Author: Holly Mae Haddock

Categories
Parts Work

Getting to Know Your Spiritual Parts

“Hello Darkness, My Old Friend”

I always loved the lyric, “Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again” from the song Sounds of Silence by Paul Simon. I love his affirmation that darkness is his friend. I feel that darkness is my friend, too.

In Parts Work, like all soul work, we gradually discover that all that arises within and around us is an expression of the One Psyche in whom we all are encompassed.  Aspects of life that feel unfamiliar, dangerous, oppositional, frightening, or otherwise unwanted eventually reveal themselves to be a friend. 

All dark shadows are another face of what we all are. Hidden, distorted through the schisms of self-alienation, but not, in the end, actually distinct from us. Can we learn to name all our Parts as friends?

Hello darkness, my old friend. Hello despair. Hello agitation. Hello anger. Hello fear. Hello suffering. Hello loss. Hello death. Hello hope. Hello vitality. Hello resilience.

The Baffling Parts

In my own decades of self-healing practices, through Expressive Arts and other kinds of soul recovery, it has been inexpressibly helpful to get to know and understand the more baffling Parts of my own nature, the ones that seem like outer enemies or exasperating inner saboteurs. 

The Part of me that prefers to be less than my full potential, for example. For God’s sake, why? asks another Part, a frustrated Part who reaches her wits end because of my noncooperation with social norms. 

And yet the submerged, unwanted, shadow-burdened Part whispers of the protections of being hidden away, out of sight, out of mind, out of target range. 

She reminds me how, when you act like you don’t matter, no one will take an unhealthy interest you, you cannot be skewered by envy, or projected upon, or anything. How in silence and invisibility we are sometimes safer. How in failure we can perhaps succeed better, in the dark unnoticed, serving our true work while no one sees. 

I remember why this was necessary before. It helps me see it might not be needed anymore. 

Understanding myself better, why I sabotage, why I rebel, why I fight my own nature, what I resist and why I resist it, is a return of soul to Soul. Bringing myself back to my Self, and my Self back to myself. 

Spirit Parts

Through Parts Work we not only liberate shadow Parts, but uncover Spiritual Parts. We walk a path of rediscovery, recognition, and reunion with Parts who have been there all along within one’s energy. 

These Parts are the parts of our own Psyche – again, shared with All, even while we all have our own experiences of them – that are stunning, beautiful, remarkable, moving. 

When we understand the messages these Parts have for us, we cry, we are grateful, we change our feelings from resentment, victimization, and bitterness, into joy. We soften into self-forgiveness, seeing how our pain, our suffering has all, after all, been worth it. We walk through doorways of the heart into spirit. 

These Parts speak to us with such kindness and mercy that we are moved by our own natures, by what we carry within us, what has always been there in the background music of our bodies, our hearts, our spirits, our dreams.

Getting to know our Spiritual Parts is another way of saying we build a relationship with our own God natures.

Exercise for Reconnecting with Spiritual Parts:

  1. Close your eyes and settle into a safe-feeling position in your body, perhaps through placing your hands on a section of your body that would like some comforting contact. I like one hand on the heart, one hand on the belly. 
  2. From your safe position, take a few breaths and then allow yourself to imagine or remember feeling relaxed, safe, held, and connected. Trust whichever image pops into your mind first, and don’t worry about choosing a perfect one. Feel loved, in touch with your own value, the beauties of this world, with goodness. 
  3. After having summoned up this memory or image, spend a little time writing about or drawing it. Get down as much information as you can about the context, the situation, what you experienced. 
  4. Now take the lens that this memory or image represents a time you had contact with a Spiritual Part, that there is a Divine Someone connected to this experience, a Loving Presence who was there giving you those feelings of love and safety. 
  5. What name could be given to this Part? What are they like? What qualities do they emanate and radiate towards you? What strikes you about them? 
  6. See what happens if you begin a dialogue between your ordinary-you personality and this Part.  

Hi Big Sunny Spirit Part.
Hi, my love.
Thank you for being here.
Thank YOU for being here.
Want to dialogue?
Yes! What are your troubles? What can I take from your little shoulders? I love you so much. 

Categories
Inspiration

New Year, New Cycle of Life

The Yin-Yang of Seasons

In the northern hemisphere, this time of year represents the seeds of sunlight buried in the most lightless pockets of earth, so that within the darkest time of the year, we are given the promise of the light. 

In the southern hemisphere, it is the opposite, as if to say that in the heart of the sun’s full bloom, there is a seed of darkness, of return inwards. The exchange of energies from inner to outer, outer to inner, is linked like a yin-yang symbol. 

Seeds of Light and Seeds of Darkness

In the darkness, we might see, if we’re lucky, the seeds of light. It takes extra faith to look around in times of fruitlessness, and imagine what seeds are buried around and within us. 

When past fruits are gone, we grieve, mourn the flowering, the lost fullness. But still we are always left with something. What did our last fruits give us? What did the loss of them give us? 

Fruits are full of seeds. Even after they’re gone, they leave us with something for our future. It takes extra levels of hope to see how a such a little lightseed has a whole orchard inside it, a lush forest.

Life is a Reclamation Project

When I was living nearby and working at Villa Kali Ma in person, I volunteered at a place called Coastal Roots Farm. I remember one day being put to work in the food forest, where they were rehabilitating a piece of land through permaculture. 

