Live … Then, Let Live

"So I say, "Live and let live." That's my motto. "Live and let live." Anyone who can't go along with that take him outside and shoot the … … …  . It's a simple philosophy, but it always worked in our family." ~ George Carlin 

The phrase live and let live has its origins, possibly, in Charles Dickens' Bleak House, possibly back to Christmastime sometime during World War I, possibly all the way back to Petrarch - "Vos vestros servate, mehos mihi linquite mores." It has been variously defined as allowing others to go on with their lives (societal), allowing an enemy force to proceed unscathed, albeit temporarily (military) or perhaps even a lame attempt at deriving some sort of Universal acceptance of and divorce from those with whom we disagree. [Petrarch's words may be loosely translated as, "You cling to your own ways and leave mine to me."]

Modern interpretations are often accompanied with a shrug of the shoulders. It is a passive-aggressive disassociation with whomever we disagree and would rather leave behind.

We are in essence saying, "I'm done with this person, I sever ties, good luck with YOUR life."

Live and let live is an expression I shudder to hear as much as the dreaded You know I love him to death.

Similar to its cousin, the proclamation of loving anyone to DEATH is most often followed by the qualifying word, BUT.

But, as I often do, I digress.

The Great War soldiers in the trenches of France and Belgium knew the true meaning of live and let live. There were truces at Christmastime that are well known, perhaps not to the extent that inter-army soccer games broke out in the scorched fields between the trench lines, but there are stories told of both sides hearing faint choruses of familiar and shared carols across no man's land in the predawn holiday silence. The phrase had serious meaning in World War I. Each side cherished a few hours where life reigned supreme. This was a temporary reprieve, as all truces are. There was, however, no real trust in these holiday ententes. There was nothing lasting in the live and let live doctrine.

There is nothing lasting in the current interpretation of the phrase either. What has happened in today's definition is a morphing of the phrase into a meaning that encourages isolation and exclusion.  The first word, live, has totally lost any effect, any meaning. Live and let live has become more of an attitude than a message for enduring catastrophic conditions or failed relationships.

Is any phrase accompanied by a shrug, or a word such as BUT worth our attention? Are live and let live or I love her to death thoughtful, honest, insightful, necessary and kind?

As parents of addicts we often find ourselves in trenches, many we have dug ourselves with painstaking attention to everything but our recovery. We can if we want fashion our own phrase, a mantra for self preservation, for permanence and lasting ties to those we love while we focus on what is  truly important - our journey.

Let's take the aphorism apart to emphasize two steps integral to our recovery starting with the word live.

Let's face it, we're not under fire, we're not in the trenches, we are not facing mustard gas or being showered by the hailstorm of the German MG08 machine gun.

All the same, our lives are at stake.

Just as we've learned to heed our internal commander's call to "move or die," there is another self-evident truth we must follow as parents of children who have fallen into addiction.

It's so simple it seems insulting.

We have a choice. We can choose to live, or to die.

So we can take the turn of phrase originally turned in the early 1300s or 1900s on its ear a bit.

Live, THEN let live.

Living our lives sends a multitude of messages throughout the Universe. Living our lives sends a message first to our selves, our hearts, our souls, our inner spirit that we've not given up, we've not abandoned life. We take a metaphorical athletic stance. We're ready for anything. We rejuvenate!

Living our lives sends a message to the Universe that we are ready and willing to embark or continue on our recovery journey. Living our lives leads to wonders and challenges we would never have imagined prior to our decision to experience the possibilities.

Yet this is the causality dilemma of recovery.

Does the act of living life however disjointed or aimless begin our recovery? Does beginning our recovery launch us along the journey of once again living our lives?

It can make your head explode.

But does it matter?

The message that at least one of us has not given in to the siren song of Addiction will be felt throughout the Universe. There is a path laid out for us out by the Great Creator we can no longer dismiss.

Live … then … let our children suffer their failures, and experience with joyful and tearful eyes, their victories.

It is the greatest gift we can bestow upon our boys, our girls.

