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Post by majestyjo on Oct 7, 2014 11:14:07 GMT -5
B is for Boundaries. Boundaries are a necessary part of recovery for person safety, self-esteem, and self-worth.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 7, 2014 11:15:00 GMT -5
Signs of ignored boundaries You can tell boundaries are being ignored if there are one or more of the following characteristic symptoms.
Over Enmeshment This symptom requires everyone to follow the rule that everyone must do everything together and that everyone is to think, feel, and act in the same way. No one is allowed to deviate from the family or group norms. Everyone looks homogeneous. Uniqueness, autonomy and idiosyncratic behaviors are viewed as deviations from the norm.
Disassociation This symptom involves blanking out during a stressful emotional event. You feel your physical and/or emotional space being violated and you tell yourself something like: "It doesn't matter.'' "Ignore it and it will go away soon enough.'' "No sense in fighting it, just hang on and it will be over soon.'' "Don't put up a struggle or else it will be worse for you.'' This blanking out results in your being out of touch with your feelings about what happened. It also may result in your inability to remember what happened.
Excessive Detachment This symptom occurs when neither you nor anyone else in the group or family is able to establish any fusion of emotions or affiliation of feelings. Everyone is totally independent from everyone else and there doesn't seem to be anything to hold you and them together in healthy union. You and they seem to lack a common purpose, goal, identity, or rationale for existing together. There is a seeming lack of desire from you and the other members to draw together to form a union because you fear loss of personal identity.
Victimhood or Martyrdom In this symptom, you identify yourself as a violated victim and become overly defensive to ward off further violation. Or it can be that once you accept your victimization you continue to be knowingly victimized and then let others know of your martyrdom.
Chip on the Shoulder This symptom is reflected in your interactions with others. Because of your anger over past violation of your emotional and/or physical space and the real or perceived ignoring of your rights by others, you have a "chip on your shoulder'' that declares "I dare you to come too close!''
Invisibility This symptom involves your pulling in or overcontrolling so that others even yourself never know how you are really feeling or what you are really thinking. Your goal is not to be seen or heard so that your boundaries are not violated.
Aloofness or Shyness This symptom is a result of your insecurity from real or perceived experiences of being ignored, roved, or rejected in the past. This feels like a violation of your efforts to expand or stretch your boundaries to include others in your space. Once rejected you take the defensive posture to reject others before they reject you. This keeps you inward and unwilling or fearful of opening up your space to others.
Cold and Distant This symptom builds walls or barriers to insure that others do not permeate or invade your emotional or physical space. This too can be a defense, due to previous hurt and pain, from being violated, hurt, ignored or rejected. This stance is your declaration that "I've drawn the line over which I dare you to cross.'' It is a way to keep others out and put them off.
Smothering This symptom results when another is overly solicitous of your needs and interests. This cloying interest is overly intrusive into your emotional and physical space. It can be so overwhelming that you feel like you are being strangled, held too tightly and lack freedom to breathe on your own. You feel violated, used, and overwhelmed.
Lack of Privacy This symptom is present when you feel that nothing you think, feel, or do is your own business. You are expected to report to others in your family or group all the detail and content of your feelings, reactions, opinions, relationships and dealings with the outside world. You begin to feel that nothing you experience can be kept in the privacy of your own domain. You begin to believe you don't have a private domain or your own space into which you can escape to be your own person.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 7, 2014 11:17:07 GMT -5
Rational boundary building thinking These are just a few examples of unhealthy thoughts or beliefs which allow boundaries to be ignored or violated. Following each unhealthy belief is a more healthy, rational, realistic, reality-based affirmation for healthy boundary building.
Unhealthy: I can never say "no'' to others. Healthy Boundary Builder: I have a right to say "no'' to others if it is an invasion of my space or a violation of my rights.
Unhealthy: It is my duty to hold them together. Healthy Boundary Builder: I have a right to take care of myself. If they want to stay together as a family or group, it is up to each individual to make such a decision. They all have equal responsibility to create the interdependency needed to keep us a united group.
Unhealthy: I can never trust anyone again. Healthy Boundary Builder: I have a right to take the risk to grow in my relationships with others. If I find my space or rights are being violated or ignored, I can assertively protect myself to ensure I am not hurt.
Unhealthy: I would feel guilty if I did something on my own and left my family or group out of it. Healthy Boundary Builder: I have the right and need to do things which are uniquely mine so that I do not become so overly enmeshed with others that I lose my identity.
Unhealthy: I should do everything I can to spend as much time together with you or else we won't be a healthy family or group. Healthy Boundary Builder: I have a right and a need to explore my own interests, hobbies, and outlets so that I can bring back to this family or group my unique personality to enrich our lives rather than be lost in a closed and over enmeshed system.
