Womens meeting

[dragonlady]

Hi ladies! Sorry about missing the meeting, I had to work. I wish I could have been there, It's the main meeting I want to attend. I went back to jail today for what I thought was going to be the last time and found out we still have nine more checks coming in. So there will at least be one more trip to jail. The warrants we're waiting on will roll my charges over to a felony but thats cool. I sure hope I get to make the next meeting, I think I'm off that day. Thanx to all of you

[josezette]

Hi dragonlady..I'm Josezette and I'm new here. (I've been clean for a week). I'm sorry to hear about your legal woes. I am sending you warmth and sunshine. The meeting last night was inspirational to say the least. It's the first meeting of any kind I've attended. Even though it was online, it really helps to know there are others out there willing to share with you. I needed that. I look forward to the next one. I certainly hope to see you there! Keep your head up, the system can't keep you from shining through.

[bikewench]

Wow Dragon..

The warrants we're waiting on will roll my charges over to a felony but thats cool.

You sound so calm and accepting. Do you have the recipe for that? I'd like to whip up a batch.

I don't know what meeting you missed... but it was obviously important to you. I'm sure you were missed...

I have a hard... very hard time hanging with women.
I realize now why... but I still have this block up around it. At least I know why now though.
Anyway... I just need to connect ...
Trying to ground myself here.

Blessings on you... and your paper... ;o)

[Chy]

I'm glad your taking it all in stride, you sound very positive!

Bikewench, I so get that. It's taken a long time to finally let women in, starting with my sponsor. It's been a slow process, and I have much to work on with this issue, but I have faith it get's better. I guess it's one of those character defects about isolation huh?

[bubblze30]

Hi DL Sorry to hear about your recent trip. One day soon they will all be out of your way. I do hope you are keeping things on your recovery (a Paper trail). See having a paper signed in meetings or getting clean urines. Its always better to have proof. The judges know bad checks go hand and hand with addict behaviopr so if you show them you got help and continue to get help its all in your best interest. Just a sugestion. Glad you didn't have to stay in jail.

[KelKel]

Hi DL
We missed you at the meeting...
It was a good one...it is starting to fall together and I think we are on to something good and empowering.

Unfortunately I will be gone this next week and can't be there, but I am encouraging you all to meet and continue to talk about step-3.
Check the thread...

16-steps

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ad.php?t=35910 (16-Steps of Discovery and Empowerment)

and get caught up.

In fact my little journey this week was inspired by our last meeting and the commitment to find our authentic selves.

I will be thinking of you ladies while I work on re-connecting.

Big Hugs to you and hang in there....

[KelKel]

Here is a site of photos of the falls...

http://www.uoflife.com/hac/hava.htm

[bikewench]

Hey Chy...

About letting women in...

I have to be honest about this... because I keep wanting to keep all this to myself...

Women are much more intuitive about things... and I felt I needed to protect myself from that. What I took to be condemnation and judgmentalism in their eyes when I would make any comments... even in jest... around some of my behaviour.... was actually them senseing the truth... and then they'd top it off with being very vocal about their deductions.

Well.. that was hell on my denial and my sustaining my behaviors around some of my addcitions... as well as adding to my shame... so must be avoided at all cost..

Of course... I had no problem relating to them in complaining about others addictions and behaviours... just not any that I carried any personal shame around.

These last few days... I've been seeing my gender in a whole new light... and although there are still many characteristics of my gender that I don't like.. I know that many of them are from the workings of co-dependance in our culture.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone...
I really need that right now.

[KelKel]

I had a very hard time trusting women in general, my background certainly led me to think all women were not trustworthy.

About 14 yrs ago while at a Sundance in SD, I was told that there were no mixed sweats ( male & female) I was so freaked about getting into a sweat with a bunch of women who were not wild about the white ***** girl anyway...
it turned out to be one of the most powerful experiences of my life.. I feel
differently now.

I got this email from a friend and it is pretty amazing where we were and how far we have come...

Nomaste'

We recall that August 26th was the 84th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to our Constitution.


The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic".

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one leader, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels" It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

Al! l these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote?

All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did "seek to learn". The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again".

HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunko night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.

And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse.

Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.

[dragonlady]

Thanx everyone for replying! Nice to meet you Josezette and bikewench- and BW- one charge, fine and court costs is better than 30! Also I am NOT calm.
"ALL THE TIMES THAT I'VE CRIED
ALL THIS WASTED, IT'S ALL INSIDE
AND I FEEL, ALL THIS PAIN
I STUFFED IT DOWN, IT'S BACK AGAIN
AND I LIE, HERE IN BED
ALL ALONE, I CAN'T MEND
BUT I FEEL, TOMORROW WILL BE OKAY"

Outside by Staind

[KelKel]

DL
I am sending an angel your way...

[bikewench]

Hey Kel...

Thanks for the poke... ;o)

It actually brought up another point of contention I have relating to the female gender...

I see my gender ...in general... as victims and caretakers. This makes me not want to relate to them as well... cause it doesn't empower me... but I realize I need to broaden my horizons around what women really are in this world.

I need to find the honor again in being female...

[KelKel]

It really is all so complicated.....

But I wanted to share this little excerpt from Charlotte Kasl / 16-steps.

"In healing from addictions and emotional problems, we need to see how our dysfunctional culture lives in us, and perpetuates addiction and emotional problems. Then we need to take the negative voices out of our bodies, minds and spirits.

It is not surprising that in the 80's we gave a lot of attention to undertsanding addiction, abuse and incest in the context of "dysfunctional families." While it has been extremely helpful for people, it is a bit like examining a sick tree by looking at the leaves and not the roots. Families transmit the values of our hierarchal, patriarchal culture, which are the roots of our dysfunctional system.
(The dysfunction being measured by the amount of crime, battering, killing, abuse, incest, inequality, poverty, addiction, loneliness, discimination, depression, stress-realted illness and emotional problems, as opposed to economic indicators.)
Also, families can work very hard to impart good values and be sabotaged by social norms such as gangs, drugs, violence and poverty.

Empowerment is about naming and recognizing negative beliefs you have internalized, casting them out, moving toward your authentic self and learning to live as part of the whole web of life. This can be frightening because it means questioning and challenging the limiting cultural stereotypes you have internalized and then taking charge of your life. I have long believed that it is a radical political act to become a whole, empowered, joyful human being in our society."