Joy

Without pain there can be no joy. We would not know how to recognize joy without the capacity to feel and know all that there is besides joy itself.

In our New Age culture, we must be careful to stay authentic within ourselves; feeling our grief, our anger and sadness and our joy. There is a tendency to think if we are feeling pain, then we are doing something wrong. Our thoughts should be positive at all times and our emotions will follow. This philosophy is not only shallow in nature, but keeps us from experience the depth of life. All emotions give us the fullest experience of life and keep us present in each moment to savor the goodness and deal authentically with the challenges we are offered.

Emotional Sobriety does not mean we do not feel our emotions. On the contrary, emotional sobriety creates within us the capacity to feel our emotions fully and deeply. Through this experience, we allow our emotions to inform us of our connections to all aspects of our lives. In informing us of our connections, we can all consciously choose our responses to these connections. Our feelings and emotions are in service to our highest good.

As we become skilled at allowing our emotions to inform us, we develop a capacity for joy as well. The joy of detachment, clarity and choice.

Blessings on your journey to emotional sobriety,

Sally

Safety begins inside....

I've recently been involved in a conversation involving men apologizing to women and making amends for years of oppression. My initial reaction was one of gratitude and the thought occurred to me that, "it was about time." I've been following the conversation, responses and reactions to this video. It's been interesting and I curiously continue to observe. The conversations have begun to revolve around safety and feeling "safe."

These conversations and other conversations we have around "safety" are especially interesting to me as a teacher of Emotional Sobriety. We are all concerned with feeling "safe" it seems. We talk about how safety is important and when we speak our "truth" we don't feel safe and when we do speak our "truth" we feel safe and when we are listened to we feel "safe" and when we are not listened to we do not feel "safe" and on and on and on.

First of all, safety is not a feeling. It's an opinion, judgment or assessment of a situation. It's okay to assess and judge, it's just more effective to own that's what it is. The feeling that we are most likely allowing to go undistinguished is fear. The feeling we feel when we perceive we are not safe is fear. Let's own that too. Owning our feelings and distinguishing them accurately is the foundation of Emotional Sobriety.

So what is safety in the recovery and personal growth circles that we all venture into? I don't know what it is for someone else. I know for me that I judge I am safe when I judge that my opinions and perspective will be heard, whether there is agreement with my point of view of not. Being heard and listened to and respected without a strong emotional charge. When I sit in a circle with others and we take turns, allowing all to share their opinions, listening with a detached curiosity, whether in agreement or not, that creates an environment of "safety." I also think circles like this are characteristic of individuals who have done their own emotional intelligence work and are emotionally sober; or at least striving to be emotionally sober. I do not have fear present then. I simply speak my view and listen to others. Or if I do have fear present, I am able to speak that aloud as well and have it be received with emotional detachment and respect.

There is something significant to me in this conversation about safety for those who are committed to emotional sobriety and maturity. In our culture and especially for women, we are conditioned to look to others for our care. We also look to others for our "safety" and have learned to navigate the emotional land mines around us by not sharing our perspectives or viewpoints and working hard at being "safe." Often this means we try to fly under the radar and don't speak up when there is disagreement or we view an injustice. I think it is an important conversation for men as well as we are all attempting to navigate feeling "safe" and don't always have all the skills to take responsibility for this state of being "safe" ourselves. How we care for ourselves, embrace our own healing and grief work and learn to look within for our "safety" are good first steps to being "safe" and embracing our own emotional sobriety/maturity.

Our "safety" begins within and has to do with noticing when we feel fear and discerning its source. Sometimes we feel fear when we are in a "safe" environment because those old beliefs and wounds are free to come to the surface, no longer hidden deep within. This happens in 12 step recovery circles and other personal growth environments. The feeling of fear may actually be in response to a "safe" environment where we know that we are seen and respected and can no longer hide inside. Odd, but true. Learning to distinguish and recognize these nuisances is also a part of growing emotionally. This is the foundation of Emotional Sobriety.

There are also times when we feel fear and it is old fear like being around someone who reminds us of someone in our history who has hurt us. In this case, the fear is alerting us to a past hurt and danger, but not a current one.

There are yet other times when we feel fear and it is healthy instinct alerting us to the dangers that await us. This may be physical dangers like being in an unsafe neighborhood. We will also learn to trust our intuition and begin to notice emotionally dangerous potential connections with others. When we do recovery and family of origin healing work, our instincts return to us and we can learn to trust them. There are individuals that pose a potential threat to our emotional well-being and our fear alerts us to this. As we maintain a strong connection to our 12 step recovery programs, support circles and commitment to emotional sobriety, we learn to trust these instincts. We can trust this over time. Yes we can!

Discerning our own emotional states especially fear is part of creating "safety" in our lives, as this "safety" begins within. As we do our own healing, family of origin and emotional intelligence work, we begin to develop the skills to discern our own feelings. We can then begin to observe and review the characteristics of outside environments and maturity levels of others with whom we choose to relate, or not relate, if that is the case.

Our recovery work, support systems, steps and tools of healing are available to us. We can and will learn to attract "safe" environments, relationships and nurture our own inner knowing and intuition. This begins by feeling the fear, discerning its source and knowing that we are responsible for our safety and emotional sobriety; inside and out.

Blessings on your journey,

Emotional Sobriety Today; Surrendering to the Unknown

Learning to live authentically and emotionally sober, when we have lived out of our old beliefs and fears, takes courage. We must surrender ourselves to a Power greater than ourselves and trust this journey of personal transformation. We look honestly at ourselves, our own codependency, rage, unhealthy emotional connections with others and what it really means to be emotional sober and mature. We risk doing things differently. Here are some tips for transforming old behaviors and unhealthy relationships into authentic, emotionally sober connections:

1) Develop a relationship with a Higher Power. Nurturing this spiritual connection requires daily prayer and meditation. Even five minutes a day will begin to nourish this spiritual practice and provide us with a tool that we can use in our lives on a daily basis. We learn to bring our shame, chronic codependency, fear of abandonment and other intense emotions to our Spiritual practice and then risk learning new ways to interact with ourselves and others.

