[SoniaRose]

Hope you don't mind an "adoptee" chiming in again.

I appreciate the reminder to return to the morning pages. I did start writing in October for a few weeks, but then got lazy. It's much easier to rest on the sofa with a cup of coffee and watch Good Morning America than it is to sit at the table and actually do something.

However, I was only writing one 8-1/2 x 11 page a day. Does anyone really write all three pages? That is a huge commitment and a big chunk of time.

I love the idea that writing by hand is "righting". Unfortunately, I've found that my carpal tunnel hurts more when writing than when typing (even with a splint). Maybe I should learn to write with my left hand. There is actually an artist in our town who is ambidextrous -- she creates beautiful paintings with either hand.

I also have always been interested in the concept of automatic writing as a way to communicate with the spirit world, but that's another topic.

Thanks for the quotes from the Vein of Gold. I printed them for inspiration. I do have the Complete Artist's Way, but have only read bits and pieces. For now, I will aim to get back to my one page as day. I have to learn to turn off that stupid TV and tune into myself.

[RavenSong]

SoniaRose, we're so glad to have you with us...everyone is welcome to join us on this thread! The Artist's Way group journey on this board is for all members of Adoption.com, not just birthmoms.

You're way ahead of me -- one Morning Page a day is better than none! I need to buckle down and get serious here. I keep putting off the Morning Pages...I've been putting off any type of journaling the past few months for some reason.

It seems to me that typing up the Morning Pages on a computer may be your best option, if writing them down by hand causes you a lot of pain due to your Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It seems to me that pain, itself, would be a distraction. Also, I was thinking, what about people with disabilities like paralysis or blindness? They would be able to do their Morning Pages via computer, but not by handwriting.

On a side note, your mention of automatic writing is interesting. Did you know that you can do automatic writing on the computer keyboard? A lot of people are doing it that way nowadays....

[Jackiejdajda]

I do not think there is a right way or a wrong way to really do this.. It’s a journey to self.. and that journey is unique..

I do not do morning pages but I did three when I was doing them.. half the time I could not read them.. and the theme of those pages was.. or I wrote when I lost my thoughts..

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz…

aka Janis..
I love that line.. It’s the ultimate impossible.. it’s the wish of it..

I think if there is physical pain when writing morning pages then whatever way a person can do it.. works for them..

I just opened the book and ended up on page 65.. on the edge I wrote.. Universe acting in our interest.

She writes about serendipity (and I think this applies to this current part ot the thread).. and wrote on page 64..

Whatever you choose to call it, once you begin your creative recovery you may be startled to find it cropping up everywhere..

I was thinking of this thread yesterday and how some will think that they are not artists and therefore what is the point of this exercise.. and I thought of the line.. The way of the artist.. or the way of the creative..

She writes about Jung.. and the Iching..(<one of my favorite books)

…. Following his own inner leadings brought him to experience and describe a phenomenon that some of us prefer to ignore: the possibility of an intelligent and responsive universe, acting and reacting in our interest..


What a thing.. to contemplate.

Next page..

First choose what you would do. The how usually falls into place of itself.

And the next page she quotes Goethe..

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.


We have to want to do it.. that’s the key.. This morning I read a post written by a woman that has just given her baby up for adoption.. and I thought of the grief.. and I looked for help on the net and I found Melody Beattie writing about a club.. a grief club..
The woman wants to help others.. she wants this..
Its part of this why are you in a tangled dance with a crazymaker and not really doing what is in your path.. find that key..

This post is disjointed.. but hey..

Jackie

[Janeytwo]

This post is disjointed....

Like life.

Perhaps there is an "art" to recovery too. Not a specific map that you follow that gets you from point A to point B, but a way of meandering.

Route 66 has always held a fascination for me. I've seen pictures of it - beautiful sepia pictures of long-abandoned gas stations, cracked pavement, old rusted campers and pictures of spiny cactus springing up amidst the dust. Life finding purchase on a dry, forgotten road.

