Authenticity IV
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia
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Amends. Oh dear. Not my best subject - in terms of 'just doing it' (the practicum, if you will). I can't even begin to go there here, just now. But, I will say that everything said on the topic here resonates with me in one form or another. Venecia's and haennie's and Della's encapsulate a lot of what my struggle with amends has been.
So much so, I'd constructed a narrative in myself over the past few years, the past two especially, which was so fraught with all those ethical and personal dilemmas and my own fears that I'd come to believe that I had 'failed' thus far in this potentially freeing step.
Thus, I was immediately reminded of Robby's recurring notions for his own life of 'success / failure'. Whilst browsing around this morning on my subscription to a great Buddhist review, Tricycle, among many other things I wanted to share here - I found Pema Chodron on 'failure'. Like much of her work, typically short but informed by a lifetime of struggle and deep inner practice. How to Fail | Tricycle
A timely reminder for me, helping me to back off a little from my own self-torture that this amends business has sometimes brought up. It's very hard to 'just know' when the 'right time' will be - if, at all, with some people. And of course, many are dead or simply completely gone from our lives.
So much so, I'd constructed a narrative in myself over the past few years, the past two especially, which was so fraught with all those ethical and personal dilemmas and my own fears that I'd come to believe that I had 'failed' thus far in this potentially freeing step.
Thus, I was immediately reminded of Robby's recurring notions for his own life of 'success / failure'. Whilst browsing around this morning on my subscription to a great Buddhist review, Tricycle, among many other things I wanted to share here - I found Pema Chodron on 'failure'. Like much of her work, typically short but informed by a lifetime of struggle and deep inner practice. How to Fail | Tricycle
A timely reminder for me, helping me to back off a little from my own self-torture that this amends business has sometimes brought up. It's very hard to 'just know' when the 'right time' will be - if, at all, with some people. And of course, many are dead or simply completely gone from our lives.
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Whoops - when I said 'notions' per Robby's use of success / failure, that might sound more flippant / lightweight than I meant it - and than RR tends to use the terms. Perhaps 'tropes' / 'themes' is better. Anyway, just my word pedantry :-)
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BTW - entirely forgot to wish you the best, Robby, with damn Pumpernickel's problems. Hopefully a sort of symbolic moment for it and you, summing up the nuisances of such things as you spoke of earlier.
I did have to laugh out loud though, when you said '{oh well} a quick trip to ER should suffice' - like most of us would say 'just popping down the shop for some milk, dear'. You're such a cacker!
I did have to laugh out loud though, when you said '{oh well} a quick trip to ER should suffice' - like most of us would say 'just popping down the shop for some milk, dear'. You're such a cacker!
...holds the key
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Texas
Posts: 7,065
I had a whole post about amends which got deleted and I'm too tired to write it again. I do what I can to make my amends....say I'm sorry, right a wrong, whatever it may be.....quickly now. I learned the hard way the price of needing to make amends to someone who has already passed. My husband died very unexpectedly while we were separated and I was a ridiculous rebellious drunk. He was in his early thirties. The guilt I live with every day is sometimes unbearable. I never want to experience that again.
p***enger
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: NYC
Posts: 19,044
Hi Rob. Hanging in there. Can't contribute on the whole amends discussion. What's going on with me something to do with amends and something to do with digging up something long buried -- is it dead, is it treasure, what the hell I don't know. My husband dreamed last night I was pregnant. Whatever. I'm just going to shut up about the process and sit back for the new part of the ride.
Depending on how long this lasts, I might not often have much cogent to offer here. I'll probably come by once or twice a day with a hello, and anything else I happen to notice that might be refreshing to you. I **will** often be thinking of you & Melissa.
xxoo
Depending on how long this lasts, I might not often have much cogent to offer here. I'll probably come by once or twice a day with a hello, and anything else I happen to notice that might be refreshing to you. I **will** often be thinking of you & Melissa.
xxoo
Adventures In SpaceTime
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Originally Posted by courage2 
Hi Rob. Hanging in there. Can't contribute on the whole amends discussion. What's going on with me something to do with amends and something to do with digging up something long buried -- is it dead, is it treasure, what the hell I don't know. My husband dreamed last night I was pregnant. Whatever. I'm just going to shut up about the process and sit back for the new part of the ride.
