Multiple Roads

"Sokath - his eyes uncovered." ~ Captain Dathon, Star Trek, the Next Generation: "Darmok"

Robert Frost may have gotten it right for most in his poem "The Road Less Travelled," but for those of us who have been brought face-to-face with The Addiction, always concentrating on just one road may not be the best formula for our happiness or that of our sons and daughters.

I've written about this poem and how critical it is early on in our journeys as parents of addicts to take the pathway most would think to be selfish, cruel or even self destructive to ourselves, our children and our families. It's the leap of faith we take almost daily as those parents, whether our children have just entered the cloud forest of addiction, have commenced the long, slow crawl out of the bog or even begun one of many possible recovery journeys.

We decided the life the Universe has awaiting us is worth living. When we finally emerged from the shadows of The Addiction we were able to take care of ourselves. And in another of many crazy counterintuitive twists along our journeys of parents of addicts we found we were finally able to look through the haze of addiction's angry and deceitful pall to see our children, lost, struggling and in pain.

Eyes opened, we were able to behold our children with love and compassion.

This led us to another pathway we could take, a fork that takes us closer to our children, for a time, while we remain near and true to our journeys. From this position we have full view of our children, keeping them close without being on their pathway. We may observe without getting in the way, interfering or worse, inserting ourselves into our children's business. It can be a beautiful pathway but with dangers along the way if we pay too close attention to our addicts and abandon our journey - a giant leap backwards from the progress we have made.

There is an 8 mile running/cycling trail near where I live that includes a branch I call the Nature Trail, a one-third mile diversion from the somewhat exposed main trail, flanked by forest and wetlands on one side and bordered by a creek on the other. It is a beautiful diversion from the bustle of the runners, walkers, cyclists and skaters, visible 200 meters or so through the trees. This nature trail is not without its pitfalls. A portion has been partially washed out by the creek and has been cordoned off, unsuccessfully, by the park service. Intrepid runners can access the forbidden zone, carefully, through well-worn paths around the orange barriers at either end.

The adventurous must take care and be mindful of the entry pathways and the ever expanding washed-out portion of the detour. Once past these obstacles the traveller may concentrate on their current path while also keeping an eye on the multitudes on the main trail if they wish. It's a beautiful diversion, this pathway. It is a new pathway true to my current journey that allows me to remain connected to the mainstream.

So allow yourself the freedom to take the Nature Trail. See new beauty in your life that you may not have otherwise experienced. Your beloved children will be right ... over ... there - just beyond the trees.

. . . keep coming back

"If I had my life to live over again, I would ask that not a thing be changed but that my eyes be opened wider." ~ Jules Renard

Willing Our Way To Ready

"I been warped by the rain, driven by the snow; I'm drunk and dirty but don't you know; I'm still willin'." ~ "Willin'", Lowell George

Sometimes it can seem as though the Universe is coming at us from multiple directions to unlock our souls and move us along our journey pathways. We can be more well-disposed to receiving cues from forces outside our immediate consciousness during certain times in our lives than others. Life events, our obstinate tendencies and busy schedules can all make us blind to signals and signposts that should be as easily perceived as a beautiful yellow-orange sun breaking through the horizon on a cloudless blue-sky morning.

Recently within the period of a day I received much needed gentle reminders from The Universe via a posting of a close friend, through two of my daily readings (yes, I have daily readings as part of my pre-work morning ritual), and finally as a result of my not so easy or swift recovery from my C5 - C6 spinal fusion surgery.

I almost missed all the signposts.

I needed to be reminded how precious is the opportunity called life. I needed to have a slap to the back of the head to move me past talking the talk to walking the walk, some breadcrumbs, a ladder, climbing rope or gravity assist to slingshot me along my own pathway.

You see, as much as I wanted to downplay my recent surgery and the effects it would have on my daily living this was not like snipping a little pre-cancerous bubble off my face. Once the realization hit me hard I was I was facing a three, six or even 12-month rehabilitation, I had a decision to make.

Would I respond in kind to the challenge ahead of me or play the idiot-optimist without doing the work and making the commitment necessary for eventual return to a life devoid of tingling, numbness and pain?