It is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

… keep coming back

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children as the unlived life of the parent." C. G. Jung

Take Five

"Rest and be thankful." ~ William Wordsworth

Many years ago television gave us the World War II wartime drama Combat!. This hour-long series ran for five years and followed a front-line American infantry squad as it battled its way through war-torn Europe. Grittier than anything on television at the time, Combat! reflected more grimly on war than its immediate successors such as Hogan's Heroes or Gomer Pyle. Combat! addressed the ravages of war without shying away from the effects battle can have on men, and women, physically, emotionally and morally.

Combat! was ahead of its time.

As a kid, I watched the show which seemed to be filmed as much on Hollywood sets as in outdoor environs. For this reason I always felt the squad was wandering about aimlessly, battling in circles as it encountered one enemy platoon, personal demon, partisan, collaborator or manifestation of evil after another. It wasn't. These men, or the men portrayed by the players on the Combat! stage had a higher purpose. History tells us this is so.

"When will they win the war?" I still pondered in my preteen naivete'.

It also seemed like one soldier was always feeling the brunt of the war. To add further realism to the drama the writers needed to emphasize a devastating truth of warfare. People are wounded by gunfire, mortar and shelling. Private Littlejohn was the character to highlight this painful certainty. Every other episode seemed to find Littlejohn wounded, only to be "patched up" to rejoin his brothers at the ending minutes of the hour.

Even as a kid I thought, "Poor Littlejohn."

Very often during a broadcast where the action had built frantically to a pace of action and emotion that seemed exhausting for the characters as well as the viewer, a call would come out from the squad leader, Sergeant Saunders

"Take five."

With these words, action stopped.

The men would do what they always did when given an order by their tough commanding non-com. They obeyed. No questions asked even with the war raging all around. They trusted their sergeant knew what they could withstand, he knew their breaking point, their limit. The eight to 13 members of the squad - depending on the number of guest cast members - would stop everything to find a safe "covered" place and with one or two guards posted take five minutes to recharge, and for a few moments, perhaps, forget about the carnage.

As a dedicated viewer I never felt the action stopped during these times of respite. Instead, I felt a welcome break from the tension and drama the show would bring to my young life. I also knew this brief rest would soon end and and the soldiers of King Company would resume their journey battling on through World War II-era France. I would also feel exhilaration when the men would take off their helmets and light up, some sprawled upon the ground under the ever watchful eye of their buck sergeant and one or two posted sentries.

I felt exhilaration because I knew action would soon follow, rising and falling, and these unlikely heroes would soon be, heroic. I realized, or perhaps I now realize, the respite was needed for the squad to bear the trials ahead.

They call it a "breather" for a reason.

So take five. Breathe. Sometimes we may feel if we stop all will be lost. Maybe we just need to take an inventory of where we've been and how far we've come. Perhaps we've been through so many battles we simply can't take it anymore, for now. We can even take a more extended leave if we've been hit, taken down, hard. Maybe. like Littlejohn, we've been wounded and need some time to get patched up.

It's OK to take five, 10, or 20. Knowing there is a presence watching over us helps. There is a sentinel, a force we can trust. Sergeant Saunders never took a break. The omniscient viewer knew he was always watching over his squad, strategizing, mapping, anticipating. His soldiers simply trusted he would always show them the way.

We can return, rejoin our journey with our band-of-brothers-and-sisters travelers, rejuvenated and ready for anything our child's addiction can throw at us.

Take five, then keep moving!

… keep coming back

"Just find a place to make your your stand and take it easy." ~ "Take It Easy" - by Jackson Browne & Glenn Frey

The Day of Love 2015

I thought I would reprise this post I shared a year ago. Valentines Day is a unique albeit Hallmarkian creation where we are reminded that our hearts and souls are gateways to living our lives. It is only through softening our hearts we can remain side by side with our children without crawling with them into their mire. Here's to Hope and Love!

Happy V-Day!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Love, the magician, knows this little trick whereby two people walk in different directions   yet always remain side by side." - Hugh Prather

I tweeted this a few moments ago: "Today is the perfect day to begin loving your addicted son or daughter. It can be the best V-Day gift you've ever given yourself."

To those who have never been benefactors of recovery from the constant battling, enabling, and hovering that are byproducts of LIVING FOR children who are addicted to anything, these words are meaningless gibberish.

