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Have we ever asked someone “How old do you think I am?” Typically the person responding to this question will lowball our age. Our return response may be, “Actually I am much older than that. Don’t I look good for my age?” People I interact with sometimes ask loaded questions and want answers to make […]

We begin Recovery, What do we do now? We face this question as we explore the direction to finding hope, healing, and health. This is no joking matter since what we do next will create challenges for us. There is a spirit of wisdom and revelation in each of us attacking the problems of our

Throughout my Recovery, people have given me instructions to guide me toward healing. Several years ago a psychologist asked if anyone told me I suffer from trauma. My psychologist began to describe the symptoms occurring from trauma. I determined I could check most of the boxes. He said, “You may benefit from eye movement desensitization

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