Clipper Stad Amsterdam by Ebroh

Having been in AA since 1976, I have heard a lot of people comment on the spiritual “part” of AA. They generally say that they have a “problem” with the spiritual part. I always want to ask which part is the spiritual part. I believe that all 12 steps are spiritual and that we need a power greater than ourselves to help us to accept our need for change and growth.

Many of Bill Wilson’s (the co-founder of AA) early influences were by people who believed spirituality to be the foundation. Two of those people were Carl Jung and William James. I have included the thoughts of these two men below.

William James is considered the founder of psychology.

These articles about William James and AA show the influence James had on helping to mold the early addiction recovery ideas that Bill Wilson had.

The Religious Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps

William James and Alcoholics Anonymous

History of Alcoholics Anonymous

Big Book Theology: “We Agnostics” and William James

The  Varieties of Religious Experience

Bill Wilson’s Letter to Dr. Carl Jung, Jan. 23, 1961

Spirituality as a cure for alcoholism–the following three paragraphs are included from Wikipedia and contain other links in the article:

“Jung recommended spirituality as a cure for alcoholism and he is considered to have had an indirect role in establishing Alcoholics Anonymous.^[57] Jung once treated an American patient (Rowland Hazard III), suffering from chronic alcoholism. After working with the patient for some time and achieving no significant progress, Jung told the man that his alcoholic condition was near to hopeless, save only the possibility of a spiritual experience. Jung noted that occasionally such experiences had been known to reform alcoholics where all else had failed.”

“Rowland took Jung’s advice seriously and set about seeking a personal spiritual experience. He returned home to the United States and joined a Christian evangelical Re-Armament movement known as the Oxford Group. He also told other alcoholics what Jung had told him about the importance of a spiritual experience. One of the alcoholics he brought into the Oxford Group was Ebby Thacher, a long-time friend and drinking buddy of Bill Wilson, later co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Thacher told Wilson about the Oxford Group, and through them Wilson became aware of Hazard’s experience with Jung. The influence of Jung thus indirectly found its way into the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, the original twelve-step program, and from there into the whole twelve-step recovery movement, although AA as a whole is not Jungian and Jung had no role in the formation of that approach or the twelve steps.”

“The above claims are documented in the letters of Jung and Bill W., excerpts of which can be found in Pass It On, published by Alcoholics Anonymous.^[58] Although the detail of this story is disputed by some historians, Jung himself made reference to its substance — including the Oxford Group participation of the individual in question — in a talk that was issued privately in 1954 as a transcript from shorthand taken by an attender (Jung reportedly approved the transcript), later recorded in Volume 18 of his Collected Works, The Symbolic Life (“For instance, when a member of the Oxford Group comes to me in order to get treatment, I say, ‘You are in the Oxford Group; so long as you are there, you settle your affair with the Oxford Group. I can’t do it better than Jesus.’” Jung goes on to state that he has seen similar cures among Roman Catholics.^[59])”

Boats by kimdokhac

I have believed for years that addiction is cured only when we learn how to reparent ourselves, This includes not only healing our inner child but also healing all the children we have within.

I have written the following posts about the inner child and/or reparenting:

Our Inner Child is our Eternal Child

Recovery Means Healing All Your Inner Critics

Your Childhood Pain was a Gift

Reparenting Your Inner Child

Learn to Listen and Guide Your Inner Voices

Helping Others to Learn Reparenting

Books About Reparenting

According to Dr. Tian Dayton, children who grow up with alcohol or other drug abuse may experience:

• Loss of Trust and Faith Due to deep ruptures in primary, dependency relationships and breakdown of an orderly world.
• Distorted Reasoning Due to convoluted attempts to make sense and meaning out of chaotic, confusing, frightening or painful experience that feels senseless.
• Easily Triggered
• Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses When this person develops long term ‘charactor armour’ to defend against letting pain in.
• Desire to Self-Medicate When this person attempts to quiet and control their turbulent, troubled inner world through the use of drugs and alcohol or behavioral addictions.This can be part of how addiction gets passed down through the generations.

When Words Matter

Avoiding the Shut Down Mode

Boat by MorBCH

“In my eighty years, I prefer to call that the forty-first anniversary of my thirty ninth birthday, I’ve seen what men can do for each other and do to each other, I’ve seen war and peace, feast and famine, depression and prosperity, sickness and health. I’ve seen the depth of suffering and the peaks of triumph and I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” [the last portion of this quote is inscribed on his gravestone]
-Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan Library Opening Ceremonies

Each of us has an inner guide to show us when we are off target. To sin is to miss the mark. Becoming a valued person takes patience and willingness to accept the responsibility of treating others with the same respect.