Maybe then a person can't travel on a super highway; not soulfully. Know what I mean? I mean, yeah, you can take it to a destination of course; a freeway is the quickest distance. But have you ever noticed, Jackie, that when you travel on a freeway, you're tuned out as it were? At least it's that way for me. I find my mind going at high speed with lists...like, "I gotta do this when I get home. I gotta do that when I get home. When I get home I've got 7 loads of laundry and I've gotta stop at Kroger's, we're out of milk. And I wish that loser in front of me would get off his friggin cell phone and drive his car!" That kind of thing you know? A driven impatience (no pun intended).

But on a lane, one of those bendy ones in the country? Well, I drive along in the quiet thinking of people I've known and places I've been and I find myself looking out the windshield at the sky and remarking on the wonder of living.

Recovery is Route 66. Addiction/codepency...they're the freeway.

I am remembering a story I read in National Geographic about a woman who traveled the Outback alone on a camel. It took her 6 months to cross it. The things she must've learned about herself.........

[Janeytwo]

Hey Jackie. Hey Raven. Hey Kathy. Hey All.

Its part of this why are you in a tangled dance with a crazymaker and not really doing what is in your path

I like this term "crazymaker". There's a lesson in it; just in the term itself.

You know, I ran across one today; a crazymaker. A stone freakin nut job but that sly kind of nuts, ya know? The kind that knows just what to do or say to drive everyone else into a dark hole where they end up spitting on each other; or trying desparately to justify their position while stone nutso sits back smiling with glee. That kind is the worst kind.

I think I'm going to request this person have a DNA test cuz I'm pretty dang sure they're related to daddio. Either that or they attended classes at his school of "my way or the dead way".

And I alllllmoooossssttt fell for it, too.

Nope. Nuh uh.

Crazymaker. I'm going to split that term in two.

Yeah. You're most DEFINATELY crazy and for a second there, you had me at hello. But you didn't make me. God did. Put that in your nitrous tank and burn it suckah cuz I got the green and I'm leavin your 15 second butt at the light!


Nutso's of the world 1 point. Those of us who see your insanity for what it is and take the next available exit.........TEN POINTS!!!

[quantum]

I think I stopped doing morning pages when I got afraid it would lead me to wanting to leave my family.
Is that crazy?

[Jackiejdajda]

Janeytwo

Perhaps there is an "art" to recovery too. Not a specific map that you follow that gets you from point A to point B, but a way of meandering.

From The Vein of Gold.

Wherever you are is the entry point!

Kabir.

Page 5

(I wrote on the edge “healthy autonomy”)


The journey I guide you on will be your journey, not mine. I would be lying if I told you the journey would always be easy, or comfortable. I expect—and so should you—that other words will apply: fascinating, arduous, magical, difficult, rewarding, and above all personal.


This is the follow up book IMO to the AW.. further into it..
I have sort of done the first kingdom.. The Kingdom of Story.. but I have not sorted a lot.. I just wrote my life down..
One day I want to start up again.. and go on to the other Kingdoms.. Sight, Sound, etc..

All the words are out there and all we got to do is have the desire to take them in..

But on a lane, one of those bendy ones in the country? Well, I drive along in the quiet thinking of people I've known and places I've been and I find myself looking out the windshield at the sky and remarking on the wonder of living.

Recovery is Route 66. Addiction/codependency...they're the freeway.

Addiction (to me) is taking a pass on yourself.. and addiction is so darn tricky.. I can remember discussing this with a died in the wool AA person.. discussing that there are a lot of ways to addict.. I get angry with the program people that want to stick by the rules.. copywrite rules etc..
To me that’s another way of hiding ones head in the sand..

Driving that difficult road with memories is hard work.. writing down the bones is hard work.. scary stuff..

You wrote..

You know, I ran across one today; a crazymaker. A stone freakin nut job but that sly kind of nuts, ya know? The kind that knows just what to do or say to drive everyone else into a dark hole where they end up spitting on each other; or trying desparately to justify their position while stone nutso sits back smiling with glee. That kind is the worst kind.