2) Develop relationships with others in 12 step recovery and/or those who choose to address their own chronic love addiction, codependency and emotionally immature behaviors. Knowing that we are not alone and there are others who have gone before us to share their wisdom and experience makes all the difference. Feeling connected to a personal growth community gives us courage, strength and unlimited resources when we need them.

3) Emotional Sobriety requires great courage as we keep the focus on ourselves and our own compulsive care-taking, rage and fears of abandonment. Continue to look inside, especially when faced with a new insight into self or feeling the tension internally develops emotional capacity. The compulsion to act out emotionally will pass and we continue on our path, seek support and bring our old pain and trauma to our higher power. Looking within and learning self-nurturing is the answer. Seeking support from those on the same journey of emotional sobriety and maturity assists us risking new behaviors and surrendering to the unknown as well.

Blessings on your journey,

Sally

The circle....

Years ago I went through a very challenging divorce. I wasn't sure how things were going to turn out. I felt overwhelmed with fear and didn't know how to deal constructively with all the details of the divorce and my emotions related to it. I sought help. I reached out to a woman that I met in a support circle. She was immediately comforting and seemed to know exactly what I was going through. It was an unforgettable moment of grace to reach out to her and develop a relationship with her during and over the years following the divorce. I had struck gold.

Later, once the crisis passed, I asked her about her kindness and understanding. She said that she had gone through almost the exact same experience. She did not know at the time how she would get through it and a friend, who had been through it before her, took her hand and supported her through it all. She was grateful to have shared her experience with me and I was grateful to receive it.

This is the circle of emotional sobriety and support. When we are thrown into difficult situations and we reach out for assistance, the help shows up. Our emotional sobriety is often connected to our spiritual health as well. As we use healthful, personal empowerment tools to weave our way through challenging situations, we learn skills for life. When we utilize a spiritual connection with a Higher Power and do what we can, surrendering the rest, we find we are cared for in unexpected ways. We also learn skills and experiences that can make a difference in the lives of others.

Our difficulties become the opportunities for growth. When we navigate our emotional challenges by reaching out for assistance, developing an empowering spiritual connection and remaining open to learning skills to navigate our emotions with integrity, what we need and want will arrive. Today I know women who seek my support in their challenging relationship issues. I experience it as a privilege to share my own lessons in emotional sobriety with them as was shared with me.

Warmly,

Sally

Exchanging the old for what works.....

Change

Change is not something that comes easily when we look at developing Emotional Sobriety. We often carry ancient patterns of learned behavior from those who have gone before us. It takes time to change these patterns. There are also societal patterns which project messages on to our young people and collective minds which continually put these old beliefs back in the forefront of our minds. We are not taught to speak honesty to one another and to have our angry without raging. We often are not supported in feeling our grief and so it is reinforced in our culture to be strong and shut down emotionally. This is why it is essential that we begin to seek support from individuals and group environments that believe in honoring emotions and using these emotions effectively in our lives. We need to find places that share our value of learning emotional sobriety by first recognizing the destructive patterns we carry with our feelings and learn new ways to hold our emotions and express them constructively.

Interestingly, the Latin origin of the word change comes from “barter” or to “exchange.” This almost suggests that we cannot change an old behavior if we do not have something to replace or put in its place. This is where the tools of our 12 step program and other support circles come it.

Support groups, men and women's circles, 12 step recovery groups are a necessary exchange for old emotions and behaviors associated with that which we want to change. When we begin to see our powerlessness over certain emotions and behaviors in ourselves and others, we are able to expand our perspective and find ways to “exchange” these behaviors for new ones. When strong emotions come up, we practice detaching or setting boundaries or focusing on ourselves. Sometimes we replace those old emotions/behaviors with pray and meditation, or going to a meeting and seeking support from others in recovery. We may even transfer the focus on ourselves and our own family of origin work which allows us to look at the intensity of the emotions tied to our current relationships. We can put those strong emotions where they belong; in our past. We can then deal effectively with the emotions in our present day relationships. We learn to identify the emotions and speak them directly with communication skills that do not attack, blame or victimize ourselves or others.

Change takes time but as we replace old behaviors and emotions for new ways of being, we can transform our relationships with our Higher Power, ourselves and others.

Remember, you are not alone.

With love, Sally

Telling our stories....

One of the things that we learn to do in order to develop Emotional Sobriety is to "tell our story." Telling our story breaks the silence and allows us to feel our feelings and heal. In our speaking aloud what happened to us and the maladaptive behaviors that we learned and acted out, we are able to be received by the hearts of those who witness our telling. We learn more about our own histories and how to hold our emotions with more care and discernment. This is similar to other support circles, therapist/patient relationships and even the "witnessing" that happens in some churches when we speak of a spiritual awakening. It is an essential piece for coming into the light and experiencing the freedom of emotional sobriety.

I've been asked to tell my story in a particular environment for the purpose of highlighting the power of recovery. It's been a long time since I've done this and I find myself stirred up a bit emotionally. I think this is part of the power in our healing. When we speak aloud what has been challenging or painful in our lives, it becomes real and in being real, we feel our feelings around it. In its realness, we can see if from a new perspective as well and know that we acted out our emotions in various ways because we did not know what else to do with them.

When we practice telling our stories and feeling our emotions related to the ways we have been hurt and the losses from our lives, we create a deeper container for holding these emotions. It is healing for us. We learn more about ourselves. Not only do we see the maladaptive behavior patterns that we took on as a result of the co-dependency and addiction in our environment, but we can begin to see new ways to interact with our world. We also see our own progress and how far we have come. We have a choice about our behavior and learn to express our emotions with wisdom and maturity. Our journey of emotional and spiritual intelligence is vibrant and fluid.

