Oops, I Did It Again…

The past two weeks have been insane.  I’ve had an excessive amount of job deadlines, schedule changes, and transitions.  I am changing jobs.  I am now unemployed and am starting a new (and exciting) part-time career this Fall.  My children were ending school as well and there was just a lot of prep work done for this summer.

I tried very hard to live in the present and not allow myself to be overwhelmed or stressed.  I was running lists and lists of escapes in my head: wine, a joint, Manny (former affair partner), go comment crazy on Reddit, etc…  I managed to do without them.  It all worked very well…until the very last day of work.  I finally crossed that finish line, exhausted.  But do you know the first thing I did when I got home?  I contacted my ex-boyfriend, Fredek (not real name).

Ugh, yep.  He was one of those escapes I was thinking of during the past two weeks and the reasoning was, ‘well I’ve been thinking of him, might as well contact him.’  He was my very first boyfriend and virginity-taker.  We’ve kept in touch sporadically (and platonically) over the past year.

So we Skyped and he acted on me like a drug.  This time was different from our past communications because it was not so platonic.  There was a lot of indirect sexual tension.  I was HIGH (objective achieved, right?).  I felt like teenager again.

Well with every high, there is a low and today, I am low.  I am having a difficult time staying present because my mind wanders off to reminisce about our past relationship.

As I reflect deeper on my actions, without shaming myself, I realize that I have a deep fear of entering the unknown.  My whole life is dramatically changing.  When I have fears, I want to run away (escape).

I have no interest in starting up an affair with Fredek.  Had this happened 3-4 years ago, I probably would.  I didn’t have the recovery tools I have today.  This was purely my fear of change and who I am becoming.  Now that I am not working, I have an abundance of free time to surrender to my feelings and allow for intense change.

I want to learn how to relinquish those fears and live fully in the present.  I don’t want to spend the summer thinking about another man, that’s bullshit.    I need to experience me, alone, and allow myself to feel all my feelings, even the painful ones.  That is a priority this summer. Sigh.

Oh, I am doing a 30 day no-contact with Fredek just to give myself some time to come down from the attachment to him and reflect.

Thank you for listening.

~Birdie

Try the 30-Day No Contact Rule

There are times when I have difficulty making a decision.   As a result, my anxiety rises which makes it more difficult to make a decision.  Example decisions like: should I contact my -ex?  Should I tell my mother my feelings about our relationship?  I’ve been sober for x months, is it okay for me to smoke that joint? When I feel like punching my head because I cannot make a decision, I implement the 30-day no contact rule.

The 30-day no contact rule was originally designed for people who end a toxic relationship and want to get their e-x back.  It’s supposed to be a time of growth and reflection outside of the relationship before making the decision to get back into the relationship.  At the end of the 30 days people either choose to pursue the ex- or move on.

I initially used the 30-day no contact rule the first time I wanted to step back from my affair with Manny.  It was very helpful because I became aware of my dysfunctional patterns.  For example, I realized I wanted to call him every time my husband and I had a fight.   I’ve used the 30-day no contact rule many times over the past year to distance myself from Manny and have used many variations, for example, 90 days of no-contact.

What I realized is that the 30-day no contact rule is similar to the concept of letting go.  When I am trying to make a huge decision and cannot come up with an immediate solution – I circle a date on my calendar 30 days from now, I let it go and don’t pressure myself to think of a solution until then.  Sometimes the answer comes to me before the 30 days is up, sometimes it doesn’t and I extend it another 30 days.

The best part about the 30-day no contact rule is it relieves my anxiety and obsessive behavior.  Anxiety and obsession destroy my body and mind.  I feel cortisol running through me and I disassociate from the present.  As soon as I decide to let a decision go and revisit it in 30 days, immediate calm washes over me.

Describe a situation you feel the 30-day no contact rule may work.  Please correspond with me below!

Vacation = Recovery on the Road (Literally)

I just…got…home…from…vacation…with my husband….and two children.  I am physically and mentally exhausted.

Initially, vacation sounds like a getaway to relax and have fun.  At least, that’s what I envisioned before we left home.  But, when were arrived at our destination, I was quickly reminded what vacation is really about: spending a significantly increased amount of time with loved ones, living in significantly reduced square-footage living space with loved ones, and significantly increasing communication in order to logically plan time in a foreign town.  A lot of significance takes place.

Pre-recovery, I dreaded going on vacation with my husband because we inter-react the majority of the time.  That is, we react to each other out of our dysfunctional childhood wounds.  We were two codependent peas in a pod.

This particular vacation, I was optimistic because (a) I am aware of what dysfunctional codependent behavior is and (b) I have a few months of deep recovery work behind me.  I packed up my recovery toolbox and was ready to go.

Once the vacation began, problem after problem after problem, trigger after trigger after trigger occurred…on an hourly basis.  My husband struggled to have peace, to be in the moment, to see himself clearly.  Rightfully so.  That’s where he is in his life right now.

