I worked with a dear mom this week who experiences worry and anger because her daughter is not choosing life, she refuses to leave the very toxic boyfriend, won't get off the drugs or the street. What she wants for her daughter of course makes sense, but it's driving her crazy. Been there, repeatedly, could go there again.
So we take "crazy" and we question thoughts, that when believed, cause all this fear. The thought causing this mom so much distress is: "My daughter should choose life!". Seems it should be true, huh? Of course her daughter should choose life! But this mom discovered it's not completely true. Wow! How is that possible? This mom came to see, through questioning her thoughts and fears, a few very pivotal truths:
Without a story of what her daughter chooses or not, a story of what her daughter's life should be or not, she saw herself with her dear daughter: present, quiet, connected, curious, listening to her, in awe of her resourcefulness, and offering her availability in ways that felt right for this mom. Our conversation went to some doubts this mom has about her ability to sustain a presence like that when her daughter is blaming her, refusing to leave the boyfriend, when the reality of risks are real, when fear and worry are so real. So next time, we'll question the thought "I can't sustain that kind of presence", and she'd love to share her insights on that one too. I'll be right there with her questioning that one. What a great thought, it shows up, and it will guide to the truth that lies in and around it, and therefore, guide to peace, and to love. Stay tuned. In the meantime, thanks so much for joining me in choosing peace, choosing to love, choosing to take care of our worry, as best we can. Here's a free guide to help along the way. It includes some of my most used and effective ways to nurture inner peace. I hope it supports you too! Here's the guide: From Worry to Peace - Essential Steps to Empower Moms of Adult Children Struggling with Substance Abuse. Love wins here! Peace to you and your family, Joanne
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OK, I'm not going to tell you of the latest struggles with my son, but suffice it say we've got them. That's a story, and there are other stories. Here's one: I do believe that all things can bring purpose, something that's going to teach us something, remind us, re-direct us, provide some sort of learning or awareness we didn't have before.
Just as the earth recycles itself, we follow this natural evolution, if we say yes to it, even though and because it can be very hard when you've experienced loving a child through their addiction. Let's not deny that or sugar coat it. It is hard. And hard and easier can co-exist. How? 1. Raising our awareness that life is going to move, with or without us. It's easier with our raised awareness and agreement, our intentional effort in the move. 2. Saying yes to the move, being moved, moving ourselves, taking 100% responsibility for being part of the move and doing our part. And hey, part of it is choosing to rest too, taking a break when you need it, saying no. It's allowing choices and paving a path for them to be illuminated so you can consider what choice is right for you at any given moment, in whatever circumstances present. 3. Choose Peace. There are many choices for you to incorporate into your life that can relieve your overwhelm and can bring you peace. I'm sure you're enacting some already, and I so admire you for it. Anything is worthy of acknowledging and giving it some gratitude, including YOU! I'll quickly note some steps you can take for your own peace path, as well as offer you more detail in this free guide: From Worry to Peace - Essential Steps to Empower Moms of Adult Children Struggling with Substance Abuse. Honestly, the guide can help anyone, but you're my people, so my heart is inspired by our shared experience and intentions. These are some of my go to steps all the time, all situations. So grateful for them! 1. Breathe 2. Self-Kindness 3. Feel It to Heal It 4. Reality Check 5. Gratitude Honestly, there are times in my life that I was anything but peace, I used to scream how much I need it. Yes, kind of ironic, but I really didn't know how to get peace, sustain it, or share it. That was actually the path to find the ways. That dear one just didn't know. Now she does, and with you we're going to walk this peace path together, yes? This path we did not choose, and we can choose to ease it by choosing and continually getting back on our own path of peace. It has saved my life, and I surely believe it contributes to any healing in my relationship with my son. When I'm at peace, my choices and inspiration present themselves, I don't have to work as hard. I can learn and practice loving with skills, it makes it so much easier than being at war within and with reality, and with my son. Not at peace, harder. At peace, makes the hard easier. It gets dicey, we are imperfect, and I choose PEACE. Thank you for joining me! Here's the guide again: From Worry to Peace - Essential Steps to Empower Moms of Adult Children Struggling with Substance Abuse. Love Wins Here! May Peace be with you and your family, Joanne If you'd like to share the guide with anyone else you'd think would benefit from it, please share the link below so they can get more ideas as we walk a peace path together. Thanks so much! https://joanne-richards.mykajabi.com/Worry-to-Peace As moms of children who have and do struggle with substance use, we have story after story of our kids in some kind of danger, our imaginations run wild about the past and the future. It imprisons us in fear and scenes we can barely escape: our kids leaving treatment, not going to treatment, living on the streets, scrounging for drugs or alcohol just to survive a day, psychosis, missing for days or weeks or years. It's terrorizing!
