The Law of Attraction - misunderstood & misinterpreted

On January 3rd of 2009 I will have 25 years in twelve step recovery - a quarter century clean and sober.   An amazing miracle.  I have scheduled one of my Intensive workshops for that day - because it is the Saturday after New Years and fits into my practice of scheduling the workshops on Holiday weekends.  When I discovered that Saturday was the 3rd, I smiled and took it as a perfect part of the Divine Plan.  Perhaps some of you will join me on that day to celebrate that anniversary.;-)

Anyway, when I first got into 12 step recovery in January 1984, I  didn't want to hear anything about God or anything that sounded religious because of the shaming religion that I had grown up in.  It was the twelve step concept of a 'Higher Power of my own understanding' that made it possible for me to start learning how to live life based upon Spiritual Principles - aka Metaphysical Law.

"Basically, the reason that life as it is experienced by humans is so messed up, is because we have been dancing to the wrong music.  We have had our dance of life defined by fear and shame, by lack, scarcity, and separation.  The Twelve Step process helps us to change our relationship with life and self - it helps us learn to dance with music that is aligned with Love and Joy and Truth.  That is what is so miraculous and awesome about the twelve step recovery process - it helps us to enjoy our dance.

The True meaning and purpose of life is Spiritual in my opinion.  I know that when I started living life from that perspective - the perspective I learned from working a 12 step program - was the first time that life made any sense to me.  The twelve steps work to help us align with what I believe is Metaphysical Truth.  The basic steps of that dance are 1, 2, 3, - and once we start to get into the rhythm of that Spiritual dance we start to live life in alignment with the Metaphysical Truth contained in the Serenity Prayer.  It is the beginning of transformation.  It is the path home to Love."- The Miracle of The Twelve Step Recovery Process: The first three steps

"The underlining dynamic of codependency is black and white thinking.  Drinking or not drinking is a black and white issue.  Thus many recovering alcoholics can stop drinking while still empowering the black and white thinking of codependency.  Many recovering alcoholics are rigid in their perspective and don't ever do the emotional healing of their childhood wounds because they tell themselves it is not necessary to sobriety - and they are scared to death of their own emotions on a subconscious level.  Some of the most wounded codependents I know have 30 or 40 years sober and have never addressed their emotional issues - while justifying their rigidity as doing AA the "right" way.

According to this "old time" AA perspective, "outside issues" should not be discussed in AA meetings.  There are many suffering codependents in AA who are not open minded enough to realize that Bill Wilson - one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous - would have loved to have had the tools we have available to us today.  He would have run to an Adult Children of Alcoholics or Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting where he could have found the roots of the depression which tormented him.  The suffering codependents in AA are terrified that if they don't follow a rigid formula - the "right" way - in their recovery, they will end up drinking again." - Inspiration from the Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous

"Twelve step recovery is a program of empowerment.  Many people erroneously assume that the fact that first step involves admitting powerlessness means that 12 step recovery disempowers people. The Truth is exactly the opposite.

It was only when I admitted that I was powerless to control my drinking that I gained the power to stop drinking.  As long as I was trying to control my drinking out of ego and will power, I was powerless to stop drinking alcoholically.  It was when I opened up to getting help from a power greater than myself that I gained the power to transform my life. . . .

. . . . If I had been told in January 1984, at the beginning of my recovery from alcoholism, that the only way I could quit killing myself with alcohol was to accept the standard version of "God" - I would never have gotten sober.  I would have been dead long ago.  But what I was told, was that I needed to find a concept of a Higher Power that worked for me - a Higher Power of my own understanding.   That was what saved my life - the revolutionary concept that I could develop my own idea of a Higher Power, and develop a personal relationship with that Higher Power that did not have to conform to what anyone else believed." - A Higher Power of my own understanding 2 - the beginning of empowerment

As I state so often in my writing and in my book, in order to change our relationship with anything, we need to change our perspective of it.

