A Season of Reconnection

Woke up early this morning to no electricity in the Pueblo. We are easing into the shift from dry season, November to June, to the rainy season, June to November. With the light showers that fell last night the world outside took on a fresh presence this morning. I've always loved the transitions from dry to wet, summer to fall, winter to spring. 

During the 70's I lived in southwestern Colorado and worked for an outfitter part time taking people on horseback pack trips and fishing trips in the Rockies. When winter came with it's great white blanket, I was always amazed how my own back yard would transform into another world. The same area I knew so well all summer was something else beneath the blanket of snow and the stillness of the Mountain winter nights. What I thought I knew so well was actually something else with a simple change of seasons. 

Today, I'm 52 years on Earth. The "me" that inhabits this body has lived many seasons and over the last few years has come fully awake to the magic and mystery of life's continuous transformation. The first 40 years I lived trying to find a comfortable spot to settle in and live happily ever after. Then I got to be such a mess that I was told I needed Rehab to get me on the right track. It took a couple months' consideration and I chose to go check myself into treatment. I really was tired of the way I felt being me, it really was that simple. 

In treatment I was offered lots of information about what I was, and what I suffered from, and what I had to do to be ok. Over time, I kept doing another piece of the "what I was told" and that piece was, to take what fits and leave the rest. I left more than I took, needless to say. 

As my life began to slowly but surely, shift to a new season, I became aware of a voice inside me that was not a voice of fear or Resistance or know-it-all or any of those too familiar voices that had ruled my mind and most of my life. This voice was something else. As I began to listen and sometimes follow this voice, I realized the voice knew me better than I knew myself. When I'd go with the voice, my life moved into a sweeter place, not always immediately, but always as a result of my listening and going with the feeling and guidance of that voice. 

That voice told me to listen to the woman who became my second wife and still does by the way. That voice whispered that if I'd take the chance and go on a journey to Mexico in 2002, (a journey I was on the fence about) that I'd find something I'd been missing. So I went and found Teotihuacan and my doorway to our Divinity. As I've lived with this voice as my guide, the voice has morphed into a feeling as well as a voice. 

Over the years aspects of myself have awakened that, for the first 40 years I'd lost all connection to. I'd lived a whole lifetime disconnected from at least half of my gifts as a human. Why all that happened is not very important now, so I'll just say that disconnection was an inheritance that nobody realized was being passed from generation to generation. I had simply inherited my share. 

Living my reconnection is what is important now and that has brought me full circle from believing and living with the belief that I could only be good enough if and when I lived up to all the expectations of the world. This old belief system was a powerful aspect of a lot of the recovery world that I was participating in as well. I was only as successful as I was compliant with the rules. I hated that. It was so easy for me to feel like a piece of crap and I wanted so badly to feel like I was just ok. 

Sounds like that should have been easy but it wasn't. As I learned to listen to my voice of guidance and feel my way through decisions, I came to realize that the being, "me,"  underneath all the knowing and thinking and story telling, was connected to something much sweeter and more loving and more honest than any of the little "me's" I had played out in the world for so long. Behind all the everything I thought I knew, and everything that was this world to me, there was/is a presence that needs nothing to be at peace. That presence is in me and I know today that presence is the "me" that I disconnected from so long ago in my trying to be good enough. My greatest recovery has been recovering my awareness. Without that I'd still be living for trying to be good enough. 

As I work in the Recovery business I often find myself seeing this work as a doorway for people to wake up to their greatest gifts as humans rather than a desperate attempt to get "it" right. Getting "it" right is that trying to be good enough all over again. The truth is we were never not good enough so chasing "it" will never get us back to what we've disconnected ourselves from. 

I have absolute faith in our wholeness and in the unique gifts that life bestows on each of us and for me this work of Recovery is all about our individual and collective awakening to those gifts and the magical ways that the truth of who and what we really are will be revealed to us. There is no fear in reconnecting to the truth of what we really are, there is only freedom and the courage to live from that place of divinity. This is not a journey just for those who go to rehab or need a program to support their changes, this is the way of the awakening of the Humanity and this is the opportunity for that awakening to be a season of grace and beauty to this world of ours. Vaya con Dios, Peace Be With You, Lee

When the Game is up

Have you taken a good look around lately? Have you listened to the news, especially a source other than the U.S. official news agencies like Fox and CNN and the networks? Our world looks more and more like what I've not only seen, but have lived as an individual in Recovery. 