So much of that is my story too. It's the reality of the struggles of chaotic substance use. And it's why I'm so determined to help myself through the fears of it all (and hopefully help you through your own fear and worry too). We just can't waste time stuck in fear! Our love, our action, our healing is needed and fear just interrupts it and slows us down! This week, with my son missing again and health deteriorating, my mind so easily has gone in and out of some very scary thoughts and images. The fear and grief at times is strangling, so I reached out to a fellow "The Work" facilitator and questioned the thought "He's given up on life". That thought, when believed, creates so much fear and anguish, horrible images, tremendous overwhelm. When I believe the thought, the mind automatically starts to find the supposed evidence that the belief and fear is rational, that's it's imminent, that it's probably real, except the truth is that I don't have real evidence that any of my fears are happening at this very moment. Hmmm, very good to see. But, that's how the mind operates, it will take us on a wild ride and it seems very true for all of time. It just doesn't make it true. I'm interested in truth. In peace. In the love that is in and around fear and worry, the love that brings me back to itself. And so I choose healing, for me and my son by extension. One way is by questioning my fears. The example I'll share today is the realizations when questioning the thought "he's given up on his life". I invite you to sit quietly, take a few deep breaths, and contemplate if you've ever believed someone you love has given up, AND if there's a spark of truth in any of my realizations that might be true for you too. It is this kind of inquiry and finding truth that sets me freer to choose life again, and freer for love to find me, and thereby freer to be love in the world, even through the grief and fear, especially then! This freedom is for you too! Realizations, my truths: 1. I have no idea what he can or has chosen in his life. Ideas change, thoughts change, motives change, he has changed, and changed again. We all have. Is he even choosing or are the choices making him because of psychosis and the impact of drug use on his brain? There is a relief in surrendering to "I just don't know!" instead of believing thoughts and scary images and then falling into a dark pit of despair because of it. Good to notice, to be the observer of it rather than the prisoner of it. Not knowing is so much more peaceful than stuck in the darkness of fear. 2. If I don't know and can not know, then I can better understand and accept that I was never given power over his life or his death. That is way beyond my power here on earth. His life and death are between him and God, his path is not mine, never was and can never be. I don't like it sometimes, I feel lots of grief, but sitting in the very truth of this, I stop arguing with the reality of it and move into acceptance even if it feels hard. That realization allows me to consider what is within my power. What are the choices along my own path? What inspiration comes? I hear: Come out of fear my dear and let love find you, inspire you, guide you. You need it! He needs it! We all need it! 3. I accept and surrender that his life and death are not on my terms. Not for detox, not for any other treatment according to me or anyone else. Not timing, not ways, I don't get to direct and choose the terms. Boom! Sooooo good to again realize and remember. Now what? Alternatives, other possibilities, redirection, my heart and mind opens to that, inspiration is offered. The wisest, most loving next step is to fill my heart with love and send it to him no matter where or how he is. What are his terms? God's terms? As I said, that's up to them, not really my business. My terms are to be re-minded and as best I can to be open to anything and everything as it comes. To feel, to heal. My terms are to be even more guided to whatever his terms are, whatever life's terms are! More flexible, more daring, not from fear, and from refilling my heart with unconditional love and doing the next loving thing that feels right. The world has opened up again! 4. I accept and surrender that life has me too. To live in fear means I die to my own life, I kill my own joy, I don't see the beauty in the world around me, I die to love at its most powerful and truly unconditional. This fear energy will never be the energy from which I can help my son the best. The heart begins to open more to the death of insisting how life should be, how my son's life should be. It's painful to play God, it's painful to assume I know how life must unfold. There may be grief for sure, and it can co-exist with the pursuit of happiness, the awareness of beauty, the practice of gratitude for what is rather than the stress of controlling life itself. Yes! Let life have me! Let love have me! New ideas, new possibilities, healing ways, the way of peace, the way of love, have me! It can, it does. And you too! Yes, Yes, Yes! If this be our path, please let's walk it together! Let fear die! Not for always, and for when we can, because we can. We are the change makers! We are the light in the darkness! We are the love that overcomes the fear! You! Me! Us! Life in fear is the catalyst, the doorway into the death of fear. Back to life again re-newed, re-minded, re-purposed. Truth is found, life and love re-born. Love wins here! With so much gratitude! May Peace be with you and your family, Joanne He left another detox again. When I brought him there the day before after an ER visit, he was barely able to stand much less walk. Following the call to just do what feels right for me, I chose the 45 minute drive back to his usual places. Didn't quite have a plan after that. The plan was to allow whatever may be and just do my piece, for my peace and in peace.
