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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Mon Jul 13th, 2009 11:58 am |
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Everything you know is based on what has already happened in your life. And yet, your only influence right now is over things that have not yet happened. The things that have already happened have gotten you to where you are right now. What you need to be concerned with, however, is where to go from here. Because you're so intimately familiar with your own past, it may seem that you have no choice but to continue moving in the same direction as before. But that is not true. Your future does not equal your past. Right now, there are an infinite number of paths which you can take. The one you're currently on is only one of them. Any of the rest are available to you. If you're completely satisfied with where you're going, then by all means keep on going that way. But there is no reason in the world why you have to keep following that same path if it is not bringing you full and lasting fulfillment. Every moment you have a choice, regardless of what has happened before. Choose right now to move forward, positively and confidently into your incredible future
Some of our hardest decisions in life are never easy, especially when our heart was wrapped around them. But we have to let go, move on and to realize this is the best decision to make because we have to think of ourselves in life and what we deserve. The hurt will go away with the thought of knowing the right choice made.
You may not have the best of everything you can possible imagine and desire, but you are given all the opportunities to earn them for yourself, if you just let go of envy, bitterness, and loss of hope; anything is possible and attainable. As you make it happen, learn to value and be contented of what you have for you are still better and blessed more than you'll ever know. How fortunate you are on this side of the world! Follow your dreams, create direction, be inspired, believe and always have faith in God.
In your darkest hour, when you're at your lowest, remember to look for the light. Pay attention to what else is going on around you. Life is awaiting your return. Life is good, if you make it that way. We are all what we think about. Change your dark thoughts to light and a new you will emerge.
Author Unknown
Last edited on Sat Jul 18th, 2009 02:47 pm by Echoes of Eternity
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TM2
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Posted: Mon Jul 13th, 2009 01:02 pm |
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Welcome!
How has that advice worked out in your own life?
Specific accounts of how our own lives have been changed are always a lot more useful to everyone than generalities about how we think other people ought to change. When you feel comfortable sharing yourself, I'm sure we'd listen carefully to hear how you've been changed by your program, or how you think you might be.
And if you're the person for whom you request prayers, may you find the freedom you seek.
Tim M.
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Mon Jul 13th, 2009 05:21 pm |
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| The reality of life is that your perceptions right or wrong influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.
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TM2
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Posted: Tue Jul 14th, 2009 04:44 pm |
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Echoes of Eternity wrote: The reality of life is that your perceptions right or wrong influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place. I think I'd agree with that, but I also think that attaining accurate and skillful perceptions takes some serious work. For me,
- I've needed to perceive the gravity of my situation as an addict. Some of that perception arose internally as a reaction to 40 years of addiction and failure and growing despair and inner fragmentation. Some of it came from reading the AA Big Book and completely identifying with the people their - relating to their despair, and hoping for their healing. Some of it came from working with fellow addicts in SAA and SLAA.
- I've needed to perceive how my actions have affected my wife and children. That has required both a lot of open sharing with my wife and also a fair amount of counseling to help us both face patterns and phenomena from which we've been hiding.
- I've needed to perceive the inner structure of my own life - how much I am dominated by fear, how much I hide from others and especially from myself, how very many negative and destructive self-perceptions I carry about. Some of this understanding has come from doing step work in SAA/SLAA, and a lot has come from counseling, from introspective journaling, from dream analysis, and from a Tibetan-based visualization process called demon feeding.
- I've needed to perceive what is actually happening inside me moment by moment. What am I feeling physically? What emotional states am I feeling? How am I reacting to those emotional states? These things were completely impossible for me when I started into recovery. I remember my frustration sitting in my therapist's office as he would ask, "What are you feeling?" and I would think, "How on earth am I supposed to know that?" I've been helped in this perception by a lot of practice and questioning myself, and by mindfulness/vipassana meditation.
- I've needed to learn to perceive other people in new ways, as friends I could trust, as people with whom it was safe to be honest and open, as people whose inner lives I could also understand and for whom I, too, might have something to offer. This came partly from 12-step work, and partly as a natural consequence of inner growth that both made me aware of the inner lives of others and gave me something to offer them.
- I've needed to perceive that what I thought was a faith in God was only an abstract intellectual conviction, with no expectation or belief that God might actually act in my own life or that God could safely be relied upon and trusted. Reaching this point required hitting bottom, accepting my absolute powerlessness over myself and my addiction, and becoming ready to trust God because there was no other hope left, knowing that if God also failed me, then I wasn't really any worse off, because I could always kill myself then instead of now. Obviously this was a pretty black time, but a time at which I was finally open to a light that had always surrounded me, waiting in love for me to be ready to see.
- I've needed to perceive that I really can be at peace and that I really am doing the right thing and am living a new life. This insight has come to me very forcefully on a couple of occasions since getting into recovery when I found myself in medical emergencies that I thought would likely result in my death within the next few minutes or hours. Finding myself able to surrender in peace and trust in those situations, to try to do the few things within my power and to trust God and the people around me was something I cannot even have dreamed of being able to do 5 years ago, and showed how very much transformation has been worked in my life.