For weeks I was willing. For weeks I understood the enormity of the procedure my surgeon performed. As I mentioned, two morning readings and this post from a dear friend, a fellow marathoner, pushed me over the edge:

"But today I promise you I will get (safely) uncomfortable. I've got goals and refuse to not make them because I didn't get out of my comfort zone."

This, my parents, is what happens when you cross the threshold from being willing, from talking the talk, to being READY. It is a transformative experience moving along a pathway from knowing what must be done to actually doing it, from an all the best intentions call to action, from logical comprehension of what needs to happen, NOW, to a spiritual awakening which can emerge only from trust that what must happen now may not be understandable but is the result of forces beyond our comprehension.

There is a lot of trust involved here, and a commitment to relinquishing control over the uncontrollable.

In my case, I had to come to terms with the severity and extensiveness of the surgery and realize I couldn't WILL my way back to normalcy  - there's that (root) word again. I had to be ready to do the work, to leave my marathoner's ego in the ditch, order a heapin' helpin' of humility and do the tedious hand, arm and shoulder exercises my therapists (yes, therapists, plural, occupational and physical) would prescribe.

Floor dumbbell presses with 2-pound weights is humbling. I have given myself over to my therapists. I must follow their signposts even though the end is not in sight. My recovery is going to be a long process spent not by making leaps and bounds, but by taking small, cautious steps toward a life recovered.

The parallels between my current physical recovery from surgery and my ongoing journey of recovery as a parent of an addict are not lost on this father. Nor is the reminder that moving from WILLING to READY to which an addict must devote their fragile lives is an even more difficult commitment. Both are terrifying acts of trust and purpose that few can succeed at the first time.

It required a few signposts-in-the-face for me to finally come around. I've seen the struggle of addicts as they tell themselves repeatedly they are willing to stop living the life The Addiction has laid out for them if only someone would intervene on their behalf, until, at long last, they are READY to no longer live the addicted life. Willing is a desire. Ready is a personal and sometimes very lonely decision.

This is when we can see our paths crossing, ours and our addicted children's as they move down a pathway to recovery. Our experiences of moving from a logical understanding of where we need to be and what pathways we should choose for regaining our lives, to a total relinquishing of control to achieve a state of readiness for rebirth are forever etched in our memories. We'll know when our children are ready to stop fighting The Addiction and give themselves over to whatever power will allow them to "stop living like this". We can watch from afar knowing how hard it is at first to take that leap into the unknown and smile as they realize they are not doing this on their own. Whether or not our children will admit it, the Universe, the Great Creator, some force greater than they has been awaiting this moment and will not fail them in the undertaking. Our children will begin to seek and see the healthy signposts and ignore the false markers, the misdirections back to addiction.

It's a great feeling being ready. For both parent and child, it may have seemed too long coming but like the Universe, Ready has no timetable. Ready will arrive on its own schedule.

Get ready ... GO!

. . . keep coming back

"As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for." ~ James Cash Penney

Trust Your Compass

"Your inner knowing is your only true compass." ~ Joy Page

When was the last time you were hiking or traveling in a place unfamiliar and you didn't trust your compass? Unless you are standing at one of Mother Earth's magnetic poles where I understand a compass can do some funky things depending on how you're holding it - I wouldn't know, the farthest north I've ever traveled is Köln, Germany - you probably trust your compass is indicating the directions, N S E W, correctly, and proceed accordingly.

The compass in its simplicity is a tool to be trusted, not ignored, left behind or dismissed as an unnecessary accessory for journeys to parts unknown. Some are damn near indestructible unless the user purposely takes an axe or hammer to the compass for some crazy reason or if god forbid he or she lends the the compass to another which to me would be akin to loaning (read relinquishing) your grill or smoker to someone.

Digression alert - that, my friends, to be clear, is just NOT done.

Yet the compass is not perfect. The compass is flawed. By its very nature it leads us away from true north to the magnetic north. The magnetic poles are elusive targets, moving from time to time in response to magnetic changes to the Earth's core.

You'll never find Santa using your compass, but you'll get close. For this reason the compass is in its own counter intuitive construct is a freeing instrument. Following the direction provided by a compass will never get you THERE, or even THERE. Once near the destination it is up to the explorer to discern the pathway to where there is.  And that is the magic of the journey.

Do you see where I'm going with this? If not, you'd better start from the beginning. I can't make it any clearer!

