St.Sava Serbian Orthodox by newagecrap

So, You Want to Be Like Christ? Eight Essentials to Get You There.

Charles R. Swindoll

ISBN 0-8499-1731-X

Amazon link

I have been reading Charles Swindoll for 30 years now and he never disappoints me. As he writes in his introduction: “So, you want to be like Christ? Me, too. But that kind of godliness won’t happen by hanging around a church or thinking lofty thoughts three or four times a day or learning a few verses of Scripture. It will take more–much more. Disciplining ourselves will require the same kind of focused thinking and living that our Master modeled during His brief life on earth.”

Rev. Swindoll defines the eight essentials we need to practice as:

1. Intimacy: Deepening Ours Lives
2. Simplicity: Uncluttering Our Minds
3. Silence and Solitude: Slowing Our Pace
4. Surrender: Releasing Our Grip
5. Prayer: Calling Out
6. Humility: Bowing Low
7. Self-Control: Holding Back
8. Sacrifice: Giving Over

As he states: “Notice that the first four disciplines have to do with getting rid of something, creating room in your life. The next four contribute vitality and authenticity to your spiritual life….Of course there are many other disciplines we could consider. And we could credibly argue for a shorter or longer list. I don’t claim to have the definitive path to intimacy with the Almighty. But I can say that after forty years of ministry, having prescribed these to others and having applied them to my own life, these eight disciplines fall into the category of essentials. Cultivate these disciplines, and your relationship with the Lord will flourish. More significantly, these will become paths that will lead you to becoming more like Christ.”

He has included several poems and/or quotations that are old and familiar to me.

For Simplicity: Uncluttering Our Minds:

“One ship drives east and another drives west

With the selfsame winds that blow.

Tis the set of the sails

And not the gales

Which tells us the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,

As we voyage along through life:

“Tis the set of a soul

That decides its goal.

And not the calm or the strife.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox

For Silence and Solitude: Slowing Our Pace

“May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the Kingdom like children in the market place, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the value of nothing.” A.W. Tozer

For Surrender: Releasing Our Grip

“When grace changes the heart, submission out of fear changes to submission out of love, and true humility is born” William Hendriksen

From Sacrifice Giving Over:

In this chapter, Rev. Swindoll writes a very personal account of his coming to the Lord while he was miserable in the Marine Corps in 1958. He read a book his brother had given him that night of 5 missionaries who had died while spreading the Word to the Aucas tribe. One of the missionaries’s wife, Jim Elliott, wrote the book, Through Gates of Splendor, after Jim’s death. The quotation for this chapter on sacrifice is from Jim Elliott: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

The sacrifices suggested are: to become a living, breathing sacrifice–personal sacrifice, relational sacrifice, and financial sacrifice.

By Luke Austin

Retreats are great opportunities to learn better how to communicate with the God of your understanding. As a young person attending church camps, I always loved the early morning ritual of going into the woods alone with my Bible. I was connecting with nature as well as with my God. Buddhists have many retrests worldwide as it is a part of their spiritual life to gather together in spiritual retreat. I have collected the following retreats with the description included on each website.

1. Spirit Rock In the San Francisco area, Spirit Rock (http://www.spiritrock.org/) publlishes the complete schedule of all of its resources. Transportation is provided to the site from volunteer drivers if a worshiper needs transportation. One of the founders of Spirit Rock, Jack Kornfield, explains what mindfulness means to him in this article.  Continuing education credits for trained professionals is offered a t Spirit Rock in collaboration with ISP, Institute for Spirituality and Psychology. Spirit Rock offers residental retreats, daylong programs, beginning classes, weekly classes, a diversity progam, a family program, a teen program, and a mindulness yoga and meditation training program.

2.Shambhala Mountain Center is a pristine 600 acre meditation retreat center located . The center offers beginning meditation, a yoga retreat, contempative arts as well as retreat and renewal weekends. The 2007/08 schedule is available online and includes sections in Buddhism, meditation, yoga and retreat. The  schedule offers: (1) tame your mind, learn to meditate through the introductory course or the Shambhala trasining series; (2) stretch your body and mind at one of the yoga retreats experiencing OM, Ashtanga, Hatha and Anusara yoga; (3) delve into Buddhist teachings with highly regarded dharma teachers; (4) deepen your practice and transform your life in monthlong summer or winter Dathun Meditation Retreats; (5) access the healing potential of body, mind, and community, (6) explore th powerful practices of ancient traditions ; and (7) demystify and prepare yourself for the untimate letting go. The Shambhala Retreat also offers conference and group retreats and rentals. It is located two hours from the Denver International Airport in the colorado Rockies.