So I agree that new perceptions are important. Over the last 4 1/2 years, I've worked to transform my perceptions through counseling and communication and 12-step work and prayer and meditation and continuing effort at inner mindfulness. This whole process is transforming my life into something I could never before have imagined. It's also a life-long process, not a sudden burst of insight followed by a new existence. And as transcendently rewarding as it is, it's also enormously hard and frightening and serious work. But it is enabling me, a day at a time, to stay in the present and to live a life connected to other people and removed from the need to escape into addictive acting out. That's still a work in progress. At first in recovery I was experiencing brief slips every few months. I then went somewhat over 2 years clean, then had another year of sporadic slips before, I hope, again attaining some more lasting balance. Right now, it's early to say about the last part of that for sure; I've currently been sober only for about 7 months. But despite the slips and struggles, I'm finding blessings I could never before have imagined possible for me, and am living a life of which I could never have dreamed.
That's what new perceptions mean to me and to my life, and a hint at how they have helped lead me to sobriety and recovery. Is that what you have in mind? How have you found new perceptions, and how have they changed you? Or, if you're new to all this, how are you seeking new perceptions and how do you hope they will change you? I think that the sort of personal account I tried to sketch above - and that already is very brief and terse - offers a lot more hope of meaningful sharing than the sort of abstract utterances from someone not yet willing to reveal themselves that you have so far been willing to share. We're friends here. We're not here to judge and to bite. We've been there ourselves, and are there now. But recovery is a process of breaking out of isolation and sharing ourselves in very intimate ways with other human beings. I think we both find more for ourselves and discover that we have something to offer to others when that personal and direct sharing becomes possible for us. I hope you'll find that possibility, either here or (much better, of course) in the world of the real people around you.
Again, may you find freedom.
Tim M.
Last edited on Tue Jul 14th, 2009 04:50 pm by TM2
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Tue Jul 14th, 2009 06:27 pm |
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MY FRIENDS:
My only intention here is to bring the message of hope and healing across to others people who would accept them. I have no intention to impersonate or to reveal myself someone other than I'm not. Yes, I agree with all of you that I am not fully recovered. But I also believe that sharing my misery and struggling with others is not neccessary the only way to help each other here. I think that when we allow ourself to feel okay in our pain and misery. We leave open door for the enermy to comes in and make us believe that it's okay to continue feeling this way, and that others around us are feeling pain and misery too. Yes, it's true that when we share our hurt with others. We have a closer connection and gain much comfort and consolation. But if we are only continuing to express our misery and struggling. We only allow it to continue and soon, we will live in that word where we always would need sympathy and consolation from others. Yes, I know how the pain is and how lonely we all felt. But focusing on our pain and misery won't change us much. It is when we begin to see things differently and with a new perspective that we allow ourself to move forward and to live a life we truely deserve. Again, I know how lonley we all felt with our suffering, and how we long to get out of it. But I still think that reading and knowing other's people suffering and pain can only bring some temporary consolation to us. And it will not help us to move forward unless we have a new perspective in life. Knowing what we truely deserve.
Here are a few quotes which I think might benefit you. Again, I hope that it will. But, it is up to God and us to decide whether we can allow something to help us or not. Sometimes it required alot of humility..It's good to believe in what we believe in. But I find it's more progressive to open up our mind and heart and humble ourself when we are seeking helps. Sometimes we have to let go of our own belief and what we have learn in order to gain a new perspective. I always listen to others advice and what they have to said. Even when sometimes it seems I may not agree with. But no matter how... They all have a story in them...
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. (II Timothy 4:3)
Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing. If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts disappearing. You cannot have heaven and hell together, you can have only one. It is your choice.
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I am a garderner, I know
plants grow at the bottom first,
root before stem,
stem before flower.
The soil must be rich, dark, I must water until it's soaked
so thirsty roots
will go deep to drink
not fan out on the surface
to wither in the heat...
go down first,
trust depths and darkness,
then flower
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Learning to suffer without complaint,
learning to look on pain without repugnance -
you may even catch a glimpse
that on the other side of life
we shall see good reason for the existence of pain,
which seen from here
somtimes so fills the horizon
that it takes on the proportion of a hopeless deluge,
We know very little about this,
about its proportions,
and it is better to look at a wheatfield,
even in the form of a picture.
May God bless you all and help you recover...
Last edited on Tue Jul 14th, 2009 09:58 pm by Echoes of Eternity
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Tue Jul 14th, 2009 06:29 pm |
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TM2
I hope you too will find a new perspective in life and know what you truely deserve. May God bless you all with His love and show you how merciful He can be..This forum site is a great place to share our hope and healing with one another. Through it we learn and grow. I hope we will not use it to discriminate one another with our own point of view. Yes, I know the content of my offering may not be suitable to everyone because everyone's story is different, and not everyone will agree with it. But I know my intention when I posted them.. May we learn to trust one another with God's help and each other's support. Please know that I am not here to compete or to display myself in any way that's not of me. I know for a fact that competition never have ANY winner. And I don't want to go there.