To those of us who have watched our babies fall into the vortex of addiction we know how difficult that first step towards loving our addicts can be. It takes a long time to love ourselves enough to love our addicted children. But in that moment, we know we have travelled the expanses of the many stages of detachment and can look at those souls with love and understanding rather than anger, disdain and bitterness.

It's hard, so hard.

According to History.com, Valentines Day has its origins in a Roman fertility festival Lupercalia, celebrated at the ides of February, February 15. The festival was dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture. The Christians absconded with the festival in an attempt to "Christianize" the pagan celebration. Hallmark made it into a way of life and a distraction from the cold winter weather of mid February.

But let's go back to the origins of this day where we now celebrate that Love is all we need. Valentines Day got its start as a celebration of what can be, the potential that comes from laying a fertile groundwork for future growth. That's what we're all about as we begin or continue on our journey of recovery. And LOVE is key to this embarkation from stagnation to fully living our lives.

For some, the ability to love an addicted child is miles away. You might try saying a prayer for your son or daughter. [You cannot think ill of someone for whom you pray in earnest. Try it first with a neighbor you don't particularly care for - I tried it and it works!!!] If you are uncomfortable with prayer, you might meditate by thinking positive thoughts about your son or daughter. The mere attempt might be a first step toward loving yourself enough to let love into your heart for your child.

In this age of electronic communication and social media, you can text, tweet, or e-mail a note to your daughter. You can leave a voicemail for your son that he'll not listen to [nobody between the ages of 14 and 25 listens to voicemail] but they'll know that you are thinking about them, on Valentines Day. What a wonderful way to warm the heart of a lost child on a cold February day. What a wonderful and joyous way to open the heart of a parent, yes, YOU, who has hardened and closed a loving heart for much too long.

Remember …

"All you need is Love!" - John Lennon and Paul McCartney

… keep coming back! 

Getting Out Of Our Heads

"Cogito ergo sum." ~ Descartes

"I think therefore I exist (am)" is a phrase that has become a fundamental element of Western philosophy. Many of us who were part of a liberal arts curriculum in university learned the very act of doubting our own existence might be the proof of that existence. I always wondered in philosophy class about the lowly slug or igneous rock which, incapable of thought, must not exist at all.

"So what am I seeing?" I wondered.

Our Golden Retriever Cali, however, does continually ponder existence on so many levels that I am convinced she MUST exist. She ponders the existence of food, squirrels, her bone, noises, and whoever might, or might not be, entering the house at any given instant. Cali is the quintessential in-the-moment being. I often envy her.

But I digress.

We long for those days of 50-minute debates in the 400-Series philosophy class. Descartes' postulation may have been the inspiration for the Matrix trilogy, existence merely a function of what the brain wishes to, or is allowed to process. We perceive, therefore we ARE. In the movie, Neo, prophet visionary, programmer, hacker and black-market software purveyor was able to see beyond what was "wrong with the world" to prove the existence of "being" beyond everyones' immediate perceptions, beyond the constraints of what the Matrix allowed.

Our culture, a Matrix of sorts, prizes strong will to overcome adversity and advertises a pull-up-from-the-bootstraps mentality equating personal failures with a weak mind and weaker character.

Is there a Latin phrase for "I think, therefore I am all right?"

As parents of addicts we are notorious for believing we can arise from the ashes of our children's addiction through thought, force of will and logic. We soon learn we can proceed along our journey not by any cognitive process, but through a devastating realization felt to our very core. We are beaten, defeated and broken. There is something "wrong" with our world. We require drastic measures to be rescued from our false perceptions.

This escape doesn't require any deep thoughts and this is the beauty of it. We feel the defeat. We know what to do, the simple act of survival to get up, breathe, take a step, then another. We have no idea where we were going or where we are at any given moment, we just know we have to keep moving to escape the bog, the jungle, the thick foreboding forest of our children's addictions. We have to escape our self-constructed Matrix.

We know there is a better life out there for us. We don't know where, we simply Trust the Universe has plans for us. Eventually we emerge from a darkness, still not knowing where our journey is leading us. We only know, we can feel it, darkness being replaced by light, hopelessness by promise.

Sometimes as we progress along our recovery pathway we forget the elation of discovery we find when we Trust our Great Creator. We forget to Let Go and Let God and begin to get in our heads for a solution. We're beginning to get it together. We are the poster child of recovery! We can think these things through. We no longer require the gentle hand of the Universe to guide us.

