February 7

HOPE MONTH: DAY 7: “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” ― Nelson Mandela

The BB talks about making choices, based on self. We do make a great number of choices based on fear. I stole, lied, and was remarkably dishonest in every aspect of my character coming into this deal. I believed some crazy shit, and was often bolstered by the cultural norms of life at that time.

We believe things like “The early bird gets the worm”, which feeds into our fear of lack and having to fight others for ours. This is fearful belief. Sadly, there is a great deal of it going around. We can reframe this into knowing how much we truly need.

Our culture is one of overconsumption and thinking we need a great deal MORE than we do. We do NOT need a 4000-sq. foot home to be sheltered, nor do we need 6 bedrooms full of furniture to consider ourselves safe from the elements.

We do not need closets full of clothing and shoes to be protected from cold and heat. Nor do we need to have the newest, shiniest gadgets on the market to “Keep up with the neighbors”. And we choose to work 60 hours each week to produce the income to consume more.

We smoke and drink and eat ourselves to death in the richest culture (supposedly) in the world, while we step over homeless people to sop for more things and children are going hungry because our fear-based thinking tells us we don’t have enough, are not enough, and will never be or have enough, no matter how much money there is.

We are greedy and selfish and wonder why no one gets along in our environment. We foster addiction in numbers that grow exponentially every day. When we get treatment protocols and recovery programs designed to conquer one addiction, we are busy inventing new ones. (I feel very strongly that my work is a never-ending source of job security!)

We do too much, talk too much, have too much, eat too much and it is killing us! But we call it the good life and do not even consider questioning those beliefs. Millions are made on feeding people toxic waste served faster so we can run in circles somewhere else and “save time”.

The biggest killer diseases in our culture are all caused by our lazy habits and addictions. We are “stressed” to the bone, not even recognizing that there is no such thing as stress. It is the thinking we have about life that creates the condition in the body called stress.

So, we relieve it with drugs and alcohol, which is creating another escape valve, rather than addressing the causal factors of the condition to begin with.

Even in recovery settings and meetings, there is little discussion about addressing these notions and questioning them for voracity. We do not ask ourselves why we are so insecure, why we are so self-sabotaging, why we are driven by 1000 forms of fear. These are the key questions, in my thinking. I don’t care why you drank. I really want to know what you believe about life that made drinking the option it was.

When we begin a recovery process, it is vital to our happiness and joy that we examine those beliefs we carry like treasure and begin to tear them apart and replace them with truer ways of seeing things. I am astonished that the finest minds in the world have not talked to us more loudly about our poor choices and why we make them. Why we need to, as one exquisite mind stated “Always question everything.” Thank you, Mr. Einstein!

Dig down into your soul and find what it is that is missing. It has been empty a long time. Feast on a painting that is beautiful, walk out into the world and find a face that needs a friend and sit with them for 10 minutes, go to a place with trees or water or both and thank your Creator that this is not for sale. None of us needs more money or work or clothes or shoes or a newer cell phone. We need to examine the belief that it will somehow be better or we will be better than what exists right this moment.

None of this is true. Addiction itself is the false belief that a substance, a thing, something outside of me at this moment will make my feelings or my future better.

The mad circle of consumption that leaves me feeling better for a moment and then worse for a lifetime. Let’s stop the insanity of believing those fearful thoughts, thrown at us by ego, and learn to live with just what IS and not what COULD BE. This, I believe, is the true foundation of hope.

We must recognize that all is perfect and well right NOW, not when or if it changes.