Telling our stories offers the opportunity for releasing old buried emotions as well as compassion. We see ourselves in one another. We are able to receive their compassion and also see our own stories with compassion for ourselves. We see our own progress in developing emotional sobriety when we tell our stories and offer inspiration and hope to others.

A friend in recovery has often said, "When I compare myself to others, I always fall short. When I compare myself to myself, I see how far I've come." This is the greatest gift of telling our story.

Blessings to you as you find loving hearts to hold your stories,

Sally

Vulnerability and Maturity

One of the rewards of emotional sobriety is maturity. As we learn to hold our feelings inside for a time, give labels to them and then express them constructively, we increase our own emotional intelligence. We become aware of all of our feelings but are not ruled by them. We don't act them out in rage or internalize them by medicating with food or alcohol, shopping or care-taking others. We develop an internal capacity to hold them, seek counsel when necessary and create circles of support to express our emotions honestly. When we are able to do this, we then welcome the gifts within our feelings. Sadness offers an opportunity to connect with others. Fear teaches us wisdom and guides us in making safe choices. Our anger may lead us deeper to other feelings below or indicate a way that we have been violated. We use anger to set boundaries and protect ourselves.

Learning to be vulnerable, honest and direct with our feelings, needs and wants in our relationship with ourselves and others is a sign of the maturity based on emotional sobriety. We begin to attract people that we can be honest with and who encourage our forthrightness. As we develop e a sense of trust and safety within ourselves, we take more and more emotional risks to reveal who we really are to others. We then learn how to choose trustworthy people. This enables authentic connection, true vulnerability and we are well on the path to emotional sobriety.

Loving Detachment.....

We are successful teachers, lawyers, parents, entrepreneurs, administrators, social service agents and highly functioning contributors in society in many different forms. Internally, however, we sometimes suffer from emotional challenges in our personal relationship with others and in relationship with ourselves. External appearances are easier to maintain for some of us, than doing the emotionally challenging work of internal self-awareness. Emotional sobriety, however, does require that we do some of this internal work. We do it to learn about the behaviors we engage in that we don't want to repeat. We look within to try and understand why we simply can't keep our weight under control or why our relationships seems to have the same challenges again and again with us as the common denominator. Here are some tips for attaining emotional sobriety in our own lives:

1. Breathe Deeply. Learning to be present in the moment begins with breathing deeply and allowing our own awareness to inform us of our emotional and physical states. When we breathe deeply, we are able to meet ourselves in our current emotional state and give name to our emotions.

2. Naming our emotions: sad, angry, fearful, joyful or shame, allow us some facility over the emotion. When we notice we are fearful, we can then connect the emotion to something in our lives and use wisdom and discernment before taking an action. If we do not acknowledge and name the feeling, we will often act it out without the wisdom or discernment needed to choose our action with intention.

3. It is essential in developing Emotional Sobriety that we have support circles in our lives that assist us in our own personal and spiritual work. We must have designated environments to participant within that allow us to separate our old emotional reactions and traumas from our present day living. If we have places that guide us in doing our own grief work, release our trauma from past experiences and hold us accountable for our actions, we are able to live, think and feel more freely in our present day lives. We are able then to make clearer decisions and choices about our lives and not let these old emotional reactions unconsciously run the show. Vibrant support circles that focus on healing old trauma are vital to our continuos commitment to emotional sobriety and maturation.

Blessings on your journey,

Sally

Resentments

The word "resentment" comes from the word "resent" and loosely translates to meaning feeling deeply, intensive force. The "resent" itself implies resending or to send over and over again. That certainly gives meaning to the word, "resentment" as well.

All in all, we wish to avoid resentments in our lives. To have intensive force of emotion and to feel it again and again implies a distraction or tied up energies. It is not something we wish to create or to have in our lives. Given this information, how do we prevent resentments and keep our energies freed to use in more constructive and intentional ways?

Here are some steps to keeping our emotional systems free of resentments and also handling them when they seem to creep up on us:

1. Pay attention to your emotional selves. Knowing how we are feeling and honoring these feelings allows us the wisdom of our emotions. Some call this Emotional Intelligence; knowing what we are feeling and holding those emotions in order to choose our actions rather than reacting.

2. Become aware of how we "act out" uncomfortable emotions and learn new ways to express and hold these feelings. Identifying that we are angry is a beginning and important step. Knowing that we feel afraid and finding words to express that feeling is essential. Once we identify how we are feeling and give a name to it, we are much closer to have choice about how to express it in a way that serves us and others in our lives.

3. Once we start to pay attention to how we are feeling, learn to identify and own these emotions, we can learn how to express them in productive and self caring ways. Take a class on learning to communication. Ask a professional for dialogues to use in relationships that keep the focus on self without blaming and attacking. I teach a course on Clean Communication that not only assists us in identifying what is going on inside, how we can communication to someone responsibly, but also gives language and validation for asking directly for what we really want for ourselves. Clear communication is a great tool for Emotional Sobriety and teaches us to connect maturely with ourselves and others in our lives.

4. Lastly, keep practicing clean and responsible expression of our wants and needs to keep from developing resentments that keep us disconnected from ourselves and others. We will not learn overnight how to prevent our resentments and take responsibility for our wants, feelings and needs. But, we can learn how to do this over time.

As we learn to care well for ourselves, our resentments will be minimized. We find the courage to say "no" when we mean "no" and "yes" when we mean "yes." With a high level of self-care, we learn to honor ourselves and give to others from a place of fullness within. Resentments become a thing of the past and are replaced with honest, open communication and connection.

Blessings on your journey,

Sally

Embracing the MYSTERY

Someone that I loved died suddenly this last week. He was a mentor, therapist, colleague and friend. He used to remind me that we were committed to the same thing; healing and transformation. He was active in many organizations committed to healing and had a vibrant practice in which many people sought his wisdom and assistance. I will miss him on this physical plane and will be grateful for the ways he touched my life and the lives of my family members and friends.