Last edited on Tue Jul 14th, 2009 10:04 pm by Echoes of Eternity
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Tue Jul 14th, 2009 08:28 pm |
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Yes, TM2..I know how frrustrated it can be when we are in the midst of our suffering and someone came along expecting us what we ought to do..But it is not the type of the encounter that's important. It's the content of it. After all, if it came across our way and God allow it to happen. It must be for a good cause. If we can be humble enough to have an open heart and accept what others have to offer without trying to prove our own point, and let goes of our own pride. We learn and grow much more..
My messages does not intended to make anyone feel bad or even upset anyone. The only reason that it started was with the intention of supporting each other through these difficult times of our's life and trials..And if what I have to offered does not meet your requirements. Feel free to let it goes and give someone else a chance.
May you all be blessed!
Last edited on Tue Jul 14th, 2009 08:33 pm by Echoes of Eternity
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Wed Jul 15th, 2009 03:01 am |
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TM2: I am very sorry for misunderstanding you and truthseeker intentions. I truely ask for you two forgiveness. I will tell you that I am not much of a conversation kind of person. This is also the reason why my post is very generalized..I just wanted to give readers here a chance to see a different perspective and hopefully they can benefit from it. I am sorry that I did not make things as clear as can be, I am myself is a person with schizophrenia. I am not very good in expressing my feelings and thoughts to others as you can already tell by my post. But I am also going through some difficult time in my life and I want to be a part of this forum communities. Because I also believe that healing is a process that take humility and unity. It's just for the fact that I have schizophrenia that I've decided to keep things as short and general as possible and hoping that I can still be a part of the team..Please forgive that I misunderstand your intention. But I have to thank you for your effort in trying to help me be a part of the communities..Yes, I believe you are right. In order to support each other. We have to have a two ways conversation. But I just don't think I am capable of that as yet. It usually take me a long time to respond and sometimes I find it's very hard to get myself to come up with what I want to say. Living with schizophrenia. My mind is constantly in motion and with rapid twist and turns. It's not uncommon that sometimes I will misunderstand other's people that are trying to get the message across to me. So I hope that you will forgive me. This is also why I don't want to speak out my thoughts. My fear of being judge is very overwhelming. And I am always afraid of offending people. I never meant to offended anyone. But sometimes the way I speak out my mind and the way I say or phrase things can sometimes bring misunderstanding to others. I try to avoid conversation as much as possible. it's very hard to seek for help and avoiding conversation at the same times due to the fear of being judge and the fear that I will offend anyone. I hope that God will help me and all of us recover and heal.
Thank you again for listening...
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TM2
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Posted: Wed Jul 15th, 2009 03:34 am |
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Thank you for a very heartfelt and honest reply. You honor us with your openness and vulnerability. It's just what I hoped you might find yourself able to share.
All of us know how incredibly scary it is to open up about this addiction. We've spent our whole lives hiding. The Internet, where nothing we say goes away and where anyone can read, can feel a very dangerous place to share. So of course all I can do is invite, and respect you when you are not ready to say more. Perhaps there are face-to-face settings that feel safer as venues for self-disclosure. Believe me, though, that you won't get judged among other addicts. We know what it's like.
The kind of personal sharing you're just opening up is really what makes possible supporting one another. It's hard to reply to a poster who completely hides himself, safe as that might feel.
So welcome, and thank you for trusting us with your experience!
I should probably apologize for my own rather pushy annoyance. Boards like this - and I've hung out on boards like this for several years - attract a constant stream of people who think they have the right answer for everybody but who either are not addicts and so don't understand what they are saying or else who have decided on a wonderful new approach and have only so far tried it for a week but are sure it will eventually work. I've therefore gotten pretty hardened at trying to separate out people who really have been helped long term by some recovery tool from the people who don't understand or are just starting a new plan. A big piece of that is pushing people to share their own experience, strength and hope, rather than lecturing others.
Pushing that way unfortunately ends up stepping on the toes of people like yourself who are not like the people in the last paragraph. For somebody trying to join the community and conversation, yet still frightened at the idea, I have enormous respect; and I want to treat such people with all the gentleness and love possible. So my apologies that I reacted to you with an assertive response that didn't apply to you. Be welcomed. May you find freedom and may you find safety.
Finally, of course, I'm just some guy. I don't speak for this board in any way. I wish we had more people here to make the board a livelier place.
Tim M.
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Wed Jul 15th, 2009 04:00 am |
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Thank you for your understanding and acceptance of my apology. It is a relief to read your reply..
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truthseeker
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Posted: Wed Jul 15th, 2009 04:23 pm |
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Hi Echoes of Eternity,
I, too, apologize for my brusque reply, which I have withdrawn. I'm thankful that you have born with the growing pains of getting to know one another better, and it is my privilege to pray for you as you explore new perceptions and perspectives in your pursuit of freedom.
I wholeheartedly concur with Tim's most recent post, having fallen in to some jadedness accumulated over the three years on this board.
TruthSeeker
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Echoes of Eternity
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Posted: Thu Jul 16th, 2009 09:32 pm |
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Thank you truthseeker for your understanding. Thank you for accepting my apology. It means so much to me. May God bless you all with His love and may he lead us all to healing. Thank you for your prayers. 
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