Unhealthy: It doesn't matter what they are doing to me. As long as I keep quiet and don't complain, they will eventually leave me alone. Healthy Boundary Builder: I will never again allow my space and rights to be violated. I will stand up for myself and assert my rights to be respected and not hurt or violated. If they choose to ignore me, then I have the right to leave them or ask them to get out of my life.
Unhealthy: As long as I am not seen or heard, I won't be violated or hurt. Healthy Boundary Builder: I have a right to be visible and to be seen and heard. I will stand up for myself so that others can learn to respect my rights, my needs, and not violate my space.
Unhealthy:I'd rather not pay attention to what is happening to me in this relationship which is overly intrusive, smothering and violating my privacy. In this way I don't have to feel the pain and hurt that comes from such a violation. Healthy Boundary Builder: I choose no longer to disassociate from my feelings when I am being treated in a negatively painful way so that I can be aware of what is happening to me and assertively protect myself from further violation or hurt.
Unhealthy: I've been hurt badly in the past and I will never let anyone in close enough to hurt me again. Healthy Boundary Builder: I do not need to be cold and distant or aloof and shy as protective tools to avoid being hurt. I choose to open myself up to others trusting that I will be assertive to protect my rights and privacy from being violated.
Unhealthy: I can never tell where to draw the line with others. Healthy Boundary Builder: There is a line I have drawn over which I do not allow others to cross. This line ensures me my uniqueness, autonomy, and privacy. I am able to be me the way I really am rather than the way people want me to be by drawing this line. By this line I let others know: this is who I am and where I begin and you end; this is who you are and where you begin and I end; we will never cross over this line so that we can maintain a healthy relationship with one another.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 7, 2014 11:19:10 GMT -5
How to establish healthy boundaries In order to establish healthy boundaries between yourself and others, you need to: First: Identify the symptoms of your boundaries currently being or having been violated or ignored. Second: Identify the irrational or unhealthy thinking and beliefs by which you allow your boundaries to be ignored or violated. Third: Identify new, more rational, healthy thinking and beliefs which will encourage you to change your behaviors so that you build healthy boundaries between you and others. Fourth: Identify new behaviors you need to add to your healthy boundary building behaviors repertoire in order to sustain healthy boundaries between you and others. Fifth: Implement the healthy boundary building beliefs and behaviors in your life so that your space, privacy, and rights are no longer ignored or violated. __________________ Needed this for myself. You do it out of love for others and for love of yourself.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 8, 2014 2:26:53 GMT -5
For so many years, I was so busy in service, that I didn't know how to practice self-care. I still didn't make healthy choices for me. I had to learn balance. I can't give away what I don't have. I had gotten away from a lot of the meditation I use to do. I stopped lighting candles. I stopped using my crystals. I still took time in the morning. I still took time during the day when I came upon a situation. As Osho says, "Even doing dishes" can be a form of meditation and a connection with God. When I go to post, I always ask that I be guided in what I say and the choices I make. It has always been the Serenity Prayer, Third Step Prayer and the Seventh Step Prayer for me. The asking for help and the getting out of the way, so God can work through me instead of going around me. I also had to learn to not take on what is not mine! That was a big one. I was and still can be a perpetual sponge that just seemed to absorb other people's stuff! I took it all personal. Acceptance is the key to my sobriety. Accepting what is allows me to keep my emotions balanced. Without it, I can be off the charts. What I don't find acceptable, I ask to leave. I accept and love my son, I did not love and accept his behavior. His going away to treatment through my life out of balance and made me realize how much I had depended on him to do things for me. His talk of leaving for B.C. turned my life out of balance again after I got to a place of acceptance. My life doesn't depend on him being in it. It just seemed empty and void with him gone, because his father left when he was 2 months old and there has always been him and me, even when we never lived together. So I as a result of that void, I had to fill it up with spiritual things. I had to bring my life back into balance. Reach out and ask for help. It has been a grieving process. The other day I met someone who said to me, "Giving rides home to people from meetings is not AA's job." What ever happened to, "Get yourself to a meeting and you will always get a ride home." I can get out in the day light hours, but have difficulties at night. With my sleeping patterns being off, I am not always awake to go to morning meetings. My recovery has been online for several years, without it, I would not be sober today. Many nights when I have been in pain, I have gone to sites and looked at old posts to find the spiritual food I needed. Have never done chat rooms except at three recovery sites. Another Empty Bottle which is no longer, Essence of Recovery, where I use to chair a weekly meeting, and Milkman's Circle for Recovery. The last time I asked the doctor for help with my sleeping, he wrote a prescription for Clonazapam." I