It was full of toxic residue from construction materials, and it was dry, hard, barren, and poisoned. They told me it would take seven years to rehabilitate the land. 

At the time, seven years sounded like a long time. Because by nature I am caught in the moment, my struggles and joys, I can lose track of the bigger progress. Now seven years have passed since that day of volunteering in the food forest.

Nature’s Patience

Day in, day out, the food forest, the trees, the earth worms, the chickens, the farmers, and the plants have been doing their slow work. Each turn of the earth, they do a small, important act of returning a toxic piece of land back to the arms of the rest of nature.

This makes me wonder what slow but important I, you, we, may have all been doing, in ways so hard to recognize in the moment. 

Have we been slowly improving the terrain, have we been working through the hard knots, breaking down what is ossified, old and inorganic? 

Have we been dismantling the artificial, have we been incinerating what hard, black, recalcitrant structures have been keeping us cramped in unhappy positions for so long? 

I believe that I have, even though the pace feels geologic and my impatience runs hot and high every day, wanting to run like the wind, not move like earthworms through the soil and the slowness. 

Journal Questions for Ushering in a New Cycle

Wherever you are, you may like to take some time to reflect, with the patience of nature, on what your life has been this last year. Consider the last seven years – the time it takes for nature and humans working together to rehabilitate half a city block of poisoned land.

How have you slowly moved from darkness to light to darkness to light again, and what has your movement accomplished, in the slow, fair way that nature does? What have you reclaimed, what have you rebalanced? 

May these questions guide you into new blooms. 

What am I grateful for?

What do I acknowledge about myself and my journey this past year, these past seven years?

What has been positive, that I can truly approve of and celebrate?

What do I honestly, truthfully need to let go of, release, say goodbye to?

What open topics do I surrender to God/Source/Spirit/Nature, for rebalancing into the heart of oneness?

What burdens still rest on my shoulders, that I have not yet found a way to complete or give over? What parts feel hopeless, unchanging, that I could name, to validate my experiences more lovingly?

What has changed, within or around me? Can I see the earthworm-paced transformation of the soil of my life? What has been broken down, removed entirely, or turned into rich fluffy soil? What is still here? 

What new sprouts, saplings, or entire trees grew up in this time? What has nature given me, between her balance of dark and light? Can I see what design she may have had for me? What is still here in me that’s green and true, in spite of all that has changed? What pieces of me endure? 

What do I wish to call in, if it should be aligned with what’s best for All? What seeds feel exciting, beautiful, desired by me? What makes me perk up, smile, feel my heart again, feel like dancing? What newness waits for me, still hazy but full of summer lights? 

Categories
Thought Tools

Bad Thoughts Versus the Still, Small Voice

The diagnosis Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a fascinating one. In its clinical form, when we have it to the extent it disrupts our lives extensively, it’s pure misery. To live enslaved to appeasing our own fearful thoughts with little, semi-magical actions is no way to live. 

Like all of the diagnoses listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, however, OCD is only an exaggerated version of something we all have, every single one of us. We can use OCD as a mirror into our own minds, as we all hold all of the diagnoses in us, somewhere. 

In OCD patterning, a person’s thoughts are captured by terrible fears combined with insistent commands to take specific actions that the sufferer believes are the only way to relieve the fears. The actions are the compulsions that the OCD-diagnosed person feels bound to.

How Good are we at Disobeying Bad Thoughts?

All humans have anxiety, and it is normal to respond to that inner pressure by engaging in behaviors that help release our anxiety. When this mechanism works correctly, anxiety tells us we have something we should pay attention to that relates to our safety, then effective action is taken to address the danger. Our anxiety and anxiety-driven behaviors help us to have a psychological experience that we are safe and in control. 

In the case of a person with OCD, however, they are unable to have any lasting sense of feeling safe. They are driven to repeat behaviors over and over, without being able to feel a sense of relief or true safety. 

The suffering of those with OCD helps us inquire of ourselves, too, how good are we really at ignoring the commands of our own negative thoughts? How good are we at refusing to comply with irrational, superstitious, or self-punishing urges that arise in us? How are we doing at discerning which thoughts are positive, which are true, which are life affirming?

Evaluating Thoughts

One helpful lens is to always ask the body, how does this thought feel. If a thought feels bad to the body, it might not be true. We do have to look out for hearing what we want to, spiritual bypassing, and polyanna-ish thinking, but in general we can trust the gut to assess the quality of our thoughts by sensing their vibrational tone.

Another helpful tip is to personify. Imagine a thought is spoken out loud by a person outside your head. Who is saying it? Who would say this type of thing? What type of person, and why would they say it? How do they look, how do they seem? Do you like them? Are they on your side? 

Keeping with this way of assessing, do you want to listen to them? Do you like how they live their lives, do you personally want to live in the same way? If not, perhaps we should say thank you, I hear you, but I’m going to do something else right now. 

Powering up Inner Civil Disobedience

The truth is that most of us find it quite hard to disobey the commands of our own thoughts, especially when the thoughts are loud, demanding and negative. Negative thoughts often motivate us to take actions, if only to make the unpleasant message finally go away (we hope).

I believe it is our duty to disobey inner commands if they represent the tyranny of those who are/that which is not in favor of human heart and connection. That force, and those who embody, express and serve it in their choices, are not the boss of me, as the childhood saying goes. 