As parents of children who have lost their way through addiction it may seem as if The Addiction crushed our compasses with an axe and a hammer. We certainly doubted ourselves in those first few months or years as we wrestled with our sanity amid the muck and tar of the abyss into which we had crawled with our babies. This is exactly why it was so important to start moving toward a better path, no matter the direction. The mission was to emerge, to find the upwards trail way out of the cloud forest to the light, to the meadow, hillsides and vistas we knew The Universe had in mind for each of us.

The direction was not important. The goal was to get on it and keep moving.

And as we began to emerge from the darkness our compasses began to reemerge - resilient things those compasses. As we felt our internal compass become stronger, forces from without and within made us doubt this truth. Spouses, friends, The Addiction, our addicted children and sometimes even their siblings conspired to gaslight us into believing our thoughts and feelings were not true or real.

We've been through too much to have our intuitions invalidated. We have come out of our self-inflicted isolation more self aware than ever, more certain that the path ahead is leading us to a new destination filled with love and laughter for ourselves and our children. With each step along our journey we receive validation we are moving in the right direction as long as we do keep moving. Our hearts know this to be true. We can feel it. Our hearts are inextricably linked to our internal compasses.

Our internal compass may not get us exactly THERE immediately but we're getting pretty damn close. Trust it. It's a wondrous adventure!

. . . keep coming back

"In this world you have a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings." ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter

Permission To Fail

"Our life is so short that every time I see my children, I enjoy them as much as I can. Whenever I can I enjoy my beloved, my family, my friends, my apprentices. But mainly I enjoy myself, because I am with myself all the time. Why should I spend my precious time with myself judging myself, rejecting myself, creating guilt and shame? Why should I push myself to be angry or jealous? If I don't feel good emotionally I find out what is causing it and fix it. Then I can recover my happiness and keep going with my story."  ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

I recently heard a parenting tip I wish I had been clued in on 30 years earlier when it might have made all the difference, or not. The tip was to occasionally ask our children this question:

"So what did you fail at today?"

Kids today seem to have a lot more on their minds than the kids of the 60s and 70s or even those who grew up through the 90s and the 2000s. I'm not certain what the cause is and it really doesn't matter, although anxiety and other self esteem issues seem to be much more prevalent these days even at the preschool level. As we know this can lead to a myriad of issues down the pathways of our little ones and as we are also all painfully aware, anxiety and lack of self esteem can often be the impetus leading our children down paths searching for validation and peace in in all the wrong places and and by all the wrong means.

And as our thoughts drift to those times when we feel in our hearts we failed our children by ignoring the obvious, overreacting, hovering, screaming and going away we can let go of all these burdens of guilt, breathe, and know it's not what is in the past but what lies ahead that is important.

Yes, what did you fail at today is a question we can yet ask our children who have traveled those ill-advised paths. It's not too late, ever, to release our children from the burden of feeling perfection is an immediate goal. Whether they are locked within the vice grip of addiction or moving along a recovery path, the fear of failure, or the impractical notion that a precipitate, immediate and total turn around of their lives is their only options leaves them stuck, or worse, in retreat. What did you fail at today is an interrogative we can offer to give our children pause to rethink their current random journeys.

Then what - what about us?

We as parents of these can and need to release ourselves from our self-imposed exile borne of our frailties and missteps. Only by taking this first step can we can move on and be fully free by asking ourselves the very same question we can ask our children:

"So what did I fail at today?"

Parents of addicts and those firmly in recovery often fear saying the wrong thing or taking the wrong approach in response to our children's responses to life events. The important thing is to ALWAYS BE THERE for our children for those instances where they break free and show their true, REAL selves.

Then, we must take an active approach to our lives, even if it means doing nothing in response to our addicts' words and actions, which can often be the best approach as we know - how's that for counterintuitivity!

Owning we are not perfect and giving ourselves permission to fail from time to time is freeing. Demanding perfection of ourselves is exhausting and the last thing we need to encounter along OUR recovery pathway. And allowing little failures is another pathway to move us along our recovery so we learn and keep moving.

Fear of failure puts us in a catatonic state. Allowing ourselves to fail is like the explorer who takes that leap across the crevasse to that finger hold on the smallest of outcroppings of the cliff.

