A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Take What You Need & Leave The Rest

The title of this blog is an important 12 Step saying.  It’s a philosophy in itself and one that I try to live by.  That’s not always easy for me.  Sometimes I want to absorb everything and just accept it, but I never can do it.  There is no holy book for me and no holy person and no holy philosophy that I follow without question.  In every situation or book or with every person, there is always something that I disagree with or view differently.  This is a good thing; it means I’m trying to think for myself and not just mimic someone else.  As far as I can see, this is what we all need to do - decide for ourselves what rings true and what rings false using both our intelligence and our intuition.

I have found for now that I have a need to write these blog entries.  It’s my way of working through my ideas and feelings, following the process of my day to day life.  I know that I come on strong, but my heartfelt intention is to challenge whomever reads my writing to think in a new way by challenging some culturally held assumptions about how to see the world around us and ourselves and most especially about how to behave in society.  I’m not trying to convince you to believe what I believe, I’m trying to help you to think and feel more deeply about some serious topics that affect many of us on this planet.

We are all continuously in the flow of our lives, continually going through the process from one experience to the next.  We are works in progress until we die and after that, who knows?  As you work to heighten your awareness about yourself, you will begin to see what heals you and what hurts you.  Trust yourself during those times.  Listen and learn.  Don’t conform blindly.  Question others, question yourself.  You will learn what you need to learn if you are open to it when the time is right. Work with what you are ready to work with and let go of all that is not necessary to the work at hand. Keep it simple.