I do not consent to be ruled by those who use fear to corral, command, and control the beautiful, wild, spirited heart of the human being. I say no to being ruled by false authorities for me, and for all of us. 

Two Tips for distinguishing Bad Thoughts from the Still, Small Voice

  1. The Still, Small Voice (the voice of spirit and truth in you) does not use manipulation, bossiness, commands, threats, bribes, sales pitches, or flattery. Truth doesn’t need any of things, and doesn’t require us to comply with it for it to still be so.

If you get the sense that a voice within you is pushing you towards something, find out why. What’s the payoff? What need does this voice express? The need may be valid in the end, but there are ways to do it that don’t involve being enslaved to our own thoughts, run around like a beaten horse hitched to a wagonful of unexamined burdens. 

To know why we take the actions we do, is freedom itself. Free will, free choice, requires understanding why we are doing what we are doing. 

  1. Journal on the following: Which of my daily actions are meant as offerings to appease the anxiety created by my fear-based thought system? Do these really work to address the problem at hand, or do they only make me feel safer and better in the moment? Am I superstitious? Am I compulsive? Do I fear punishment for my sins? Do I engage in any symbolic sacrifices or rituals that are actually about harming or punishing myself, hoping this wards off danger? If so, what danger? What does the still small voice have to say about that? 
Categories
Therapy

Befriending Troublesome Parts: the Critic and the Taskmaster

Internal Family Systems Therapy, also known as Parts Work, is a heartwarming and efficient modality for helping to create a better relationship among the different Parts of ourselves internally.

The reason to do that is to create better coherence, balance, and stability within oneself, so that all the many sides of us live in peace internally. 

The Inner Village

We can think of the many Parts of us within as different inhabitants of a small town. There may be fights and feuds, boundary disputes or especially close relationships. 

The Self is the benign mayor, one who can unify and lead all the Parts who live in this community towards something that meets the needs of all members. Good Self-leadership internally leads to greater harmony, wholeness, and feelings of connectedness.  

Two Troublesome Characters: Critic and Taskmaster

Today I want to write about how to work with the Taskmaster and the Critic, two Parts who often make us feel miserable. 

Critic is the Part whose job it is to criticize us, to remind us of social expectations to which we are supposed to conform. 

Critic generally schools us in unkind, if not abusive, ways, through belittling, insulting, denigrating or shaming us, to get us to feel bad and therefore be motivated to change. If you have low self-esteem, or struggle to take a compliment, that’s a sign the Critic may be over-empowered. 

Taskmaster is the Part whose job it is to watch the clock, get us to work hard, tell us to hurry on up and to stop being so “lazy”. If you tend to fight your own inner timing and rhythm, perhaps struggling with overdoing it or obsessively driving yourself to the limit, your Taskmaster is probably over-empowered. 

Taskmaster and Critic are similar Parts in the sense that they are both oriented towards getting us to fit in “out there in the real world.” One stands off to the side telling us to hurry up: “More, more, faster, faster, get to work you lazy fill-in-the-blank.” (Inefficiency, rest, pause are not to be permitted). The other shouts unhelpful comments, such as “You think you can present this sloppy work in a meeting? What’s wrong with you? You’re such a fill-in-the-blank.” 

You can see that they both love to use labels to inspire us to conform to society. They’re both pretty mean – until we change our relationship with them.

Sound Familiar?

Is this one-two punch familiar to you? If so I would say it is because these are two of the most over-empowered and favored Parts in our society. 

When I say they’re over-empowered and favored, I mean that if we allow these two to rule our lives, we initially get social rewards, such as assistance surviving childhood and early adulthood. 

However, they come with a heavy cost in the self-esteem department: both insist that we are never good enough, that we have not earned, we are not proven, our worth has not yet been accomplished or demonstrated. 

Critic’s special toxicity is to judge us very harshly. Taskmaster’s toxicity lies in never letting us pause long enough to feel our human experience.

What’s the Solution?

The good news is there is a cure! The cure is to find a way to talk to these Parts, get their perspective, and befriend them. Through befriending our inner troublesome characters, we gradually turn them into allies working on the same team as our Self. 

When we dialogue, we try to be genuinely open, compassionate and curious, so that these Parts feel truly valued and may therefore speak directly to us of the burdens they have carried for so long. Once we deeply understand why these Parts are how they are, they’ll be relieved of their “job”.

Journal Time: Parts Dialogue with Critic and Taskmaster

Here is a suggested dialogue starter for getting to know your Critic, your Taskmaster, or both!

You: Hi there [Name of Part], thank you so much for being here. I would like to understand you better, as I realize that you are quite important, you have done a lot for me and that you are coming from a very good place of wanting to help me make it in this world. I want to understand better what it is that you do for me, and how I can support you to get your job done, so that you’re not so alone with the burdens you carry. What do you think? Are you willing to dialogue a little bit?

Journal out the rest and see what happens!

Categories
Thought Tools

Throw Ego a Bone: Try this Journaling Tool to Befriend Your Ego

In certain circles, the ego is considered a bad thing. The word is treated like an epithet, a way to throw shade on someone, as in the phrase “he has a huge ego.” 

Even worse, the ego is frequently belittled and dismissed. The term may be used as a way to diminish or brush aside a person’s point of view (often one’s own). As in, “I want more recognition, respect and attention…but that’s just my ego.”