There are times I haven't listened to that call, for valid reasons and with self-compassion, and thankfully there's another way. Love finds another way, thankfully another time. There he was! Coming near the busy intersection but I couldn't stop in the middle of traffic. Just then the light turned red! I called him over and he hobbled to the car, inviting him into the car, he agreed. I offered him food, he said yes. After eating, I asked him if he has any thoughts about what he'd like to do on this night. Again, he chose detox and we called the one he wanted. They had a bed! One hour later, he's admitted. I was told by a few people not to do this again, just to pray, that that's all we can do, protect yourself, you've done enough, he has to do this on his own, he hasn't hit bottom yet - blah blah blah. The heart knows. The heart paves a way. The heart guides along the way. This is the way of Love. Love thanks them for their concern and says good-bye. I release the distraction, breathe back into my heart's wisdom. This is about my peace and my understanding of Love. They were thinking results for a long-term future and pains of the past. Understandable! Love is thinking presence, it shows up, next steps revealed. He's there or he's not - either one Love remains. I want to remain there as much as possible. I can share this with my son, I can share it with someone else in his honor, it happens now and it happens later. Love lives now without restriction of time and place, of who gets it, it invites us to live it, feel it, grow it, share it. This is the Love that resides in each of us. Feel it. Breathe into stillness, into quiet. Get to know your body's signals. When your feels open and expansive, that is the heart aligning with the body and balancing out the fearful mind so that you can better consider alternatives that feel right for you. Listen. Some think its impulse or intuition, divine guidance. Whatever it's called, it calls you. You are your own expert. Your heart, your body will know. Ask yourself what feels right for you and how you'd like to lay your head down at night with your own yes or no. Notice whether your body feels open or closed off. When you're in your own truth, aligned with your heart and its wisdom, your body will feel more open, you'll sit or stand taller, breathe easier, an inner strength and knowing revealed. There's a peace about it. Become the observer in the next few days of your own intuitive, heart, Love guided "yes's" or "no's" and notice how your body's wisdom can inform your decisions. We do the best we can. What feels right one day may not the next. This path is hard. Each situation may have it's own uniqueness. Still there are guideposts along the way. Of course consider the guidance of others, seek it, and have some solid healing and peace practices. This helps you tap into your own inner guidance, and it is the one that really matters. Sometimes we ask for confirmation of what we already know, sometimes to make sense of the answer that may feel the most right when we're between a rock and hard place, or we take an opportunity to listen to what feels more right when we hear it. Breathe, get still, ask, listen. Recall a time when you heard the whisper of what felt right for you, you listened, and you knew. Seek your own truth. It is your heart, your soul, your inner wisdom, truth not fear, and it knows. Love will always wait, it's always available, it gives a trillion second chances. Love wins here! Peace be with you and your family, Joanne He disappeared into the streets again. I don't know where he is, how he is. No phone. Missed the latest court date. Signs of psychosis. Back to using. Is he sunburned, starving, dehydrated, alive? I don't know!