We can take it from here.

Logic is safe. Logic is better than feeling, isn't it? Trust is frightening.

We climb into our heads and once there, the levers, buttons and switches that got us into the mire not so long ago are once again at our disposal. We're in control, exuding confidence for all to see.

We're lying to ourselves of course. Control is what got us bound with addiction's vortex. Control is Addiction's evil salesman showing us the way to a life we can ill afford. We can do this, we are led to believe, with a few … easy … payments. All that is required of us is that we give over our lives to the addiction of our children. This is the only payment Addiction will ever require from us or our children.

Breathe, Trust, and Feel. Let Go.

We feel, therefore we grow.

Feel the Pain

Feel the joy.

Feel the exhilaration each step of our recovery journey brings. Feel the warm blanket of our Higher Power draped across our shoulders as we proceed up, down and around the magnificent pathway laid before us.

We'll get in our heads from time to time. It's OK. Be aware, feel the isolation that comes with diving into our own grey matter. We'll learn to climb right back out again. Then, take a deep breath, look around, Trust in the possibilities "out there" we cannot even imagine. Take that first step, again, then the next and keep going.

Look around. We are not alone. Breathe, trust, laugh, seek, hope, love and see.

This is the essence of our being as parents in recovery.

… keep coming back

"I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content. And if each and all be aware I sit content." ~ Walt Whitman

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 

Perfection

"Progress, not perfection." ~ Al Anonymous

When I wrote this it was a perfect summer morning in St. Louis. I realized at the time this might be as good as it gets on a day in early July. And that was OK. I'll take perfect when I can get it. Perfect doesn't come for a visit very often and certainly not a result of something I do or say.

Perfect, most often, is a gift from Mother Nature, God, the Great Creator, the Universe, or a joint effort of many - a perfect sunset, a perfect morning, a perfect evening out with friends. Perfect comes reluctantly and only to those who have the eyes to see it when it appears. Perfect is definitely not man-made. [There has never been a 27 strike out truly "perfect game" in Major League Baseball.] Perfect in Nature is the Great Creator's acknowledgement of her love for us in sunsets, rainbows and fall colors. Even the perfection required for a moon landing, a rendezvous with an asteroid or a space flight to Pluto is born of the laws of physics, a God gift we've only been able to "see," or glimpse, in the last few centuries.

The Perfect that we so often strive to achieve is what got us here in the first place. It does not allow for bumps in our road, detours along our journey, hedgerows or wide ravines impeding our progress.The pursuit of perfection provokes us to ignore and fix, control and enable, feign bliss and feel despair. These are the dichotomies of being parents of addicted children before we take those first few imperfect steps in our recovery. We've all been there. Throughout our many attempts at perfection we never realize how close to perfection we really are as human beings. This perfection we are closest to is not one that compares us to societal norms or mandates. This is the perfection of what we can be as individuals, our closest pass to our best self actualization, our truest selves.

We are, by being human, by being our truest selves, perfect enough.

When we stumble, it is most often over our own two feet. Once we abandon the bygone notions of perfection, if we can simply let go of our need to be perfect and allow ourselves the freedom to experience the journey of being the best we can possibly be, it is then that beautiful vistas appear before us on our recovery journeys. The pathway levels, the rivers seem less treacherous. Taken one challenge at a time obstacles once thought insurmountable become manageable. We decide those awful events we once thought were sure to happen will no longer hold us back.

We've become nimble expression of our truest selves. We become free, unencumbered by our own former unreasonable thinking. We approach with anticipation the wholeness and ideal of what the Universe offers us, and what it sees in us even if we cannot.

The beauty of it all is that we never attain that thing called perfection. We realize perfection is is the ultimate arrogance that has kept us from growing, from progressing. Instead, now, we are constantly journeying, traveling along our recovery paths, exploring, learning, and yes, failing.

We'll see glimpses of perfection in ourselves. We may even approach the "ideal." We know we've grown when we can laugh at ourselves for the conceit, then move on.

It's certainly a load off! It is freeing letting go of the "P" word. Imagine what we may find along the way.