Don’t Force Ego into the Shadows (or It Will Come Back to Haunt You)

Diminishment of ego is not wise for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the ego is far, far heftier than we might imagine, and it’s not wise to merely dismiss or cast aside one’s adversary on the spiritual path as though that won’t come back to haunt us. 

In shadow work terms, we know that what we repress, we do at our own peril, as that which we refuse to deal with will grow bigger and stronger in darkness until one day it comes at us as a surprise, packing a powerful punch. 

Any aspect of our consciousness that we reject or devalue will come back twofold, and in a form we especially do not appreciate. If we do not accept its blessings, ego will come back as a curse. 

Ego Could Be in Your Corner!

There is also a missed opportunity when we take any aspect that’s baked into human experience and think it’s all bad and just try to avoid it.

While acknowledging everything about ego that is troublesome – that it is, by nature, selfish, self-serving, self-absorbed, obsessed, blind, with a tendency towards narcissism – it isn’t inherently bad! Ego turns toxic because we often don’t allow it to do its job out in the open. 

Ego is here to help us navigate through the world, specifically through seeing to it that we get our needs met, and occasionally fighting for that, when necessary. Ego is supposed to be self-centered – that’s the whole point of ego. 

Ego, when allowed to do its job, is an inner advocate, one who says to us, “I’m going to make sure you get what you need in life, to be able to bring your gifts to this plane of existence.” Ego is, in that sense, a wonderful energy to have in your corner. 

Grant Limited Powers to Your Ego

Ego ideally is not permitted to rule one’s life. If ego is allowed to run the show entirely, we will end up in the throes of addiction or otherwise far from spirit.  It can, however, serve in a more advisory role to spirit, or other higher, more love-based parts of us. 

Ego can be consulted about what it knows best: what I want, why I want it, and why it matters in terms of the world “out there”. 

Throw Ego a Bone: Get to the Root of your Ego’s Desires

In a spirit of making peace with your ego, check in with yours through this exercise. Let ego speak honestly and don’t judge. 

Step One: Admit What Would Gratify Your Ego 

Write a list of things that would deeply gratify your ego. Things like awards, accolades, someone’s respect, even revenge might show up here. Don’t hide your ego from yourself, it’s ok, we all have one too. 

Start each sentence with “My ego would really love it if…” 

Step Two: Seven Times Down the Rabbit Hole of Your Ego’s Desires

For each of the desires you identified, ask why your ego would want that, 7 times total on the same desire to dig a little deeper. Each time you ask “why do you want that, dear ego?”, answer with another clear statement of ego’s wants: “I want that thing because I want this other thing…”

Like so:

My ego would love it if I had better skin.  

Why do you want better skin?

Then I’d be pretty. 

Why do you want to be pretty? 

Well…I feel like I’d just be better. 

Why do you want to be better? 

And so on. 

Ask why at least seven times, digging deeper to the root of the desire, or until the ego runs out of deeper reasons (but don’t give up before you have an insight). 

Step Three:

Highlight and reflect on any surprises, or hidden real reasons behind the ego’s desires. What does it tell you about who you really are on the inside? Which needs is your ego particularly preoccupied with getting met? Do you approve of that need? If so, could you help your ego meet that need in some way? Can you throw your ego a bone once in a while? 

Thanks for reading!  

 

Categories
Trauma

“This, Too, Shall Pass”: A Powerful Slogan for Getting Through Hard Times

The classic AA slogan “This, Too, Shall Pass” has layers. Attributed to 12th century Persian Sufi poet, Attar of Nishapur, though quite possibly in circulation long before that, the phrase is popular both in and outside of recovery circles. In fact, our beloved sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, paraphrases it in one of his speeches.   

Applied to the recovery path, “This, Too, Shall Pass” helps us understand that any given experience we may have to face can be counted upon to go away in its own right timing and way. 

The Trauma Lens: Will This Ever Pass?

For women with addiction patterning, impermanence is especially important to integrate into our mental understanding. That’s because trauma is what we call it when bad feelings get stuck in our bodies, where they are frequently triggered and reactivated in such a way that we feel like we can’t get ever really over it.

To realize that the suffering isn’t actually a permanent state is often a cognitive link that we need to make. No matter how frequent our trauma episodes are, there is always a break from them in between. At some point the energy does indeed shift and move (even if we have a tendency to return to that pattern). 

It helps when we can learn to gradually release traumatic experiences, the stress that was associated with those events, out of our body so that we don’t have to re-experience them so often. This is taking “This, Too, Shall Pass” more into our own hands, assisting some things to move along, perhaps through one of the trauma work modalities offered by Villa Kali Ma, such as EMDR.

Believe it or not, our trauma is finding a way to be released from our body, through constantly coming back to us seeking our attention and help, like a prisoner saying “Help me, let me out of here!” The energies, sensations and life force that got trapped and tangled up in those bad experiences still needs to be let out of the body. 

In this sense, “This, Too, Shall Pass” is also an affirmation, a decision that I will allow this experience to pass out of my experience, at last. 

Affirmation for “This, Too, Shall Pass”

You may want to experiment with writing yourself some affirmations to help integrate the wisdom of this powerful AA slogan. 

I lovingly recognize that my body is healing me and moving me forward. I know these feelings are here in my awareness today because they are passing on out of me and completing. It is safe to let go of these feelings. Thank you, Body. I do not have to keep the past with me as fear, anger, or stuckness anymore. This is a wonderful opportunity to be liberated. 