What's it like for you to just not know? I hear the struggle from so many of us, these overwhelming worries. We are overwhelmed by our fears, they're seemingly all we can think, see, and feel. There are so many questions that just don't have an answer. I'm going to share some tips then for you that give some answers to this overwhelm of "not knowing". I invite you to open your mind and connect to your heart, so that you can contemplate HOW to care for the fears of "not knowing". 1. Breathe gently. Sit down, close your eyes, breathe in and out of your heart. Inhale through your nose, exhale fully through your mouth. Connect to your heart. Get a vision of your child in better days and put them into your heart. Get a vision of you in better days and put you into your heart. Join your heart with your child's heart, visualize this loving connection, feel it in you body and let it get into your cells, now put all your love into the brightest white light you can imagine and shine it out to your child. When you don't know, you can know how to do this. Do it now. 2. Open your mind and heart to accepting that you just can't know, don't know, and of course you don't have to pretend to like it. Consider there have been so many times in your life you haven't known, that's how I know and you can know that you can do this. You don't know, and you are still breathing, moving in the world as best you can, still capable of sending your love to your child. Release control, breathe, and consider that your power is in this practice, not in fear. 3. In this acceptance, notice, just notice that your imagination is spinning you in all kinds of directions, and probably into some very scary recollections of the past, and scary scenes of a future not yet in existence. Breathe into your heart, give yourself compassion and tons of care that it is your imagination, and you don't know. Notice the difference between staying in your imagination and fear, or accepting not knowing without all the stories that the imagination will create. You are and can create something different. Breathe into this realization and into the present. If you're like me, not knowing is probably far more peaceful than being in your scary imagination of all the worst case scenarios the mind can conjure. You know why? It's because when we impose our imagination onto a future and believe it to be accurate, we are assuming the role of God and that we are all knowing. And we're never going to be that. It's guaranteed stress. If you choose to remain in an imagined state and don't do anything about it, it is guaranteed stress. Now you know a few things you can know, and do. Will you do it? Yes! There will be fear. There will be grief. There will be worry. There can be relief. There can be peace. There are tools, methods, skills, supports, resources, other possibilities, there are a lot of things for our healing. And when we do those things, it re-minds us, re-connects us to love - the thing we want most and want most to share. It will be very painful indeed if we disconnect from Love. I don't know where or how my son is, and I trust it is better than all the places my imagination could take me. I'm thankful that I just don't know. I'm so thankful for these tools! It leaves space and energy for my healing and to re-connect with Love and Peace. I know that when I do these practices, if or when my son re-surfaces, I'll need it, and he'll need it from me. If he doesn't, I still need it. And so do others from me. And I daresay you need it too. Consider truly what you do know about self-care and healing as you allow the not knowing. And if you have any questions about that, connect with me by replying to this message. For now, please re-read the above and practice it. Repeat as needed. It can transform your fear, and bring you back to your awareness of Love. Are you going to practice? Yes! Breathe dear one, find some peace in the not knowing. In the not knowing, it frees you to send all the love in your heart to the one you love, despite not knowing. Will you do that? Yes! I know it's hard to not know, and I think it's harder to be stuck in the imagination and go on an even bumpier and scarier ride because of it. You can't and don't have to control this very natural and normal way the mind operates. Just notice when it happens and open up to allowing and accepting the not knowing. Practice. Become more comfortable with "not knowing". It's hard, yes, and these are ways to make the hard easier. Love wins here! Peace be with you and your family, Joanne Richards I went biking on one of the trails near my home to see the impact of a fire from two weeks ago. I thought I'd have to bike pretty far to see the after effects, but no, it was close. It covered so much of my home trails and nothing looked the same. The damage was devastating, and heartbreaking. The charred ground, burned cacti, decreased animal life were evident. Still, there was life! A bird sitting on top of a saguaro, green leaves on a tree right next to a blackened bush. Somehow despite the fire, there were plants still alive right next to others that were burned to the ground. The essence of the desert remains, despite the effects of a raging fire. The soil goes deep and though covered by ash now, there is other soil deep under the ash with seeds to grow a different desert, not all plant life was destroyed, birds returned, rabbits scurried across the path. It reminds me that inside each of us remains this essence, our life force. Connected to life with Higher Purpose from Higher Power even if or when we don't feel it. Despite circumstances and because of them we embody: Perseverance. Determination. Resilience. Courage. Kindness. Compassion. Love. With the ability to learn and pivot, we grow because of and despite hardships and struggles. We are constantly choosing life and love. Our love runs deep, our essence makes us rise. That can look like taking a much needed rest or getting on the ground crying and feeling the heartbreak, sometimes necessary for our healing. Still, we rise! Our essence remains despite the fires! Take a look around at the life that remains around you, ride a little bit further and longer, take breaks when you get tired, and remember your essence was created long before this. You didn't create it and can't remove it. It's still and always in you. Choose again and again to ride into life, because it's there too among the ashes and in the areas the fire didn't hit. Love didn't go anywhere, it remains through time and circumstance and it will rise in you and through you. There might be fire, there might be damage, and Love is greater. Just like in nature and for you, it will restore, it will renew, it will recreate, it will hold you through the changes, it will invite you take the ride. Say "yes". Love wins here! Joanne One year, two years, five years, ten. Fear is real and it doesn't care when.
