Where Are You Going? #211

Move #210

Through our personal experiences and memories that are funny things, each of us have defined and placed our values on items such as safety, fondness, “flipping out” and beauty as well as where we think those things can be found. As we walk along our trails, we move towards those who agree with those beliefs in order to have trust in what we see and feel. In a different truth, though, our field of view is limited by those connections and we stay in a place of comfortableness that doesn’t encourage transformation. Is it a real truth, then, that only certain observations hold value or is it that the restriction of that thought is the results of unfamiliar and outside insights that appear to be threatening? Do our beliefs become imaginary if others don’t consent to what we feel or is it that feeling unheard implies unworthy of being perceived of which leads to our needing to confirm our view? In the story of substance use, addicts, their family and friends and law enforcement as well as others are the participants in the particular hell of addiction. In other words, they are all together in the same narrative but each group has different details that they carry as a result of their positions and experiences on that circle. As individuals each view is valid in perception and as a whole as the parts of a designated group but what’s not there is the importance of valuing every illumination in the process of change versus only connecting with some of the observations that appear to be enough to facilitate a move. A few months ago I had the opportunity to speak with a retired police officer about how our different experiences with substance use had prevented us from being together even though we had jointly been in the same story and agreed on some of the parts of it. I am, of course, the mom of an addict that is no longer here and while I hated the substances, the fear, the pain and the cost that came into our lives, my view and actions always carried my love for Ryan. After all, I had years and years of a kind of life with him that was filled with all sorts of fabulous and fun times and those moments didn’t become imaginary nor did they lose value just because he fell or others disregarded him and were focused on only his weeds. Hope lived in those things found in the yesterdays, reminders of his possibilities, which encouraged me to keep trying despite the addiction that was destroying him and us. Every day I dreamed of going back to that place where safety, comfortableness and easiness lived and I believed that if we could just get there, everything would be all right. The real truth, though, was that we couldn’t go back because change had been enfolding us all along and no matter what we had wished for, every part , even the ones we didn’t want, were coming with us wherever we went. As exasperating and scary as it was to be dealing with my son while he was using substances to cope, law enforcement regularly encounters multiples of those individuals which increases their frustration to a level that I can only understand from the perspective of being overwhelmed by one. That knowledge has similarities in how each of us experiences parts of addiction and yet it is different because of the details of our connections with the individuals living it while also enfolding the chance to understand and validate who we each are in the narrative that we find ourselves together in. There were also days during that time that I didn’t want to deal with Ryan’s addiction, regardless of my fondness and hope for him, and if I pass this this way again I can imagine a place where that happens continuously for the officers whose ride in the chaos isn’t something they want to keep experiencing. It’s in those agreed upon feelings that we often will act in ways that are not in the best interest of anyone including ourselves. Vicky, who wrote the “Gray Lines” blog for us a while back, took several officers into her son’s room to show them the beloved person that he had been and still is in his family’s life despite his addiction and death from an over-dose. She did so to move those officers from a view that appeared to justify disregarding an addict’s life even if that had not been the intent or had just been an expression of the pain and discouragement that lives in everyone, regardless of position, as a detail of substance use. As we all know, when we are in the midst of any kind of hell it is almost impossible to breathe, let alone think, and misguided moments or falls will occur in our series of movements of trying to get away from what we don’t want or even when going through. However, the longer we stay in the limited view of only what we feel and think or in a place of pain or just walking in circles, the harder it is to find understanding and to be a part of the move that we desire ensuring that change will in fact and in opinion be impossible for any of us. As difficult and as painful as Ryan’s addiction was along our journey’s, some of us have learned to value his darkness as the lessons that were leading to a field of view that held far more than just what we believed lived there. His weeds have encouraged us to get familiar with our own as essential parts of ourselves, the moments before we step, as well as to not stay in any place for so long that we forget that flowers fade when always in the light and the darkness can and will illuminate the things that need to move whether we want them to or not. Show up not just to be heard but to hear the insights that appear to be threatening because to move forward, you can’t stay in the comfortableness and safety of what you already believe or close the doors on the chaos that you don’t want. I am grateful for the tough lessons because beauty doesn’t just live in fun and fabulous people, places, moments or things and I had to be moved, sometimes kicking and screaming along the way, in order to find and understand that. Have the best day possible for you. Love Always, Heavell