The Upside of Impermanence

When we realize that “This, Too, Shall Pass” is a chance to embrace the positive side of impermanence, we can see that the fact that everything passes on out of us sooner or later is a real comfort. We are evolving, we are growing, even if it’s hard to recognize in the moment. 

Try out the following exercise and see what it does for you.

Something that Did Pass

  1. Think of a time in your life during which you experienced something that was very hard for you at the time, like a break up or disappointment. For now, don’t choose your deepest darkest moment, but a time when you do remember struggling.
  2. Identify a moment in time that came after that event, at which point the event was totally done, including the feelings about it. It’s ok to give it a generous window of time – maybe it took several years, but pinpoint when this trouble was no longer a burdensome presence in your life. 
  3. How did you get from #1 to #2?

Ob La Dee, Ob La Da!

You may realize in your answer to question #3 that you’re not sure how it happened. Somehow life moved on in that intervening time period. Perhaps you did specific things to take care of yourself, but often as not we were assisted by time itself. Sooner or later, bad things fade out and are no longer active as sources of pain.

“This, Too, Shall Pass” reminds us that life will resolve its own tensions and troubles over time, if we can basically trust and allow it to. It means that no feeling, no matter how terrible, is permanent. Thank you God, that life goes on!

Categories
Creativity Corner

Poetry Therapy: Write Your Own “A Golden Compass”

Like all the arts, poetry can be used as medicine for your soul (https://poeticmedicine.org/about/). No training, experience, talent or skill is required when you use poetry as medicine, because the point of doing it is solely for you to express and heal yourself. No one needs to ever read your healing poems but you. 

Want to try it out? 

A Poem that Points towards the Divine In Us

Many poets of the past have created works that speak to the deeper, truer realms inside us. We can use these poems, those that capture our imagination and move our emotions, as starting points for exploring poetry as medicine. 

Today we’ll play with a lovely piece by the 14th century Persian lyrical poet Hafiz called “A Golden Compass”. 

Have a read for yourself and see if anything resonates for you: 

A GOLDEN COMPASS
by Hafiz, translation by Daniel Ladinsky

Forget every idea of right and wrong any classroom ever taught you
Because an empty heart, a tormented mind, unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony you have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company of the King’s beggars –
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns and those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous who have no choice but to bet their entire world
That indeed, indeed, God is real.
I will lead you into the circle of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues, the ones you can trust for true guidance –
Who can aid you in this blessed calamity of life.
Hafiz, look at the Perfect One at the circle’s center:
He spins and whirls like a Golden Compass, beyond all that is rational,
To show this dear world that everything, everything in existence
Does point to God.

Interpret the Poem through your own Experience

Anything speak to you? I personally like the lines “Come, join the courageous who have no choice but to bet their entire world/ That indeed, indeed, God is real.” I also like the paradoxical phrase “this blessed calamity of life”, and the ending line “everything in existence/Does point to God.” 

I resonate with Hafiz’s characterization of himself and his friends as those who “have no choice but to bet their entire world that indeed, God is real.” I relate to that position of having no choice but to rely on Higher Power – that speaks to the truth of the recovery path. 

Finally, when Hafiz describes “playful rogues” it makes me think of the fact that AA meetings are often full of laughter, filled with people who have had colorful lives. It is not a holier-than-thou kind of crowd, as people there span the full spectrum from darkness to light.

What do you relate to? 

Poetry Medicine Exercise: Your Own Version of “A Golden Compass”

Remembering the goal is soul medicine, not good poetry, write your own version of this poem.  You can do whatever you want of course, but two helpful creative constraints are:

Guidelines

  1. Use your own name at least once. The poem should be from you to you. The original poem is written, apparently, to himself, as the line, “Hafiz, look at the Perfect One…” suggests (many of his poems are). Do the same, make sure it is for you and from you. 
  2. Be encouraging, offering some kind of an inspiration or nudge. Lead yourself, your attention and your focus somewhere, invite yourself to look at something wonderful. Tell yourself what you need to hear, about what you should turn away from, and what you should turn towards. 

The Process

Step One: Freewrite on Jumping Off Points taken from the Original Poem

Set a timer for 12 minutes, then start freewriting anything that’s coming to your mind, beginning with the phrase “Forget every idea you’ve had of…”

My example line, so you get the idea: Forget every idea you’ve had of what a good life is, dear Holly Mae, and come back to the origin of all things. Seeds sprout, they grow, they want to live, and so do you. Is that such a bad thing? It is not. It is a good thing….  

When you feel this jumping off point has been exhausted, try writing lines that start with “Turn your back on…” and then “Come, join the….”. 

Feel free to follow your own intuition and feeling as it flows, there isn’t a right or wrong way to this, these are suggestions more than rules. 

Step Two: Harvest Lines from Your Freewrite

After the timer goes off, look back over what you have written and underline any lines that seem interesting or intriguing to you for any reason. You will take those lines, change them as you see fit, and use them to make your poem in the next step.

Step Three: Shape It Into a Medicine Poem

Now create your poem using the harvested lines as inspiration (which you can feel free to change.) At this stage, do not worry about your poem directly referencing or mirroring the original poem. Maybe it does, or maybe it doesn’t. 