refused to take them. For one thing they are for anxiety disorder and panic attacks and I don't have either. I did prior to recovery. I haven't had them for the last 12 years. Before that in part, but there were occasions prior to that time when I was 7 years sober. I had migraines for the first 7 years of my recovery and haven't had one bad enough to put me in bed let alone in the hospital since then. God has been very good to me. "We have the tools to apply to our life. Life doesn't always get better, we do. I have a lot of the same issues that I had when I came into recovery, the arthritis, sleep disorder, eating disorder, relationships, a son who chooses to use, and the list goes on, but one day at a time, I choose not to use. I choose to use the 12 Steps. The help balance my life. Balance is so important in my life and is so hard to maintain because of my fibromyalgia and the chronic fatigue and pain that goes along with it. It is important that I balance my chakras and centering myself, not trying to balance myself with what is around me. www.quotegarden.com/chakras.htmlTrying to be there for myself and others is not always easy. Often I have to look at what is my priority for the day and try to live my life with that goal in mind. It often means I can't always do what I want to do and I have to accept it and know that I am as powerless over that disease as I am over my codependency and addiction although I hesitate to separate them. The 12 Steps can be applied to both and I must remember that in order to maintain a sense of balance, I need to live the program in all areas of my life. I am grateful that I no longer have the peaks and valleys of the emotional roller coaster I was on in early recovery.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 16, 2014 19:50:04 GMT -5
What are your thoughts on "Behavioural Addictions", are they addictions, or bad habits that we enjoy?
A good question! My first thought was they were behaviors that developed as a result of my addiction(s). My love for attention, for validation and approval, my people pleasing, my looking for someone to love me and willing to go to any length to receive that love. A lot stemmed from my need to get comfort or a high and what I needed to do to attain it and maintain it.
Behaviors can be changed. Behaviors can be modified. Behaviors can no longer stand me in good stead and have to be revised to fit my life in today. Behaviors are often as a result of my action to others, which becomes my issue not theirs.
Again, when I see the contol word, I think "if I have to control it, it is out of control." For me, the only way it can be controled is by surrendering it and asking my Higher Power for help. Control for me is an illusion. An example of this is me buying myself a treat. I tell myself I will have it a piece at a time. I have it a piece at a time but the problem is, it generally ends up being two pieces. As much as I give myself a talking to and tell myself I shouldn't eat it all at once or I shouldn't buy it at all, it ends up in my fridge. Until I find the willingness, to turn it completely over and ask my HP to take away the craving and the need, it isn't going to happen if I am truly honest with myself. I am telling tales on myself so perhaps, this will be the beginning of the first step on this matter.
I learn a long time ago, that I could be addicted to just about anything. One of the areas I had problems with were Nevada Tickets and Scratch Tickets. Here in my building, I see people who are completely out of control. They are excited about what they won, with no thought of how much it cost them to get it. How true that is with the rest of our life. I paid a high price for my recovery. In today, I choose not to spend any more than I can afford to lose. No matter what it is, I turn it over to my Higher Power and ask Him for help.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 16, 2014 19:50:29 GMT -5
How truly honest am I with myself? Is my drug of choice more? When I need to put it down, can I do so comfortably, or does it still call to me and do I listen? Do I say, just one more? Do I say, just one more won't hurt me? Do I say, "This isn't a street drug. I am not like one of those people!" Do I tell myself, "I am not that bad yet! I am not like her. Heaven, forbid!" What do you mean it all leads to the same soul sickness. So I buy a few scratch tickets, so I am just a little co-dependent, so I have a little eating disorder, so I work a few extra hours and I have an issue with being alone with me and fill my space up with other people. So I like video game, doesn't everyone. It is the in thing, everyone does it. So what if I get angry when the phone rings and interrupts my game. So what if I didn't return my friend's call, I can do it later. So what I didn't make it to the meeting, it isn't the end of the world. There is always another one. I went to three meetings last week so it won't hurt for me to do only two this week. (That makes me cringe, I couldn't get by on less than 3 a week, generally it was no less than 5 after 10 years of recovery). The list can go on an on, and I could probably come up with a whole lot more, but the whole idea is about my brain thinking more and my recovery starting to become less. When I talked to people who relapsed, I asked them the cause of that relapse and they said, "I stopped going to meetings." I stopped calling my sponsor. I stopped working the steps. I did them once, I thought it was enough. When we work the steps, we heal and grow. Why not continue to heal and grow? Sobriety! Soundness of mind! I have to work on my emotional sobriety daily. Picking up a drink or a drug is not an option, but working on my thinking, which was behind my drinking and drugging in the first place, is a daily exercise in sobriety.