Safe Enough #209

Words have the power to create the home that we live in on the inside and when we have different experiences with various terms, our ability to understand ourselves is effected by the comparisons and the valuing of those encounters with as well as by others. Our connections to those things through our emotional definitions provides us the ability to perceive of excusing ourselves and various people in some ways while also preventing forgiveness for others or ourselves in different moments even though to forgive is also to excuse. That difference produces uncertainty, pain and fear which helps to facilitate keeping someone in the weeds for far longer than that person should be. There are all kinds of ways to enable the messes and if we wish to be understood and accepted for who we are then we must also recognize that our field of view is limited when we fail to lean in to hear others and how their homes have come to be. In other words, hell isn’t a place to go to but rather one we carry with us on inside from our experiences whose loud voices will be shared to the outside most often in detrimental ways. Each of us has the choice to change the strength of that by encouraging the certainty of being recognized and valued or we can choose to continue the feeding of the hell by only understanding and justifying some. It is easy enough to see that an addict can use any reason in order to relapse but what’s not there is the recognition of a moment, a feeling or a thought that once again confirms to that individual, a cycle, that he or she will always belong in the weeds as a failure even if that individual also has lots of flowers. Every time Ryan reverted so did I, as did others, as a part of the series of movements because it really is that simple for any of us to go back to what is comfortable rather than to hold onto change particularly when given an excuse to do so. Recently an addict “flipped out” in his kind of life and the rationalization was that his friends were failing to spend enough time with him. If we stay in the fearful and justified position that that it is just an excuse, or in the one where we blame others for not showing up, then we never look closer at what those words are really saying about his chaos on the inside. After all, a moment has the power to alter us but more often it’s that an experience has occurred many times in lots of different ways and the resulting feelings are living and breathing in those funny memories that are then implying who that person is even though it’s a green truth. If you can imagine, it’s just like when we place values on others based on what we think we see or by judging them for their weeds without understanding what’s really there. Have you ever felt that someone has failed to be there for you? What did that feel like in your heart and what did you think about yourself afterwards because of that encounter? Did it happen once or multiple times? Was it one person or more than one? Have you ever felt lonely in a room full of people? Ryan definitely felt that way in his life even if his details were different from that young man and because of that they have a connection and an understanding of each other. The unity that they share, then, provides a comfortable home for the hurt and the fear to get stronger in which is exactly what we don’t want. When I walk this way again I can see how our failure to do this better ourselves enabled Ryan feeling safer in the place where substances helped to ease his pain and loneliness instead of experiencing those things in a vulnerable position like being in a room full of people who didn’t help him to feel safe enough to be there. That is not to say that we are not entitled to have our gray lines, because we absolutely are, but it’s whether we hold the line with safety and forgiveness that opens the door so that the hoped for change can eventually take a step or we remain the same with the justifications that help to ensure the continuation of uncertainty and pain. So how do we help others feel safe enough to sit down with their hell rather than to continue to lose parts of themselves? How do we do that when some of what they have to say means we have to hear how we have been a part of the hurt and the feeding of what we didn’t want? What if it will require us to change too and that we will find ourselves seeking understanding from others as we fall again and again as a part of the process? How impossible will that expectation feel and will uncomfortableness and or fear keep us from being able to? The ride is a painful process but the change we seek is a series of movements while in the midst of it that starts with being safe enough to acknowledge our own weeds; including the ones we have had a limited view of as well as the ones we have been unaware of. It’s leaning in to hear the things that we don’t want to in order to help others be safe enough to learn to show up for themselves especially if they or we go back because in this so very heavell life there are always plenty of reasons to do so. This is me and I am a dreaded “f” moment maker who has been a part of the problems in my life as well as the beholder of the beauty that can be found there too. Step by step and fall by fall, while carrying the weight of my world, I am learning to understand my story and how my emotional definitions of terms have come home to live within me. When thinking of you, are you safe enough in your place to pick your own weeds or are you afraid of being seen in your darkness and feeling what’s there? Or perhaps, just like everyone else, it’s the judgement of not being seen and understood for all that you are that scares you? Have the best day possible for you because what could have been a flower still can be by being safe enough with fondness, trust and forgiveness for yourself as a part of the transformation that is always enfolding you. It’s good to be home in the place that needs us most even when hell lives there too. Love Always, Heavell