… keep coming back

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery" ~ James Joyce

Synchronicity

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

"In order to catch the ball, you've got to want to catch the ball." ~ John Cassavetes

"Whatever God has blessed you with, take it with great hands." ~  Horace

I have over the past year chronicled over 200 quotations in my little 8-1/4" x 5" booklets in which I write my first drafts. These quotations have been bestowed upon me in readings, conversations and too many hours spent in front of my wide screen television screen. I am awaiting a long, rainy weekend during which I may be able to digitize, sort and categorize these timeless bits of wisdom, soul searching and humor for ease of access.

Sometimes when I discover a quotation I will use it as inspiration for my writing or just as often, my eyes and mind will wander to the quotes transcribed on the inside and outside back covers of my booklets and just the right quote will appear as if highlighted for the immediate purpose, as if gently beckoning, suggesting, or in some cases, jumping up and down screaming, "Pick me, pick me!"

Most often I find my inspiration is provided if not immediately, eventually, in time. I find the right passage as I always seem to find the right words, when I am meant to receive it.

In her book The Artist's Way and in subsequent articles and interviews, author Julia Cameron describes something she calls "synchronicity." More powerful a force than fate or coincidence, synchronicity is the inevitable positive intervention of the Universe poised to help us along whatever journey for good we embark upon. All we have to do is to show up, believe and accept the nudge, the gentle suggestions, the directional beacons guiding us toward our next best possibilities.

In a July 2012 posting Cameron wrote:

"Learn to accept the possibility that the universe is helping you with what you are doing. Be willing to see the hand of God and accept it as a friend's offer to help."

Imagine my surprise, my stunned awareness, as I realized what was in front of me was meant to be, the three quotations above written one after another in a tablet filled almost a year prior.

Like so much of what we experience as parents of children who have spiraled into addiction, a message was here for the taking, beckoning, a chorus of "pick me!" ringing in my ears.

Sometimes it is so obvious, the messages and signs along the road that we don't often perceive as important. We chalk these up to coincidence, to chance juxtapositions we may even find humorous. We'll often bypass the opportunity of the Great Creator, the gift of the Universe, not because we're not yearning for it, but because we may just not be ready to receive it.

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most." 

"In order to catch the ball, you've got to want to catch the ball." 

"Whatever God has blessed you with, take it with great hands." 

These quotations. laid out one after the other were a reminder of what I personally needed that day as I sat down to fill the next few blank pages of my booklet.

Admitting to the fear of the unknown and taking that "new step" allows us to perhaps be humble enough to change, and allow a partner more powerful along for the ride of our lives. With this knowledge, we allow that as fragile human beings who have been through too much already what we are contemplating is a little crazy. We acknowledge and OWN the fear.

So we have owned the fear but are not sure why. We simply know we're no longer beaten by our old foe and can proceed with a determination to push forward. Cassavetes' quote rings true.

When I coached baseball I would tell my fielders to quietly whisper to themselves these words before every pitch:

"Hit the ball to me."

Whether they believed or not, I explained that the mind and body work together. Heady stuff for middle schoolers but the kids who bought into the crazy concept of "wanting" the ball began to field like major leaguers.

We have to want it, the change, the possibilities. We have to want to see that ball and guide it effortlessly into our gloves.

Admitting to the fear and wanting the change are often not enough. When we can look lovingly upon ourselves and realize we have inside of us the strengths and qualities to move along with our lives, to love our children while abandoning the addiction, only then can we really take that first step.

What may seem like accidental is most often nothing short of a miracle - and the miracles are happening every day, all around us.

Dig deep. We have within us gifts from the Universe, a Power to utilize to begin our journey and a Partner to accompany us. The pathway, possibly laid out months, years, decades ago, will appear if we are open to the possibilities. Take it with great, and grateful, hands.

. . .  keep coming back

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially their children than the unlived life of the parent." ~ C.G. Jung

Wanting More - Manifesting A Counterintuitive Existence

"I want some more, Some more and then some." ~ "Tell Me More, And More, And Then Some" by Billy Holliday, Arthur Herzog & Danny Mendelsohn

Recovery for parents who watch as our children struggle with addiction is all about counterintuitivity. We do not seek the contrary for the sake of obstinance, simply to be different or contrary to past life practices. This is no time for knee-jerk reactions, the black/white mentality that keeps us from growing. We do not merely seek the different as a mad alternative to old behaviors. We are seeking more than just the different, the mere exact opposite of how we have traveled prior to beginning our journeys. The different, the opposite, may lead us down familiar pathways, those oft-travelled roads more often taken that society mandates. Obstinance is an angry alternative, a counterproductive pathway.