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Post by majestyjo on Oct 17, 2014 10:55:46 GMT -5
B is for Belong. Do you belong or do you just take up some space on a chair and just come before the meeting starts and leave when it ends. (There is nothing wrong with that if that is all you can do, but there is no much more) For me to belong to a group, it means extending your hand to another member, to member from another group, and to a newcomer. To belong is helping setting up the group by helping making coffee, putting up the chairs and taking them down, putting out literature and putting it away, standing at the door and greeting people as they come and saying goodbye as they leave. One of my favourite is asking, "Do you do hugs?" Service is done by rotation of leadership. No service position should last more than two years. Do you volunteer? Do you unvolunteer and allow someone else to have an opportunity to do service too, to get the experience that helped you. Are you willing to share what was so freely given to you? The meeting starts when you get there and ends when you leave. Are you missing out on the meeting before the meeting and the meeting after the meeting? They say there is no such thing as a dumb question, only those not asked. How can you know what you haven't been taught. Ask a long-timer, they will guide you as to what you need to do to belong to a group and become a true member of the fellowship.
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Post by majestyjo on Feb 14, 2015 11:49:05 GMT -5
♥♥Believe in Who you Are--
Believe what you have learned throughout your life and have found to be true,
As long as the foundation is strong those shall not be able to tear it down easily.
Never allow others to tell you who you are or who you should be.
Never allow others to tell you that you can't do anything, we can do anything we set our minds to do
Believe in Who you Are--
The possibilities are endless.......If we just BELIEVE ♥♥
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Post by majestyjo on Feb 14, 2015 11:57:43 GMT -5
Had lost a lot of faith in my Higher Power, I didn't think He had much faith in me and had to come to believe that He had faith in me. I had to come to believe all over again and build a new trust. I had to come to believe that the program would work for me. I saw it working for others. I had to come to believe that I was worthy of recovery and that I was forgivable, lovable, and deserving of recovery. I was not my disease. I was a child of God. I saw the program working in others, and I had to come to believe if I worked the program, it would work for me to. It worked when I worked it. That was the key. I couldn't just sit on a chair and expect others to do it for me, but I did have to bring the body long enough for the mind to follow and catch up and allow the spirit to open up to receive what was available in the rooms of recovery. Then I had to take it out of the rooms and take in out of the rooms and apply it to my life. I came, I came to, I came to believe, that AA would work for me.
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Post by majestyjo on Feb 14, 2015 11:58:03 GMT -5
Principles For Better Living
Keep it simple. Stop trying to please everybody. Start pleasing yourself. Cultivate gratitude. Carve out an hour a day for solitude. Don't be afraid of your passion. Cherish your dreams. Express love every day. Keep your house picked up. Don't over schedule. Strive for realistic deadlines. Never make a promise you can't keep. Allow an extra half hour for everything you do. Create quiet surroundings at home and at work. Go to bed at nine o'clock twice a week. Always carry something interesting to read. Breathe -deeply and often. Move -walk, dance, run, find a sport you enjoy. Drink pure spring water. Lots of it. Eat only when you are hungry. It it's not delicious, don't eat it. Be instead of do. Set aside one day a week for rest and renewal. Laugh more often. Luxuriate in your senses. Always opt for comfort. Let Mother Nature nurture. Don't answer the telephone during dinner. Stay away from negative people. Don't squander precious resources: time, creative energy, emotion. Nurture friendships. Approach problems as challenges. Honor your aspirations. Set achievable goals. Surrender expectations. Savor beauty. Create boundaries. Don't worry, be happy. Remember: happiness is a living emotion. Care for your soul. Search for your authentic self until you find him/her. Begin and end each day with prayer, meditation, or reflection.
unknown
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Post by majestyjo on Jul 28, 2015 21:14:59 GMT -5
When I came into recovery, I could not be alone. I had to have people around, the TV on or music playing. Me alone with me was bad company. So I learned to get busy and run from the stinking thinking. Then I became addicted to busy, so busy helping others, and doing service work, I didn't find time to be alone and deal with my own issues. Once I did the Steps, thinking it was a done deal, not realizing that recovery is a process. It is one day at a time. It isn't all about helping the other person, it is also about helping and healing for myself. I can't give away what I don't have. If I am busy, I don't have time to the defect of character that keeps that keeps making itself known. If I keep busy, I don't have to look at my relationship(s). If i keep busy, I don't have to look at me. Learning to meditate helped me to learn to be still and quiet my mind. I was full of should I, shouldn't I, and had a hard time coming to a decision, because I had trouble, being still long enough to turn it over and then wait for the answer. It is okay to just be. I don't have to be caught up in busy.
