I’ve been writing notes on two topics, security and identity, and I just realized that, together, they are actually one topic. For me, at least. I was always looking for someone else to provide me with security. I’ve never been willing to provide security for myself, even in sobriety. My relationship with security makes up […]
I am sharing what I have learned about my own relapse, a nine-year meandering in the desert that ended last April when I returned to the 12-step program and its peer-support meetings. Over the past five months, I’ve spent many hours in deep deliberation, trying to understand why I left recovery in 2014. It is […]
Love yourself, they say. But what if we haven’t a clue about healthy love actually is? On top of that, ask any ten people to define love and you’ll get ten different responses back. Love is a lot like ‘spirituality’: when we try to define love, we don’t find its limits but instead our own. […]
I was travelling by ferry from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island. Everyone watched from the wake of the ferry to the horizon, looking for whales or some other marine life to make an appearance. I was fascinated by all the little details of the ferry, and the mid-day light was amazing. So, I got […]
While visiting Peggy’s Cove on a mild spring day, prepared to take some shots of the lighthouse and the rocky shoreline, I noticed that the sun was melting the ice that had settled in the pools along the rocks. I decided to change lenses, popped in my macro, and took some hand-held details of the […]
“Spirituality is one of those realities that we have only so long as we seek it; as soon as we stop seeking, we stop finding; as soon as we think we’ve got it, we’ve most certainly lost it.” Kurtz, E. & Ketchum, K. What does the spiritual journey seek? A wise teacher would probably reply […]
The trauma is not what happens to you; the trauma is what happens inside you….The loss of self is the essence of trauma. The real purpose of addiction treatment, mental health treatment, any kind of healing, is reconnection (with one’s authentic self). ~ Gabor Maté, “How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction.” YouTube video: link Both […]
A good friend of mine recently posed this question to me in an email: Sometimes you can be around people and continue to feel alone, like nobody understands. So hopefully that doesn’t happen to you. If it does, what does that mean? Mis-perception? I ask this question honestly because trauma can do weirdness to perception. […]
In recovery, I am ambivalent, perhaps indifferent, to the matter of whether or not God exists. If the gift of recovery is available only to believers, and therefore unattainable to non-believers, does this not make for a punishing and cruel God? More importantly, does it not also place limits on God, since God’s grace is […]
The Peace of Wild Things 
You must be logged in to post a comment.