Page 49.. Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity..

If crazymakers are that destructive, what are we doing involved with them? The answer, to be brief but brutal, is that we’re that crazy ourselves and we are that self destructive.

Really?

Yes. As blocked creatives, we are willing to go to almost any lengths to remain blocked.


I also say we are willing to go to almost any length to remain involved in the addiction of the person that has us in their thrall.. be a an angry thrall or whatever kind of thrall..
Hiding ones head in the sand..

From my cut and paste reference..

page 19... Further Along the Road Less Traveled.. Scott Peck..

...So the myth is true. We really can not go back to Eden.. We must go
forward through the desert. But the journey is hard and consciousness
is often painful. And so most people stop their journey as quickly as
they can. They find what looks like a safe place, burrow into the
sand, and stay there rather than go forward through the painful
desert, which is filled with cactuses and thorns and sharp rocks..


Even if most people have been taught at one time or another that
"those things that hurt, instruct" (to borrow Benjamin Franklin's
phrase), the education of the desert is so painful they discontinue it
as early as they can..


Senility is not just a biological disorder. It can also be a
manifestation of a refusal to grow up, a psychological disorder
preventable by anyone who embarks on a lifetime pattern of
pyschospiritual growth. Those who stop learning and growing early in
their lives and stop changing and become fixed often lapse into what
is sometimes called their "second childhood". Then become whiny and
demanding and self-centered. But this isn't because they have entered
their second childhood. They have never left their first, and the
veneer of adulthood is worn thin, revealing the emotional child that
lurks underneath..



Growing up Painfully..

When we were banished form Paradise, we were banished forever. We can
never go back to Eden. If you remember the story, the way is barred
but cherubim's and a flaming sword..


We cannot go back. We can only go forward..


To go back to Eden would be like trying to return to our mother's
womb, to infancy.. Since we cannot go back to the womb or infancy, we
must grow up.. We can only go forward through the desert of life,
making our way painfully over parched and barren ground into
increasingly.. deeper levels of consciousness..


This is an extremely important truth because a great deal of human
pathology, including the abuse of drugs, arises out of the attempt to
get back to Eden.. At cocktail parties we tend to need at least that
one drink to help diminish our sef-consciousness, to diminish our
shyness. It works, right? And if we get just the right amount of pot
or coke or some combination thereof, for a few minutes or a few hours
we may regain temporarily the lost sense of oneness with the universe.
We may recapture that deliciously warm and fuzzy sense of being one
with nature again..


Of course, the feeling never lasts very long and the price isn't
usually worth it.. So the myth is true.. We cannot go back to Eden..


Jackie

[Jackiejdajda]

Quantum

I think I stopped doing morning pages when I got afraid it would lead me to wanting to leave my family.
Is that crazy?

Its turning around and facing what’s really going down inside yourself.. taking it to a place of "this is what I want and this is what I do not want"..

And being afraid to say no.. because if we say no we will be alone..
That to me is deep down childhood stuff..
I do not think we have to do this until we are ready.. and IMO it will keep coming around again..

Carly Simon Coming Around Again / Itsy Bitsy Spider Lyrics

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again

I believe in love
And who knows where or when
Bit it's comin' around again

I know nothin' stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's comin' around again

Jackie

[Jackiejdajda]

Quantum

I think I stopped doing morning pages when I got afraid it would lead me to wanting to leave my family.
Is that crazy?

I thought about this all day yesterday.. and I know you are not alone in this kind of thinking.. I thought this way when I started my inward journey.

But what I found was the opposite (not true) when I called everyone on my bluff when I finally stopped being the one that made the peace in order to keep the peace (in my learned thinking).. I learned how to accept my husband and my family as they are now not how I want them to be.

Its finally getting it that the only person we can change is ourselves and if we change ourselves by doing this inward journey we end up seeing everything so much clearer and we learn how to live without all the resentments.. or we let them go..
Stand on solid ground and clear the air on a daily basis..