In addition, his ego was horrifying to watch.  He can be inhumane and operate on a very low frequency of consciousness.  It these was really hard to counter those instances with unconditional love and boundary setting.  But I did.  I got the courage to do so because I had a strong strong STRONG desire to eliminate the behavior from our relationship… once and for all.

The solutions were not without challenges.   There were times when I wanted to kick and scream right back at him.  Sometimes my husband was feeling angry for hours, refused to communicate, and/or did not participate in parenting.  It was difficult for me to think of healthy reactions as fast as they were required, handle the triggers and wounds within myself, AND simultaneously parent two small children who just wanted to have fun.

For every problem and trigger, Husband and I eventually discussed it and came up with a solution.  I really made a conscious effort to act in a Godlike, unconditionally loving way.  This not only helped my relationship with Husband, but every time I acted out of love, it dissolved negative energy and grief within me.  If I had not been in my codependency recovery, I am not certain that my husband and I would EVER come up with a solution or apologize to each other.  We would probably sweep everything under the rug and let it fester within.  What has occurred, what is occurring, regardless of the negative we are experiencing, is huge positive growth for our relationship.

During these negative instances, I felt fear for the future of our relationship.  How could I possibly sustain a relationship like this?  It’s unattractive.  Then I remembered things (a) these are only a snapshot of our relationship and don’t represent the overall growth that I may see months from now, (b) fear is the polar opposite of love, (c) I will try infinite patience as God did with me during those times I acted like a complete egotistical ass.  God has a plan for the future of our relationship and I cannot control it.   I can only control myself and I also have choices.

I read somewhere that when you interact with someone with a higher consciousness than yourself, you do one of two things: you either work to meet them at their level, or you reject them.  My husband is somewhere in between.  One minute, he rejects and ridicules my spirituality, the next, he talks about the spiritual work he intends to do.  He has definitely taken some action in the past few months.  I know that this is just the beginning for him.  As for me, I have to continue to focus on my path and what is meant for me.  I am listening to God, and putting my faith into this Divine plan of goodness for me.

In retrospect, the vacation was like an intense recovery midterm exam.  Everything I learned was put to the test.  For every dysfunctional moment that arose, I fished through my recovery toolbox and retrieved a healthy reaction.   This reminds me of a small passage from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho:

Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way.  It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream.  That’s the point at which most people give up.  It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.

I didn’t die of thirst.  My recovery was tested, and I passed.  Thank you Higher Power, I am grateful I mastered the lesson and moved closer to my dreams.   I feel incredibly proud and loving of myself right now.  It was an enlightening experience and my kids had fun.  Amen.

~Birdie

Anyone else have extreme and unusual challenges against their sobriety or recovery?  Please share below!

My Childhood Home…Rather, My Perception of Love

My Childhood Home My Perception of Love

• I felt lonely.  I was an only child and my single mother was either working or holed up in her bedroom.
• I felt abandoned.  Especially by my father because he had no involvement in my upbringing.
• I felt neglected.  Often times and a young age, I would have to make my own dinner, do my own laundry, etc.  Basically, I was in charge of my own survival in the home.
• Long periods of emotional withdrawal followed by short periods of affection and love.  For example, my mom wouldn’t cook meals for months and then she would buy some cookbook, get her fires burning, and make me the most delicious meals every single day for a week, then cease.  I would have to return to my own survival cooking.  Or, she would be in her room for days, then come downstairs to our main living areas, give me hugs and kisses and tell me how much she loved me, maybe she would order a pizza and we would watch TV together, followed by her retreating back to her room for more days.
• I was the master of escaping and disassociation. My escaping of choice was fantasizing a different life or how I wanted my life to be.  My mom would encourage this by involving me in her fantasies.  She took me to open houses and described where we would put all of our furniture and where my room would be and I would be so excited.  I was way to young to understand we were not purchasing the home.  Time after time, I would find out through my own questioning that we were not moving to that home.  That was a painful feeling…to feel excited about a new life and then to find out it was just window shopping.
• My emotions or problems were “shut down.”  When I brought up a problem, like: “Hey Mom, don’t you think it’s kind of fucked up that you don’t make me dinner, or require me to bathe, and I’m 10 years old?”  To which she may reply, “At least we have food in the fridge” or “you’re big enough to take your own bath.”
• I was emotionally abused.  My normal age-appropriate emotions of fear were met with my mother’s inner child inappropriate reactions such as yelling back, silent treatment, “revenge” (well you did this to me so I’m going to do this back to you).
• I learned how to have a victim mentality.  I learned that I did not create my own life, that life would happen to me.  If my mom was fired from her job, which she frequently was, she would blame it on someone else. Her boyfriend broke up with her, it was his fault.  If the bank charged her some required fee, how dare they?, etc.
• I had a complete lack of self-care.  My mother did not shower or bathe everyday and neither did I.  We ate junk food.  We watched television for hours.  There was no structure.  I had no curfew.  Our home was disgusting and filthy.
• I was in a spiritually hostile environment.  I was told at a very young age that there was no God and no ONEness.  My mother practiced Buddhism and by the time I was old enough to participate in practices at our synagogue, she quit and never talked to me about it again.
• My mother and I had an emotionally incestuous relationship.  She looked to me to cheer her up, and to be her best friend, and to talk about her adult problems (especially finances) because she “had no one else to talk to.”
• I felt unworthy of love.  I always thought I was the cutest, most loveable girl, until I hit puberty and realized that my father had absolutely no interest in me.  It literally hit me like a ton of bricks one day in middle school.  One of my friends did not want to sit next to me in class and I thought of my father and just burst out into painful sobbing tears.  I had to be removed from class and a guidance counselor intervened.  It was the first time I felt truly lonely in the world.  What was so wrong with me that my own dad didn’t want me?  It was all my fault.  I wasn’t good enough for him.  Very painful memories.
• I felt shame.  My mother told me I was a bad person when I exhibited ‘bad’ behavior or had an opinion that didn’t match hers.
• My mother taught me that love was conditional and reciprocated.  The message was: I love you as long as you are following my rules and pleasing me.  Also, when I do something nice for you, you owe me.