But love begins with loving and accepting ourselves. And paradoxically, that means accepting what Carl Jung called our shadow self. Jung believed (from Wikipedia):

“In Jungian psychology, the shadow or “shadow aspect” is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona. “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”^[1] It may be (in part) one’s link to more primitive animal instincts,^[2] which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.”

“According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized “The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object–if it has one–or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power.” ^[3] These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.”

“Jung also believed that “in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity.”

I try very hard to not bad and good in my self-appraisal because I have made the decision to accept the job of making my emotional choices based on self-acceptance. That means loving others now that I have found how to love myself.

The following links offer different ideas about learning to value ourselves and others. From these feelings of value, empathy is born and grows.

Becoming a person of value

Love thy neighbor

Social media marketing (not marketing: conversations

Social independence

Your money or your life–a summary of Chap. 11 from 50 Prosperity Classics: Attract It, Create It, Manage It, Share It (50 Classics)

Saving 200 runaway girls from prostitution

Coachology: Finally, the men place high value on personal life. Get on the bandwagon

Counter-intuitiveness comes of age

Affirmations are helping my mind

peace by alicepopkorn

“A veritable gold mine of possibilies is hidden within each of us—aptitudes , attitudes, characteristics, and traits that once may have been conscious, but for some reason slipped away or were pushed away into our unconscious. In addition, there is great potential within each of us that has never had the opportunity to see the light of day.”

William A. Miller

Change Your Mindset to Improve Your Productivity

How to Design Your Ideal Life

How to Stop Your Thoughts From Making You Depressed

10 Secrets for Instant Self-Confidence

Six Green Ideas for Beating Winter Blahs

How to Use Color to Enhance Your Designs

7 tips for Making the Most Online Support Groups

Use Your Mind to Get You Moving: 6 Energizing Exercise Motivation Techniques

11 Tips for the Spouse With a Lower Sex Drive

Meditation-Higher Ground by oddsock

Wired Magazine had an article in the February 2006 issue entitled “Buddha on the Brain”. It tells of the speech the Dalai Lama gave as the guest speaker at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting. Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, did a research project of 12 Tibetan Buddhist monks. He found that the monks after tens of thousands of hours meditating did have altered brains.

Some scientists set up an online forum protesting the research which generally happens when a study is controversial. For Davidson’s first subject, he attached 128 electrodes to Mattieu Ricard, a monk from the Shechen Monastery,who has more than 10,000 hours of meditation. He asked Ricard to focus on “unconditional loving-kindness and compassion”. The research showed that there was powerful gamma activity and that the oscillations from the various parts of the cortex were synchronized. As John Geirland, the author of this article, states that the synchronizing is usually experienced by patients under anesthesia.

Yi Rao, a professor in the neurology department at Northwestern University, led a protest petition opposing the close relationship between Davidson and the Dalai Lama. In rebuttal, Davidson states that over half of the petition signers are Chinese. The Chinese forced the Dalai Lama to leave his homeland in 1959 after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. In 1989 the Dalia Lama received the Noble Peace prize and is considered one of the world leaders of peace and compassion.

Davidson’s research is the beginning of meditation research. As Geirland states: “Scientists can try to test the validity of the Dalai Lama’s first-person perspective. But if they allow reverence for him to cloud their judgment, they will cease to be scientists and take rebirth as something quite different: acolytes.”

Into the light by mindfulness

Wikipedia identifies mindfulness as “the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally”. Although my faith is based in Jesus Christ, I am thankful that He has given me the gift of openness to explore and implement practices from other faiths and religions.

In 1976, when I began implementing breathing exercise with meditation practices, I immediately knew that finding my center and focusing on my breath in and breath out enabled calm and peace to flow through my body. Being human, I learned in a moment what has taken a lifetime to implement. Transcendental meditation has been found to decrease heart rate and blood pressure because the mind-body connection prospers when one experiences peace and calm.

The following websites can help someone to experience mindfulness, mediation and peace: From New Dream Network come several sites linked together: Energy Breath—-Healing Arts Online–-Thinking Peace. Although these blogs are selling selected books does not take away the thoughtfulness presentations here.