We can forgive ourselves of ALL THOSE THINGS we perceive we did wrong as our children dove into the vortex of their chosen addictions or even as they progress along their recovery pathways. This is the only way we can move on with no fear to live our lives with passion, knowing we WILL FAIL along the way and learn, move on and keep moving to live, love and laugh as The Universe wishes for us all. This is the recipe for learning to love ourselves, live our lives, then learning to hate The Addiction while at the same time loving our babies with all their faults, frailties and missteps.

So ask yourself, "What have I failed at today?"

Take that leap into the nothingness. I dare ya!

. . . keep coming back  

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~ Winston Churchill

Haiku For You

Every now and then I get the urge. Here are some Haiku for my Parents with some "related" posts. Peace!

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." ~ Budda

Steadfast is the word
Perseverance is the key
Watch the nest builders


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2016/09/fable-of-robins.html



Our fears created
We have the will to vanquish
The world awaits us


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-fable-of-beangstieg.html



Nature's constancy
Believe in The Miracles
Only way to live


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2017/03/do-you-believe-in-miracles.html



Repeat behavior
It's persistent déjà vu
Get back on the path


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2016/11/deja-vu-in-recovery.html



Opening our hearts
Roads to positivity
Be the solution


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2015/03/being-willing.html



How do we arrive?
To become our truest selves
Stay the journey course


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2014/08/approaching-real.html



Beginnings are hard
Plunge now into the abyss
Delight in the NEW!


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2014/01/blog-post.html



Our "what's up aheads"
Have been there for the taking
Just don't know it yet


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2015/01/synchronicity.html



Unique parents on
Different recovery paths.
Find the gentle ones


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-we-can-learn-from-alice-jardine.html



Be the JOY today
Reach for the stars and then some
SEEK, and SEE and LIVE


https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-joy-trail.html

. . . keep coming back

"I'm on the path to being someone I'm equally terrified by and obsessed with - my true self." ~ Troye Sivan

Waiting for Forsythia

Estragon: "I can't go on like this."

Vladimir: "That's what you think." 

~ Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

It's been another brutally elongated winter season in the U.S. heartland or so it seems. Meteorologists are saying this is typical for our region and the past few years have jumped the gun on spring. Mother Nature in her wisdom teaches us delayed gratification each year as our planet makes it's revolutions around the Sun. 

I'm not buying a word of this. I'm ready to skip spring and nosedive into summer ... maybe.

We should be accustomed by now to not only wild climate mood swings but also seasons that seem to wear out their welcome. The season I least embrace, winter, is once again in my mind hanging around way past its usefulness. I think the hibernators have had enough sleep, and my maple tree in the front yard has lost enough buds due to faux warm spells followed by frosts to fill a large trash bag.

It always seems the forsythia finally break out in an explosion of yellow magnificence, announcing, "Spring is here." Each year I wait for this with great anticipation, the springtime. I have been pining for the forsythia to bloom, those harbingers of spring, to officially announce the transition from winter.

As much as I love the summertime, what a waste of a beautiful transitional time that would be, skipping spring. Transitions and transitional times are important.

As I write this and look out the window upon the first cloudless sky we've been allowed in some time,  there is a semi-tease of spring displayed for all to see. The dogwoods and Bradford pear trees, those impetuous bloomers that seem able to withstand many frosts along the road to the transition have been for weeks announcing a false spring and are standing firm in their resolve that spring is here.

Spring may not be here. It may be nigh, but it is not here.

Stop messing with me liars!

In the meantime all I can do is prepare for what I hope and pray is coming soon, continue living, persevere through the false signs of improvement of the weather to more a temperate and reasonable climate, and keep moving. I will never surrender to the cold, the darkness, grey skies and intermittent icy rainfalls.

Now what in the world does all this have to do with living life as a parent of an addict or a son or daughter in recovery?

Well, everything.

While we militantly follow our own pathways we continue to love our children and long for the reemergence of their truest selves, whether it be the announcement they are finished with living a life subservient to The Addiction or as they continue to unwaveringly, or waveringly, reach weeks, months, years, or decades milestones of recovery. We fight against false hope The Addiction throws our way before our children are truly ready to take back their lives. We wait in great anticipation while refusing to put our own lives on hold. We do what we can to prepare fertile victory gardens of love and support for when our children do bloom in spectacular colors and hues announcing their spring is finally here, the proclamation of even greater things to come, of life, love and laughter of their own making they have not experienced for far too long.