My example: 

The Fearful Seed  (Poetry Medicine Response to “A Golden Compass” by Hafiz)

If you find yourself splitting
open helpless and wet
like a seed soaked in rainwater

something green in you
reaching skywards

Do not be so scared, Holly Mae.
Growing is a good thing
is it not? 

You have known for a long time
what you are. You like to see saplings growing.
It’s your time
to be a tree. 

May your poems be meaningful to you!

Categories
Trauma

Hot-and-Cold Tools to Help Difficult Moments Pass

A Trusty Recovery Toolkit

Women in recovery face the challenge of dealing with trauma and its residues in the body, as a necessity for overcoming triggers to relapse. 

As people learning to help our bodies release trauma responses, we develop a personalized toolkit over time of things that really work for us personally.

Getting to know ourselves from a place of love, and learning how precisely we like and need to be cared for to thrive is an aspect of the recovery journey. 

As we learn and grow stronger in our sobriety, our collection of tools can be come as trusty and familiar as a handyman’s – something for every scenario!  

Help for Being Here Now

The following tools are about orienting towards the here and now moment you are presently in. 

More than a platitude about being present, these tools literally help you to become aware of the fact that you are in a present moment and not actually currently in the nightmare that you nervous system is telling you you’re in.

Hot and Cold Tools: Change Your Temperature, Change Your Energy!

Have you ever noticed how a mild, pleasant shock of cold or warm can help you “snap out of it” and return to the present? For example, splashing your face with cold water or stepping outside on a cold day help reset you towards safety in part because of the temperature change these create for you. 

Hot and Cold Tools rely on this grounding, stabilizing effect to help you get re-connected to the present. The goal is to create a focus-grabbing, yet harmless sensation in the physical body right now.  

How to use Hot and Cold Tools:

Anything safe that creates a temporary change in your temperature in either direction may be helpful for you. Experiment for yourself and see what seems promising. 

Remember to be gentle and kind, aim not to punish the body but to create mild, pleasant changes in sensation that help Body Awareness rise to the surface of your experience. 

Cold Tools

  1. Hold Something Cold

Take a cold object from the refrigerator and hold it in your hands, just noticing the (possibly a little unpleasant) sensation and how it changes your focus of awareness. The positive change may only hit you after you are done holding the cold object, as the shifts in your body’s energy integrate.

  1. Numb Yourself (Safely) 

If feeling very distressed, you can even try taking an ice cube from the freezer and holding it in your hand until it has melted. It will be shocking in a safe way to the body, and can help change the energy pathways. This technique is probably better used for times when you’re quite upset as it’s a little bit intense, but of course apply your own instincts here.

  1. Wash it Away

Finally, you can try taking a cold shower. If this is hard to imagine kicking off, you can start with a warm shower and then end your shower with sixty seconds of cold water. The pleasant part of this technique kicks in afterwards, when you are wrapping yourself in a towel and noticing that your body has balanced itself through this exposure to opposites of temperature.  

Hot Tools

  1. Warm Your Face

Run warm water over your hands and face. Alternatively, soak a washcloth in very hot water and, being careful not to burn yourself, lay it over your face and leave it there until it has gone fully cold. You may combine this technique with aromatherapy if you have a very gentle oil in a carrier oil, such as a drop of lavender in jojoba oil. 

  1. Create Body Fire

Rub your hands together until they’re quite warm  (about 30 seconds), and then place your warmed hands over a part of your body, such as over your lower back, neck, head or heart. Take in the soothing sensation of your own loving hands helping another part of you feel more at ease. The fact that it is you who is helping you can be an important part of building trust in yourself over time, that you really will be there for you, going forward. 

  1. Apply Heat Directly

Getting under the covers, putting on soft comfy layers and applying gentle warmth directly are important trauma and recovery tools. You can make yourself a warm pot of herbal tea and slowly drink it. If available, you can also use body-warming assists like hot water bottles and heat lamps. And of course, baths, especially when made extra detoxifying through the addition of magnesium crystals or sea salt, are a wonderful tool if you’re fortunate enough to have a bath tub.  

Remember to look out for easy, pleasing sensations and an overall effect of changing your state. Good luck!

Categories
Spirituality

Authenticity in Recovery: Embracing your Unique Universality

Addiction is not Unique

On the path to recovery, women are often faced with paradoxes. One such paradox is the fact of “unique universality” – that we are both unique and universal at the same time. 

On the one hand, a woman’s addiction, as personal as it feels, is not at all unique.  All addictions are essentially the same, in the sense that they create terrible heartache and follow a predictable course. 

This fact of underlying similarity across all addictions is what makes connecting with a community of other recovering people so helpful, through shared experience that reduces our isolation drastically. 

Because of the essential similarity of the addiction experience, we can also share tools, wisdom and experience with each other. How wonderful is that?

We Are Not Alone, Even in Our Aloneness

It’s not just our addiction. Human suffering is also universal. No matter which flavor of human struggle we experience, we are not alone with it! Our depression will be similar to another person’s depression, sharing key qualities that make depression what it is. 

We are all navigating a combination of existential givens, factors, gifts and burdens, and whatever our particular troubles are, we are not alone in them. 

Even if we do not know anyone in our immediate circle who has the same problem, there will be someone, somewhere, who understands from their own experience a little bit about what it is like to be us. 

Even our isolation is universal, a built-in feature of every human being’s consciousness structure. 