Perspective is a key to Recovery.  I had to change and enlarge my perspectives of myself and my own emotions, of other people, of God and of this life business.  Our perspective of life dictates our relationship with life.  We have a dysfunctional relationship with life because we were taught to have a dysfunctional perspective of this life business, dysfunctional definitions of who we are and why we are here.

The perspective I was taught of God growing up was abusive and punishing.  The idea that I could find a concept of a Higher Power that was Loving was incredibly liberating.

"The thing that made it possible for me to start getting honest with myself and to start being willing to surrender was the possibility that there might be a Loving Higher Power.  When I first came to the program I would not even use the word God - and thought that these people must be a bunch of religious fanatics.  I wanted nothing to do with God because I had been Spiritually, emotionally, and mentally abused in childhood with a concept of God that was vengeful and punishing.  I had my sexuality abused by a shame based religion that taught me that God would send me to burn in hell forever for even thinking about sex.

Is it any wonder that I didn't want to surrender to God as I understood 'him.' "The Miracle of The Twelve Step Recovery Process: The first three steps

I count my conscious codependency recovery as starting on the day that I realized that my relationship with myself and life was still being dictated subconsciously by the image of God as I had been led to understand 'him' in childhood - even though I had personally discarded that concept consciously in my late teens.  The religion I was subjected to in childhood taught me that life was about sin and punishment - and I was a sinner who deserved to be punished. (The Story of "Joy to You & Me")  That day (June 3rd, 1986) was the day that I really got on a gut level something that I had heard and known intellectually - that the Law that governs life is cause and effect, not sin and punishment.  That was the day that I made a conscious decision to do whatever it took to change the subconscious and emotional programming that had caused me to live life in a really painful, unloving way.

Given the freedom to search for a concept of a Higher Power that was Loving and on my side - instead of lurking in the shadows waiting to punish me for being human - started me on a quest to find out how there could possibly be a Loving Higher Power in the Universe.  That Spiritual quest eventually led me to a multitude of places and the study of a multitude of belief systems from Native American Spirituality, to Mythology, to Eastern & Middle Eastern Beliefs, to Quantum Physics, etc.  Because of the spiritual abuse I experience growing up I resisted such things as the Course in Miracles and didn't even know at the time I wrote my book that there were New Thought Churches who interpreted the bible metaphysically.  (Numerous times when I spoke someone would come up to me afterwards and say that obviously I had studied the Course in Miracles - just as other people would assume I was a Sufi, or has studied other spiritual beliefs or authors that I had not - the reason for that is we are all drawing Truth from the same Source.)

As I am writing this today, October 24th 2008, I realize that in some ways this was a gift because it caused me to open to a larger paradigm than is taught in New Thought Churches which have been around for quite a few years, or the Course in Miracles.  It was also a larger perspective than the multitude of "new age" spiritual teachers that have appeared in the years since my book was published.

"What is Love?  That is the question.  I have been quite balled up the last week in attempting to write this column.  No, that is not quite true - I have been unable to get into a space to even attempt to write this column.  I need to get into a certain space - need to be feeling a special kind of creative energy - to write about a topic such as this.  It was much easier to write last month's column about "what Love is not."  Then I was writing about something much more concrete, much more black and white (the irony of this - since one of the characteristics of the disease is black and white thinking - is fodder for a completely different column.)  The dynamics of the disease and the wounding process are very clear in my eyes.  I have experienced the type of love that is shaming, abusive, manipulative, smothering, intrusive, addictive, etc., my whole life. 

In fact, I learned a new word while writing this column.  As I was composing the above paragraph, and taking note of how much easier it was to write last month's column, the word empirical came to mind.

So, I did what comes naturally when a word pops to mind - I looked it up.

empirical  1. Relating to or based on experience or observation.  2. Relying entirely or to excess upon direct, repeated, and uncritically accepted experience: opposed to metempirical.

Aha, a new word.

metempirical  1. Lying beyond the bounds of experience, as intuitive principles; not derived from experience; transcendental.

