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| Photo by HeidelX on pixabay |
This has been a crazy week. I’ve experienced a wide range of
feelings for friends and family over illness as well as the pain and anger
around the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing. This is the most triggered I’ve been, and
I’ve been triggered a lot over my own past these past few years. You can read a
little more about my week over at Soulsayer.
But today I want to stick with the personal as I delve into the work I’m
committed to doing based on the Recovery Wheel I created.
Basic Goodness
As I look within and examine why I am so triggered, I
realize it’s just time for things to change. It may not all be personal. But
what is personal is how I see people and how I respond to those who have done
harmful things and to those who support them. I was not sexually assaulted, but
I experienced emotional abandonment and felt dismissed. Doing the work of the Recovery Wheel is about recovering from feelings
of unworthiness and recovering inner power. It involves being able to claim my own basic goodness as well as seeing it in
those who have harmed. It’s the only way to begin to move forward.
This hasn’t been easy work. I often think if only my mother
had been able to find her strength, things would have turned out better. But
she didn’t. After the anger, I breathe and look deeper. She was doing the best
she could. Within her, basic goodness was alive just covered over with her own
pain and anger.
The other part of this is to realize that basic goodness
lives within me. It is what I can hold onto when I’m so angry I just want to
lash out. It’s what allows me to see it in her, in all those I’m seething at
right now.
The Reckoning
In Brené Brown’s book RisingStrong, she talks about the reckoning, the rumble and the revolution. It’s
a way to work through difficult feelings. Here’s what she says about the
reckoning:
“You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you
live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.”
It’s a process of taking a close look at where you are right
now. You calculate where you’ve been and what has influenced you in getting there.
Without doing this work, you can’t move forward.
I’ve included this step in the Recovery Wheel because it
deepens the first step in the 12-Step Program which is to admit life is not
working.
Well, my life isn’t working. I love my husband and I have a
nice place to live, but I’m not fulfilling my potential. Because I haven’t
stepped up, we don’t have the money we need to take care of things let alone
just enjoy life. Just getting by isn’t working for me. I’m frustrated, and
mostly I’m tired.
The biggest influence on my current situation has been my
past. The emotional abandonment led to feeling unworthy and that has hampered
everything. I’m still working through my feelings about the past. And I’m going
to journal more about the story behind my feelings. Perhaps it’s also time to
reach out more for help.
The Recovery Wheel begins with the season of Lammas which is
August 1. It’s the first harvest of the year, a time to look back and see what
has come to fruition. Reckoning fits with this. Ultimately it’s time to ask if
we’re trying to go it alone. Lammas is the season of co-creation with the
Divine.
Transformation
Our connection to the Divine sparks our transformation. But
why is the Creations Spirituality path of Via Transformativa a part of the
first section of the wheel? Because it’s important to remind ourselves that
this work of transformation requires our whole heart in order to become
wholehearted. It involves us completely, body, mind and soul. To feel is to
feel the pain as well as the joy. To feel is to revolve through the turning of
our very being. As we move through our emotions, our emotions move us ever
closer to the transformation we seek.
The path of transformation contains many obstacles and
struggles. There will be doubt and confusion along the way. And that’s okay.
It’s as it should be. We are doing no less than unwinding our human selves to
uncover our souls.
And this personal is political. To do the work of
transforming ourselves is the beginning of doing the work of transforming
society. The work of changing the world begins with becoming the change.
As Brené Brown says, get curious about yourself as you are
now and how you got here. Keep asking yourself some hard questions. Acknowledge
you want and even need change. Be ready to embrace whatever that may mean in
your situation. It’s time for a new creation.
What to Keep in Mind
as You Begin this Work
The first part of the
wheel looks like this:
Season: Lammas
12-Step: Admit life isn’t working.
Rising Strong Process: Reckoning
8 Fold Path: Right Mindfulness
Creation Spirituality Path: Via Transformativa
Three Main Principles
to focus on for Recovery Wheel work:
Oneness/All is Love
Basic Goodness
Spiritual Law
Three Main Tools:
Meditation
Journaling
Self-care
Each week I’ll focus on one or two of these principles and
tools.
Week 1
Basic Goodness
Practice:
During your daily spiritual practice, take a moment to focus
on your own basic goodness. You can do this via mirror work or simply
focus on your heart center and feel the love as much as you can. Once you do
that, experiment with seeing the basic goodness in others by starting with someone
you love and then an acquaintance and then with someone more difficult.
Reckoning Practice:
You really might want to get Brené Brown’s book Rising
Strong and work through each part as you move through them in the Recovery
Wheel work.
To reckon is to figure out where you are now in your life
and how you got here. Once you admit things aren’t working for you, take some
time to journal about how life is for you now and explore about how you got
here. Get curious. No blame or judgement, just look and then feel the feelings
that come up as you go along.
Transformation
Practice:
Spend a few minutes acknowledging that this work is worth
doing, but requires much from you. Transformation is possible, just know it
comes with a price, letting go of your old life.
**If you'd like to learn more about the Recovery Wheel or would like some guidance in doing this work, please feel free to contact me.
**If you'd like to learn more about the Recovery Wheel or would like some guidance in doing this work, please feel free to contact me.
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