And Yet We Are Irreplaceable Individuals

In spite of all this sameness, it’s important also to understand and validate our own unique journey, whether or not it matches the experiences of another. 

So we can add on to the above statements the extra context that no one in this world will have the exact same experiences that we do, because no one is identical (even identical twins are unique consciousnesses).

There will be times in our recovery lives when we feel lonely, and we perceive ourselves as apart from others, even in our home meetings and outpatient therapy groups. We may need to hold a certain point of view alone, with no one near us saying, “Oh yes, that makes sense, I agree”. 

Because the truth is, we are also irreplaceable individuals, and sometimes we will be experiencing exactly what it is that makes us utterly different than any other. 

Tolerating Being An Outlier

Can we tolerate what it’s like to feel alone with a particular burden or perspective? What do we do in the moment of feeling that our experience is not, in this particular moment, understood, shared or empathized with by others? 

Do we self-marginalize, saying we shouldn’t feel how we feel, shouldn’t want what we want? Do we believe we shouldn’t perceive what we perceive, because no one else is? Or do we stay with our truths, even though we are alone in that point of view for now? Are we able to stay authentic or do we put on a mask to fit in? 

The Pressure to Give Ourselves Up

People who see, feel, or do something different than the norm are constantly pressured to self-betray, and say that their own experiences are somehow wrong. We are urged to confess we are pathological, out of line, inappropriate. This self-rejection is a core spiritual self-harm practice and creates many wounds. 

When people spurn, criticize, or distance themselves from us, it hurts. But far more painful than being pushed away by another is what happens inside us, in the secret self-talk chamber in which we give or withhold love from ourselves. If we also push ourselves away, we hurt ourselves immeasurably. 

Self-Validate with a Both/And Perspective

The trick to embracing and holding ourselves while being different from the others, while still within a greater shared experience, is to take a Both/And Perspective (rather than the old Either/Or).

Next time you feel alone with something, practice saying something along these lines to yourself: 

“I see what I’m experiencing and it is a real experience and it is valid. It is not a mistake, a terrible accident, or a sign of doing or being something wrong. It is here on my path for a good reason, for a higher purpose, even if no one else but me can value it right now. Even if I also don’t know how to value it, I value me, and I will not reject my experiences. I love myself and all of my experiences have worth to me. 

AND…I know that just like me, all around the world, women are questioning their experiences, doubting themselves, feeling lonely in their own skins, wondering if their uniqueness is a bad thing, struggling to be authentic….may we all be freed from our burdens and feel loved as we are.” 

Categories
Addiction Treatment

What is Alcohol Addiction?

Alcohol addiction is a serious disease that affects the minds, bodies, and spirits of women all over the world. 

Alcohol Addiction is a substance use disorder that has a strong foothold in society due to a variety of factors, including its easy accessibility. Villa Kali Ma’s integral, holistic approach to healing Alcohol Addiction is dedicated to assisting women to free themselves from enslavement to this severe and damaging pattern of behaviors and suffering.  

While light to moderate alcohol use is generally considered to be safe for the wider population, a significant portion of women who start out consuming alcohol in a more moderate way experience a progressive escalation in their use, eventually spiraling them into a state in which the negative impacts become a problem.

Long-term health impacts of Alcohol Addiction are significant. Alcohol adversely affects the heart, blood, pancreas, immune system, liver, and is linked with breast and esophageal cancers, among other forms of tissue damage to the physical body.

Psychologically, the impacts of Alcohol Addiction are not to be underestimated, resulting in disruption to mood regulation, worsening psychological troubles such as depression and anxiety, and entrenching pre-existing trauma patterning. 

Symptoms of Alcohol Addiction

Symptoms of Alcohol Addiction are broadly encompassed in the phenomena of tolerance, withdrawals, and an increasing pattern of loss of control over external circumstances of one’s life. As addiction grows, a person’s highest intentions and original personality, along with character, tend to degrade. These losses are recuperable with sobriety coupled with a firm commitment to a path of recovery, but will require a lot of personal work and considerable lifestyle and inner habit changes to correct.   

Tolerance is defined as needing more and more alcohol to achieve the same effect. It also explains desiring alcohol more frequently, and why many women go from drinking only on the weekends to drinking to daily to drinking first thing in the morning. 

Relatedly, withdrawal is the phenomenon that takes place when, in the absence of alcohol, the dependent person experiences very uncomfortable physical, emotional and mental states as a result of the substance not being present in the body anymore. This typically triggers a strong craving to drink again and may kick off mental and behavioral obsessions centered on procuring alcohol as soon as possible. 

Drinking to stave off the discomfort of withdrawals contributes to the overall progression of the disease and escalation in use, as the ever-increasing symptoms of alcohol withdrawal guide the drinker back to alcohol again and again, as in the case when a person drinks to make hand tremors, anxiety, insomnia or other alcohol-related symptoms go away. 

Immediate symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol include tremors, rapid pulse, restricted breathing, sweating, nausea and vomiting, anxiety, irritability, and insomnia. If withdrawing from a heavier pattern of use, withdrawal can include hallucinations and seizures, as well as the infamous DTs, or delerium tremens, in which the entire system can experience deep disturbances in functioning, that include mental disorientation, nightmares, stupor and irrational beliefs.