Wait for it. Wait for it. Hang in there. Spring is nigh. Summer will be indescribable.

. . . keep coming back

"You usually have to wait for that which is worth waiting for." ~  Craig Bruce

Chains

"Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future." ~ Oscar Wilde

We've all heard about addiction being a family THING. It took me a while to accept this. It took a lot longer for me to embrace the concept. In some families certain behaviors, tendencies and compulsions run deep like a toxic vein of pure lead perpetually filling the cracks in the rock face of our character and the inherited personalities of our children.

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, looking back, we can perceive addiction as being a footnote in the fine print of our children's job descriptions. It's that 0.1 percent variation in the genome that is what makes each one of us, well, each one of us. It's the nature half of the nature AND nurture equation.

Each day, every hour, minute by minute opportunities are laid across our pathways to embolden us to make decisions that directly effect our lives, our journeys. We've all been pre-programmed to a certain extent by our life experiences. For many of us the computer programming of our childhood and early adulthood has served us well in our quest for a complete life, with or without The Addiction element thrown in. For most of us, our early roadmaps in our recovery journey unfortunately led to confrontation and a tendency to internalize every single barb The Addiction would implant in our souls to pull us into its vortex with our children.

We thought we were winning the battle. It was a lie we told ourselves because society, our birth families all reinforced it. The lie was, "Addiction is a weakness. You can fix him. You can control The Addiction within her. Relinquish your life for this noble cause."

Almost 3 years to the day of this writing I posted a few thoughts on what it feels like sometimes to be a parent of an addict who is actively engaged with her or his addiction or who is in the midst of the arduous journey of recovery. It might be worth revisiting now.

https://myparentdepot.blogspot.com/2015/04/repairers-of-breach.html

Do we enjoy the conflict, the battle with The Addiction? I am convinced some people relish a constant state of discord. Are we so pre-programmed? Even knowing the results of trying to control and fix and cure are a stalemate at best and, more probably, a further dive into the abyss with The Addiction, we continue on the pathway we have been led to by our parents, society and misguided social mores.

How strong are the chains that bind us, motivating us to blindly travel down pathways we know lead nowhere? How strong do we want them to be? Looking back at the post from 2015, repairers of the breach do not look outward for a solution. They look inward to see what makes us walk those mindless pathways to which we have become so accustomed. Instead, we can, link by link, begin to break the chains that have only fed The Addiction's insatiable appetite for conflict and misery.

It's a long process, breaking the chains. It's so counter to our previously learned behavior we may become physically ill, we may cry, we certainly may doubt the wisdom of pursuing a new way of life.  But as we continue on this barely discernible pathway, as we concentrate on each footfall we make on this most difficult and technical of trails, we will emerge out of the darkness into a brilliantly blinding light of Life, Love and Laughter. We will have a new capacity to love ourselves and cherish our children while hating The Addiction that has chained them to a life they do not want.

Chain breaking is hard. Think back on the images from books and movies of escaped convicts dislodging themselves from their shackles. It's a great analogy. To break the chains we must first make that terrifying DECISION to escape from the prison of The Addiction and then, using whatever means possible, strike the leg irons we have fashioned until they shatter. This is as painful and bloody a process as we could ever imagine, an undertaking that can require weeks, months, or even years to complete.

When we have finally been released from the generational, familial and societal chains that have bound us for so long, the transition to life on the outside can be difficult. It's not easy living in a new way, even though the pathways may be beautiful, wide and sunny. Trust the signposts along the way. Do not be mislead by the distractions The Addiction WILL lay across the road. You may not notice the change within you but others will, including your child who may or may not have realized there is a life for them outside of the world created by their addictions. You will become a signpost for your child, your son, your daughter, as he or she realizes you are no longer engaging with The Addiction. He will not recognize you at first as he travels down the murky, miry bog of The Addiction. Eventually, she will see the remnants of your release from the chains - the rock, the shackles, fetters, your bloodied and bruised legs and arms. They WILL see the pain you went through for YOU, and ultimately for them.

They may not recognize you at first, it's been a while.

Go ahead, introduce yourself. Give it time. It'll be OK.

. . . keep coming back

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." ~ Nelson Mandela