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Post by majestyjo on Jul 28, 2015 21:18:49 GMT -5
All addictions are obsessive compulsive orders. For me, that is what addition is. Not able to be alone with oneself, always looking for some person, place, and thing to take them out of themselves. Most people in recovery have very low self-esteem and feel like they have to prove their worth. They feel like they are less than, so they have to do in order to find worth in their own lives. Especially because of the old tape you quoted. As Osho says, Devil is opposite of Lived. I know I never lived my life, I lived it through others. I was alway busy doing for them, doing volunteer work and running away from home to find that illusive something that kept escaping me. I didn't know it was myself. Whether it was the job, volunteering in the community, or just going out with friends. I always wanted to belong, if I did for you, you will like me. If you could see how nice I was, and accept the person you see being busy and productive, you won't know that I am really hurting inside. You really wouldn't like what I see in there. So I will paint a different picture that we can both look at and escape the reality or the false sense of self that I have about myself. Recovery is about building a relationship with myself. Not only learning to love myself, but like me too. I need to learn to be my own best friend and give myself a break.
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Post by majestyjo on Nov 10, 2016 17:48:42 GMT -5
~ A WOMAN’S SPIRIT ~ (More Meditations For Women) ~
In order to accept change and the suffering it brings, we need to find meaning in it.
~ Mary Norton Gordon ~
In the midst of upheaval, we may long for the security of the past. But when we recall earlier times, we realize change has always been nipping at our heels. We’re reminded that we survived each change, and we gain confidence that we’ll weather this storm too.
We don’t have to suffer just because we are experiencing change. While change may stir our emotions, we can cultivate excitement for the change rather than fear of it. Further, we can use our memories of other changes and the fruits they bore as our inspiration now for relishing the opportunities every change offers us.
Change will come if God thinks it is time for us to stretch our talents and deepen our wisdom. It may be hard to keep that in mind when we feel the dread of change, but our memories will serve us if we’ll let them.
Change is for my benefit, and my Higher Power is my benefactor. I’ll rejoice if something new beckons to me today.
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Change says I don`t have this posted in the right section, but it was the last line that attracted me to today`s reading.
I need to work this program for me. It doesn`t work if I am doing it for someone else`s benefit and my God is the Source of all my blessings.
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Post by majestyjo on Nov 8, 2017 20:06:06 GMT -5
What really helped me was having a God Box. Putting all my cares in a box instead of carrying them around.
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Post by caressa222 on Jun 2, 2018 22:47:05 GMT -5
My chiropractor say that he has never met anyone who was more in tune with their body as I am. He said, "Come back in two weeks, if your body tells you that you need to come back before then, give us a call.
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Post by caressa222 on Jun 25, 2018 19:43:22 GMT -5
Journey To The Heart Restore Your Natural Balance Seek healing, a refilling of energy and spirit, as soon as you see that you need it. You don’t have to push yourself to give, do, or perform when what your body, mind, soul, and emotions need is to heal. Seek and support your natural balance. Listen to your body, listen to your soul, and both will tell you what they need and when. If you aren’t certain what you need,ask. Ask your body what you need. Ask your heart what to do next. Ask God and the universe to help. Find the balance that’s right for you. Become sensitive to your needs. When you become stressed, depleted, out of sync, in need of healing, seek help immediately. Nurture and care for yourself until you’re in balance again. Inhale, receive. Exhale, give back. Your natural balance is as necessary as breathing. The inhaling is the breathing in of life’s energy. The exhaling is the sharing of your resources. You wouldn’t expect to exhale if you hadn’t inhaled. So it goes with healing, with our life force, with our energy. You cannot give it out if you don’t take it in. Find the balance of receiving and giving, of the taking in of energy and the giving out of energy, that works for you. Let the balance become natural. See how much more you do and are. See how much better you feel when you keep your life force vital.
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Post by caressa222 on Aug 7, 2018 22:27:24 GMT -5
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Post by caressa222 on Feb 6, 2019 18:28:38 GMT -5
B is for Blessings. They are countless, don't leave until the miracle happens. We need to give thanks for them as they come, big or small. They take many forms, bee ever watchful.
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Post by caressa222 on Feb 15, 2019 22:23:33 GMT -5
B is for Bountiful. The blessing are bountiful. They just keep on coming, as long as we work our programs. Be aware that you need to find your own program and what works for you. You can take a little bit from this person and that person, the possibilities are endless. Just keep going to meetings.
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