Fresh Fruit, Bright Colors and Gratitude

As a recent first-time visitor to Guatemala, I was surprised by many things including the vastness and beauty of the country, the massive divide between the rich and the poor, and the creativity and resourcefulness of the locals.

I fell in love with so much including the fresh fruit trees (mango, banana, lime, and avocado) growing right outside my door. I couldn’t take any home but I took lots of pictures and enjoyed them every chance I got. The other treat was the vibrant colors used by the local artisans in their painting, weaving, and sewing. They were brilliant and felt like sunshine to my soul. And yes, some of these definitely came home with me and continue to make me smile!

I also witnessed first hand the phenomenal work being done by two Guatemalan missionary organizations, PROVEE (http://www.provee.org) and Centro Cristiano Cultural de Guatemala (http://www.cccguatemala.com).

With the help of both local and international volunteers and donors, these not-for-profit organizations work tirelessly to serve their fellow Guatemalans. Amongst many other services, they build schools and churches, provide breakfast programs and clean water to children and families, and offer medical clinics and care in the villages (check out their web-sites listed above to learn more). During my time there, I had the opportunity and privilege to travel to villages and schools to meet some locals and help with the breakfast program. I also had a tour and met some of the girls living at an orphanage.

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”
Doris Day

The villages we visited were some of the poorest in the country. I wasn’t surprised by this because I had done some research before traveling there. What did surprise me was the gratitude many of the locals showed despite living in conditions most of us would consider intolerable. As a matter of fact, one of the most profound experiences was the day we met the man in the picture below. He was living in a house (what we’d call a lean-to at best) with his wife and 12 of his 21 children (from two marriages). As we finished our visit, he shared how very grateful he was to God for his many blessings. He felt blessed that he could provide for his wife and 12 children still living at home, his 9 other grown children were educated and doing well, and they all had deep faith in God. 

This visit left me asking myself, “What is real richness and wealth? Am I grateful for everything in my life even when I don’t think it’s enough/large enough/as good as/is less than I think I deserve, etc, etc?” Thank you my friend from the village for teaching me so much. Thank you God for making the teacher available when the student was ready. Help me to be grateful for my life as it is and not as I’d like it to be.

Thank you for reading this post and I look forward to sharing more about this experience in the weeks ahead!

Love and blessings,

Patricia

Women in Recovery Everywhere

Simply Now

This day

The here

The now

One simple moment

Breathe in, breathe out

Be where the soul resides

Only here and now

With each single breath

Yesterday is gone

Tomorrow never arrives

True presence, the only now

Be present

God is here

In this one breath

At this exact moment

Infinite love and grace

Breathe

Be in God’s presence

Never alone

Always loved and cared for

Feel a loving embrace

Now and forever

With you for always

Just breathe

A Simple Prayer

“Pray and let God worry.”
Martin Luther

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A Simple Prayer

God, I love and need your presence, your realness in my life.

Help me by meeting me where I am, with my doubts and fears, mistrust and denial.

I know you are everything or you are nothing.

What I choose to believe will determine my next steps.

May I choose freedom over the ease and comfort of old patterns and thoughts.

Love over denial.

You over me.

Your will, not mine.

Help me choose light over darkness.

Just for today, just one day at a time.

 

 

 

 

Hidden Treasures

Safety and security, not invisibility.

Authenticity, not masks.

The real thing and no knock-offs.

Slight imperfections over perfectly-constructed facades.

Unapologetically and humbly you.

Enough.

More than enough.

Be you. Do you.

Damn it

Stop playing small.

These eight lines took ten minutes to birth in my journal this morning but the gestation period was so much longer, many years in fact. I know you’re wondering what the heck took me so long. Simply put, you can’t know until you know. Let me explain.

Reading about something, hearing others share their experiences, writing from the head, wishing for it, and praying and begging to know, although helpful, are not the same as knowing. Real knowing happens in the heart and at that moment when, after hearing something maybe for the 2nd or 200th time, the light bulb flashes and you say, “Oh, now I get it!” Duh…….you can only know when you know, and then you get your angel wings.

Moral of the story: search to gain information, understanding and experience and then trust the outcome (the lightbulb moment of knowing) to a power greater than yourself. After all, she has the master plan and her timing is impeccable!

Love and blessings,

Patricia

I Said Good-Bye

I said good-bye to you today.

You’ve been around for a long time.

Most of my life, almost as if we were old friends.

There probably was a time we used each other to survive an otherwise tumultuous ride into the future.

That time has long since passed.

Any time spent together now, no longer serves a purpose.

If anything, it’s becoming a liability, pulling me down and keeping me living in pain and hurt.

Losing old friends is never easy.

Whether thru death or just a final good-bye.

Yet sometimes the only way to survive and actually thrive in today is to say good-bye to what no longer serves, to

Milk and Cookies Anyone?

“Think of what a better world it would be if we all–the whole world–had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap.” (Robert Fulghum)

 

We just returned from a holiday in western Canada where we visited family, including my partner’s granddaughter who was celebrating her first birthday. It was a very relaxing and fun holiday with lots of down time, naps, and good food.

Student is Ready, Teacher Appears

Now, just so you don’t get the impression that it was all fun and games for ten days, I’m going to share some of the lessons I learned from the one year old teacher:

1. If you are tired, rub your eyes and yawn and you will be immediately transported to your bedroom where you’ll be surrounded by your favourite things: teddy bears, books, soft lights, and white noise playing in the background.
   (Translation: Create a welcoming and restful space to nap/sleep; and if you’re tired, sleep.)