3. Journey of the Spirit lists spiritual retreats, journeys and women’s retreats. It provides the following links:

Sedona: Finding the Mystic Within

The Southwest: Sacred Pilgrimage to Mesa Verde, Canyon De Chelly & Chaco Canyon

Tepoztlán: Sacred Valley of Magic and Mysticism

Teotihuacán: “The Place Where Man Becomes God”

Teotihuacán: “The Place Where Man Becomes God” – A Photography Workshop

Oaxaca: Becoming the Supreme Artist of Your Life

Palenque: Explore the Mayan People, Ruins & Jungles

The Mayan Yucatán: Explore the Hidden Ruins of Mexico & Belize

Bimini: A Women’s Retreat & Wild Dolphin Encounter

Isla Espiritu Santo, Baja Mexico: Obtaining Clarity – A Women’s Retreat

Santorini, Greece: Expressing the Divine Goddess – A Women’s Retreat

Maya Tulum: A Journey For Goddesses!

South Dakota: A Women’s Healing Circle & Retreat

British Columbia, A Heli-Hiking Spiritual Retreat: Inner Peace, Silence & Sanctuary

Peru & Machu Picchu Sacred Sites: Merging with the Divine

Guatemala: Mystery & Magic – Tikal, Antigua & Lake Atitlan

Egypt: Dreaming Transcendence

Bhutan: A Journey of the Heart & Soul

Vietnam & Angkor Wat, Cambodia: Divine Splendor and Compassion

Busting Loose: Free from Limiting Beliefs! Personal Challenge & Ropes Course Retreat Weekend, Georgi

4. Find the Divine has over 1700 retreat center and 900 conference centers. It organizes the resources as: (1) retreat centers for individuals and groups; (2) conference centers and retreat centers for groups; (3) retreats, events and workshops; (4) retreat leaders and spiritual guides; (5) retreat and confrtrncr centerds for sale; and retreat general information.

It has links for the following states/countries:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky

Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Mexico
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota

Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Washington DC
West Virginia
Wyoming
Wisconsin

Retreat Centers in Canada
Retreat Centers in Costa Rica
Retreat Centers in Belize
Retreat Centers in Mexico

Email me at changemaker.kathy@gmail.com if you would like other retreats to be reviewed.

By Madison Guv

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Janet Geringer Woititz

ISBN 1-55874-112-7

Amazon link

Janet Woititz wrote her dissertation for her doctorate in the middle 1970s about “Self-Esteem in Children of Alcoholics”. She started the first 12-step program for those of any age who had grown up in a dysfunctional home. This group was called ACOA-Adult children of Alcoholics. The book about ACOA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, was first published in 1983 and sold only by mail order. Book stores only carried after the public demand was high. By 1987 the book was on the New York Times bestsellers list.

The basic principles about ACOA people are the following:

1) Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.

2) Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

3) Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

4) Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy.

5) Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun.

6) Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously.

7) Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships.

Adult children of alcoholics over-react to changes over which they have no control

9) Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation.

10)  Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different from other people.

11) Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or super irresponsible.

12) Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.

13) Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.

Diamonds by Wolfgang Staudt

One of the first aspects toward taking control of your life has to be learning how to use your mind for thought control instead of allowing your mind to control your thoughts. I know when I first read about this over thirty years ago, I was mystified about taking control of my mind. I mean I thought I did control my thoughts. As I’ve written before, transactional analysis helped me the most to find my inner personas. Once you learn to recognize parent, adult and child thinking, you will be on your way to learning how to be your observer self.

Some other links I believe will help you to retrain your brain are:

Can You Really Retrain your Brain to Think Differently?

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?

Why Retrain the Brain?

Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind

Retrain Your Brain: 20 Memory Tricks You’ll Never Forget

I call the part of my mind that keeps a watchful eye over my mental choices my “observer self”  because I have learned how to “set back mentally” and learn what thoughts I am allowing to control me.  What thoughts am I allowing to dominate my consciousness?

The learning of what we are choosing to think about takes some practice, but you are really not in control of your life until you do it. It is only after becoming aware the direction of our thoughts that we can learn to stop negative thoughts. Many people believe that they have no control over their own minds. They think this because they haven’t found their observer self.

It may be easier to think of this as getting control of your subconscious mind or learning to listen to the “little voice inside your head”.