Forget Me Not #208

Our feelings and the memories that provide a home for them can be as unwelcoming as change is but whether we think about them or not, our hearts will continue to value what’s there even when we seek safety by denying their existence in order to make it appear as if they were nothing. Perhaps it’s that we believe by moving them from the light into the shadows or leaving them behind in the yesterdays or by using substances they will be silenced and cease to be a part of us but the real truth is that the power of what has been done, lived and breathed, cannot be undone through comfortableness and easiness or by forgetting that something has occurred. Even our ability to perceive of having trust, fondness and friendship for ourselves and with others is affected by our hiding of those objects which just adds to the weight of what we are already carrying. Those items are essentially the beholders of our pain and so long as they stay in our collection of things in the same form, they will find all sorts of ways to be illuminated until we do what scares us most which is, of course, being in and going through the weeds. Can you imagine a place where someone failed to show up for you in whatever manner that it occurred? Can you, then, turn around and view how trying to lose parts of yourself is the very same thing but appears to be different because of the details that surround it? Following Ryan’s overdose at the age of eighteen, he was sober for about eleven months until a catastrophic event in his life, a “choice” by another addict, pushed him over the edge again. He was driving one evening and as he approached a part of the street that was darkened by a non-working street light and the shadow of a very tall tree, he encountered a person who was drunkenly walking directly in his path and unable to stop in time, he hit that individual. As a part of the investigation, the police drew his blood at the scene of the accident which proved he was sober. The knowledge of that was a heaven or a beauty in a hellish situation but what was much harder to perceive of, because there’s no test for it, was how he felt in the moment that he and that other person collided and subsequently whether his memories of what had occurred in just a matter of seconds would result in his seeking safety from those feelings and thoughts through substance use once again. Would the words “why was that person there or if only he or she hadn’t been” be on repeat in his mind making it impossible to escape them without the help of a substance? I know how that accident affected me but that particular view from the outside wasn’t aware of the value of what it felt like in his heart; the person who actually lived it. For some, his falling from that moment was just an excuse to use, as if he was a failure as a whole, rather than being seen as a “flipping out” in response to a traumatic event even though those same people also “flip out” in their lives but in different ways that appear to be acceptable. After all, fear, pain, grief, hell and even happiness are experienced individually and they are never ever felt in the exact same way nor are they always expressed in a manner that we understand for that reason as well. When I pass this way again, I can see that some of my anger with Ryan was because I just couldn’t understand how he could fail to be there for himself and for me it seemed simple enough to deal with those “small things” but whenever we are in hell, what’s there is never ever something we can just “get over” or leave behind. As I look both ways, I am able to view how my not leaning in to hear his perspective from that particular circumstance facilitated his not showing up for himself once again and the real truth is that it had occurred at other times as well. Our desire to solve very complicated issues in the easiest and most comfortable way possible by losing parts as if they were nothing does not provide safety nor fondness for those who are carrying the weight of the world. It’s no wonder why it takes so long for anyone to find his or her way through such an unwelcoming and painful place on the inside as well as on the outside. Memories and feelings are funny things because each one has the ability to effect us as a forget me not for far longer than we believe or had hoped for. In a different truth, though, those items are by no means just the reminders of dreaded “f” moments that appear to reflect us as being only failures and impossibilities because they are actually a part of how change continually enfolds us until we recognize that we have been forgetting to show up for ourselves in any kind of life’s most difficult moments. In other words, the power of what hurts won’t fade in the dark or just quietly disappear into the past but if we go back and encircle those forget me nots and lean in to hear them, the beauty of them will be illuminated by that transformation helping us to go through on such a ride in the weeds. Oh hell, the words “forget me nots” are perceived as being the symbolism of appreciation and love and what better place to be enfolded by those feelings than when we are scared, in pain and struggling to breathe? Have the best day possible for you and remember to love you where you are as a step towards understanding your story. Love Always, Heavell

