NEW BEGINNINGS
/Edition 1 Issue 1
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A New Beginning
Welcome to our first instalment of the new beginning. A new beginning of carefully searching for the answers, and working towards inner awakening, on our inner soul. Whether you are a co-dependent, an alcoholic, an overeater, addicted to drugs, to prescription medication, addicted to sex, overcome with incessant gabling, gaming, video games (for money or just for the challenge) … Or just seeking the Light, looking for Enlightenment as so many of us are. You are welcome to join us on our journey. There are so many addictive behaviors, and the one we can almost all relate to is co-dependence.
Why do we feel these feelings, feelings of guilt, feelings of shame, feelings of inferiority, feelings of not belonging? Feeling alone? Some of us have, or had, a deep sense of emptiness within our heart, a feeling of emptiness in the pit of our stomach. This awful feeling we stymied and quashed with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, or any number of other ways to escape, to run form life as it is. To be in a place where confusion and darkness overcomes us and we are filled with feelings of guilt and shame and inadequacy.
We have discovered, through 12 Step work, the answer and solution to our problems. The solution is a Spiritual Solution and here we will expand and expound on this Spiritual Solution. A Spiritual Solution we have found when we did the inner work in 12 Step work. The Spiritual Solution we will continue to develop within our heart of hearts. In inner work we have a solution.
We have learned we need to continually do work on ourselves, through communion with a power greater than ourselves to achieve the Spiritual Path which we so strongly yearn for. We seek the connection to God, and here we will continue on the road to recovery and connection to this power which resides within our hearts. We are stuck, sometimes, in a place where confusion and darkness overcomes us. Here we discover, and continually keep this connection to a power greater than ourselves who restores us to sanity. Because when we are in the grips of ego-mind, we are insane. We act and react from a place of fear and we feel hurt, anxious, worried, betrayed, lost, misunderstood, and sometimes desperate.
The 12 Steps
Those of use who have discovered a “Twelve Step Program” and have fearlessly, and thoroughly, done the inner work involved in the self-discovery and self-development through twelve Step Programs know the pain involved with coming to terms with character defects. The pain, guilt and shame of the past tears away at our insides; we feel inadequate, inferior or just uncomfortable in our skin. Having to forgive when our ego says attack! Having to de accepting of all the things, which had happened, are just that: Things that happened! To release from the bondage of self, of selfishness, of self-centeredness. Of always having to have our own way, to be constantly right.
I have a good friend pass away a few years ago, my friend would often say: “I would rather be happy than be right.” I took me a while to get it. But I have this incessant need to be right because I know better that everyone else. It’s just the way it is. I'm smarter, or better informed, or my logic faculties are superior. Whatever reasons my ego tells me “I'm” right. Which would make anyone else wrong! I have an innate need to be right all the time. If we’re all right, and the other person wrong then how can we find Oneness? We will forever be disconnected, alone, self-serving and self-seeking. This is not the way of Spiritual Enlightenment. We look for redemption from our sins, bad behaviors, thoughts, and actions. Follow us on this journey to Atonement and Freedom from the wreckage of the past, and the need to be disconnected from the Oneness.
The New Beginning
New beginning is renewal in Life and Light. New beginning in renewal for so many of us who have trudged the path of denial in addiction and “isms”, traumatic reactions to traumatizing experiences beyond our control. So many of us discontent with life, with ourselves, with our circumstances. We felt the need to use outside comforts to change the way we feel inside. For some of us it was drugs, for others it was food, comfort food and lots of it. For others it may be sex, and more sex with so many partners of maybe the same sex, both sexes, multiple partners at once, or in the same day, to make us feel better. To relieve the pain and suffering, to change the circumstances the way we feel about ourselves the way we interact with our friends and neighbours. Some of us chose alcohol, which instantly released us from our inhibitions, our inability to freely express ourselves or communicate. All of a sudden we had the power to be who, or what, we most wanted to be, free. Free from our self-loathing and deprecating ways, free from the ravages of addiction, free from the pain and suffering others have been putting us through. Free from the constant chirping in our head telling us things we don’t want to hear. Resembling the likes of the 2 miniature characters sitting atop each shoulder as in the cartoons. We had a devil on one shoulder screaming way louder than the Angel telling us it’s OK. (Blog on “Duality of Being” will follow Thanksgiving.)
There is a solution; the solution resides in the Spiritual one. The whispering inside telling us we must listen to the Truth, and not the ego-mind ruling from a place of fear, a place of shame, a place of inequity and torment at the things we did, heard, where done to us. The things we felt so bad about which are tormenting and everything will be okay! … Atonement is what we find in the inner work. Atonement is what we find when we stay connected with Beyond the 12th for the work needs to continue, or we will find ourselves right back where we started. Relapsed and wondering what happened. I see it almost daily. 5, 10, 12, 15 even 25 years without picking up ten finding a drink, a drug, or other behavior we concluded was destructive and we thought we has completely given ourselves
Maintaining our Awareness
So as we understand we must move away from these feelings of guilt and shame. In the step work we released some, if not all. But our conditioning persists. We hang on for dear life to the things which are killing us. Without continued diligence and a closed eye on the forward development we soon find ourselves doing some old behavior. Insulting someone, and justifying it as teasing. Taking someone’s inventory, judging the person or behavior as inappropriate, as something “I wouldn't do!”, committing other behaviors we are supposed to have cleansed as inappropriate character defects.
Next blog post is on “FORGIVENESS”. Subscribe now to be an integral part of the journey, we need your support to maintain the website, continued blogs and newsletters and Social Media feeds to those who are suffering, and to those of us needing to maintain connection and motivation throughout the day.