Some posts to help you with this mental learning are:

(1)  How to Control Your Subconscious Mind

(2)  Learn to Take Control of Your Mind

(3)  How to Reprogram Your Mind for Success

(4)  Thoughts and Peace of Mind

Journey-First Step by Melody Campbell

Every day since 1976, I have tried to follow God’s help for my life. I believe that God will help anyone who opens his/her life/heart to Him.But following His will is sometimes difficult. The difficulty is in not letting your ego interfere with your soul.

I keep several books in my “textbooks for my life” group. I keep these separate and available and use them as textbooks. One of them is Callings: Finding and Following and Authentic Life by Gregg Levoy. Listening to callings for a life direction takes much patience and faith.

In Callings, Levoy relates: “Just as in monastic life, where there are periods of being a candidate and a novitiate before taking vows, so in life our calls are also tested. We are tempted away and distracted; we hear the siren song of old habits and addictions; we feel pure laziness and amnesia; we discover the cold necessities of life.”

“Joseph Campbell called this part of the heroic journey “the road of trials” which is between The Epiphany and The Grind, between the heart flushed with heroic song and the heart with its human frailties. On this road, we answer the elemental question of whether our commitments are real or imagined.

The ordeals on this endless road, the dragons that have to be slain over and over again, serve to test us, like the Sphinx who confronted Oedipus before he could continue his journey. They teach us humility and a sense of proper perspective, and they help reveal our hidden powers.”

One of my issues after years of practice in listening to the God of my understanding has been accepting larger gifts than I “deserve”. Who decides what I “deserve”? What if I may receive the desires of my heart?

According to Brian Mahan in his book, Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition, “vocation speaks of a gracious discovery of a kind of interior consonance between our deepest desires and hopes and our unique gifts, as they summoned forth by the needs of others and realized in response to that summons.”

“That’s what’s so enticing about the idea of vocation: in embracing one’s vocation, the draining internal opposition between compassion and personal ambition is, at least in principle, overcome.

As Frederick Buechner says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

In continuing about callings, I am using another book from my “textbooks for my life” group of books, Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water, by Brain Luke Seaward. He writes: “At some point in life, each individual is beckoned by the call of his or her soul to fully awaken spiritually. It may be curiosity, an intuitive inclination or a full-blown crisis. My friend Jane is one of many people who, as Kubler-Ross would say, has entered into her spiritual quarter—someone who has begun to question the meaning of life and her relationship to the universe.”

“Some people walk gracefully into this stage, some stumble, still others immerse themselves. Since the territory is unfamiliar, however, the majority of people refuse to budge, thus denying any pursuit of the spiritual aspect of their lives.”

Having been born in 1940, when I had my Moment of Truth, I couldn’t keep quiet about what had happened to me. Even in twelve-step programs, talking about radical conversions was very suspect. The skepticism was many things. One of these fears was to be expected—in that every struggling addict would like to be “saved” and the ordeal of recovery could be done.

In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I always loved the passage about some of us looking for the easier, softer way. Before recovery, every change I came to, I sought the easier, softer way. But none of those choices ever ended up to be the best choices. The best choices were the ones I came to after I had exhausted all other routes. They could easily be labeled, “Letting go and letting God.”

Solitude by imapix

Whole person counseling, an organization created by Basil Frasure, offers treatment for the whole person—spirit, soul and body. He has created a very useful chart explaining the basic approaches to counseling. His chart has four sections—(1) counseling methods, (2) causes for problems, (3) treatment method, and (4) counselor’s approach.

The counseling methods he lists are:

• Psychoanalysis (psychological) using psychotherapy
• Non-directive counseling (self-discovery)
• Existential counseling redirecting of priorities
• Transactional analysis as a re-education of mechanics of roles
• Behavioral counseling as relearning based primarily upon a reward system omitting punishment
• Reality therapy as the confrontation with facts
• Biblical counseling as the application of the word of God by hearing and obeying God

When I started my transformation in 1976, I found books by Eric Berne that helped me to “see” how most of my mind was obsessed with following roles that I had adopted as a child. When you grow up in a hostile environment, your mind takes on defenses to avoid further conflict. These are called defense mechanisms and they are so effective for when we are in fear that we continue to believe we have to “defend” ourselves throughout life. We don’t.

What Eric Berne taught me through his writings was about transactional analysis was that my thoughts were dictated by my choices of the these roles—parent, child and adult. He further defines these three roles into sub roles of three. By following the examples he gave, I realized that 90% of my thinking was in the “parent” role (judgmental, accusatory, condemning,) and 10% as a willful, complaining child. These are learned roles and can easily be relearned. The goal of TA is to have a large parent with the other two roles (called ego states) being smaller.