With all the emotions I feel about this, I have become aware of a fantasy that I've chosen to confront. In my mind it goes something like, "if I do all the right things, eat all the right foods, deal with my trauma and do my best to live a life of service, I will live a long and vibrant life." Today, I am not sure that is true. My friend did all of those things and he died very young. I am rethinking this fantasy. Part of my own emotional sobriety is surrendering to the unknown of this life and embracing a spiritual perspective.

Embracing the Mystery of life and death is part of living a spiritual life. The word, "mystery" comes from "mystic" which speaks about an "initiated person" and "initiated" comes from the word "beginning." Embracing the mystery in life and being a mystic or initiated person is just the beginning really. There is so much we do not know or understand. All that we can do is go within, trust our own spiritual process and surrender to the mystery of it all.

I wish there was another way to live the spiritual life and emotional sober life other than having to be shocked by so many uncertainties, but I believe that the way of the mystic is to life this way. And to be a mystic means that we hold our emotions in a way that honors all involved. We let our emotions inform us, but not captivate us. We can bring our emotions when shocked or grieved or angered to our spiritual practice and know there is mystery in it all.

Today, I honor the mystery of the spiritual life and embrace the energy of my emotions as part of that honoring. I hold the unknowns, the shocks, the comings and goings of great ones in and out of the physical and spiritual realms as part of the mystery. Dealing with our emotions, giving up our trauma, old beliefs and behaviors will guide us into an unknown and new way of living. Surrendering to the mystery of it all seems the only option to keep us on the edge, trusting and open.

Blessings to you on this great journey of mystery and new beginnings,

Sally

Tiger Woods, Sex Addiction and Emotional Sobriety

I listened to Billy Payne, the chairman of Augusta National and the Masters, on NPR yesterday. He sounded to me like a self-righteous preacher. He has a right to his own opinion of Tiger Woods, of course, and how "he disappointed all of us" but in my opinion, his frustration and anger is misplaced and misdirected. I understand that he has some behaviors that we might have reason to be disappointed about as well including his support of racist and sexist policies at Augusta National over the years.

For those of us in recovery from a substance or behavioral addiction, we know what humility it takes to "admit our dis-ease", seek help and take action for our own healing and maturing emotionally and spiritually. Emotional and behavioral sobriety is not easy. I don't know if Tiger will remain in recovery and continue to walk the walk as he talks the talk, but that isn't the point. Time will tell. His actions, over time, will speak louder than any words he may speak. Learning how to hold his emotions with honesty and sobriety rather than acting them will take time and continued openness.

In 12 step recovery, we have a saying that goes something like "we all grow up in public" as we publicly admit our mistakes, keep ourselves in support groups that understand and continue to take actions to learn how to live clean and sober lives. I have compassion for Tiger as he has given the phrase "growing up in public" a whole new meaning.

Billy Payne said that Tiger was a hero and "he disappointed all of us and more importantly, our kids and grandkids. Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children." While I think that there might be some truth in this statement that many are disappointed, I am mostly concerned with why we are consistently looking outside of ourselves and our own families for heros and heroines? I've written blog topics recently on "disappointment" and how we will always be disappointment by those we love and those we idolize. It is the nature of our human condition. Perhaps a better tact would be to keep our eyes and focus on ourselves and how we can individually become more mature spiritually and emotionally and strive for integrity in all areas of our lives, rather than consistently looking outside of ourselves for magnificence and the ideals of others.

If we had realistic expectations of others, perhaps we might be able to learn more about compassion and forgiveness and know that we can really only look to ourselves and our individual power to choose as well as a Spiritual Source perfection and the pursuit thereof.

Furthermore, is it not our responsbility as parents, grandparents and adults in general to remind our children that athletes are not gods or goddesses; that they are really simply great athletes. Who they are inside is hard for us to really know. What is important is to see their focus, hard work and passion about their area of expertise as an example of what's possible" for us in our own lives? How can I look inside and find my own passions and values for what I want to do and be in the world and learn from them in this specific way. Our fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, teachers, et cetera are the places in my own family and community that I must find my heros and heroines rather than looking for heros in media, entertainment and sports. More importantly, how about teaching our children honesty, discipline, integrity and learning out to see themselves and how they live according to their own values and becoming their own hero and heroine in life? While we can admire one's acheivements in any specific area, we need to teach our children that real heroism is about who we become from the inside out and how we can hold ourselves consistently to higher standards of goodness and healthful acheivement. We must teach our children to develop their own value system from within and to follow that with integrity and humility.

Lastly, I always think that when someone attacks, blames and criticizes another with intensity that is it a ploy for avoiding our own unrealistic expectations of others and an avoidance of looking at our own humanness. Heroism is not about perfection as much as it is about authenticity and fully embracing our humanness. As a shadow work facilitator, we teach and also learn about looking within to see and own our own shadows, especially when we are driven to focus on someone else's "bad behavior."

Again, Tiger may or may not choose to remain in recovery or on this path of humility and continued maturing and growth. Whether he does or not does not absolve us from our own responsibility to "see the plank in our own eye" before harshly judging another or taking responsiblity for teaching our children to be their own heros and heroines, by learning humility for their mistakes, finding and living their own passions to the best of their ability and taking responsibility for their own self-improvement. Tiger Woods is a great example of what focus, discipline, hard work and intention can achieve in GOLF. He now has a real opportunity to become a role model in life not IN SPITE of his failings and addictions but BECAUSE of them. Sometimes that which seems to be our greatest downfall can become that which we receive the greatest gifts from.

In any case, the experiences of Tiger Woods, his open admission of responsibility and seeking help with his addictive behaviors CAN become for us a role model of honest living and integrity, even thought learned the hard way. It can also remind us that our heros and heroines and just a mirror of our own humanness and magnificence. Let's keep in all in perspective and keep our expectations of PERFECTION on a Higher Power.