We humans have been ignoring the consequences of the way we have demanded to live in the world to the point that now those consequences are acute and can only be ignored by the most insane of our species. Interestingly enough ,we, the U.S. are so addicted to our way of life that we seem to have no collective perspective that the game is up. I've read for 30 years that this situation was coming and the predictions are no longer predictions they are now facts. 

If you've ever dealt with an addiction you can possibly see my point of view that our culture has a serious problem and is only now entering into a pre-contemplative stage of awareness. Pre-contemplative means simply at the point of considering that there might be a problem here. Like an old junkie I hear our Government say that there's plenty more dope (oil) in Alaska and in sensitive environmental areas off shore etc...that if we get into that stash we're cool for another 50 years. 

Sometimes the perspectives of an addicted mind are so blind and stupid that it's really difficult for me to remain compassionate with their ignorance and lies. In Recovery, the first step is to admit that there is a problem and realize that the way of thinking and acting that created the problem will not solve it. More oil will not fix this situation. We have been desecrating this planet for the sake of our shallow entertainment and demands that whatever we, humans, say we want we deserve and need. That's been a lie. 

Look around the U.S., we don't need three homes per wealthy family. We don't need more malls or cheaper crap from Wal-Mart or more varieties of Cheeseburgers or another low cost airline. We need a relationship with our self , the one inside you that has been waiting to be heard since you got strung out on trying to be good enough and started chasing the great lie of success American style. 

The other night I was with a very successful Mexican friend who lived in the U.S, for several years. He went to L.A. as a wet back, started working parking cars at a Valet service, and in a few years owned the parking garage. That's the American Dream in action. That's a great example of what built the U.S. into a great country. Motivated people working hard and creating opportunities for themselves and following through. Of course my friend sold the business to an American corporation and moved home to Mexico where he's continued to prosper and serve his people by intentionally creating opportunities for young people to learn and grow. 

As is the case with addicted people, the American Dream has become poisoned with self righteous, victim minded, demanding what we want because we deserve it for nothing, attitudes and actions. People too lazy to create a life for themselves put more energy into building walls to keep Mexicans out than they do taking responsibility for their problems. 

When I was addicted, my addiction was not anybody else's fault. Of course I could blame others all the time and did, and there was never any truth to my blaming. It was me doing it to me all the time. It took a huge step forward in my life for me to let go of needing someone else to blame for my life sucking. 

We, the U.S. are the most wasteful, consumer driven, self absorbed, lonely, afraid, first world country on Earth. So what are WE missing here? Jesus flying down out of Heaven couldn't save us from ourselves, besides he's probably a Mexican and the new saviour of American Fear, the great wall, would surely keep him out. We are addicted as a culture and we need to get humble, and that's coming like it or not, and we need to learn to just stop and be still and take responsibility for how and what we're doing as individuals one day at a time. 

Anyone that's recovered knows what I'm talking about. Our culture is no different than us as individuals when it comes to looking in the mirror and bringing our attention back to the one creating the problem, me, us. This Country can't change from the top down, the ones at the top have the most to lose from humility and cultural awakening. Jesus ran into that, they crucified him, power is no different today than it was then. 

This country and world will change when each of us as individuals stops projecting all our fear as blame and starts looking in the mirror for questions and answers. It's us doing it to us, me to me, you to you. The humanity is insane, addicted, afraid and desperate. Sounds like an intake story from a treatment center. I remember the first step of the Twelve steps ...Admitted I was powerless and MY LIFE HAD BECOME UNMANAGEABLE. 

Welcome to America and the world 2008. The bad news is we are the problem and the good news is we are the problem. If I am my problem then I can change me and undo my addiction to being my problem. The game is up. Are you willing to question everything you think you know for the sake of transforming this world from what it is to what it might be, free from all this fear and desperation? You are the only one that can do your part and that's the truth. 

Vaya con Dios.....Lee

Between The Worlds

It's Saturday Morning...There's a storm brewing out over the ocean, gray sky, wind chop on the water. I hear the kids playing in the living room and I'm sitting here looking at the screen wondering what's next.