Business Balls does a good job of defining the three roles.

Business Balls defines the three roles (called ego states) as:

1.  Parent–

Physical – angry or impatient body-language and expressions, finger-pointing, patronizing gestures,

Verbal – always, never, for once and for all, judgmental words, critical words, patronizing language, posturing language.

N.B. beware of cultural differences in body-language or emphases that appear ‘Parental’.

2.  Child–

Physical – emotionally sad expressions, despair, temper tantrums, whining voice, rolling eyes, shrugging shoulders, teasing, delight, laughter, speaking behind hand, raising hand to speak, squirming and giggling.

Verbal – baby talk, I wish, I don’t know, I want, I’m going to, I don’t care, oh no, not again, things never go right for me, worst day of my life, bigger, biggest, best, many superlatives, words to impress.

3.  Adult–

Physical – attentive, interested, straight-forward, tilted head, non-threatening and non-threatened.

Verbal – why, what, how, who, where and when, how much, in what way, comparative expressions, reasoned statements, true, false, probably, possibly, I think, I realize, I see, I believe, in my opinion.

Modern developments for TA has been defined by several people—Claude Steiner is a recognized leader. Business balls gives these definitions:

Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants:

Nurturing – Nurturing (positive) and Spoiling (negative).

Controlling – Structuring (positive) and Critical (negative).

Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants:

Adapted – Co-operative (positive) and Compliant/Resistant (negative).

Free – Spontaneous (positive) and Immature (negative).

Adult remains as a single entity, representing an ‘accounting’ function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child.

A more complex and complete definition of the modern TA theory is written by Claude Steiner. He does a great job of including the evolution of ideas for this counseling method.

A quite clever diagram at changingminds.org shows the interactions of the parent, child and adult. The roles pictured here are: controlling parent (Do this. Stop that), nurturing parent (It’s OK), adult, adaptive child (No. Please), natural child (Whee. Wah!), the little professor (let’s try), and my favorite role (creative-‘free child’).

Further reading about Transactional Analysis:

A Compilation of Core Concepts

Key Ideas Summary

Transactional Analysis Student—the study and training aids for trainee psychotherapists and counselors

TA Tudor includes a study guide for the TA 101 course and also has 400+ handouts

Kiss by Piez

I believe everyone is wounded in some way. For some of us that means we have to face the demons that we allow to torture us. The demons are thoughts, sentences, attitudes about us that we have experienced over our lifetime. So for the rest of our lives–unless we turn the demon train around–we will continue to torment ourselves.

Pavel Somov writing for The Huffington Post reminds us in “Take the 12 Steps and Sit Down!–”Addiction is a habit. Habits are stimulus-response patterns. If you have had any given habit for some time, when you decide to stop, your mind will keep reminding you to engage in a certain conditioned response whenever you are triggered or exposed to certain stimuli.”

“But just because, your mind reminds you that you used to do this or that in this or that situation, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are powerless to avoid doing this or that, once triggered. So, while you are powerless to completely avoid these mental reminders, these craving thoughts, you do have power to manage these thoughts (through good ol’ self-talk or by merely witnessing these thoughts and controlling your experience through mindfulness and/or relaxation).”

Some blog posts suggesting various aids for addiction recovery:

1.  Addiction Recovery and Physical Activity

2.  Emotional Healing is Part of the Alcohol Addiction Recovery Process

3.  Of Addiction and Transparency

4.  Joe Pantoliano Fights His Demons On and Off the Screen

By LadyDragonflyCC

Although I have several  blogs and have been writing on them since November, 2004, I have never pinpointed one message I want for this my main blog–until now. I remember 33 years ago in 1976 when I was first getting sober that my first big leg up was learning to listen to my own mind and what I was telling myself.

So I will be researching and adding to this blog about learning to give up those negative thoughts we entertain about ourselves. It is the same as picking up a club and hitting ourselves over the head. Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings.

Transactional Analysis (TA) research states that we have over 20,000 hours of negative thought by the time we are 21. If we don’t learn how to plant beautiful thoughts about ourselves in the garden of our subconscious mind, we’re surrendering control to our inner weeds.

Today I want you to think of your mind as your cash register. Picture your negative thoughts as a “No Sale” and when you find yourself thinking about yourself negatively–push “No Sale” and change your thoughts to positive.