This little rhyme just came to me, not to be cute but to be real. Because when you love someone who has ever struggled with substance use, it sure seems that fears are very real! It has kicked me in the gut many, many times. How about you? And many, many times we get back up! It's not that we have to eradicate fear, it's that we really need to know how to take care of it when it arises, because it will. Here are some tips to use in the moments when fear feels so overwhelming, tips that can shift your mind into more rational thinking, restore your inner calm, and help you move forward with improved connection, communication, and collaboration. Use these tips anywhere, anytime.
Here's how it looks for me: I have a fleeting thought "he's going to relapse" and it cause me worry, takes me to past worry and fears of it repeating in the future. It takes me out of my heart and what I can do today for my own peace and to love him as is, support him as is. Truth is that I can not know if he will relapse or not. Either way, I get to love him, as is and if he does relapse he'll need that. The thought, when believed causes my own relapse when I believe it's true even though I can't know the future, even if it's already happened. It takes me away from the present and having the energy and clarity to do my part so I can be clear and present with him, or just send him love without the fear and worry attached to it. That's the kind of love he needs, me too, and what I want to feel and share. So, yes I will feel what comes up because this is is hard stuff and the emotions are valid. Along with that, I can also notice the thoughts behind it, and seek the truth of what I'm believing by asking myself if the thought is true. Even not knowing gives me relief that no it isn't totally true because I'm not the all knowing. Back to right now, in my heart, loving. If the answer is yes, my "work" is to restore my peace first and foremost, talk about it, and take care of my stress. What do you think? Let me know how this lands for you. Try it out, and let me know your experience of questioning your thoughts this way. Love wins here! For Peace and Possibility! Joanne I was in one of my coaching support calls last night with three other women. At the end of each call, we set our intentions until our next meeting. Initially three of us stated an intention for mindful breathing/meditating recognizing that it's very easy to get caught up in busyness, worry, the discomfort of not knowing, caught in the mind's erratic ways. By the end of the call, all four of us committed to mindful breathing because it is that powerful and transformative. It's just a great reminder whether we have a practice or just trying something new.
When I'm going through challenging times, I need dependable ways to come back to the present and relax my body and mind. How about you? One very dependable way is the BREATH. Mindful breathing can help us return to the present moment where we can calm the mind and body, where we can get still and quiet enough to hear and remember our heart's wisdom, where we can return to the present moment, just taking it one day at a time, not reeling into the past or future. When we're upset, worrying, in fear, our breath naturally gets shallow. It's not nurturing us the way it surely can. Here's WHY you might want to bring intention and attention to a practice of mindful breathing because it can:
Here's HOW: first of all, get comfortable, if it feels right for you close your eyes, touch your heart. Following are a few different ways to practice mindful breathing:
Love wins here! Peace! Joanne PS. I'd love to hear more about your breathing practice, meditations, whatever really. Just reply and let's stay connected. PPS. Do you know someone who may enjoy reading my monthly newsletter, Love wins!? Please send the link and new friends can join the Love wins! community by clicking here. It has been a looooooonnnngggg time since I last wrote. I have been in a looooonnnnngggg dark night of the soul processing a whole lot of loss and grief, and crises that came weekly. Will you please forgive my absence? You know what it means when a dark night of the soul visits? It means light is on the way to offer more learning, wisdom, growth, lots of things even though it comes the "hard way" to bring us into the light of another day. Still there may be grief, and lots of it, and it will all co-exist if we allow it. Even a dark night of the soul is a precursor to some kind of experience that can and will move us forward in some way. I really believe it's a law of nature, and divine! After months and months of what you might imagine happens when someone you love is in the throes of addiction, medical and mental health crises, conditions that escalated to their highest in a 15 year history, other personal losses and big life changes, my system became exhausted. Every time I considered doing more, my body just said no. It said yes to only navigate what I had on my plate, to simplify, and slow it way down, and dive deep into peace practices. Honestly, I've