Imagine A Place #207

Change is something that is always enfolding us as we add experiences in any kind of life even when today holds the familiarity of yesterday. We hope that transformations will occur while we are in a position of comfortableness but since it most often never ever occurs that way, our desire for what is familiar encourages us to repeat cycles or to go back to what we know while wishing to find something different in the same place. Substitution, however, is a series of movements through feelings of being unsafe and the pain while hearing the loud voices of fear telling us that it is impossible for us to become different or that it won’t lead to better if we have to hurt to get there. It’s in those particular thoughts and feelings, then, that we can perceive that change has to be something unwelcoming before it can eventually evolve into what we embrace within ourselves. After all, it’s a complicated ride in hell that has never ever indicated that it would be easy or kind because it’s not just the stopping of a behavior but rather the changing of weeds into flowers to prevent going back to what’s familiar. At one point, while Ryan and I were outside on a beautiful day, he turned and asked “why did I lose myself for so long mom?” I had the simple answer in my thoughts that it was because of those tricky drugs and since the relief of being back in the flowers felt so safe and easy, I didn’t feel the need to look beyond what was just in front of me so my response was that “it only mattered that he was here now” Later I thought about that examination of himself and how if he had looked only one way, he could have effortlessly fallen again because grief and regret are powerful enough to do that to any of us. In fact as well as opinion, they had been a part of his relapses in the yesterdays because memories are a funny thing and our weeds are far more powerful in their presence than our flowers are; with and without the reminders from others. The matter of time it takes to get out of that darkness is complicated by so many details as a whole but the pain that is before each of us individually can feed that hell again and again and again in such an unfriendly way that it’s no wonder why it takes us so long to go through a place where we are breathing in the fear and feel alone. In order to exchange what we have for something else, though, we have to find the beauty in those weeds otherwise we will continue to carry the weight of the world that can, in any given moment, cause us to fall or to relapse. However, even when change does find us, there are times when the resulting substitution isn’t all that we had hoped for but there is still a strength that we need to lean in to hear and to hold on to. Ryan transformed his “flipping out” in life into looking in the mirror to see and feel his pain, finding forgiveness for himself as well as others as he evolved, but within his process of what hurt and the eventual beauty and strength that came from it was also the replacing of a strong body with one that was weak and unable to withstand serious illness. In my series of movements, the simple story is that I went from being a mother of a son to being one of an addict, then to a mom of a recovered one and now I am living as the mom of a dream that is no longer here. My process has not ended but continues on as I discover what has failed to hold safety, love and forgiveness for myself. I am evolving those items with the help of knowing what those personal emotional definitions mean to me today versus what they held in the yesterdays but of course this is also a journey in the weeds and sometimes I just want to be where it’s effortless to breathe. In other words, we are always being enfolded by change and most definitely in unwelcoming ways but we are also the ones who can imagine a place where our collections of things, particularly the dreaded ones, are the moments before we view how the darkness is a hidden detail whose purpose is to enable beauty, strength and even superpowers. When thinking of you, then, being able to love you where you are rather than where you want to be or believe you should be is a step towards understanding and friendship for yourself as a part of the unkind process of substitution. As I pass this way again, I imagine a place in this so very heavell life where every dream matters because without their illumination of what needs to be dealt with, weeds would continue to appear to be the things that should be hidden and the definitions for terms such as trust, fondness and forgiveness would remain in a field of view that is limited. Can you imagine a place where impossible becomes I’m-possible as love and safety for yourself show up even when you are in the darkness and scared? Oh hell, I am going to be all right in the weeds but if I find that I am carry the weight of the world as I look both ways, lots of tissues and funny memories that make me laugh until my stomach hurts will help me to remember to breathe in brave. Have the best day possible for you with kindness and wherever you go, may you imagine a place where you can go through with the all of you. Thank you. Love Always, Heavell

