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One morning, Fear was roaming the land spreading his feelings like a virus in every living being. As he permeated the people’s, He came across Doubt. SHE TOO had been cruising through and infecting all living entities on planet earth, when she bumped into Fear. It was love at first sight for them both. Instead of competing against one another to destroy mankind, the two realized that their combined power would keep man from growing as the Almighty One, a source of purest love, had intended.

They decided to join forces together to prevent man from experiencing any positive or loving moment, or epiphany.

Dear readers, I stopped blogging because I felt like I had nothing profound or helpful to say…but I was wrong.

DO NOT ALLOW YOUR FEAR AND DOUBTS TO PREVENT YOU FROM ANY POSSIBLE LOVING EXPERIENCE. SEEK JOY, SEEK BLISS, HUMBLY…for a purely honest pursuit.

Christ was and is a message,  a symbol of love.  So regardless of your beliefs,  seek love and truth will follow.

Read Just for Today, p 95 Basic Text if you’re in the program. TRUST IN YOUR HIGHER POWER and you will receive the love and guidance you need for each moment of fear and doubt.

Peace, love, and blessings to all those who read this…stay safe and well…wear your mask and wash your hands….

It has been a month since I have had a chance to blog. So much in my life…in my world…in my recovery…in our society…culture…planet…has changed! I am working diligently at a long-distance relationship with a man who is 12 years older than I. I KNOW what it’s like and what it means to love, unconditionally, and be grateful for the experience. Tuesday will be my late husband’s birthday. He would have been 64. It’s coming up on 15 years since I lost him and it has been 14 since I lost my mother.

Somehow, none of that seems to matter right now. It sounds cold and disrespectful but that’s not how I intend it. It’s just that I am fearful –like everyone else– that someone I love could die from this virus. How did we get here? Who would have ever thought this could happen to us at this time? I just found love again after all these years and since my new love is 70, I am frightened that I won’t get a chance to share life with him. I am also afraid to lose my children or family in any way.

This begs the question, what are my coping skills to stay clean and out of trouble NOW? I feel like the therapy we are getting is helping us. I want more individual therapy for myself to ensure that I am strong enough to cope with anything coming my way.

I can deal with being alone, after all, I did it for many years voluntarily. I am starting to go a little stir crazy though, because I am such a people person and used to at least being with my colleagues and other members in the rooms on a regular basis. I am shopping for an online NA meeting since my home group is not meeting. I also have decided to rework the steps from the NA workbook, and work in my CBT workbook that I got when I first became clean.

Loneliness is a common theme across the globe right now. People are separated who shouldn’t ordinarily be. I have a friend whose nephew is in the hospital dying of cancer and neither she, nor his wife can be with him. WE NEED TO BE GRATEFUL TO OUR HIGHER POWER NOW -grateful for all that we have had and are having. I will add to my list of homework that it’s time to do a Gratitude List.

There are certainly many things that fear of this virus can trigger us to feel or want to do. I feel like the best skills we have are reaching out and communicating with someone else, and being thankful for the love in our lives and the fact the we are blessed with family, sobriety, and the basic needs of food, shelter and clothing.

I am not trying to sound pious so I apologize if it’s coming out of me like this today. My best coping skill right now is to MAKE A TO DO LIST and then you can REWARD YOURSELF WITH A GREAT MOVIE OR MUSIC YOU CAN DANCE TO once you complete it. Don’t forget to go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine (sunshine deprivation leads to depression).

Contact me through this website’s contact email if you wish to share anything.  In the meantime…

Peace, Love, Good Health, Safety…you know; blessings to all….

I have been so busy trying to figure out my heart and my head and where I want my life to be, that I have neglected this blog site. Apologies, sincerely. It is a game…juggling more priorities than your overwhelmed psyche can manage…but I am good at games. I just don’t have the patience, or the inclination to play them anymore.

I am redefining myself moment by moment. I am changing things I believe, think and feel. I feel it is all for the better -an newer and improved me. The old tapes are still playing in the back of my mind, but the sound of them is fading…I can barely hear them most of the time.

One major lesson for me is my conviction that therapy is necessary and healthy for everyone. The concept I am talking about here. I think that every person should have a relationship with an objective person in a confidential and safe environment, whose job it is to actively listen, reframe, reflect, and basically guide each person through their thoughts and beliefs so that we as individuals can change unhealthy ones and their correlative behaviors to live happier lives and love each other.

I am grateful to have relationships with other counselors who I would also call good friends. They have guided me to self-realizations that have changed my life for the better. I cannot thank them by name here, but I would if I could.

Think about all the things that are bothering you; better yet, write them down. Then find someone you can discuss them with -12-step programs are great for this. Share what you are feeling and thinking. Get some perspective and try not to be reactive -even when you can feel your blood pressure rising or your stomach tighten, or even a lump in your throat. Talk to someone.

You can always share with me. There is a contact email for this site.

Keep stopping to breathe…inhale…exhale…we can make it through it.

And as always, peace, love and blessings to all who read this….

There’s a line in one of my favorite movies that goes: “If love was a choice, who would ever choose such exquisite PAIN?” If love came along in the later years of your life after you lived alone as a widow/er for fifteen years, and the risks, included FEAR OF LOVE DUE TO FEAR OF YET ANOTHER LOSS…what WOULD you DO?

