Irene Watson - Rewriting Life Scripts

Gratitude at Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is the holiday when families get together to share their thankfulness for all that is good in their lives. It’s also a stressful day for many people. While not as crazy as Christmas, Thanksgiving can mean traveling long distances, being busy preparing a meal, and dealing with difficult relatives.

 

Let us not lose our focus on the purpose of the day. Rather than stressing over crazy family dynamics, let’s focus on what we have—including our family—that makes us thankful. In recovery we hear a lot about gratitude. Gratitude is so important that we have a national holiday based around it. It’s a day to be positive. It’s a day of plenty—a day to remind us of all we have—a day to feel the abundance of life.

 

We express our gratitude in many ways. Perhaps we go to the family dinner and put up with relatives we don’t care to see because it makes our mother happy. We can do so with goodwill rather than beating ourselves up for acting codependent by doing what someone else wants—on holidays, we are gracious—we do for others—and it also helps our recovery. We show our love for other people by being with them, even if they are difficult. Today we overlook and forgive their faults silently.

 

Perhaps we have a big family meal. Perhaps we show our gratitude by helping prepare a meal for others. Perhaps “we” consists of just us and maybe one other person. We are grateful for that other person. We are grateful for our food, whether it’s a feast or fast food. We are grateful for whatever we have this day. Whatever we have, we know we could have less. Yes, we may want more, but we could have less, so we are grateful for the blessings we have.

 

We have so much for which to be grateful. We could spend all day just thinking of everything for which we are grateful: living in the United States, having an Internet connection on which to read this blog, being able to read, having sources of recovery, having a meal, having a warm place to sleep, having running water, having loved ones close to us.

 

We are often so focused on work and the stress of our daily lives that we forget the miracles of life around us—our parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, children, neighbors, friends, pets—the smell of turkey or mashed potatoes, the crowded joyful feeling of a house full of people, the rich colors of cranberries or sweet potatoes, the countless blessings in our lives we take for granted.

 

We remember too those who came before us. The Pilgrims, whatever their faults, did what they thought was right—we respect their courage. We remember leaders like Abraham Lincoln who established this day as a holiday, and all those who came before us and contributed to the prosperity and well-being of our country. We remember those no longer with us—parents, grandparents, those who influenced our lives. We miss them today, and we are grateful for the blessings they gave us. We are grateful for family, however we wish to define family, and to be with those we can truly call our own.

 

We are grateful for a day to remind us to be grateful. And when the day is over, hopefully we will carry gratitude with us into the days to come.

 

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Self-Denial and Being a Martyr

How often have you wanted something but you didn’t allow yourself to have it? What was your reason?

 

If you are hungry, you are allowed to feed yourself, but if you want to eat an entire cake, you might deny yourself and settle for one piece. That is a reasonable form of self-denial. Similarly, perhaps you’d like to buy a new car, but you also know your old car runs fine and you need the money to pay for your college classes. That’s also a reasonable form of self-denial. But sometimes, we aren’t reasonable.

 

How many of us know someone, usually a mother or grandmother, who will always take the piece of pie that is smaller, or the cookie that is a little burnt on the bottom, the worst piece? These people play the martyr to themselves, accepting the least, sometimes out of love for others, but what about when no one else is around?

 

Do we buy only generic brands at the grocery store, telling ourselves it’s a good way to save money, but actually because we don’t believe we deserve the better brands. Do we stop ourselves from having something we want because we know something else is “good enough”?

 

Self-denial isn’t just about food or possessions. Sometimes we hold ourselves back from opportunities or relationships. We might not ask the cute boy or girl out because we figure that person would never go out with someone like us. We may sit at home lonely in the evening because we are afraid if we make the effort to talk to people, no one will want to be our friend. Or we put off things—we feel we have obligations to work or family that we have to perform before we allow ourselves time to do the things we want.

 

Self-denial can exist in little and in big ways. Either way, we need to become aware of it. Self-denial can be tricky. It can be so ingrained in our minds that we don’t even realize we are denying ourselves. We need to make sure when we deny ourselves something we want, we are doing so from a rational place where what we do not allow ourselves is for a greater benefit to ourselves. We should not deny ourselves something that could make us happier.

