legna

A week or so ago I began a thread asking "Why me?" Why had I recovered from addiction when so many do not? More importantly perhaps, what did I do differently? I just came back from a couple of days of camping, reflection and rejuvenation on our reservation and while there, found at least part of my answer.

I don't often try to introduce words that others are unfamiliar with but I can't find an equally good way to explain and so; in my culture, we refer to an event that is positive and uplifting as 'good medicine'. But there is a stage beyond that called an 'omen'. An omen is good medicine that is so powerful that it changes the way you see the world forever. Here were the three omens in my recovery journey:

First, I discovered the principle of no-contact. Shortly thereafter, I went no-contact with my alcoholic, abusive mother. Without her constant reinforcing of my negative self-image, her abusive language and hate-filled rants, I was able to heal. I sincerely believe that I would not have recovered with her poison filling my mind. I see so many addicts with their version of my mother somewhere in their past that they continue to invite into their present to shape their future.

I realize here that often the shoe is on the other foot, but the addicts disease affects the entire family and by going no-contact, perhaps the family can find healing. It is not always the right time to go no contact, but when all the interventions and pleading that can be done are - perhaps you might find the same freedom and hope that I did.

Second omen: I found that I had so much wreckage in my childhood and sought a way to address it. My sponsor, who is also Native American, gave me a stuffed baby mountain lion as a gift when I went away to college. The significance was that the mountain lion is my spirit animal. The baby... that was me. I'll cut and paste here for convenience:

I found that I was unconsciously reacting to life via my childhood programming. I was feeling powerless many times as an adult when in fact, I was not. I felt rage over being ignored...not because I was being ignored at the customer service counter today but because of the 672,492 times I had felt ignored as a child and the anger simply piggybacked onto this customer service person. Okay, said that better this time.

So I decided to talk to that child and see if I couldn't work something out somehow. Maybe I could help him out. So, I made a commitment to spend the last fifteen minutes of each day for the next thirty days talking to this part of me that had been injured and ignored for decades. I further decided I would utilize the stuffed animal as something tangible to project towards. I mean...the mountain lion is my spirit animal in my tradition...this is a baby or child mountain lion...seemed perfect.

Yup...so here I was on the thirtieth day in my dorm room at college talking to this stuffed animal and feeling pretty silly about now because it doesn't talk back, hasn't talked back, can't talk back and I feel no closer to making a breakthru today than I have for the last 29 days of wasted fifteen minute periods. I tried to console myself with the idea that I had wasted 7.5 hours of my life on stupider things as I flicked the light to turn it off and go to sleep when it screamed. It was scared of the dark. Correction, she was scared of the dark.

I threw the light back on. All these memories and fears and terrors and ...I had forgotten so much stuff but the floodgates were open now. I don't know what to say here but this changed my life more dramatically than almost any single event in it.

Third omen: I am an atheist. I've studied nearly every religion and nothing was able to move me from this stance or help me to find a Higher Power which I was told repeatedly that I would need to continue my recovery. Then I ran into Huna which basically said that there was a higher, middle and lower self. Without delving too deep, Huna's explanation of the three selves was pretty much in keeping with idea's in psychology. So there was a match between competing (or apparently competing) ideas. Too, its beliefs closely resembled ideas present in my Native heritage. This isn't to say that I gravitated because of familiarity but only because of another match.

One of the ideas I found fascinating that was unique to Huna (in my studies to that point) was that the 'arrangement' of the selves wasn't how I would have expected it. It went:

Higher self
Lower self
Middle self

According to Huna philosophy, the middle self which is the ego, conscious mind or robot self could not have direct access to the higher self but needed to basically petition the lower self to bring whatever issue, thought, etc. to the higher self. It required the selves to work together.

I was okay with the idea of a higher self. The idea that one must come to the higher self as a child is an idea present in so many religions that I found myself nodding immediately. Plus, I had found a child recently through my stuffed mountain lion (who I still have by the way). And then there was me and the idea that we needed to work together.

When I couldn't solve a problem on intellect or drive alone, I would ask the child within for help. Sometimes she could simply add an emotional element and problem solved. Other times she would forward it to my higher self. What I found was that when I did not act in conflict with my other selves, the Universe started doing whatever Universes do to solve whatever dilemma I was having - and frequently, they were the stuff of miracles... and so, I found my higher power.