Some current articles or posts about mindfulness meditation:

Mindfulness Meditation and Concentration Meditation–by Matt Clarkson:

“Mindfulness meditation is also known as insight because the intention is to gain insight as to the true nature of reality.  While concentration involves the practitioner focusing their attention on a single object, in mindfulness meditation practice, every aspect of experience is welcomed and appreciated.”

“With concentration practice, we give the attention a target that keeps us anchored in the present moment.  The target can be a physical object, or more commonly, the breath.  We give the mind something consistent to focus on and this becomes the object of the meditation.”

“Whatever is used as the object for the attention, the aim is to keep the mind focused as often as you remember to do so.  As the mind starts to wander, we simply direct the mind back toward the object of attention with a sense of “friendliness.”

“What do I mean by friendliness?  Whenever we become lost in thought or confusion, we simply acknowledge those thoughts and then gently re-focus the attention.  If we consciously try to prevent thinking, it’s going to have a negative impact on our practice.  Instead, the moment we recognize we have become distracted, we gently bring our attention back.”

An Online Meditation Room (with video)

The following is a book review by  Shai Coggins:

“Arriving at Your Own Door (108 Lessons in Mindfulness) by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Non-fiction, Self-help) – A collection of short thoughts from Kabat-Zinn and some quotations that relate to the topic of mindfulness or meditation.”

“Review: If someone told me that I’d be interested in the topic of “mindfulness” or “meditation” a couple of months ago, I would’ve said they’re nuts. My mind runs a hundred miles a minute and it seriously hurts to try to make it go still. Unless I’m totally exhausted, the brain just won’t stop buzzing.”

“But, something happened to me at the end of last year that I can’t quite explain. And, that something led me to the concept of finding stillness within me. When I was trying to understand the whole thing better, I came across Kabat-Zinn’s work.”

“Since I wasn’t quite sure I’d be all for the mindfulness thing, I decided to read whatever was available from my local library. Thankfully, they had this concise version of one of his books. And, I’m glad I read it. I can’t wait to read more and to learn more. Of course, my mind still buzzes about – and I still struggle with the stillness. But, I am more aware of this concept, and I know I want to get to know it more and to see how it will work for me.”

Meditation by HaPe Gera

I love reading and posting about meditation because I believe that anyone can benefit from practicing it. Some of the posts I’ve read lately :

The Unifying Spirit of Meditation–by Brad Shore:

If you answer YES to any of these questions, I hope you’ll read on.

1. Are you preoccupied with the next item on your to-do list, rather than focused on the task at hand?
2. Do you have trouble concentrating?
3. Are you often uneasy or restless?
4. Does your mind race a mile a minute?
5. Do you feel as though there are never enough hours in the day?

If any of that sounds like you, you could get a lot out of meditation. I started meditating about ten years ago. At that time, I would have answered all five of those questions with an emphatic YES! Now, these difficulties bother me only occasionally and to a relatively slight degree.

Meditation is all about focus, about living in the moment. At its best, meditation is a physical, mental, and spiritual exercise, though many practitioners focus on only one or two dimensions. Meditation can be as simple as a focused breathing exercise. Some forms, such as certain types of contemplative prayer, can take a lifetime to master.

Meditation and Mortality: Practice and Parkinson’s–by Arthur Zajonc:

“The diagnosis came a few months ago; I had stage one Parkinson’s disease. The most prominent symptom was a persistent resting tremor in my right hand. I had been meditating for many years, and now I was experiencing firsthand the ways in which meditation and a chronic medical condition can intersect.”

“I started my meditation practice in my usual way with the cultivation of humility, reverence, and calm. I slowly opened and closed my unsettled hand in synchrony with my shallow breathing. The tremor in my right hand gradually slowed as my meditation deepened and my awareness widened. The movements of my body associated with Parkinson’s became smaller and ultimately stopped. The jitters that accompany me during the day had finally ceased, and I found a place of rest and ease. I welcomed the silent spacious calm. It seemed as if a whole day’s agitation slid from my body.”

“Then, taking up a line of poetry as the focus for a concentration practice, I noted that my hand began to tremor once again. Returning to spacious awareness, the tremor disappeared. I have noted the difference consistently over recent weeks. Concentration practices stimulate the tremor whereas a practice of deep, silent, open awareness calms it.”

Only the Buzz Words Change–by Sue:

“A wise person I know describes mindfulness this way: Imagine that you put a puppy in the middle of the room. What is it going to do? Is it going to sit still? No, it will run off to find something fun to do. So you have to keep putting the puppy back in the middle of the room. You may have to do this many many times before the puppy stays in the middle of the room. It may not stay there today, so you can try again tomorrow.”