2. When someone is trying to pick you up and you don’t want to be held, tense up your body, make your lip quiver, and offer up your most serious one-year-old stink eye. Watch the person back away.
   (Translation: You decide if and when anyone touches/hugs/holds you.)

3. Take a break from dressing up and going out by planning regular pyjama days (Onesies are ideal for these days.)
   (Translation: It’s okay to have a dress down pyjama day if that is what you need.)

4. When  you’re finished eating, stop eating and feed the left overs to the dog. (Translation: Listen to your body and when you’ve had enough to eat, stop eating.)

5. Once you find an activity you enjoy, do it. It doesn’t matter if no one else enjoys banging on the pots and pans or playing peek-a-boo with the coffee table. (Translation: Discover what you enjoy and do it.)

6. Last but not least, if you are learning to walk and fall down, keep getting up. It’s called practicing!
   (Translation: Put your ego aside and allow yourself the time and space to practice a new skill, habit, or routine.)

I intended to offer more tips but I’ll stop here because this little girl also taught me when to say when. As she so eloquently put it, “More is not always better and sometimes more will even make you sick”.

Thank you Lady Liv!

Patricia
Women in Recovery Everywhere

PS: Life is short–eat cake!

 

Loneliness and Isolation

“And what makes you so damn different?”

                                                  (J. Louis Doiron, 1923-2002)

Louis Doiron is my father. He was a man of few words yet great wisdom. He was not highly educated in the formal setting but life, with all its ups and downs, taught him well, sometimes painfully well.  According to the “word on the street”, the above quote was spoken to a young man who was explaining to my father why he didn’t think he could stay sober.

I wasn’t there but I can picture how it probably unfolded: Dad would quietly listen to this man’s woes, not saying a word until a pause presented itself and then he would calmly yet firmly say, “And what makes you so damn different?” I can’t say for sure what impact this conversation had on the young man, but they have certainly come back to me many times over the years as I tried to justify why I was isolating and not sharing with anyone what was happening in my life and how I was feeling.

Loneliness and Isolation: The New Epidemic

Research has shown that loneliness and isolation are rampant in today’s society, a society where we invest more time on social media and less with in-person contact. Part of the reason we isolate is because we convince ourselves we are different, no one will understand us or has ever experienced anything similar to us. This is total hogwash! Although our experiences may vary, as humans we all experience a similarly wide range of emotions and feelings which allow us to identify with others. We are, after all, much more the same than we are different and meant to be in community with others.

Choosing a New Direction

It’s our ego (or our mental illness, addiction, negative force, fears, etc.) that tries to keep us isolated and apart from others. Isolation then makes it much easier for us to reinforce the negative beliefs and patterns that support our “story”, a story without much hope or positive expectation.

The good news is that we can change our story by choosing a new direction.  Every day, many times a day, we get to choose light or darkness, love or loneliness, recovery or relapse, moving forward or backward, life or death. We make this choice by reaching out to another human being and remembering that we are not that damn different from each other. And by the way, thinking otherwise could be fatal.

 

 

 

Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful

If you are female, attractive, successful, slim, fit, and I met you in the last couple of years, chances are I owe you an apology for acting at least a little cool and prickly towards you. I will explain, but first let me say I am sorry. (I would have addressed this sooner, but it’s only in recent days I became aware of this bias.)

“Amy”, from the west coast, contacted me last week to discuss some of my work on workplace mental wellness that was referenced in a report she recently read. I love to share my passion and experience so quickly agreed. Within minutes of taking her call, we discovered we had a mutual friend, a shared passion for workplace mental wellness, and many similar life experiences and interests. We had a lengthy conversation and, before saying good-bye, agreed to chat again, to meet when I visit her home town later this summer, and to become Facebook friends. I think it’s fair to say we connected and could one day become “real” friends. I love making these connections and felt inspired and enthusiastic as I logged onto my laptop to accept her Facebook friend request. Life was good, until I discovered who Amy really was.

You see, Amy is attractive, successful, slim, fit, AND drives a motorcycle.  My enthusiasm took a dip, and the pride and passion I felt just moments before for my accomplishments and career successes plummeted. There was no way I could measure up to beautiful slim Amy on a friggin’ motorcycle!

“When you know better you do better.” (Maya Angelou)

This was the moment I realized how biased (and shallow) my thinking was. If someone told me this same story, I’d ask them what had changed in the time between the phone call ending and seeing Amy’s picture. I had to be honest with myself. Absolutely nothing had changed, except my old insecurities were being poked. I was reacting with very out-dated thought patterns, patterns I had frequently acted out in the past couple of years. They were causing me to treat certain women with a cool and prickly attitude (even though I tried to act otherwise). I decided, then and there, that I was not going to let my bias towards other women deprive me of potential friendships and, more importantly, cause me to treat them in such unloving and unkind ways. This is definitely not how I want to live my life.

So, to any attractive, successful, slim, fit ladies (bikers or not), who I’ve interacted with and treated poorly in recent years, I am truly sorry. From now on, I will see and respect you for who you are on the inside, and I hope you can do the same for me.

Love and blessings,

Patricia
Women in Recovery Everywhere