Depending on how long this lasts, I might not often have much cogent to offer here. I'll probably come by once or twice a day with a hello, and anything else I happen to notice that might be refreshing to you. I **will** often be thinking of you & Melissa.
xxoo
Depending on how long this lasts, I might not often have much cogent to offer here. I'll probably come by once or twice a day with a hello, and anything else I happen to notice that might be refreshing to you. I **will** often be thinking of you & Melissa.
xxoo
For me amends must include a measure of responsibility to not just be sorry or regretful, but some measure of restoration, if possible, makes good sense to me. Mostly I make good use of practicing what is often coined as "living amends" ie when its not really workable to make good with the actual persons I have done wrong with, or done wrong to those same individuals. So I make real effort to help others so as to practice my living amends. I've been , and continue to be successful with this practice.
(((courage)))
I easily identify and have empathy for your present struggles with discernments of what is long dead and what is treasure . Personally, I suggest you don't force the issue by digging up whatever. You know, we bury certain experiences for good reasons too. Its not always a negative to leave things buried. Yeah, sobriety is a whole other way of living, and so care is advised when we start to unravel our backstory. Like I said earlier, its wise to have paths back to real positives which are inherent in our past too.
Please feel free to not contribute to whatever seems to be the "main conversation" presently happening in the thread. We are quite capable of having mixed discussions of whatever all at the same time.
Its important to me contributors don't feel intimidated by some of the seriousness of the discussions which happen. Everybody has their own style of sharing. Simplistic shares are not better or worse than those which are complicated or otherwise "deep" and vice-a versa too.
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Location: Atlanta
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((Courage)) - You are a valuable member of this "team" and whatever you are going through, we are here for you.
Amends, hmmm. Most of mine have been living amends. As first a major codie with A bf's, then an A who used to deal with the active A, I learned that words don't mean much (JMO). I need to see action.
I said "I'm sorry, I won't do it again" more times than I can count. When I finally began regaining trust from my loved ones, it was when I put action behind my words.
There are people I can no longer make amends to. They are no longer alive. What I do is make the most out of every day, walk the walk, and pray that they know I'm so sorry for the wrongs that I did.
I never got through all the 12 steps of AA, though I know them and do my best to work them on a daily basis. To me, that's the best I can do and it's okay.
Robby and Melissa - Keeping you and the cats in my prayers. I'm dealing with a "moderate migraine" for now the 8th day, but when I think of what you are going through, I'm humbled and inspired by what you are dealing with as well as many of us on Team Robby and Melissa.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
Amends, hmmm. Most of mine have been living amends. As first a major codie with A bf's, then an A who used to deal with the active A, I learned that words don't mean much (JMO). I need to see action.
I said "I'm sorry, I won't do it again" more times than I can count. When I finally began regaining trust from my loved ones, it was when I put action behind my words.
There are people I can no longer make amends to. They are no longer alive. What I do is make the most out of every day, walk the walk, and pray that they know I'm so sorry for the wrongs that I did.
I never got through all the 12 steps of AA, though I know them and do my best to work them on a daily basis. To me, that's the best I can do and it's okay.
Robby and Melissa - Keeping you and the cats in my prayers. I'm dealing with a "moderate migraine" for now the 8th day, but when I think of what you are going through, I'm humbled and inspired by what you are dealing with as well as many of us on Team Robby and Melissa.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
Adventures In SpaceTime
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Join Date: Jun 2008
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Originally Posted by brynn
I had a whole post about amends which got deleted and I'm too tired to write it again. I do what I can to make my amends....say I'm sorry, right a wrong, whatever it may be.....quickly now. I learned the hard way the price of needing to make amends to someone who has already passed. My husband died very unexpectedly while we were separated and I was a ridiculous rebellious drunk. He was in his early thirties. The guilt I live with every day is sometimes unbearable. I never want to experience that again.
