Selfless or Selfish? - That, Is the Question

"Each of us sends out positive or negative vibrations, often without being conscious we are doing so. What if we made an effort to be consciously positive to resonate messages of the highest good for others and ourselves? What if we made a deliberate attempt to keep our thoughts aligned with God's perpetual optimism, to refuse to be stuck in self-centered fear? Our thoughts speak louder than our words. In order to change what we create, we must change our thinking. We must mind our mind." ~ Albert Clayton 

Here we are again, in the middle of the holiday season, one of the most wondrous and yet most difficult times for many of us whose children are struggling through addiction and recovery. Whether we are living with our babies and separated from them emotionally, or parted from them by minutes or miles, the holidays can exacerbate the many challenges to our journeys.

We ask ourselves, "Where are they, what are they doing now?" The temptation to fix our children during this season of light and joy, to control The Addiction, becomes amplified.

"Can I fix her just this month? Can't I bring him in, if only for the holidays?

The maddening, mind-twisting, gut-wrenching and totally counter intuitive answer to these questions is simply:

NO

The two words that come to mind, selfless and selfish, have distinct meanings of course yet seem intertwined in our hearts and souls as we proceed along our journey pathways. By living our lives to the fullest and seeking the joy and adventure The Universe has laid out for us we often feel a pang or two of guilt.

"How the hell can I (insert personal life endeavor here) while my son is languishing in the jail cell of his addiction, while my daughter is struggling with her recovery?"

Merriam Webster defines selfless simply as: Having no concern for self.

Doesn't this mean if we do not attend to our children, if we do not do everything in our power to turn their lives around for them, we then become the selfish and not the selfless. A very recent and very personal experience may better illustrate what I am trying to say.

As I write this it is two days until the deadline for choosing a health care plan under the Affordable Care Act. Last night our 26-year-old recovering and I sat down to review his options. He had begun this the previous weekend and found the medication he is taking (this time under a doctors care 😌 ) is not covered on ANY plan. He and his mom had worked the ACA website to the best of their abilities. I was not asked for assistance nor did I offer any.

I knew my time would come.

So as predicted, with three days until deadline number 2 son and I sat in our office after work to continue what he had already begun. As I watched him navigate the site I said, "You've gone as far as you can go. You've done what you can." I then added, "All you can do is talk to a human being tomorrow about your meds to see if there is anything you're missing." That is all I said. I was done - a gentle nudge in the right direction.

For a moment a mix of terror and indignation  - we all know that look - came and went. He reached for his phone and realized he was outside the normal business hours when the ACA call center would be available.

Then one of those little miracles happened. He looked at me and said, "You know there's an app you can use to get coupons for my medication. I'd be spending $50 or $70 a month instead of $300, and I could get a lower cost plan off the marketplace for medical. He showed me the app. The terrified, indignant (angry) look softened to a one reflecting achievement. He had a plan all the time.

He didn't need me.

This will become his accomplishment - not his mother's or mine - and another mile logged along his recovery journey.

Last weekend required a lot of selflessness for me to stay in the background, to refuse a call not sent until the following Wednesday, to reject my fed-by-fear baser instincts to rush in and save him when as it turned out he didn't, doesn't need saving.

Perhaps I'm the one who needs saving, regularly.

It would have been selfish for me to SAVE him. I would have been taking care of me, not my son.

Now, are there times we need to intervene to save a life?

The answer to this question is a resounding YES! We'll know it when we see it. We will remain close enough to our children to let them know there is unconditional love for them if they'll take it. We'll see when they need a rope thrown to them to pull them out of the muck. And we'll be there when they simply say, "I can't live like this anymore."

We can remember the stealing of victories AND consequences are selfish, not selfless acts. When we insert ourselves where we needn't be we are putting ourselves right where The Addiction wants us. We become allies of our children's mortal enemy.

Be the beacon, not the bully. They've got this, most of the time. They just don't know it yet - until they know it, that is.

. . .keep coming back

"Enveloped in Your Light, may I be a beacon to those in search of Light. Sheltered in Your Peace, may I be a shelter to those in need of Peace. Embraced by Your Presence, so may I be present to others." ~ Rabbi Rami Shapiro

"For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we each are free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world." ~ Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 

Deciding

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." ~ William Butler Yeats

Roads diverge, paths split into pathlets and constantly cross each other in a seeming spiderweb of possible directions.

Unlike Robert Frost in his poem "The Road Less Travelled" we have chosen many roads more often taken, some by reflexive choice, others out of necessity. It has truly made all the difference in our lives, hasn't it? After all we have experienced we should be masters at making the correct choices, navigating, knowing when to zig, when not to zag, to emerge at last to that meadow of sunlit delights at least for a time.

We should be.

During our wanderings as we searched for our own recovery destinations, the roads, trails and pathways we chose were those most often travelled by parents of children who have wandered into the vortex created by The Addiction. The trails were named the Fix Her Trail, the Control Him Trail, the Cure Trail and the ubiquitous Anger, Rage, and Depression trails, all loops, bringing us back to our starting points at the Despair Trail head.

We all know how that turned out. It's so easy to be tempted to take that familiar, oft trodden pathway.

Frost got it right taking the road less travelled. In his poem we witness a conscious decision on the part of the traveller. This was no snap judgment to proceed down the trail seemingly untouched, the one that "...wanted wear," He stood long and hard peering down both options at the fork, and, "... knowing how way leads to way, (he) doubted if (he) should ever come back."

He decided.

Unfortunately, unlike the expedition made by Frost, our journey tracks are often intersected with invitations to take the easy way, the downward sloping footpath leading to the same shit from our recollections. We must be vigilant in our convictions that our children's journeys are theirs to navigate. There is no need to search for them, to wander down the pathways made wide by hundreds of parents like us in the infancy of their recovery journeys. It is a constant process of deciding to SEEK and SEE the joy amid the tragedies and struggles of our children, to bathe in the sunbeams trickling through the treetops to take in The Universe' treasures. We become adventurous contrarian trail hikers.

We'll catch glimpses of our babies on their journeys, watch their progress as they proceed up and down their trails, falling, picking themselves up, dusting off the dirt and the occasional bloody scrape, learning, failing, winning.

We can just decide not to engage in The Addiction's temptation to throw ourselves onto the rock and muck as well. We're better than that - we've logged too many miles to be duped into once again going down that road. We'll know when and if we need to intervene. The miracle is, thankfully. they have the intellect and tools to find their way.

It's a matter of deciding, most of the time and to the best of our ability, to take the road that may still seem a bit unfamiliar.

Believe me, it will make all the difference.

. . . keep coming back

"We did not ask for this room or this music; we were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces toward the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty ... We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance. ~ Stephen King