In twelve steps resentments are what takes us back out into our addictions.. takes us into that circle thinking that ends up with some of us saying.. to heck with it I am going to get stoned or whatever.. take a pass..
So the fourth step has us look at our resentments sort them out.. work through them.. so they do not have power over us..

And we learn how to let them go when they come up..

Hmmmmm

Jackie

[Janeytwo]

other words will apply........above all personal.

I am remembering when it first dawned on me that my ex-husband's alcoholism was my personal journey and not his. This was a strange realization; because I had thought that recovery took two people when in point of fact it takes only one. Me.

And it is this way with this journey to my children. Others can relate, can see the colors along the path but I am alone in the final outcome of what happens to my life; my life with them (hopefully) or without them (should that be the way it goes).

Either way, I will be left with myself to answer to and heal.

IMO, we are not unlike the Miner 49'ers. Panhandling for the gold; only it's the treasure we lost; the treasure that we held for one minute second and then the treasure slipped into the stream of life; down and out to sea; far away from our reality.

Even in my basement, I held out hope for my children. I just didn't know it.

consciousness
is often painful.

Yes. To me, this is about learning my part in what happened to me in my life. For some it is easy enough to stand and point fingers; harder though for them to point at themselves and say, "Well I at least have some blame in my outcome."

Smiling here. I am remembering when Johnny H gave a talk where he said he got tired of sitting across the table from the One Steppers; the ones who whined that they drank because their mommy sat them backwards on the training potty.

I don't want to be one of those because I will get in my own way and I've done that enough already.

Anyway.......

Jackie....hopefully we are the best kind of golddiggers - if you get my drift.

[kakuehl]

Janey,
For some reason your post made me think of one of my aha! moments. I was sitting in the coffee shop at seminary bemoaning the fact that I had a test coming up in my systematic theology course. The prof was sitting there and I made some crack about having to take the test. Scott's comment was, "no you don't." I insisted I did, he repeated, "No you don't. You have a choice. You can choose not to take the test. Now let's figure out if you can pass the course if you don't take the test." He then proceeded to figure out that if I did everything else perfectly I could still pass the course. The aha moment for me was that I realized this is true not only of that test but also of the rest of our lives. I can choose to blame my mother for the way she raised me, or I can choose to say the past is past, I will take responsiblity for my own actions from this point onward. I can choose to complain or I can choose to be positive. The choices might not be good, but we still have choices.

[RavenSong]

Kathy, your post reminded me of something I said once to my grandmother. She was telling me how when some land developer showed up on her porch one day, telling her that she had to sell her land and her house so they could develop the neighborhood, she took her shotgun and said the following words to him before telling him to get off her property. She said, "Buster, there are only two things I have to do in this life: pay taxes and die."

I pointed out to my grandmother that actually you only have to do one thing in this here life. And that is to one day lay down and die. We don't have any choice about that in the long run. But we don't have to pay our taxes...we can choose not to pay and instead go to jail.

P.S. When my grandma died, that fine woman who was the daughter of an olden-day Texas cattle rancher, her shotgun passed down to me. It sits proudly now in my living room. But I haven't had to use it to get the land developers off my property...yet. There are rumors going around, though, that the government wants to take our land here, build a new dam, and sink our hamlet under the reservoir. I imagine if that happens, there are going to be a lot of shotgun confrontations in my neighborhood, lol.

[Janeytwo]

Hey guys!

Kathy

if I did everything else perfectly I could still pass the course. The aha moment for me was that I realized this is true not only of that test but also of the rest of our lives.

LOL! Kathy - you're so right!! After I signed the relinquishment papers - after what happened outside the courthouse - I made this conscious decision to change but to change into something absolutely perfect!! Good grief!! Then God took pity on me and I married an active alcoholic. Truly, I've come to understand what a blessing my ex-husband's illness was in my life. Not that I wish it were so. Seeing what he suffered I would've gladly undone that for him if I could have. But it set me on the path to understanding that no matter how many windows I washed every week; no matter how sparkling the house was; no matter how well everything matched; still, I was in pain; still I had a past to deal with.