For the last 10 years I've lived in varying degrees of proximity to the recovery world and the whole business scene of recovery. I remember when I went to Twelve Step meetings a lot, the first 5 or 6 years, that there was a reference to recovery not being a religion or even like a religion. A lot of people seemed to get some relief from that idea.

Now after 10 years of being in and around the whole scene I gotta say there's way more similarity between recovery and religion than first meets the eye. They are both organized to be of support for people and both have become institutions that you'd better know the rules both spoken and especially unspoken or you'll be a fringe member at best. What I see is that we, people, have used both as a parking lot for our personal responsibilities. If I join your church then your version of God will be on my side or even my Saviour, but of course the deal is completely conditional on my agreeing with the official version of who and what you say God is etc...In the recovery biz there's the same conditional, meet the panel of judges, criteria if you want to be a full fledged member of the not church. In both cases I'm supposed to go along because that will keep me safe from...me, I guess.

Living afraid of me was a big part of my problem though. I am me and that's all I am so how might I learn to trust me, I am. So, the idea that we have to be all in or all out, that we are either for something or we have to be against it, is another aspect of the same way of thinking that feeds so many of our problems today, both personal and global.

There is a space between these worlds of demanding that I participate on their terms or I can't play at all, and making everything that I don't like wrong. There is a space between feeling and my reactions, between my thoughts and my opinions, between the light and the dark, good and bad, right and wrong, up and down........There is a space between.....everything.

If I give my faith to the church or recovery or anything else, that still does not make the church or recovery responsible for the life I live or the space I'm in with my life. If I'm not comfortable where I'm at, then I leave or at least turn to myself for the why am I not comfortable here. The not comfortable is in Me not in the place I'm at.

Recently living here in Mexico, my wife and I had as profound an experience of something that sets me totally off on attack mode as I can get. This involved kids at my daughter’s school that were acting out symptoms of being physically or even sexually abused. When we spoke out about the situation there was a reaction that, first ,we must be wrong because the topic is too creepy to deal with, then it was openly discussed with the teachers and some of the parents and there was, as I'd expect, an amazing range of responses, from the behavior of the children was normal, to there's something really not okay here, to, but this is "our" little ex-patriot community and we're all friends so we don't want anyone to get upset....What the fuck, these are 5 year old kids and the situation was not good. Well, my wife and I decided to take our daughter out of the school and cut loose from the group of people who were more invested in their Something Else's than in the children's well being.

Now the point is that we both found ourselves feeling creepy toward the whole scene in our little Pueblo. The creepy was a feeling we had in us about the situation, that feeling was not something the village was doing to us, in fact there were only 6 or 8 people involved in the mess at school. We could pack and leave and never see that we were living our own reaction or we can stay put and sort this out.

The truth was, that what was happening was the truth, and we were outside the set of agreements that the people involved at the school, parents and teachers, had been operating from, so our interjections created an issue that they didn't really want to deal with. As it turned out, several people admitted that they knew something was not okay but hadn't known how to address it. We became the bearers of bad news for the adults and good news for the children. Now it's our, my wife and me, our opportunity to allow that space between the worlds to show us how we can stay true to our integrity and not let our reactions make the next choice for us.

We both Love so much of our world here in Mexico and we are not from here, so when we get uncomfortable we are learning to really rely on our self and each other in a whole new way. All the while we are both clear that we are first responsible for our self then our children and then each other. We are living between the worlds of home U.S.A. and choice Sayulita, Mexico just as we live between the worlds of separate, individual and married, together, parents. There is a space between the two and in that space is who we really are, where we really are, living life, the best we have to offer, one day at a time.

RECOVERY LIFE

RECOVERY LIFE

During the course of our lifetime we are presented with many, many doorways. There are doorways that lead to adventures, doorways leading to romance and relationships, and there are also doorways opening to the shadows and limitations of fear and suffering. From the very beginning of our life on earth we are taught points of view, beliefs, opinions and judgments. These experiences and teachings may serve us well, or they might distort our ability to see the truth. They become the filters that our perception is filtered thru.

