at all the ways I contributed to their demise, being accountable where I erred. What I realized was, I would get drunk and yell at each of them how worthless they were, that they would never amount to anything.

I was appalled to remember I had said those things! I didn’t mean them. I said them because that’s how I was feeling about myself. Knowing how terrible I was feeling at that time, I started to feel compassion for that woman who was in so much pain that she lashed out at another human’s spirit, denigrating it, for that was a terrible thing to do and say.

Wow. That was powerful when I looked at it in that way, allowing compassion to come into my being. For when I saw myself with compassion, I was able to then see the person who used to yell at ME that I was worthless and would never amount to anything, with compassion for what he might have been feeling when he said those things to me.

I began to realize he was so very young and was dealing with his own wounds. I say that not to excuse his actions, but to lend some understanding to him, and especially given that I had done the very same thing. He was an emotionally and spiritually sick man, I have come to understand over the years. I feel compassion for the sick man he was, and he has changed.

Armed with the knowledge that people do bad things, sometimes because they are emotionally and spiritually sick, I began to apply this thought and heart process to other incidences and people. I found myself getting to forgiveness, even if I had not repeated their behaviors myself. I have to say, there has never been a more freeing sensation for me, a feeling of deep peace.

I’d like to stress that the first step of forgiveness is identifying the incident for which you cannot forgive and acknowledging it, looking at it, feeling how wronged you were. If you skip this step, it is glossing over the damage that was done to you, so be sure to feel how the damage has affected you in your life.

The second step is to look at the situation and determine if you provoked the person and they were responding as any human being might. If this is the case, own your behavior, be accountable for it, and give up the anger you feel toward the other. Apologies may be in order…

Once you identify and feel the damage that was done to you, it is time to bring compassion to yourself, a wounded person. Be careful not to cross the line into self-pity here; you just want to feel empathy for that wounded person… yourself. Hold yourself in that space of compassion and empathy until you feel some relief from your anger. Then, consider the other person as a fallible and emotionally wounded person.

By repeating this, over time, the anger begins to fade a little at a time, and one day, you will find yourself at forgiveness.

You can do this and can soar to new heights that, up until now, you have only dreamed of. Isn’t that something you want for yourself?

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

Freedom of Forgiveness in Sobriety

July 4, 2012 by Carolyn CJ Jones Leave a Comment

Tiers of Forgiveness

Perhaps one of the most rewarding things that comes to us in sobriety, when we are able to do it, is the freedom of forgiveness. Once we are able to forgive others for their wrongs, and then forgive ourselves, we will experience deeper peace and serenity.

It has been my experience that forgiveness happens in tiers or stages, over time. Just as the baby tears which grew by this gate in this picture evolved over time and are beautiful, so can forgiveness grow over time, and is beautiful when it occurs.

How do we get to forgiveness when someone has wronged us, led us to a life of anger and resentment over those wrongs? “Ruined” us emotionally… Made our life a shambles… Is the cause of our emotional misery…

How can we let go of this seething power which has control over us, and why in the world would we even WANT to let go of it? We are, after all, justified in our indignation!

This was me when I reached sobriety. I had spent my life being resentful and miserable because of incidents from my childhood. It had left me deeply scarred. It affected me every single day in one way or another and prevented me from having lasting emotional peace.

Everyone kept saying to me, “Get over it. Move on.” Except I couldn’t; that’s what I’d done with my drinking and drugging… tried to get over it. It didn’t work; I numbed out instead to avoid the feelings of shame, worthlessness, hopelessness, and despair. Of course, at the time, I could not name these, I just knew I was miserable – still angry, definitely not experiencing serenity and peace on a lasting basis.

Yet now, I experience serenity and peace every day. It is a place of calm from which my actions, thoughts, and emotions well. I have resolved my anger, my resentment, and have forgiven those who wronged me. That was the piece which was missing for me, which prevented me from finding emotional peace and serenity.

At this point, I need to tell you how I got to that place of forgiveness, but this piece is getting long. Instead, I will save it for tomorrow. I suggest that what you do between now and tomorrow’s post is to do some work around who or what you cannot forgive. Recognize who/what you cannot forgive and clearly define why. See what emotions surface and try to sit with them for a bit. Feel in your heart how wrong their action was.

Then turn your attention 180 degrees. Consider how this has consumed your life and darkly colored it. Do you want something different for yourself? Consider the possibility that you can leave this misery behind and create a new story and become willing to hear about how. Then, wait for tomorrow’s post which will describe how I found the freedom of forgiveness.

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

Click below to Follow Me

Get My Free 3-Module Video Course!