So, even though I just said that it was easier to write 'what Love is not' because of my experience - in Truth when I say that Love is not shaming and abusive, I am actually stating my intuitive Truth.  If I were just relying on my experience, I would say "love is shaming and abusive and controlling," "love is being responsible for other people's feelings and well being," etc. - and that would be the Truth about love with a small l.  When I say Love is not shaming, I am talking about the True Nature of Love as I intuitively understand it.  Once I started to awaken to the reality that civilized society on this planet was based upon some false beliefs, then I started to be able to validate my intuitive feeling that something was dreadfully wrong here.  I Knew deep inside, from a very young age, that this was not my home.  I Knew that Love, if it was really such a wonderful thing, should not be so painful - just as I Knew it was ridiculous for both sides in a war to think that God was on their side and would help them kill the enemy." - The True Nature of Love - Love as Freedom 

"So, this brings us to the more Metaphysical and Mystical aspects of this article.  I get uncomfortable in writing about my understanding of levels that are beyond human understanding for numerous reasons.  The biggest one is that it is not really possible to explain the unexplainable.  It is also not necessary to understand the metaphysical levels in order to do the healing.  And as I have mentioned previously, some of us tend to focus on such areas as metaphysics, past lives, astrology, extrasensory or extraterrestrial phenomena as a way of avoiding doing the emotional healing - as a way of avoiding healing our internal relationship with self.  Focusing on some of these areas can sometimes be almost as addictive as focusing on other people, or success, or any of the myriad of people, places and things that our disease would rather have us focus on than to deal with our own pain.

And my interpretation of these levels/phenomena/issues is just that - my interpretation.  Anyone who is serving as a channel for information is limited by their own intellectual/experiential paradigm.  Whether the person is psychic, or an astrologer, or channeling information from "beyond," whatever, it is always important to not give too much power to the details of what they say.  Listen for any emotional messages that resonate - but be discerning about giving too much power to their interpretations in regard to details.  What one person attributes to an angel another might attribute to an alien presence.  Whether something is written in the stars or a theme from a past life doesn't really matter.  What matters are questions like:  How does this information apply to my healing process today?;  How can this message help me see myself more clearly?;  Can the information help me to forgive myself and be more Loving to myself?;  Is the information and the way it is being presented about Love - does it support Love or is it empowering separation?

I didn't really start to investigate any of these areas until after I had been through treatment for codependence in the Spring of 1988.  The day before I left the treatment center one of my counselors told me that I was a mystic.  I had to look the word up in the dictionary.

mystic - n.  One who professes a knowledge of spiritual truth or a feeling of union with the divine, reached through contemplation or intuition.  (New Illustrated Webster's Dictionary, 1993 printing.)

That person was an angel in my path because she stimulated me to create the space in my consciousness to be open to a different kind of inner communication. It was as if she had given me permission to own a gift that had become available to me because of the clearing of my inner channel that I had done/was doing - and shortly thereafter I started writing the first book of my Trilogy.  I very seriously pursued learning about past lives and different planes of existence and all of the esoteric, metaphysical knowledge I could access.  And that pursuit was important in helping me to enlarge my intellectual paradigm - but a few years later I realized that the whole purpose of the pursuit had been to bring about a shift in my relationship with myself, my concept of God/Goddess, and with life.  The details that I had accessed about past lives and other dimensions of existence were not really important in terms of how I live my life today - but the shift in my paradigm, and therefore my relationships, was vital.  At that point in time, I threw away all the notes I had taken about different past lives and such.

The whole purpose of my quest was to discover a belief system that could allow me to start believing that I am in fact Lovable and worthy.  Figuring out how it all works isn't what is important - what is important is discovering the faith to believe that there is a Loving Force in control.  That is what helped me start Loving myself more - to start relaxing and enjoying life a little bit more instead of always giving fear and shame all of the power.