We humans have a powerful ability to make whatever we choose to believe, the truth. Once we’ve settled on a belief, we make agreements with our selves about that belief as truth. Then we seek out others who will agree with us, building a case that our belief really is the truth. From that point forward our perception is subject to the matrix that is created from the network of belief, agreement, definition, and truth that we choose to give our faith to.

You could actually interchange the use of faith and belief in this scenario. It is the power of our faith in our beliefs that gives them power and eventually makes them sacred to us. Sacred because once we’ve made our commitment to our beliefs we will automatically defend them before we openly question them. Questioning our beliefs opens us up to the great tragedy of being wrong. Of course we have made a ridiculously big deal out of being wrong when all being wrong is, is an opportunity to choose again.

For some of us humans life has presented a doorway that we call Recovery. This term recovery is a loaded concept. There are points of view that you have to qualify according to the rules or definitions of others to be “in recovery”. Some people believe recovery is a life long process that you’ll never complete and the best you can be is compliant with the guidelines that are suggested. Then there are those who Recover. Whatever they were doing or dealing with that led them to the doorway or portal of recovery has been dealt with and they have moved on in life, free from the issues that they once suffered from.

In order to be free from our sufferings, we must come to terms with all the ways we have willingly indulged in our suffering. From this point of view recovery is as great an act of human transformation and unconditional love as we might be capable of. To recover requires that we leave no stone unturned in our life and we come face to face with the entire matrix of our beliefs, fears, judgments, opinions, faith and truth. To recover is to be free of life through my, your, or anybody else’s definition. To recover, we must return our faith to our self—to the one that was born of the faith and great mystery of life, letting go of living for the outside world, for the sake of living from the integrity within.

The greatest of journeys begins with the first step. Recovering our integrity, recovering our authenticity, recovering our truth from all the false beliefs we’ve invested our self in, is the great adventure that awaits those who have the willingness and courage to step into the doorway of RECOVERY LIFE.

Theme Park America

The last two weeks have taken me from Mexico, to Tennessee and The Ranch, then on to Jacksonville, Fla. my old home town where I met up with my beautiful wife and our daughters, then down to Orlando and theme Park Landia, back to Jacksonville, and finally the long flight from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast of Mexico. 

While we were in Orlando I had a most interesting dream...Dream Time U.S.A. Standing on a street corner in a typical American town looking around at all the busy people...everything seemed so familiar. Fast pace, overweight, staring straight ahead, the people moved like they were on a conveyor belt. When I looked down I could see that they all appeared to have their own unique path, but underneath the level they perceived themselves on, there was a greater escalator that allowed a perception of individuality, and that perception was an illusion. 

In my dream there was a hummm that resonated through the reality of Dream Time America. I could not hear it as much as I could feel the vibration. When I would put my attention on the vibration the entire visual of the world around me would begin to distort, like having interference on your television screen. A couple times I would make eye contact with someone and just as I would ask them a question or simply say “Hi,” they'd look away and redirect their attention to the dream or life they were living in. 

I say “living in” because by now I was completely aware that each individual was living a reality unique to them, while at the same time believing that everyone was seeing and feeling the same way they did. My being in their reality was a disturbance to how their attention was locked into their bubble of reality. Talking to me would open the door for them to see through the illusion of where and how they had defined their world. 

From down the street I saw a bus coming. It rolled to a stop and a few people got off appearing to be more awake than those walking through the dream world. I watched as they looked around making small talk. A larger group got on the bus, as the door closed and the bus pulled into traffic I saw a sign that read “THEME PARK AMERICA.” 

Wow, Dude. Turning back to the people who'd just gotten off the bus I realized they were from another country. Their language wasn't familiar. This was a trip. When these not Americans began to walk down the street it was clear to me that they were not connected to the conveyor system that the locals were on. Their bubble of reality was a different frequency from the vibration that I had been feeling. Looking up there was a great neon sign that flashed “Theme Park America Now Serving Over 300 Million customers.” 

Then I woke up...What's all that mean? You tell me...how’s your conveyor running these days...Do you hear a hummmm just beyond your ears’ ability to define it? I can't get that picture of our culture as a giant theme park out of my mind. In many ways it seems to fit better than the official version...Gotta go, my Bus is coming...