Lovingly,

Sally

Emotional Flexibility

One of the things that makes changing our behavior so challenging is that we get used to things a certain way, even our misery. It's predictable. We can count on it. As adults who bring with them some dysfunctional emotional behavior from addictive family systems, predictability and knowing what we can count on does, in and of itself, create stability. So, taking the risk of "doing it differently" with our emotional expression and behavior, the only behavior we can really change, takes courage. It also requires that we willingly step into the unknown and trust the process of our recovery and trust our Higher Power.

Our empowerment and healing is an emotional and spiritual journey. This journey to emotional maturity requires discipline, focus and commitment. It happens over time and utilizing spiritual resources as well as healthy emotional resources and support is important.

Here are a couple of reminders as we venture into the unknown of changing our behavior in our quest for emotional sobriety:

1. Keep in mind that we can only control ourselves, our emotions and our behavior. Whatever we may or may not do, it may or may not evoke or inspire change in our partners or other relationships. But the peace of knowing we are in charge of our emotions, using them to guide us and choosing our expression around them, is irreplaceable and fulfilling.

2. Support is an important cog in the recovery and healing commitment that we have around emotional sobriety. Check in with someone and get another mature person's detached perspective before having a difficult conversation or when you experience a strong emotional reaction. Getting to the source of the emotions rather than "acting them out or in" is a practice that creates emotional sobriety over time. Check in with someone we trust who has some emotional maturity before we react with strong emotion and then after we've calmed down and understood the source of the emotion we carry. We call this bookending. It a great practice when experiencing intense emotions or practicing new behaviors and utilizes the necessary tool of support in our lives.

3. Pray. Re-member that this is a spiritual program and a spiritual process. Learning from our emotions, taking new actions and letting go of the result is a good practice. Ask your Higher Power/Spiritual Source to guide you and continue to pray for the highest good to come out of the action you have taken, both for yourself and anyone else involved.

4. Be willing to be uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable. Leaving the familiar dynamics/reactivity we carry within ourselves and that we create with others is uncomfortable. Learning new ways to hold, express and learn from our intense emotions is also uncomfortable. Even when we are not getting the results we want from our behavior and emotional expression, trying new behavior and holding our emotions before acting on them, is uncomfortable. And often, it is scary for the people in our lives as well, so be willing to be uncomfortable when and if others resist our new behaviors and the way we express our emotions in relationship to them.

New habits take time. Learning to recognize the source of strong emotional reactions takes time. Finding and practicing new ways to express our feelings takes time. Re-creating our family tree takes time and increasing our emotional intelligence takes time as well.

Be kind. Be patient. Have compassion and understanding for yourself and remember to forgive when you revert to the old ways of emotional reactivity.

Love and blessings,

Sally

Emotional Sobriety, Self-Care and Divine Purpose

My maternal grandmother was born in Italy on the 6th of January; the feast of the Epiphany. This is a holy day in which Jesus Christ was made manifest and visited by the Three Kings. It was a time that celebrates God made manifest in this human being, Jesus.

While I am not active in the Catholic Church today, I have deep appreciation for the connection and resonance of ritual, ceremony and an honoring of the ancient that I learned growing up in the Church. On this coming feast day, I honor my ancestors, especially my grandmother, my Nona. More symbolically, I reflect upon and honor the ways in which I am called to make manifest the Divine in my world. How can I more purposefully make a difference in the lives of others? Where am I called to share my gifts and express my soul's purpose to be of service?

Emotional Sobriety is the foundation for a vibrant spiritual practice and for making a difference in the world. Healing our own emotional wounds, learning emotional intelligence, allowing our emotions to guide us with wisdom rather than control us with impulsivity is a necessary first step in honoring our divine purpose and destiny in the world.

As the new year begins, it is a good time for me to recommit to practices that nourish and comfort me. Bold self-care has been a theme in the past year and this year it will remain a priority. Journaling, learning to identify my emotions and express them directly and cleanly, doing family of origin work that cleanses and heals past hurts and addictive dynamics must continue.

As I nourish and care for self first through these healthy emotional behaviors, I am filled from within able to give more authentically to others. As I honor my passions and what inspires and enlivens my spirit, I honor the Divine's whispering to me as well. This is the most profound path for making a difference in the world. It begins with tending to our emotional needs and wants, learning healthy communication strategies and grieving our losses from our past. With this emotional maturity as a foundation, we can begin to honor our passions from within. Healthy spiritual practices will continue to nurture our emotional maturity. From this place, we make manifest the Divine in our world and in our relationships with others.

As the New Year unfolds, I invite and encourage a commitment from all that we honor and nourish and care for ourselves above all us. As we do, we can trust that we give to others from fullness and out of an authentic care and love. We no longer take emotional hostages. We assume a healthy responsibility for our emotions and the expression of them as well. When we keep our emotional sobriety and intelligence as a priority in our lives, we are able to connect with our passions. We will find our purpose and divine destiny.

May the year be filled with great self-love, forgiveness for the ways we fall short of our own expectations and the courage to honor that which inspires us from deep within as we make manifest the Divine in our own lives and the lives of others.

Blessings in the coming year,

Generosity

How does generosity coincide with emotional intelligence and sobriety? Well, I am not sure myself, I just know that it does. At least my intuition is telling me this today so as I explore it with you perhaps we can discover the connection together.

For me, generosity of spirit is important. It means honoring that part of us that desires to give to others. I believe we are born generous, with a desire to connect, belong, share and care. I also believe that we must be allowed our selfishness to really embrace our generous spirits. If I am able to say "no" and hold with strength my own thoughts, feelings, wants and boundaries, I can then say "yes" with the same authenticity and share from my own fullness with generous vibrancy. As I honor this in myself, I am able to honor it in others as well.