Love Them Where They Are #206

The best features of our flowers are found in how they make it simple for us to see beauty, to breathe in hope and to have a friendship with ourselves. In that particular place of comfortableness and positivity, love is easy because they are, after all, a celebration of our desired things. However, when we leave that site and find ourselves confined in what we don’t want, the door closes on what safety and fondness is for ourselves. Why is that? How can we feel possible in one moment or place and then perceive of only being objectionable because of a different one? Is it that what flowers represents makes us believe that we can only be safe and loved in their light? Or is it being in the weeds and the matter of time it takes to get out of them or is it that memories are a funny thing or perhaps its both that can change what we feel for ourselves? Or just maybe it’s all of those items plus so much more that pushes friendship with ourselves into the shadows. As Ryan stepped towards and fell into the use of tricky substances, his flowers withered and once he was in that place there were others in his life that completely forgot that he had ever had any flowers to begin with as well. I imagine that my focus on handing him his value was in part because of the fact that while those celebrations were no longer seen they still existed regardless of any opinions that said otherwise. The details or reasons for why Ryan and the others behaved in that manner are what separates them but what brings them together while still not being together is the unity of turning away from him while he was in the darkness. Sobriety, as we know, is a painful series of movements that start, stop, speed off and plummet and then repeat themselves all over again and again because it is a ride on a rollercoaster in hell not a stroll in the flowers where safety and love are easy. It is a “flipping out” in any kind of life and once there, getting out is as tricky as those substances are but there is the hope that change is possible. Ryan’s journey in those weeds was a long one that also held periods of beauty and belief but unfortunately from the start and to the end those others continued with their same view even when he was no longer in that particular place. When I pass this way again, I have to wonder how much did those specific perceptions, as well as those from the others we encountered along the way, continue to feed the very hell we wanted to end as well as actually delayed the possibility of his transition. It’s easy to think that at times my steps as his scared out of my mind mother empowered his substance use, of course they did, but in a different and yet still very real truth so did his encounters with those who failed to remember his ever having any flowers and those who assumed he never did. The question is, then, what role did those experiences play in helping to keep him in that place as well as to go back there again and again as a part of the circle, the cycle, of substance use? When someone has lost his or her safety and fondness on the inside, our words and actions can either encourage possible or enable the impossible; effecting the changes that we want as well as the ones we don’t. We can’t do it for them but we don’t need to choose to make getting out of the weeds any harder than it already is. Ryan was well aware of every dreaded “f” moment that he ever had whether real or imagined. Those things were a part of his falling to begin with and then coping through substances as he continued to try and keep the door closed on the pain. He didn’t need to be reminded of them because he lived and breathed them in every moment of every day. He didn’t need me to point out his flowers because their beauty was faded in his field of view and those two different perceptions kept us separated when what we needed was for us to be together. It was essential for Ryan to find forgiveness for himself for having “flipped out” in his so very heavell life that was a hell of a ride in the weeds, not just from his substance use, but that felt impossible when others only reminded him of his darkness. That is not saying that there weren’t things that needed to be dealt with because there were but the change that we wanted had a far better chance with all of the parts transforming than with just one or some. Ryan, of course, still had to want to whether we did or not and he did, as did some off us as well, but that ride was in part harder and longer because of the “flipping out” by others with different perceptions. The value of the hurt and the opportunity for understanding that it provides about ourselves as well as for others has never ever been easy to recognize, especially when in the midst of it, but they are defining details of safety and love that help us to believe we are possible no matter where we are in our series of movements. Trust, fondness, friendship, fun, hope and even beauty are some of the best features of our showing up for ourselves and for others but they don’t stop existing just because the illumination of something else has pushed them into the shadows where they will stay until transformation has the chance to lift those items back up. It’s not that we can’t have gray lines in order to be safe and to have fondness for ourselves but it is that we can do so while also being able to love them where they are and not just when we are laughing until our stomachs hurt or smelling flowers or are comfortable. This is me and while the stories and the reasons may separate us, we still go somewhere together in our responses to any kind of life and within that there is understanding and friendship if we sit and lean in to hear. Be loud and be kind because there is still time for change to be what we desire even though pain has a way of making us believe we are only safe and loved in the light of flowers. Have the best day possible for you and if memories are a funny thing for you, remember to love them where they are as you look both ways at your collection of things. Love Always, Heavell