“The puppy is everything that intrudes on your meditation. The list of things you need to pick up on your way home. The appointment you need to make later on. The possibilities for tonight’s dinner menu. The criticism of yourself for not being focused enough or not “doing meditation” correctly. Endless, endless intrusions upon simply resting in the present moment that is now.”

in between by notsogoodphotography

Stress Control for Peace of Mind

Linda Wasmer Andrews

ISBN 0-7607-6468-9

Amazon link

From the introduction: Yellow lights and red flags

Physical signs-headaches-backaches-tight neck and shoulders-jaw pain-heartburn-stomachaches-loss of menstrual periods-lack of sexual desire-constant fatigue-frequent colds

Mental signs-difficulty concentrating-forgetfulness-pessimism-constant worrying-indecisiveness

Emotional signs-irritability-hostility-anger-depression-hopelessness-boredom-loneliness-anxiety-restlessness-panic attacks

Behavioral signs-substance abuse-chain smoking-eating too little or too much-sleeping too little or too much-impatient behavior-temper outbursts-crying-constant rushing-failure to get things done-frequent accidents

Social signs-social isolation-lack of intimacy-conflicts at home or at work-loss of friends-intolerance of others

Spiritual signs-apathy-joylessness-job burnout-feelings of emptiness-loss of direction in life

Please note-Many stress symptoms can also be caused partly or wholly by treatable medical conditions. Be sure to get a checkup by your doctor.

The table of contents:

1. Self-Test
2. How to Stress Less
3. The Seven Tactics
4. Breathing and Meditation
5. Mental Approches
6. Eastern Methods
7. Yoga Methods
8. Exercise and Massage
9. Relaxing Pleasures

10.Coping Strategies

11.Stress Control Exercises

Resources

Index

Stress Control for Peace of Mind is easy to use as the book base is a spiral binding. Also many small thoughts, ideas and suggestions are given on most pages. The photographs showing the exercise processions, massage, and meditation are very helpful.

Two of Arts by gthomasbower

While doing the research for the 50+ books I selected for the Changemaker Library, I realized that I love writing about good books. I have been reading for 60 years so I have a long history of what books can influence lives.

I don’t do book reviews. Instead, I give the book title, the author, the ISBN number and a link to Amazon to buy it. I also include excerpts from the book chosen so that a reader can decide if this book is a good match for him/her. Every Tuesday, I’ll include one of the books which is chosen to match the weekly topic.

Everyday Mysticism: Cherishing the Holy

Anthony J. Ciorra

ISBN 0-8245-1483-1

Amazon link

For each section of his book, Fr. Ciorra starts with three questions to begin thought on the subject. For the introduction, his questions are: “What is Holiness? Think of a canonized saint and then think of a living saint. What does it mean to be holy? Think of someone you know whom you consider to be holy.”

His overview of the book includes:

1. “Chapter One, “Wisdom on Wall Street”, situates spirituality in the marketplace. God is to found in the context of daily life, often in the unexpected moments and areas of the work place. If the Gospel is to be relevant, it cannot be ignored from none to five each day during the work week.”
2. “Chapter Two, “Dangerous Dreams and Rude Awakenings,” places holiness within the life process. Today’s theories of personality development poignantly teach that the human person is constantly changing and developing. Our dreams and goals need to be reshaped as we change and as the world and church around us are changing. There are many models in the church’s traditional treasury for a spirituality of perfection; there are few for a spirituality of imperfection. Instead of rigid methods, I propose that the process of life offers each person a unique opportunity for holiness.”
3. “Chapter Three, “Writing Straight with Crooked Lines”, raises some new questions about suffering. Traditional spiritualities that were based on martyrdom and Jansenism often contained a harsh image of God. This chapter challenges some of these notions. God does not create pain. I suggest a gentle image of God that calls us to growth through our personal suffering as well as through solidarity with the anguish of the world.”
4. “Chapter Four, “A Spirituality of collaboration”, challenges the reader to move deeper into human experience. Charity reaches put to those in need. But compassion actually enters into their experience. This leads to a spirituality that finds the sacred in the midst of human feelings. The ultimate discovery of a prodigal God who is extravagant with the gift of love. Such depth of human and divine association invites all people to collaboration, the highest degree of human interaction and global cooperation.”
5. “Chapter Five, “Cunning as Serpents, Gentle as Doves”, asserts that the values of the marketplace need to be integrated with the principles of the beatitudes. The Marketplace can be transformed through the marriage of these apparent opposites.”
6. “Chapter Six, “Mystics in the Marketplace”, suggests concrete ways of becoming holy in American culture. It proposes a spirituality based on growing from our imperfections. The principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and the methodology of liberation theology are included in this chapter since their starting points are human weakness and everyday experiences. Ways of praying and reflecting in the world are given to point the reader in new directions for mystical experiences in the marketplace.”