It's a mystery and paradox of the emotional world. When we say "no", we have the freedom to say "yes." Furthermore, I believe to the extent that we embrace our own selfishness, is the extent that we are able to give a full hearted "yes" when we mean "yes" and demonstrate generosity.

So, here is the paradoxical connection between generosity and emotional sobriety. When we allow ourselves with honesty and courage to own our selfishness, we are able then to more fully express our own generosity. To grow in Emotional Sobriety, to allow our emotions to add richness and depth to our lives without ruling our lives, means we must be willing to own our own shadows. In owning our shadows, we are able to also own and express our gifts and light.

Emotional maturity and sobriety takes time to develop. We learn to take care of ourselves and keep our heart open and free. In doing this we have a natural desire to give to others and share from our heart. We are not holding ourselves back for fear of something being taken away or demanded of us. We are in charge of ourselves and in this power to act, think and speak as we choose, we give without restraint.

We we care for self first, we are able to give from the fullness within. This is the foundation for generosity of spirit, heart and soul.

Sally

Tolerating Discomfort

I want to be comfortable. So do you, admit it. We do all we can do to be comfortable and not have to deal with discomfort or inconvenience. We have conveniences everywhere. Music we carry around with us, computers to access infinite amounts of information at a touch, microwaves for instant meals, cash machines to avoid the inconvenience of old fashioned banking and even instantly available drive through food.

But the journey to spiritual and emotional maturity that many of us claim to want to explore requires us to have the experience of discomfort. There is something that occurs within our emotional and spiritual selves that matures through the experience of discomfort. Our capacity for tolerating the mystery of life expands. We begin to develop an energetic space for the unknown, for patience, for allowing life to unfold in divine timing, not always our own timing.

Now, I am not talking about learning to tolerate abuse or intentionally inflicting hurt on someone else and justifying it. I am referring to the necessary tension that comes with growth and learning to develop our healthy capacity to hold this tension and discomfort. I see parents doing more for their children than is necessary and teenagers who've never been required to work or grow from the consequences of their own choices. Money is given freely and anything that a child wants, they are given, without any requirement on their part to contribute or experience any discomfort. I think we are raising lazy, unmotivated children who will become lazy and unmotivated adults. Not because they are bad or internally flawed, but because they have not been allowed, by well-meaning parents, to navigate their way through the strain and tension of the necessary stages of growth.

Tension is a necessary component of any type of growth or metamorphosis. Learning to tolerate the tension and the discomfort is a necessary skill to nourish and hold this capacity for movement and growth.

Years ago when I sought counseling with an eating disorder as a bulimic, I recall speaking with a Social Worker. I was actively purging my food and wanted to stop. I could not, no matter how hard I tried. I knew I needed help and had enough self-esteem and desire for change that I sought assistance. She wanted to talk about my family, how I grew up and how I was "feeling" in my life, although I really had no clue what this had to do with actively purging my food on a regular basis. Finally during a weekly session, in utter frustration at the futility of these ongoing inquiries, I stated very loudly, "I don't want to talk about my family! I want you to tell me how to stop throwing up my food!"

"You must learn to tolerate your feelings," was her answer.

At the time, I was more confused than ever. Tolerating feeling was not a part of my vocabulary. I did not even know what my feelings were. Today there is more understanding. I had not learned how to experience uncomfortable feelings, nor did I have any tools or skills for expression and releasing emotions in a healthy way. The emotional discomfort built up inside me. The tension would build over and over again until I would finally find myself in a compulsive binge and purge cycle with food. It was my only release and at the time, I had no idea that it was related to my emotions or my inability to tolerate them.

This is one example, albeit perhaps extreme, of my own inability to be uncomfortable emotionally. I had to learn to use my discomfort and hold it in a way that would allow me time to choose the best course of action, if there was a course of action to be taken. I learned tools to express my emotions as well after I learned to identify what those emotions were. I also developed support circles and friendships in which I could talk about what was going on for me emotionally and began to develop practices like meditation and regular exercise as a more productive expression and release.

Today, I have more tolerance for discomfort and the ability to hold it within me. While holding it, I am able to access my own values to assist me in choosing a course of action. I will prayer for a time when I am not sure what to do and allow the tension and discomfort to give way to transformation and the unfolding of an elegant solution. When I rush to "make things happen" rather than be with the discomfort for a bit, I interrupt the natural flow which often brings a resolution not previously imagined possible. There is something empowering about trusting the tension and learning to tolerate the discomfort within myself and support this process for others.

Here's to discomfort and tension!

Sally

Breathing Deeply and Spitting in the Wind

One of my most used and effective tools in maintaining my own emotional sobriety is breathing deeply. Really. When I am stressed, feeling fear, wanting to react or am at a loss for words in a conversation, I remind myself to breathe and breathe deeply. Can it be this simple? Well, breathing deeply takes practice and awareness but once mastered, breathing deeply can actually be used in a variety of circumstances with quite positive results or at least to avoid negative consequences.

Here are a few of the ways in which breathing deeply first really comes in handy:

*right before I ram the driver ahead of me who just pulled out in front with no signal in fast moving traffic

* right before I take the glass of water I am drinking and throw it in my partner's face to jar him from his defensive posture

*right before I sit to meditate for a moment of spiritual connection and allow the many to do list items to run through my brain

These are just a few examples of how simply breathing deeply will assist me in maintaining or at times, recapturing my emotional composure so that I am able to choose my responses to a situation rather than be at the cause of my reactions. When I notice I am not breathing deeply, it is a signal to me that I may be overworked, overwrought or overanxious. Again, reminding myself to breathe deeply becomes a grounding and connection experience.

What are some situations in which you might find breathing deeply a welcomed option? Looking forward to your stories.