So, anything in terms of details, that I share here are my interpretations.  The interpretations that helped me to discover a belief system that served Love - that was functional in helping me to overcome the dysfunctional beliefs I was programmed with in childhood.  That they may be different from someone else's interpretations does not mean that one is right and one is wrong.  There are a plethora of ways to look at and interpret information which is beyond human understanding. Any explaining or defining of God is limiting - and the Goddess is unlimited.

The purpose of sharing this at all, is the hope it may help you to enlarge your intellectual paradigm - help you to build yourself a larger Spiritual container so that you can open up to accessing more Love in your life." - The True Nature of Love - Twin Souls, Souls Mates, and Kindred Spirits

"One of the reasons for the human dilemma, for the confusion that humans have felt about the meaning and purpose of life, is that more than one level of reality comes into play in the experience of being human. Trying to apply the Truth of one level to the experience of another has caused humans to become very confused and twisted in our perspective of the human experience. It is kind of like the difference between playing the one-dimensional chess that we are familiar with, and the three-dimensional chess played by the characters of Star Trek - they are two completely different games.

That is the human dilemma - we have been playing the game with the wrong set of rules. With rules that do not work. With rules that are dysfunctional.

. . . . . . I share this message with you, the reader of this book, in the hopes that it will help you to remember the Truth of who you are, and why you are here. This information is not meant to be absolute or the final word - it is meant as an alternative perspective for you to consider. A Cosmic Perspective that just might help to make life an easier, more enjoyable experience for you." - Author's Foreword to Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls A Cosmic Perspective on Codependence and the Human Condition

In my book, on my web site, and in this article I offer an alternate perspective for people to consider.  A perspective that I find very comforting.  A perspective that helped me transform my life from one of endurance and suffering, in which I wanted to die on almost a daily basis - into one that now includes inner peace, Joy, and excitement at being alive for a significant number of moments of most every day.

In order to transform my life experience, it was necessary for me to find a reason to live.  I studied many religious and spiritual philosophies - and found nuggets of what felt like Truth to me in every one - but no single one that worked for me.  While I was searching for an intellectual paradigm that would help me find meaning and purpose in life, I was also in the process of getting emotionally honest with myself.  That led me into depths of grief and rage that terrified me.  It led me into a 30 day Treatment program for codependence (clinically called depression) in 1988.  It was there that I learned the grief process work / emotional release therapy that saved my life.

The day I was leaving that Treatment program I ran into one of the counselors as I was processing out.  Out of the blue, she said to me, "You know, what you are is a mystic."  I didn't know what the word meant, and had to look it up in a dictionary.

What I reluctantly came to accept is that she was right, I am a mystic.  My book is a work of Mystical Spirituality.  But then so is the Constitution of the United States of America.  The Founding Fathers of this country included a number of mystics whose mission was to create a country where there would be freedom to have alternate viewpoints, to expand consciousness.

My mission in this lifetime is to be a mystical messenger.  In this New Age, there are many mystical messengers among us - and many works of mystical Spirituality.

I have been compelled to follow my intuitive guidance and do a lot of work clearing out my inner channel to Truth.  We all have an inner intuitive channel to the Higher Mind.  We just need to clear that inner channel of dysfunctional attitudes, false beliefs, and repressed emotional energy in order to start tuning into our intuition, in order to start becoming clearer and more trusting of our mystical guidance.

The Spiritual paradigm that my intuition led me to, the mystical vision I share in my book, is one that is larger than any I have ever encountered.  It works for me to make my life easier and more enJoyable.  What I have found over the years is that it works for many other people also.  So, I am offering it here as alternate perspective for you to consider." - Attack on America: A Spiritual Healing Perspective & Call for Higher Consciousness

Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life, Attack on America: A Spiritual Healing Perspective & Call for Higher Consciousness, The True Nature of Love series of articles, and the article My Spiritual Belief System and the New Millennium can be found in Dancing in Light a subscription are of the Joy2MeU web site.  Quotes from the Dance of Wounded Souls Trilogy and the journal of my personal recovery can be found in another subscription area The Joy2MeU Journal