Guilt is all about an actual wrongness having been done. For example, guilt is NOT about not being there for someone in a time of need. Neither is guilt about being causation of someone tripping up because one refused to be available. Not being there for someone -- feelings, thoughts, actions taken or not taken, and so on and whatever -- this is much more about how responsibility plays out, and about being indifferent with respect to those responsibilities at such times. There is much to be truly processed, and trying to process guilt along with all that, in my experience, only makes things worse, not better.
I don't agree much with those who subscribe to the process that guilt is really just about feeling bad and/or thinking bad relative to whatever happened (or didn't happen). Guilt is experienced as a judgment, existing thereafter as a resultant which is weighed by the consequences for being wrong. These consequences allow us to make right somehow what has already happened. It is useless to consistently remain in a state of guilt. Guilt has no ongoing inherent process to sustain itself. Guilt is a one time event at best. For me anyways, sustained experiences of guilt, played out time and time again, are more about resentments, justifications, selfishness, self-centeredness, and so on.
I don't play much with what I may or may not be guilty of with respective to my past experiences. Too much effort is required. A lot easier to just accept guilt for whatever happened which proves my guilt, and then move on and process my actual obligations and responsibilities to that same guilt.
Adventures In SpaceTime
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Originally Posted by Venecia
Lily Tomlin once wrote that “forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” Her observation helps some, but in all honesty, forgiveness has eluded me. Maybe if I was a better person. There's that voice again. I try not to think about it much anymore. In altruistic moments, I do hope my onetime friend will someday achieve sobriety and recovery, will someday live in the solution.
It took me the better part of a year to simply believe it when I told myself "the past is the past, what's done is done." That is about as close as I can come to any resolution. I've grown to accept that the lies, then the silence, occurred, but that they don't define me or my future. The wounds are mostly closed. Still, my ability to trust others -- or my own judgement -- is eroded. Not irreparably, I hope.
While I'm a frequent flyer on SR, it's hard for me to share a lot about myself, the stuff rooted deep inside. It helps; I appreciate that, as I do the previous posts on this topic.
But the scar tissue is still there, and I have to live with that, too. And I've had to accept that there is very little, if any, likelihood that I'll ever hear the words that would help considerably: "I am sorry."
It took me the better part of a year to simply believe it when I told myself "the past is the past, what's done is done." That is about as close as I can come to any resolution. I've grown to accept that the lies, then the silence, occurred, but that they don't define me or my future. The wounds are mostly closed. Still, my ability to trust others -- or my own judgement -- is eroded. Not irreparably, I hope.
While I'm a frequent flyer on SR, it's hard for me to share a lot about myself, the stuff rooted deep inside. It helps; I appreciate that, as I do the previous posts on this topic.
But the scar tissue is still there, and I have to live with that, too. And I've had to accept that there is very little, if any, likelihood that I'll ever hear the words that would help considerably: "I am sorry."
Adventures In SpaceTime
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Originally Posted by RobbyRobot
These consequences allow us to make right somehow what has already happened. It is useless to consistently remain in a state of guilt.
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Some excellent discussion here, and reading this thread every day enriches my life, thank you all ❤️
I have only positive experience of making amends, they allowed me to have a relationship with my parents out of nowhere and somewhere along the line I learned to forgive. I honestly never thought that was possible.
Courage...I do not know of your personal situation, but I embarked on therapy when I was perhaps a year sober. I had some very deep wounds and stuff I had hidden from everyone. There was part of me that wanted to be rid of the baggage, but I was also very afraid of 'stirring up a hornets nest.' It was a journey, sometimes enlightening, frequently painful, but absolutely necessary for me. I drank all my life to forget my childhood trauma, and by facing it it meant I never had to drink over it again. I hope and wish the same for you. We are all here to support you ❤️
Rob, I hope you can get your problems with the PICC line sorted, and I wish you and Melissa a relaxing peaceful weekend.