So all of those qualities that are in bold are what occurred and I learned in my childhood home and what I perceived to be love.  With that mentality, I manifested “love” relationships that mirrored those qualities and made me feel as if I was ‘home.’  It is with awareness and recovery that I realized I have the ability to change my perception of love.  In fact, I believe it is one of my great life lessons.  I believe in my heart that my soul conspired to enter my body as me because my child body would feel the pain of not being loved by two dysfunctional parents.  As a result, I would strongly desire it  and eventually come to awareness of ONENESS (my spiritual recovery) so that I could work toward and achieve the unconditional love I desired.  If you look up the definition of ‘duality,’ which is a universal law, it is an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something.  I can desire or achieve or experience unconditional love because I experienced the opposite.

I was led to complete this activity because it was suggested in a video made by Teal Swan as a way to figure out why we attract certain relationships.

Thank you for listening,

~Birdie

What did you learn in your childhood home that has mirrored in your relationships?  Please reply in the comments section!

Codependency, Marijuana, and Love

I had the idea of renaming my blog “Codependency, Marijuana (or Mary Jane), and Love” because those are the three key words that describe the issues that lay deepest within me.  I am, by nurture, a codependent.  My biggest issue, numero uno, is love… which descends from the love given by Parent A – the single female caregiver and martyr of life and Parent B – an unavailable male caregiver, double winner, drug/addict, sprinkled with alcoholism.   I used marijuana not only as a tool of higher consciousness, but as a tool of escaping from my pain.  I was abusing it.  To twist that knot of dysfunction a little tighter, I was having an affair with a my pot dealer.

Currently  in recovery, I am going through so many changes and revelations.  I am having memories of the past, I am new to sobriety, relationships are changing, I’m changing, I’m having crazy dreams that get me thinking of things I haven’t thought about in years, I am having crazy schedule changes at my job due to the snow, I am confused, I don’t know my life’s purpose, I don’t know what I want to do creatively.  These factors are producing high cortisol levels in my body.

And then, I am having the hardest time just sitting with my feelings and living in the moment.  I seem to want to escape by any means necessary.  I want to get busy, I want to watch TV, I want to smoke weed, I want to eat something sugary, I want to eat something salty, I want a glass of wine, I want to sleep, I want to play an addicting game, I want to yap my mouth.  Sigh, I know deep down inside (my Truth) that if I want to be the person I envision myself to be, I have to continue the deep practice of recovery.

So yeah, I am in recovery.  This is the hardest and most rewarding task I have ever done in my entire life.

Thank you for listening.

~Birdie

What are you having difficulty with, today?  Please reply below.

Intuition Fruition

I recently made a big decision (with support from Husband) about what to do with my life. Starting in late 2015, God-willing, I will be working part-time instead of full-time.  The following is a list of reasons why:

• More time to develop and strengthen my relationship with Mother Energy / God / my Higher Power / Source Energy.
• More time for inner child work, recovery. and self-care.
• I will have more time to spend with my children.  With my current work situation, I am physically available for them, but not emotionally or spiritually.  I need time to teach my children…public school is not enough.
• I will have time to tend to my house.  My goal for the next 18-months is to clean up the clutter, chaos, and negative thoughts in my house.
• My workload will be cut in half.  No more working at night after my children go to bed and no more working on weekends.
• I can pursue my life’s purpose or Personal Legend.
• I can develop my creative passions.

I feel so blessed that my family is financially able to do this.  Of course, we will be making financial sacrifices in order for this to occur.  It’s also just for one year.  I can always go back to full-time work if it doesn’t work out.  This is all so scary and exciting at the same time.  Fear of the unknown and worry is one thing I am working on in recovery.  I am trying to listen to my intuition and for the past two years, my intuition has been telling me to work part-time for the reasons listed above.  I know I am being guided by my Higher Power and I’m nervous where it is taking me but I gotta TRUST.

Thank you for listening,

~Birdie

What is your intuition telling you, right now?  Please leave a reply.