If you notice the presence of withdrawal symptoms such as the shakes in yourself when stopping drinking, it is very likely that damage to the body has already taken place in the gastrointestinal tract, liver, nerves, heart, and blood. Alcohol is poisonous to the body, so if you suspect the presence of an addictive relationship to it it is wise to seek treatment to stop this destructive pattern from getting worse.  

Other signs of Alcohol Addiction include a general pattern of continuing to drink or stopping only to return to drinking in spite of compelling reasons to stop, and in spite of sincere intentions not to (indicating a loss of willpower).

Other key signs include unmanageability of social, work, and personal life needs as the addiction gains primacy over the other aspects of one’s life. Life consequences directly related to use, such as losing a job, a relationship, or getting a DUI, frequently happen to women with Alcohol Addiction. 

Finally, emotional and relationship problems that are directly connected to using alcohol, such as victim-thinking, negativity, depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional or toxic relationship patterns are also typical of the disease.

Overall, the following telltale red flags may help us recognize in our more lucid moments to accept that we have developed a pattern of Alcohol Addiction:

  • A strong, persistent urge to drink that is so powerful that efforts to stop drinking or cut down repeatedly fail
  • Drinking more in one sitting that was originally intended, as when we say “I’ll just have one” but one leads to another and another, such that our good intentions to apply self-control feel ineffective 
  • A tendency to rationalize, deny or minimize the truth of our relationship with alcohol, lying to ourselves (and others) about the presence of a problem
  • Outer world impacts and consequences, such as deterioration in our relationships, work life, and ability to have mental-emotional balance

Causes of Alcohol Addiction

Alcohol Addiction has many causes. Alcohol Addiction originates in pain that a person tries to address with a mood-altering substance. 

If a woman has a chronic self-ache, it sets her up to look for a way to modulate or change that experience in some form or another, often through substances that seem in the short term to do the trick. 

Specifically with alcohol, its addictive qualities may be attributed to the combination of stimulating euphoric feelings while at the same time providing relaxing effects to the nervous system, thereby addressing two aspects of self-regulation at once. 

Genetic factors, family history, and its widespread availability are all additional factors in alcohol addiction being a top addiction in the Western world. 

Treatment for Alcohol Addiction

Treatment for alcohol addiction follows the following steps.

-Safely detoxify in a medically supervised setting. Due to the potential for seizures, psychosis, and delirium, it is important to detox with support from medical professionals who will be available to monitor and respond in time to the more dangerous aspects alcohol withdrawals. 

-Stabilize the body. Upon achieving full detoxification from alcohol, the needs of the body should be addressed with supportive interventions that help stabilize and restore the body’s immediate health requirements. This can include medical as well as alternative modalities that help the body stabilize.

-Secure a sober environment. It is critical to secure a fully sober environment with reinforced supports to change behavior. In early recovery a woman needs to install and fortify new patterns of behavior that encompass every aspect of life, from material world dimensions like work life, into inner-world emotional regulation and self-soothing habits. Receiving treatment in a residential rehabilitation facility like that offered by Villa Kali Ma, followed by a tapering down approach with Intensive Outpatient is usually best.

-Receive psychological support to change your thoughts, feelings and behavior. Treatment for Alcohol Addiction should include individual psychotherapy sessions as well as group work to address deeper wounds in the psyche. Ideally a woman is supported with trauma-informed treatment modalities like EMDR or Somatic Experiencing that can help the body learn at the nervous system level how to manage PTSD-symptoms without being driven to relapse. Villa Kali Ma’s many programs, therapy groups, and individual psychotherapy offerings meet these needs. 

-Connect to AA. It is advised to begin to connect as soon as one is stable enough, to a community of sober people who will be your failsafe network and support system going forward. Recovery is not a solo-endeavor, and it is a necessity to avoid isolation especially in the early stages of stabilization of sobriety.

-Learn about the nature of the disease and plan for relapse prevention. Treatment for Alcohol Addiction includes learning more about the disease and how it works, so as to be able to swiftly recognize its signature energies, including the early signs of relapse. A plan for relapse prevention that extends beyond the end of treatment will be made during treatment, and this plan includes a healthy set of new coping skills. 

Holistic Alcohol Addiction Treatment Options

Holistic Alcohol Addiction Treatment options include Villa Kali Ma’s unique, compassionately-minded program for women. Villa Kali Ma’s treatment is especially designed to incorporate the insights and practices known to be effective in alternative healing modalities together with the best of Western knowledge about addiction and recovery. 

Methodologies of healing that come from ancient wisdom schools like yoga, ayurveda, functional medicine (nutritional support), shamanic journeying, and breathwork assist recovering women to receive all they need to feel better, mind, body and soul. Massage therapy, fun sober group activities, walks on the beach and connections in the local recovering community are additionally supportive.

Villa Kali Ma provides expressive arts therapy, life skills-learning groups, equine therapy, and gardening as a part of its well-rounded program. At the core of Villa Kali Ma’s treatment program lie the most cutting edge and effective behavioral, cognitive, and evidence-based methodologies, such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion, and Internal Family Systems therapies. 

Our treatment program weaves in the body-mind connection, an aspect of a fully lived life that is often excluded in the more mechanistic Western model of addiction medicine. 

Women attending our program learn to access their own deepest inner wisdom and knowing, achieving their own personal sobriety and going on to live meaningful lives without substances. You can do it, too!

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