Love to you all �� xxx
I have only positive experience of making amends, they allowed me to have a relationship with my parents out of nowhere and somewhere along the line I learned to forgive. I honestly never thought that was possible.
Courage...I do not know of your personal situation, but I embarked on therapy when I was perhaps a year sober. I had some very deep wounds and stuff I had hidden from everyone. There was part of me that wanted to be rid of the baggage, but I was also very afraid of 'stirring up a hornets nest.' It was a journey, sometimes enlightening, frequently painful, but absolutely necessary for me. I drank all my life to forget my childhood trauma, and by facing it it meant I never had to drink over it again. I hope and wish the same for you. We are all here to support you ❤️
Rob, I hope you can get your problems with the PICC line sorted, and I wish you and Melissa a relaxing peaceful weekend.
Love to you all �� xxx
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia
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Truly beautiful and heartfelt stuff, all of this. One of the best parts, for me, is that even once we move on from discussions about x or y (and amends only the most recent), we can go back to peruse and ponder at any time. Absolute gold.
And, on R's reminder about the ok-ness (is that a word?) of not-delving deep into stuff we don't wish or feel able to right now....in an earlier post I'd written, but then lost in the writing, (you know, how we do online), a small note to Wolfie. Namely, that I love Wolfie's brevity....and pictures. (His?) current one of Pooh and Piglet, wandering along, deep in conversation, just breaks my heart in so many ways.
Off back to my binge of watching the original British 'House of Cards' trilogy - now I have Netflix. Swore I'd never descend to such things, but hey, now it's part of a quite affordable package through my ISP....why not? And it's winter. A bit of indoor fun.
Love to all, and all shall be well for all (more or less).
xx
Vic
And, on R's reminder about the ok-ness (is that a word?) of not-delving deep into stuff we don't wish or feel able to right now....in an earlier post I'd written, but then lost in the writing, (you know, how we do online), a small note to Wolfie. Namely, that I love Wolfie's brevity....and pictures. (His?) current one of Pooh and Piglet, wandering along, deep in conversation, just breaks my heart in so many ways.
Off back to my binge of watching the original British 'House of Cards' trilogy - now I have Netflix. Swore I'd never descend to such things, but hey, now it's part of a quite affordable package through my ISP....why not? And it's winter. A bit of indoor fun.
Love to all, and all shall be well for all (more or less).
xx
Vic
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Posts: 1,202
And, yes, yes, yes....I will get to the US 'House of Cards' series too. Love Kevin Spacey, and know a bit about US politics to be able to interpret it. Only caught a few bits of it when it was on free-to-air here a while ago, and it clashed with various other things. The original though is more deeply Shakespearean. Just my taste, is all.
x V
x V
Marchia in Aeternum
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Originally Posted by RobbyRobot
Simplistic shares are not better or worse than those which are complicated or otherwise "deep" and vice-a versa too.
Good Mornin'!
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Good morning, everyone
Robby, I want to say special thank you for creating these threads and letting us share across such a wide variety of topics... Don't know how others feel, but for me these contributions and interactions are far more than simply support, it's pretty multidimensional and amazingly therapeutic, some themes more than others, but generally I get a ton of good out of these threads for myself. Thanks so much for being here, everyone. Just remembered to express this because the more recent discussion on the amends has been one of those topics for me that has deep significance, and something I've struggled with... very good to read all the different view points and experiences. And for me in particular, talking about the details of my case and then reading other stories has been very helpful already in a practical way -- I think I've just finally managed to make a series of decisions on how to handle the situations I spoke of yesterday... and I think they will be good ones. I'm always amazed at how fast these personal shares and discussions have an effect on me Thanks for creating it, dear friends.
Courage, I am very sorry that you are having a hard time digging up some old stuff. I agree with your stance and with what Robby said: if you don't feel ready to talk about the subject (here or anywhere), then don't. I'm generally very much into digging in the mind and past-present whatever, but I firmly believe there is right time and context for all that work.