We are desperately searching for new behaviors and experiences that our learned, and unlearned natures tell us to avoid like a plague.

On our journeys counterinuitivity is not obstinance. We have learned that obstinance, leads to abstinence. We abstain from our feelings, our friends, our children and ourselves. We abstain from life. Obstinance focuses on feelings we do not wish to feel, behaviors we will jettison when we should be focusing on a life previously never experienced that lies directly ahead if we would simply seek it out. We are looking for a positive look at life, we are seeking for what we wish TO do and not, what NOT to do.

Our recovery requires we embark on journeys down roads not travelled, frightful pathways that society, our life mentors and even our "common sense" tell us are ill advised and perilous.

It is time for us to want more for ourselves, more time, more love, laughter, creativity, more peace. For so long we wished for this and more for our children. Then, at a crossroads with the help of countless seen and unseen angels, we began, sometimes covertly, to wish for this "more" to be bestowed upon us as well.

For too long we may have travelled the road with Addiction, mindlessly wandering hand in hand with the disease. To retain its vice grip on our children this is exactly what Addiction requires of us. Addiction craves that willing partner with our children who enables and protects.

Addiction is an occupying army that coerces collaborators to further its endgame. For too long, we have been the collaborators.

It is time we took the fight to the disease in the only way we can. We realize a direct assault is pointless. We can't fix this though God knows we've tried. We cannot control or cure the disease. Truly believing we did not cause the addiction, the first of many epiphanies we encounter along our recovery journeys, we often, incorrectly, think it possible that we could undo what has happened. Our (correct) abandonment of a direct causality between our behavior and the onset of addiction somehow provides a false bravado that we can simply fix this thing if we can only ride it out.

Our heads spinning, we have become our children's worst enemies and Addiction's closest ally.

This is what collaborators do. Collaborators lose themselves and give their lives and souls to the occupiers.

We cease to exist. We lose all self purpose.

It's time to want more, and then some, for ourselves.

Is this counterintuitive enough for you?

The counterintuitivity comes when we become just a little, then a little more, and then some more, selfish, about our needs, wants and dreams. We recapture our souls. We begin to look at our lives in the NOW, the immediate. We begin to live in the moment. We hit a bottom where we become horrified by what we have become. We have too long taken a journey of distractions, detours and back roads counter to our truest selves.

When we begin a new journey borne of self worth and self actualization, living OUR lives and not an existence dictated by the Addiction, amazing things can happen. We become militant champions of ourselves.

We are happy for the first time in a long while. Our horizons expand to possibilities long forgotten during our failed attempts to drive out, then mollify the disease. At first we feel guilty but soon we are witness to astonishing events. Left on its own, the Addiction can lose its grip on our children. Our sons and daughters, seeing us living fulfilled lives are left to face the consequences and anguish of the disease.

We are loving our children and hating the disease. We have no time for the Addiction. We have more time for ourselves. We are no longer collaborators. We are simply loving parents. We know we will be there, present for our children when they are ready.

We witness the miracle of the Addiction loosening its grip on our children. We know the difference between the Addiction loosening and losing its hold of the addicted and understand this is a life-long journey. We understand the Addiction will not go down without a fight yet know we cannot battle it on its own terms. What we can do is slowly destroy the bridges, railways and command posts that had linked our lives to the occupier. We can stop fixing, controlling, enabling and begin living our lives on OUR terms.

Start small, with little baby steps. The path can be dark, rocky and a little scary. It is certainly not a road we're accustomed to. Start by not reacting. Reacting takes us away from ourselves. Listen instead to ourselves and our put-on-hold dreams. Live life, don't obsess about it. Then, we can make this our mantra, our OM:

"I want more, some more and then some."

… keep coming back 

"Go to your bosom, knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know." ~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure [II.2.903-904]