For those who have let the times numb them
For those who have succumbed to their lesser selves
With the world beating down their doors with the hammers of insanity
For those who are lost in repetitive habits
Which do nothing but further distance yourself from the center of who you actually are.
I pray that you can ignore the voices of damnation and find your way back home.
It’s not as difficult as you imagine
When you’re still locked into whatever rut you are in
Because the momentum of positive direction is in itself an addictive substance
Like being lost at sea and swimming for many nights
You suddenly see a speck of land
Which is some kinda Island in the distance.
And In seeing that
the part of you that was considering surrendering
Considering giving up
Considering letting the waves take you down
That part of you becomes silenced
Or that part of you joins the voices who beg for your survival
Into the completeness of who you are
I listened to an addiction specialist on Joe Rogan
Anna Lembke (great episode. Check it out!)
But she was saying that for your dopamine to reset back to recovered levels takes a month
Which is why it becomes so hard turn addictive habits around
The depression from initially quitting
Leads one to re engage into the destructive coping mechanism they were attempting to quit
Like a trap made out of psychic quicksand
And though I see where she is coming from
And though there are levels to various addictions
Some are soft
Some are hard
I wish she had talked about the momentum of spirit
Which elevates you beyond zeros and ones
And chemicals and contracts
The realm of the spirit
The engine that gets filled with a new type of gasoline
When you turn your ship around
The part of you that sees that tiny island in the distance
And suddenly has a new energy with which to swim
Because immediately when you break a bad habit
You have that pride from breaking it
Which helps you skip past that defeated biology
Shake rattle and roll
I woke this morning excited for my run to the meeting
Excited to be digging a new neuro pathway towards the salvation of my dream
You kept your mama up all night cluster feeding
And I remember waking up a couple times out of strange dreams
The kinda dreams where you’re working more than resting
But that’s ok because for whatever reason my spirit feels restored and renewed
The beginners mind blooming and a period of fasting not far off to completely reset physically
Not to mention some exciting news I won’t share here now
But reason to believe we are being looked after
That prayers are being answered
And that tiny spec of land is becoming bigger and bigger by the day.
All you have to do is never give up and never lose faith.
That’s all you have to do.
But that’s much more difficult than you can imagine at times
But just remember that’s all you have to do.
And life will rejuvenate and reinvent
Over and over again
Into ever deepening levels
Of an ever deepening gift.
That’s all you have to do. Is never give up. And never lose faith.
And if you lose faith. Find your way back to it. Pray for it’s restoration.
For those of you still stuck in numbing behavior.
Which in these times
who could blame you?
For those of you still stuck there.
Un sticking yourself is easier than you imagine
By the third day you will feel so proud to have turned it around
Don’t allow yourself to be trapped
In the justification of the age
The devil wants that for you
To pretend it’s ok to give up.
It’s not.
It never is.
I keep thinking about Atlanta
And the dogwood room
Where I first discovered 12 step
I went with my dad who had just discovered it himself
I agreed to go if he bought me a case of beer straight after
I was 20
And there was a beautiful girl in the rooms
Suddenly I saw a way out
I realized there were other methods and means of survival
Socially and beyond
Outside of just getting hammered day in and day out
Which is how I had already been living for years.
It wasn’t an instant conversion but I made a significant mental note
And I wound up back there on my own
Partially looking for that girl
But mostly looking for myself
And the community I discovered there became a kind of family I had never had before
The characters
The freaks
To which I certainly belonged
Dale with the handle bar musctache
Rene the dude with long hair and leather pants
Mikel who asked me to share about seeing God on the bottom of my feet
Those rooms
Those people
We’re beyond special
They had a toolkit to rebuild a fractured life
And to find a soul you left at a yard sale in the ghetto
To be a part of a community trying to better themselves through spiritual principles
Is a higher plane in this world than it often gets credit for.
And by that I mean the credit I give it
Which I never speak against it
But I certainly underestimate the gift it really is
And the times in my life which are the most meaningful are often when I am actively participating in that group
I guess this is all a long winded way of communicating my excitement to re engage in that community
And to acknowledge that many of the greatest gifts I have ever received have been an extension of that community.
It’s 846 am
I’ll be running that way around 11 or so
And I have plans to record a song before that
A spiritual.
Running is like flying
Sometime it seems impossible
To move these old bones over even older bridges and avenues
But there are times when you soar within it
Yesterday I ran more than five miles
Never listened to my headphones at all
Sometimes I get bored with asking the world to tell me what to think
And I’d rather just pray and talk to God
Running through the city streets
Breathing deep
And reminding myself how lucky I am
To have this ability of motion
Every year I take less and less for granted
I hope one day to run with you
Maybe even run a five k together
Or a marathon
We prayed over you this morning
And right at the end
You
Filled up your diaper
With a blast
Right as we said
Amen
It was hysterical
The comedic timing was beyond
Are you a comedian
A musician
A writer
A dancer
A mother
A spiritual warrior
All of the above
Non of the above
What is your purpose here on planet lunacy?
What kind of being incarnates now?
What message have you brought us from the otherside?
Yesterday we read as a group step 12
The step about service
About giving it away in order to keep it
Addiction really is about fear and self esteem
Addiction is fueled by fear
And as it batters the self esteem
You become more and more trapped inside it’s clutches
Fear and low self esteem act as a kind of dark poxy
Sticking you strongly to the vehicle of self destruction
But the power of the group to pray
That spiritual force of knowing you are not alone
That the human condition is one of struggle
and your struggle is one of many
And the relief of hearing other people talk about their problems
Which for a moment absolves you of your own
Is such a huge force towards recovery
And then you helping others by your very presence of helping yourself
You becoming of service
Can’t help but elevate that self esteem
Making the poxy of addiction weaker
And then the fear drifts into the distance
As you are surrounded by like minded and similarly afflicted beings
The glue of your destruction breaks
And you are set free
And in that freedom a miracle that you have prayed for is provided
And you are humbled and grateful
And willing to return
One day at a time for years to come
Service
The final step
To be of service.
Ps.
God is on the bottom of your feet
The design so perfect
For landing
If there was no God
How could your feet be so well designed
For walking and running
And becoming the essence of who you are
God
On the bottom of your feet