Brynn, I also hear you. I had a few of those losses in my life that I never dealt properly with, or to be more precise, I dealt with them by "moving on" and displacing or suppressing the feelings. I personally don't mind revisiting these things at this stage of my life at all and I think this will be beneficial for me in the long run, but it's not like we have to. What I said above for courage about time and context. And for some past things, there is simply never good time and context, and it's best to leave them alone. Like Robby said, there is good reason behind the fact that we bury some things in our minds.
Another reason why the recent discussion has been so interesting to me is, once again, is to see all the different individual approaches, feelings, the variety. All the personal, authentic reactions and dealings with our lives. I also believe that things like guilt or remorse feel differently for different people from within, and so is hard to come up with one universal definition or process that all of us are "supposed to" experience as a result of past wrongs and making amends also. I believe these are all very individual, intimate processes and so while it can be discussed and some of us may benefit from guidance, there is probably just no one right way of doing and experiencing these.
Okay I don't want to expand the topic further, just wanted to say these few things as a response showing how meaningful these last few pages have been for me.
I'm a bit relieved for the week as I've finished a large chunk of work and just submitted... so will try to relax a bit more. Will go visit my dad in the hospital now. We may have found a reasonable solution for his longer term care but it's still uncertain; I will probably talk about it a bit on my thread next week.
Robby & Melissa, I hope you have a pleasant weekend together, with a little sunshine here and there
Robby, I want to say special thank you for creating these threads and letting us share across such a wide variety of topics... Don't know how others feel, but for me these contributions and interactions are far more than simply support, it's pretty multidimensional and amazingly therapeutic, some themes more than others, but generally I get a ton of good out of these threads for myself. Thanks so much for being here, everyone. Just remembered to express this because the more recent discussion on the amends has been one of those topics for me that has deep significance, and something I've struggled with... very good to read all the different view points and experiences. And for me in particular, talking about the details of my case and then reading other stories has been very helpful already in a practical way -- I think I've just finally managed to make a series of decisions on how to handle the situations I spoke of yesterday... and I think they will be good ones. I'm always amazed at how fast these personal shares and discussions have an effect on me
Thanks for creating it, dear friends.Courage, I am very sorry that you are having a hard time digging up some old stuff. I agree with your stance and with what Robby said: if you don't feel ready to talk about the subject (here or anywhere), then don't. I'm generally very much into digging in the mind and past-present whatever, but I firmly believe there is right time and context for all that work.
Brynn, I also hear you. I had a few of those losses in my life that I never dealt properly with, or to be more precise, I dealt with them by "moving on" and displacing or suppressing the feelings. I personally don't mind revisiting these things at this stage of my life at all and I think this will be beneficial for me in the long run, but it's not like we have to. What I said above for courage about time and context. And for some past things, there is simply never good time and context, and it's best to leave them alone. Like Robby said, there is good reason behind the fact that we bury some things in our minds.
Another reason why the recent discussion has been so interesting to me is, once again, is to see all the different individual approaches, feelings, the variety. All the personal, authentic reactions and dealings with our lives. I also believe that things like guilt or remorse feel differently for different people from within, and so is hard to come up with one universal definition or process that all of us are "supposed to" experience as a result of past wrongs and making amends also. I believe these are all very individual, intimate processes and so while it can be discussed and some of us may benefit from guidance, there is probably just no one right way of doing and experiencing these.
Okay I don't want to expand the topic further, just wanted to say these few things as a response showing how meaningful these last few pages have been for me.
I'm a bit relieved for the week as I've finished a large chunk of work and just submitted... so will try to relax a bit more. Will go visit my dad in the hospital now. We may have found a reasonable solution for his longer term care but it's still uncertain; I will probably talk about it a bit on my thread next week.
Robby & Melissa, I hope you have a pleasant weekend together, with a little sunshine here and there
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