Some others’ writing about this:

Weight Loss Without Dieting: The Weight You Can Stop Carrying- Part 1

“When we’re the most disappointed, the most frustrated and the most vulnerable, many of us have this thoroughly unreasonable idea that an emotional version of the slap-upside-the-head is what’s needed. If we allow it, the critical voices in our head that tell us we’re “not good enough” or lazy or incapable can really take control. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard tell me the harsh, awful, demeaning things their judgmental inner critic tells them about themselves and then, in the same breath, tell me how carefully they listen to it! This is not helpful!”

Independence Day Starts From Within:

“The next step in constructing a personal Independence Day document is to consider what inner grievances you have to air out. Time to be honest here. Make a list of the qualities that have held you back over the years. Maybe it is being critical of others, being judgmental without considering another side, living in fear, shutting down emotionally to others, feeling angry for no good reason, shutting off loved ones from your life or not speaking up when you know you should.”

“By writing down these qualities that no longer serve, you can give yourself permission to let them go. The infamous Tony Robbins always said, “if you have a limiting thought, change it.” Imagine replacing each grievance you have with a more positive option, and imagine the exhilaration of how it would feel to live life that way.”

Are You the Boss of You? Really?

“Once I recognized that voice and could see it was not really ME, I could ask it, ‘What makes you say that?’ Or ‘What do you think is going to happen? Death, famine? What?’ The voice was then stumped and I could see that it didn’t really know about something awful about to happen. it was not an omniscient being. It didn’t even make any sense. What a relief. I feel so grateful.”

“Now I can hear it when one of them says, ‘You need to go sit in the corner now.’ I was panicking then because I knew on some level that I was being abandoned when I was excited and hopeful and feeling powerful. And I was being asked to not be who I was.”

“I was also panicking recently because I soooo much want to start my business, and I know now that when I sit in a corner metaphorically, I am killing my spirit. But now that I know those voices are not ME I know that I can just notice them and go on doing what I think is right.”

Oceans of Light by eye-of-einstein

I have written about the importance of using transactional analysis to discover which of your inner voices has the main track. Our feelings come from our thoughts. So if we are basically in our inner child, we may feel inadequate, angry, abused, etc.

TA teaches us that we have inner child, inner parent, and inner adult. Each of these three mind sets also have good and bad components to each of them. The components of each of these is explained very well by Dr. Claude Steiner. Dr. Steiner’s biography is here.

The components excerpts are from this page:

(1)   “Ego States and Transactions: People’s interactions are made up of transactions. Any one transactions has two parts: the stimulus and the response. Individual transactions are usually part of a larger set. Some of these transactional sets or sequences can be direct, productive and healthy or they can be devious, wasteful and unhealthy.”

“When people interact they do so in one of three different ego states. An ego state is a specific way of thinking feeling and behaving and each ego state has its origin in specific regions of the brain. People can behave from their Parent ego state, or from their Child ego state or from their Adult ego state. At any one time our actions come from one of these three ego states.”

(2)  The Inner Child is referred by Johnny Truant writing for copyblogger.com. His post is titled:  “What My Five-Year-Old Son Taught Me About Marketing”

“You know that “inner child” we hear so much about — the one that’s supposedly deep inside of all of us?”

“Well, I live with it. As a matter of fact, I call him “Austin.”

“In the five years I’ve been a parent, I’ve realized that the notion of the inner child is more than just a neat psychological construct. It’s very nearly a literal thing. As we grow up, we don’t change so much as drape layer after complicated layer of adult emotion on top of that inner child. The child doesn’t vanish; he just gets obscured and filtered.”

“You don’t get an evolved, new mature being. You get Austin with fifteen blankets over his head.”

“Because that kid always remains at our core (and if you’ve ever caught yourself playing kids’ games with genuine enjoyment, you know that it does), our base motivations remain as well. They just get a little harder to see.”

(3)  “Art of Attention: Awakening” by Elena Brower encourages self-observation:

“Self observation, leading to self mastery, is the most neutral scientific observation of one’s self in order to discover from which center [physical, emotional or mental] the current reactions are flowing. Translated: to see which part of your being is enslaved to some external circumstance right now. To do so, practice watching your tendencies with curiosity instead of dread or judgment; the slightest bit of agility with your attention is all you need to bring you back to what is really happening, and your heart becomes more nimble all the time.”

[Tangentially, an example for the parents: your child needs you to be unshakably calm. Through watching myself overreact with my child, I've learned that to be an attentive parent is just to offer the simplest, calm responsiveness - and that our calm is infectious every time. I write this so I will remember this.]”