A past I lived in fear of. You know, I'm not so scared anymore. I have come a long way from both those places; from both gutters. I'm starting to understand that there's not just poverty in the street. That there's poverty in trying to be perfect if that perfection is really just a stab at erasing the truth of one's life.

I do have choice here. The choice to be humble - not bowing and scraping - but humble. I had forgotten that part of the lessons of the 12 Steps.

Raven I love your story about your grandma! I once worked freelance typing up Master Plans for City Planners and architects. I am remembering when a land developer decided to develop on one of the many small eco-systems up here. All they had to do was build a man-made water system for the Canadian Geese and surround it with vegetation and enclose it all in a cyclone fence. Then presto-change-everything-o! They plowed right over the natural system. All the people that lived behind it (the natural system) were livid because they'd been told by real estate salesmen that no one could every build behind them.

The only good thing I can see coming out of all of this horrific economic downturn is that those land developers have been stopped literrally in their tracks. I know on the one hand that's real bad because housing is vital to the economy - but on the other? Those fake ecosystems are ugly - plain and simple - no matter how many frigging Carpet rose plants you surround the fences with. (Sorry folks - didn't mean to get all political - just my opinion.)

Love you guys!

[quantum]

Ok, I've ordered a work out video tape.
I just know, I won't go out and jog, I won't go to the gym, I've stopped walking so much because I have more access to the car and it's COLD outside! So there ya go.

A big part of the inspiration for starting this program is reading the Artist's way and I really really want to do it!

[Jackiejdajda]

Janeytwo

I am remembering when it first dawned on me that my ex-husband's alcoholism was my personal journey and not his. This was a strange realization; because I had thought that recovery took two people when in point of fact it takes only one. Me.

From the AW.. Julia Cameron

Week 2 Recovering a sense of Identity
page 49

Skepticism

Now that we have talked about the barrier to recovery others can present, let us take a look at the inner enemy we harbor ourselves.
Perhaps the greatest barrier for any of us as we look for an expanded life is our own deeply held skepticism. This might be called the secret doubt. It does not seem to matter whether we are officially believers or agnostics. We have our doubts about all of this creator/creative stuff, and those doubts are very powerful. Unless we air them, they can sabotage us. Many times, in trying to be a good sport we stuff our feelings of doubt. We need to stop doing that and explore them instead.


(further down the page what I underlined and put a star next to)



When the universe gave him what he wanted, he gave the gift right back.


I wrote on the side .. We gave the gift back because of self doubt..

In some ways its easy to concentrate on the acting out person.. (the person that will not sort their lives and make us crazy.. aka crazymakers) it keeps us from actually looking at the gifts that are put in front of us throughout our lives..

next page..

Any little bit of experimenting in self nurturing is very frightening for most of us.

next paragraph..

I like to think of the mind as a room. In that room, we keep all of our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible and what’s not. The room has a door. That door is ever so slightly agar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out there. The ideas we are comfortable with are in the room with us. The other ideas are out, and we keep them out.


Its so much easier to concentrate on the ones that keep our attention..
My mom.. my mind would just go around and around about what she wanted from my creativity.. what she wanted me to paint or work on.. and I would re-act to her thinking.. I did not look at my own personal creative thinking.. what I wanted to paint..
And I think this applies to recovery.. we are afraid to walk through that door and we do sit at the first step table.. and complain and wonder why we are so unhappy.. because so and so did such and such to us..

I can remember John Bradshaw saying or writing.. that when he was looking for a new home someone suggested that he look at a condominium apartment.. he said he did not in any way shape or form want to live in an apartment.. but he looked.. he looked at them..

Some of us humans are afraid of our own decision making abilities.. afraid of our own self.. afraid to be alone..
We think we need people in order to be someone.. and in turn we are no one because we do what the other wants or we follow the other in their acting out.. like the alcoholic that has a drink instead of sorting life’s issues..


Jackie