Sally

Self Responsibility and Accountability for our History

Recently I had an experience in which a friend was hurt by something I said. They interpreted something that I said to suggest they had a lack of integrity. It was challenging for me to actually understand how the communication happened and what exactly was said that was so hurtful because my friend was very angry and defensive. It was hard to get the data and words that were spoken. When I tried to clarify what she had interpreted my comment to mean, there were more accusations and lots of defensiveness. It was quite uncomfortable. My husband actually stepped in and tried to prevent the conversation from escalating and facilitate some neutrality in the communication, but my friend refused. Whenever I tried to speak and recall what I had said, my friend accused me of "wanting to have the last word." It was clear to me quite quickly, that my friend was unable to see her responsibility and be accountable for the history she brought into the interaction. She could only "make me wrong" and accuse me of attacking her integrity. Sometimes this is less painful than focusing on the wound that had been triggered inside.

Afterward, as I discussed it with my husband, we both felt deep sadness for the upset and shared the opinion that there was nothing we could have done or said to have altered the course of the communication. Our friend had an old wound that was triggered. We could guess how she might have been hurt in the past or how her integrity in some other situation had been challenged. Unless she was willing to be accountable for her own history and this past wound, there was not much we could say or do to heal the hurt.

This could have been an opportunity for my friend to see and heal a hurt from their past. My husband and I would have listened with great compassion and understanding and rather than my friend "blaming me" for a playful comment made with no intention to hurt, she could have seen a wound that she carries inside. In our vulnerability, there is an opportunity for healing and emotional sobriety. In our defensiveness and blaming of another for something that hurts inside of us, there is a shell reinforced that keeps that wound encased, never receiving the healing balm of understanding and compassion. I imagine that this wound will get triggered for her again with someone else, or she will keep herself protected from close friendships for fear of this wound being touched again. It is hard to be close to someone who chooses not to see their own shadows and wounds. This is a loss for all of us in this friendship.

In any given miscommunication or difference of opinion between people, there is an opportunity to dig our heels in to be "right" and blame the other. The other opportunity is to take the risk of self-responsibility and emotional maturity and own what is hurt within us. Emotional Maturity and Sobriety requires that we take responsibility for our histories and the wounds that we carry inside. We own our propensity to misinterpret behavior in certain contexts because of how we may have been previously hurt. We share and own our histories. In this way, our friendships and relationships with others can be a joy-filled cocoon in which we can heal and continue to grow rather than a place we must be on guard and protect ourselves. We can heal and deepen in authentic connection with ourselves and others. Without an awareness of our wounds and hurts, we defend and protect ourselves. When we are accountable for our histories, rather than defending and protecting our emotional shells inside, we are able to risk trusting others and we can take responsibility for the wounds and hurts we carry within. We can bring our whole selves into an authentic and emotionally sober connection with others. We grow, we heal, we learn and our relationships are the safe and nourishing places. We are free to be fully self-expressed rather than having a part of ourselves tied up in protecting our wounds and keeping our shells reinforced.

Whether my friend is ever able to see the part of her history in this interaction with me or not, I know that I am offered an opportunity for my own emotional maturity and sobriety. I can see my history of being blamed and hurt by others and can choose to have compassion for her rather than defend myself or my behavior. I know in my heart that my intention was not to wound and although she was hurt, perhaps there is a greater healing to happen that I may not be witness to. This is my intention and prayer. Our spiritual selves and emotional systems want more than anything to heal and we seek healing unconsciously and consciously. I can trust that I do not have to fall into my own wounded history and defend myself and can hold her reactivity with neutrality and detachment. It's her history that has been reactivated and I can bless her with thoughts of healing and empowerment. Even though my friend did not invite us into this painful wound she carries inside, I can still hold her with love and trust she is receiving healing in another way and time. I also can choose to remember that she is wounded this way and protect myself by knowing this limitations.

Emotional Sobriety requires we take inventory of our own histories and hurts. When there is something within that is tapped into or triggered, the greatest healing for ourselves and our relationships is to own that they hurt is happening INSIDE our own emotional systems. We can see it clearly and offer ourselves compassion and understanding. With our close friends and relationships, we can also risk being witnessed in our hurt and allow the freshness of someone's kind heart and understanding to free us from reactivating the hurt again and again.

In owning the emotional wounds of our histories, we welcome an opportunity for authentic connection with others.

Blessing to you all on this journey,

Sally

Obama and Colonialism

President Obama was in Ghana this past week. It was especially meaningful for my family since we were there last year on the very weekend he visited. He was in Cape Coast at the Slave Castle and we visited the rooms, the cells, the tunnel of no return and saw the shackles and altar honoring tribal men and women's spiritual beliefs, just as he did. It was an important visit for all of us. My stewardess is Ghanian and she watched the television coverage with my husband and me from our home in Nigeria. She was very proud to be from Ghana.

President Obama was both bold and courageous in his speech. He talked of many things but the bravery came in addressing the responsibility of the African countries to work hard and know that the fate of their future lies in their hands. He said the days of colonialism are over. We heard some boos from the crowds and knew his communication was risky. As soon as he said it, my husband commented on his belief that only Obama, an African American man, could speak that into the listening crowd. Not two minutes later, the commentator on CNN said the very same thing. I understood this as a woman. I would not be able to hear a white man telling me that it's time to move on from gender issues or using women's oppression as an excuse for my own responsibility. I could hear from a woman, however, who had first hand experience in living as a woman, experiencing the subtle and sometimes not so subtle, ways in which woman are treated and oppressed. It was a risky statement for President Obama to make and I can easily relate it to my own emotional sobriety or lack thereof.

For me, the real issue that Obama addressed was how to overcome being and feeling victimized in our own lives? This is an important issue. If our goal is emotional sobriety, not being run by our feelings, but managing and embracing our emotions in a way that serves us, then this includes not being overrun by a sense of being victimized in our own lives. We must experience a sense of personal power and choice so that we are not at the effect of the circumstances in our lives. If we are not at the effect of the circumstances and outside influences in our lives, then perhaps we are at choice and prepared for what comes our way. Not only able to handle it with some sense of fluidity and poise, but also growing in the ability to respond with alacrity and preparedness. We can even move into co-creating and positively influencing the circumstances of our lives.