I believe in love…more than anything else…my spiritual beliefs are founded upon Christ’s example to us of love -different kinds of love for many different kinds of people. John Lennon said it best — “all you need IS Love….” What am I talking about then? Well love and forgiveness go hand in hand, and as we age and become wiser and more mature, we learn that it is because of our love for another that we are willing to forgive [more easily as time passes].

If you have followed this blog from the commencement, you know of many hurts in my life…you know the amount of pain and trauma I have both simultaneously experienced…and survived…as many addicts have.

I want to love this man who says he has loved me for the past thirty years we have been apart and married to other people. I want to understand him; to share every moment of my life with him and every aspect of myself -with no secrets –full disclosure; true transparency; raw honesty; REAL INTIMACY! It sounds like bullshit even when I write it -like too good to be true; or trite –so banal – like every love song I hear in this “love bubble” could be construed as platitudinous…just lip-service to a distant culture of romance now made obsolete by marketing and a desensitized public.

My time and my generation are decades back…I made a plan and developed a lifestyle in recovery; a specified routine during which my goal is to become a good therapist. That was my sole dream…an exit strategy from my existing menial and meaningless job to something greater than myself where I could give all my love to my fellow man; particularly those suffering in addiction in silence. Nobody could have derailed me. I did not need a man in my life to complete me…just my Higher Power.  A program of recovery has served me well for the past two and a half years.

School is getting harder, though I keep trying to do my best (carrying straight As so far, knock on wood). I have a shot a real, true happiness. I omitted the word lasting because the reality is that I learned the hard way 15 years ago that lasting is only a concept which applies to love.

I don’t want to waste any more time or life. I still aspire to become a good therapist and help others. But now I want to leave my hometown of 43 years and spend my life (with this man at my side for as long as possible), and start a new life. I don’t want to waste any more time on arguing or game-playing.

Two things concern me though. Can we overcome the difference in our spiritual beliefs? (I am a blend of Christian, Native, and Buddhist principles), and he has gone from atheist to agnostic I think with an attitude of willingness to try to understand and be open to the concept of faith. This is very important to me. The other concern is about my self-disclosure…he has brought up my past many times (sexual history) and used it in a way that it hurts me and I swore I would never allow a man to do that to me again ever! Also, although the concepts of love and emotion I bring are new to him and his worldview, I have had to apologize several times for hurting his feelings with something I have said. I am concerned that this will be an ongoing behavior pattern that I cannot take without resentments building up. I am working harder than ever to become self-aware and change, but I am not sure if this concern can derail my sobriety/recovery as the behavior is extremely triggering to me.

I want to love him so much that I am willing to compromise, but the boundaries are not clear yet and I do not wish to compromise my true self.

If you have any feedback, feel free to share on this or any other topic. In the interim, however, peace, love and blessings to all who read this….and I will keep you posted on my progress in love….

So I have shared a lot of my sick secrets through my blogposts and I guess I feel safe under the disguise of anonymity in my website as well as in the rooms. I need to feel safe…about a lot of things. I am still changing, growing and trying to heal many hurts from my life. But I don’t want fear of rejection or pain to constrain me from experiencing joy. I have to be willing to take the risk, and I am.

I think that as a BiPolar 2, I worry that I am what many have labeled me over the years…damaged goods. Also, my standards are higher at this age and my expectations for a relationship have evolved into something fairly specific as well. But I also feel something I have not felt for many, many years…happiness…giddiness…bliss…joy…and true appreciation to my Higher Power for blessing me with the love of another man.

I really had closed that door to my heart. I thought well, I am on my own for the rest of my life, and that’s okay. I can earn my own living, pay my own bills, shop when I want, and never answer to a man for anything. Then about six months ago, a man that I dated 30 years ago found me over the internet and emailed me and we have been talking ever since. I think this man is the right fit for me. He understands me and wants to learn about my world, including all my good experiences and bad, and most importantly, wants to know what my love is like; wants to experience all that I have to give.

I feel like I can truly be myself around him; the real me. Even as an addict in recovery, I do not ever feel judged by him and believe that he really supports me in all that I do, including school – getting my MS in Addiction Counseling to try to help others in the world.

But that old Acting Out voice of doubt and doom creeps in…is it too good to be true? When will the other shoe fall? I will probably get used and hurt and rejected. Don’t do it…don’t make yourself open and vulnerable. I have to tell the other personalities to shut the f*@# up! Because the part of me that is real and true and buried deep inside cries out as a little girl does, “you deserve this man’s love. A life without risk is no life at all. This could be the most beautiful relationship you ever have. If you are just brave enough to work for it; to fight for it. Don’t give up; don’t run away.”

I decided I would commit to loving this person and believe that he loves and commits to me. I will let you know what a life transition in your senior years is like. Oh…and by the way, I finally removed my late husband’s cross from around my neck after almost 15 years. Replaced it with something new and special. This is a BIG STEP FOR ME. I can juggle it all, but at the end of the day, it really boils down to just one thing.

Him and me with love and faith at the center.

Peace, love and blessings to all…