People I connect with share their stories with me. A common theme quite often is we keep going despite suffering. We go everywhere to find healing regardless of a particular practice or therapy. Sometimes the practice reduces our symptoms and there are other times when little to no progress is made. What is amazing to […]

Do we see more light and minimal darkness in our lives? May was Mental Health Awareness Month and has now come to a close. I witnessed and was part of several connections with people bringing this important social issue into the light. The people I mentioned give us Recovery advice, tools to work with, and

The reason you did not receive a blog post on May 30th was due to my internet connection being unavailable. This outage began right at the time I was going to publish. The good news is the provider had us up and running at about 8:30 p.m. last night. You will have a post coming

When I was able to forgive my father for the physical harm he administered to me the heart and soul felt lighter. Letting go of the anger, sadness, and ambivalence toward Dad took place over 25 years. How did I learn to forgive? I used the 12 steps (see below) to find love, be patient

When we make a move to slowly and incrementally move away from the prison of mental health challenges, addiction, and trauma our worldview begins to change. Ask ourselves, “Where are we going?” Not leaving our prison guarantees a life full of shame, guilt, anxiety, sadness, and relationships with like-minded people. On the other hand, when

We live in a country that allows us to seek out mental health and addiction resources. In other countries these resources are not readily available for people due to oppression or the topic is entirely shameful in their culture and people numb out suffering in silence. We are taught not to be concerned with the

If we belong to a support group or another community how accepting are we of new members? Do we model Recovery behavior in the communities we participate in? Do we remember what it was like when we joined a support group? When I began attending support groups I was anxious and extremely uncomfortable. I realized

Azul Terronez my writing coach states, “Books are messages held together by our words.” While writing my book this single sentence kept me focused and on point. Let’s reframe this statement, “Recovery are messages held together by our words.” I dived into my heart and soul to discover my uniqueness on both accounts. I diligently

Each moment of our lives when tension increases our wounds may surface. For a long time, I acted out to be perfect. Perfection became my silent disturbance. When I did not live up to this standard I told myself I am insignificant. I continue to work on facing this wound to get beyond its hold

What if I told you, “You’re Not Broken.” How would \embracing these words impact your thinking and behavior? Our attitude and actions take on the persona, “Must Be It To See It.” A higher level of consciousness increases our intelligence. We live a life of an intuitive mindset letting go of trauma. What does this