The quandary in my mind, however, is that there was and is often victimization and oppressive injustices that do occur in individual lives and in the collective societal structure. We can not deny that slavery existed and the men and women were traded for coins and held in bondage, without rights and ownership of their own bodies. We can't deny that women have repeatedly been financially oppressed, raped and set up to see themselves as sexual objects and dependent on others outside of themselves. These realities exist. I am also a firm believer that one can not overcome an obstacle or barrier until the reality of the barrier is acknowledged and this is essential with our emotional wounds. We can not heal a loss until we acknowledge that it exists, nor can we forgive a transgression if we deny it took place.

In this situation, more than most, there is a higher level of maturity and discernment that is called for from all involved. There is an acknowledgment of the oppression, of the abuse, of the trauma inflicted and yet we must also be conscious to not enslave ourselves to the resentment, emotional drama and entitlement beliefs that signal the lack of emotional maturity and sobriety. This is advanced level emotional and spiritual maturity which requires us to be in the reality of the maltreatment and injustice but not be crippled and tangled in the smallness of it all. Even as author of this topic, right here and now, I can not attest to living this principle in a powerful way and finding the pinnacle of emotional sobriety from my own victimization. I state it now as a goal and aspiration for myself as well.

Emotional Sobriety and highly function living means to know and fully embrace all the ways that I have been victimized personally in my life and societally without using that reality in a way that keeps me tangled up in resentments, blame and a constant sense of entitlement. If I do this, I also give my energy and emotional vitality over to the mistreatment and abuse of someone else. This vital energy remains captive, without my intention and focus to use as I choose. I now enslave and re-victimize myself.

If I am committed to emotional Sobriety, then I must also be committed to the following:

1. An acknowledge of the ways that I was victimized in my own life and societally.

2. A willingness to grieve these losses such that there is freedom and constructive use of emotions and energy.

3. Take actions that are in alignment with my time, focus and with my commitments in life, not using what was done to me as an excuse for not taking responsibility for the direction of my life, my relationships and my passion today.

I wish I had some magical pills to take or even steps we might try together to move into this very mature and sophisticated balance between grieving and acknowledging our losses and not using them to cripple and enslave us in our lives. I think it takes time, intention and the calling upon spiritual resources to assist in this way. We need emotionally sober relationships with others and circles of support, both personal and professional to learn these advanced living skills.

It's worthwhile, however. I image living my life in such a way that I have used the lessons from ways I have been oppressed and hurt to develop compassion for myself and others. I imagine from this I am able to be of service to others needing encouragement and partnership. I can offer compassion for their pain and losses and at the same time offer a hand in alliance when and if they want to work on behalf of their own lives and empowerment. This includes economic, spiritual and emotional liberation.

I think an emotionally sober life calls from within us the responsibility to give up our victimization and at the same time to be present to ours and others emotional and various injustices. For me, this requires a connection to a Spiritual Source. I need to be in communion with a power greater than myself that can and will heal and transform my ego wounds and pain.

The way to making a difference for others who are oppressed is first welcoming and allowing a difference in our own lives. We must be willing to authentic grieve and embrace ways we have been oppressed and victimized and do the further healing and empowerment work to keep from using this injustice to keep ourselves enslaved as victims.

Together we can,

Sally

Authentic Gratitude

    When I first began my personal journey of recovery and healing from my own addictions and began to seek emotional sobriety, I heard people in my support circles speaking about gratitude. Often, I would feel annoyed thinking that they were just in denial and not dealing with the real issues. How could people feel gratitude when dealing with their own character flaws and losses from childhood? At times I also judged that they were feigning gratitude as a way to avoid the real pain they were feeling. It took me time to experience emotional sobriety which led to authentic gratitude. I think they come hand in hand. Slowly, I began to feel some gratitude as I started to experience my own authentic feelings. I'd have moments of deep grief and moments of ecstatic joy. Overtime, these emotions balanced out, but initially it was an up and down journey. Developing emotional sobriety is like that, I think. First we begin to learn what emotions we are experiencing ourselves and then we learn how to hold these emotions rather than "acting them in" or "acting them out" in unhealthy ways. Once we have this foundation of emotional sobriety, we can be more intentional with our emotions.

    Today, while it can still be challenging at times, I do create intentional attention to gratitude as part of my journey of Emotional Sobriety. I notice the people that honor and bless me. I notice the ways in which synchronicity guides my life and I spend time each day in prayer and meditation. I appreciate the gifts that come my way. Often, I bring the very intense emotions and challenges that I am experiencing to my meditation and prayer practice and my spiritual connection helps to soothe their intensity. When I presence myself to my own Soul Partnerships and Spirit Guides, gratitude is inevitable. I am no longer run by my emotions and in the moments of serenity and calm, there is a sense of goodness and well-being that I experience. I guess in spite of myself, I feel gratitude more and more each day.

     In learning how to hold all of these emotions with grace and maturity, we develop emotional sobriety, which in turn creates the space for more and more gratitude in our lives. While there is a season and time for everything, including authentic grief, I think there is a season and time for gratitude as well. In our emotional maturity, we invite more and more joy and gratitude. This is good.

    Today I encourage you to breathe deeply and simply connect with what is going on inside your body, mind and spirit. Allow yourself to simply be with whatever is there be it gratitude, joy, fear, sadness, etc. Just practice being with whatever is there and inviting your own Spirit Guides and Divine Source to be there with you. As you begin to really anchor and trust the foundation of this Spiritual Connection, you will also begin to connect authentically with yourself. This connection to self and your own divine source creates emotional sobriety and also welcomes authentic grief. This authentic grief will lead you to the experience of authentic gratitude. 

Blessings on your journey, 

Sally