had to deliberately invite a whole lot of self-compassion and effort because it seems like I dropped off the face of the earth. I also wondered when my system would shift and turn on enough to reach back out to you, to resume purposeful work to help us all heal and help our kids. I did have my concerns - had my fire gone out? It has simply taken the time it takes, choices, effort, with so much gratitude for support and resources. Thank you dear ones for all you've offered!! Your texts, conversations, prayers, check-ins, hugs, shoulder to cry on, so much helped me so much!! What's the point of telling you all this? Here's the main story (and invitation). I recently visited my son in treatment. He stayed! A whole month! During that time, he painted the painting shown below. He used his favorite colors, and was so proud to gift it to me. I asked him what the painting means to him. He said "Mom, the fire is still in here" relating the colors and pattern to a burning fire. I think we both realized his "earthly" fire was in serious jeopardy of being extinguished. He's still hanging in there. Despite what felt like a traumatic avalanche of crises, there have been lots of silver linings and new realizations, there has been significant and meaningful change. And I'll be sharing the many ways to inspire meaningful change - from the inside out.
All this to say, hang in there my friends. Hold on! I get how hard it is to hold onto hope, and it's ok if you don't feel it. I have not felt "hope" many, many times. Still, do your part, do your own healing and peace practices. It is essential! So ... what's one small thing you can do for yourself to spark a flame? What has ever worked for you to slow it down and practice something peaceful? Just one small thing. A walk around the neighborhood or a park or a forest trail? Listening to music and maybe even dance like no one is watching? Writing about all the possible things you could possibly see and hear, taste and smell that you have ever enjoyed? It can be really cathartic to just write, a brain dump I call it, like its one big vent on paper, just get it out of your head. Paper listens so very well! Be of service to another person? Breathe, get still, ask, listen, discover? In this moment, breathe. Consider that you have an internal flame that is eternal. So do our loved ones. You didn't put it in there so you can't take it out. Spark it up. Today. Put your shoulders back, stand tall or sit up in your chair. Notice how it energizes you. That's love, and it will find you everywhere, anywhere, through every thing. Because ... Love wins! Peace! Joanne What a year! How are you defining your 2022?
For me, there was a series of crises and losses, difficult changes to process, and the need to approach old problems in new ways. I worked very hard to find silver linings, practice peace and gratitude, and to transform fears to understanding and love. Still am. I think it's a great life practice no matter the circumstances. I could say it was a crappy year, and instead, with an open mind to translate the events, will re-define the story to a spectacular year. A year with lots of support from very loving people (like you), confirming the efficacy and trust in the tools and peace practices I've been thankful to find (and share). I trust I rise and will continue, I trust it's more than OK to be with worry and grief - in fact it's sacred. I trust that love will continue to find me in all, through all. I trust it does this for us all! And it's bringing us all into a New Year. But, Instead of saying "Happy New Year", it feels fitting and actually more uplifting to say to you: I wish you an Abundance of New Possibilities in the New Year! Take the experiences, however you define them, and consider the learning and growth, the guidance, the inspiration, the re-direct, the endings, the beginnings. What story will you tell? What is possible if you were to welcome each and every experience, every emotion, every last thing and trust that there is a purpose in it, that it can serve you, it can serve the world? That somehow, all these things get recycled, restored, recreated, that something is born from it? Just for today as you read this message, I invite you to consider "What is one possibility that you realized or that you can intend for, that is doable, small, that feels inspiring, that has been whispering to you, that will feel good today, that you can give yourself? Breathe into the feeling of it now and let it fill your heart, your mind, your body and feel the good in the possibility of that moment. This is a new moment. Every moment is. One goes, another comes all day, every day, it all gets new. Each moment becomes a new hour, a new day, a new month, a new year. It will find you, and you can find it. Have the kind of new moments you have, and trust that each one will lend itself to a new year, a new possibility. And so, I wish you Happy New Moments for New Possibilities in the New Year! With gratitude, for Peace and Possibility, Joanne |
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