“Karl Rahner wrote that the future belongs to the mystic. St. Thomas Aquinas said that mysticism is the knowledge of God through experience. A new era in world and church history offers new experiences. A mystic is one who greets the newness with open arms and a welcoming heart. The way to holiness can no longer be universally defined as each person is unique. The ultimate vocation for each of us is to become who we are. That’s what it means to be a saint. To become anything else is to do violence to God’s creation.”

I didn’t realize that I loved writing until I began my first blog in Nov. 2004. I soon developed a daily habit of writing 10-12 hours. I rarely grew tired of the routine and/or the discipline. Many of the following writers have given me great guidance and support.

A

51 Over-Used Adverbs, Nouns, and Cliches in Writing

Author, Jody Hedlund: One Pilgrim’s Progress to Publication and Beyond…An Uphill Climb

Author’s Echo

B

Bill Ward: Genre Writer and Reviewer

A Lesson from Curious George for Bloggers

Bookends, LLC–A Literary Agency

Booking It

C

Chapter-a-Week Book Club

Countdown to Publication

110+ Resources for Creative Minds

D

E

Ebook publisher–Abbott ePublishing

How to Write an Ebook in 24 Hours

The Elegant Variation: A Literary Weblog

Eye Feathers

F

Far Seeing Fairy Tales

Fiction Bitch–world of fiction reading, writing and publishing

A Florida Writer’s Life

13 Free Things for Writers

Emotions of Setting Your Freelance Rates

Free the Princess

Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator

The Freelance Writing Jobs Network: Writing for a Living

G

The Great Sea: Thoughts and progress regarding the epic fantasy saga, “Swords of Fire”

Gutsy Writer: From Freeways  to Flip-Flogs

H

How to Set Your Copywriting Fees and Earn What You’re Worth

How to Write an E-Book in Just 14 Days

I

J

Jen’s Writing Journey

Joy on the Journey

K

Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini

Kiersten Writes

Kill Zone: Insider Perspectives from Today’s Hottest Thriller and Mystery Writers

KT Literary: full-service literary agency

Kudsu and Kindle

L

A Life in Pages

Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writing

The Long Road to Heaven

Living a Life of Writing

M

Miss Snark’s First Victim

The Mouse That Roared (publishers)

The Forgotten Muse

Musings of a Would-Be Writer

N

Nathan Bransford: Literary Agent

Neither Here nor There…

New Adventures in Fantasy Fiction

The New Author

Not a Blog

O

Oldman’s Cantankerous Point of View

Oldman’s Inspirational Thoughts

P

The Blood-Red Pencil: Sharp and pointed observations about good writing

Pimp My Novel

Prompt Romp

How Publishing Really Works

The Ups and Downs of Publishing

Q

The Art of Asking Questions

R

Rants and Ramblings: On Life as a Literary Agent

Reading Adventures

The Rejectionist

Where Romance Meets Therapy

Roses and Thorns

S

Screenplays–James Russell Publishing

The Scribbling Sea Serpent

How to self-publish–U-Publish.com

The Serenity Gate

Smashwords (an ebook publisher and distributor)

Something She Wrote

Speak Without Interruption–a writers’ community

Spellmaking: Adventures in Writing Fiction, Poetry, Stuff

To Stalk a Publisher

At the Starting Gate

Susan J. Reinhardt’s Christian Writer/Reader Connection

T

A Tale to Remember

Terri Tiffany Inspirational Writer

Thru My Eyes: Thoughts and Reflections

Times and Troubled Times of a Hungry Writer

Tobias Buckell: Science Fiction and Blogger

U

An Ulterior Motive

V

My View From My Window

W

White Platonic Dreams

The Witching Hour

With Pen in Hand

Writing Advice for the Absolute Newbie

The Written World

Written Expressions

A Writer’s Edge

A Writer’s Guide

A Writer Wannabe

The Writer Today

Writing About You

Writing Quote, January 29, 2010-”Because You’ve Got Something to Say”

X

Y

Z