 

Next time you find yourself saying “No” to something you want, stop and ask yourself why you are saying “No.” Consider the bigger picture. Will it make a huge difference to you or anyone else if you go without the thing you want? Will you be even a little bit happier if you let yourself have it? Allow yourself to have it this time if it truly would be good for you.

 

We need balance in what we give and what we deny ourselves. We do not have to act like self-denying martyrs. No one gains when we do so, least of all, ourselves. Don’t be afraid to let good into your life and to care for your own needs.

 

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Having a Human Experience

The saying that we are spiritual beings having a human experience has become quite common in recent years in recovery circles and among people who are spiritually minded.

 

Most of us are searching for meaning, for a spiritual experience, but while we are so constantly yearning for that spiritual connection, we risk missing out on the full joy of the human experience we came here to have. Often we deny ourselves our human experiences—we do not eat rich foods because we shouldn’t be gluttonous, we repress our sexuality, we do not spend money on frivolous items that might give us some joy because we do not wish to be materialistic.

 

Sometimes, I ask myself why we are so afraid to embrace our earthy humanity. We were given five wonderful senses—touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound—to experience this human world. If it’s true that we chose to come into this world to have a human experience, then it’s about time we start having it.

 

It’s time to be sensuous—to stop and smell the roses, to wow our senses, to take time to listen to music we love, to eat food that tantalizes our tastebuds, to spend time just gazing at something beautiful, whether it’s a sunset, a painting, or another human being, to enjoy the sensation to our skin against different fabrics or to enjoy the feeling of our cat’s fur, our wife’s hair, of the sand between our toes.

 

Humans are programmed with senses and emotions, and we are here to enjoy them. To deny them may well be to deny why we have come to live on this planet. What would be sadder than to die, to pass back into the spirit world, only to find out we did not have the human experience we came forth to have.

 

Go out today and be human! Celebrate your humanity! Embrace this world that was created for us to enjoy in our human form.

 

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Unresolved Grief

Psychiatrists and other experts tell us that when we react emotionally to a situation we often are only partially reacting to the current situation while we are also reacting to situations in our past that we view as similar. For example, being rejected by a friend may bring about grief over the lost friendship, but it might also stir up unresolved grief over a grandparent’s death.

 

We generally associate grief with death, but any loss in our lives can be a cause for grief. Because we don’t associate grief as easily with other losses, we may not take the time to mourn these losses, and consequently, the repressed emotions can come back later to upset us when we experience another loss. For example, a friend moving away is a loss that might bring back repressed grief from childhood when our best friend who lived next door moved away.

 

Losses that need to be grieved may include the death of a loved one, the loss of a relationship with a relative, friend, or coworker, the loss of a job, lost hopes such as not getting accepted into a school or program, the loss of a material possession we value such as a grandmother’s ring, or the loss of a sense of community by moving to a new place.

 

If we find ourselves overreacting to something—as codependents we are often trying to control a situation we can’t control, such as trying to stop a child from moving away to college—we may ask ourselves why we are so upset about the situation and what it is that we fear will happen. Then we can ask ourselves why we hold that fear—where did that fear come from? Most likely, it is a fear based in our past. Something went wrong in the past—we underwent a loss, and now we fear the same situation will recur, even if that fear is completely irrational and what we fear is unlikely to happen.

 

We need to grieve our losses. There are many ways to do so. If we are having difficulty determining what unresolved grief is troubling us, it’s a good idea to chart out every loss we’ve experienced in our life, from a friend, to a pet, to a job, to a grandparent. Some of these will evoke emotions of anger or depression, while others we may simply smile nostalgically over and move on. We can resolve the grief by writing a letter to the person or thing we lost and then burning it. We can try to understand the loss. We can figure out why we didn’t mourn the loss then and mourn it now. We can nurture ourselves, taking time to cry, time to mourn until we feel the pain inside us diminish.

 

Then we can face the current loss in our lives with greater strength and a new perspective where the loss may not seem as traumatic. We came through the earlier loss, and we will get through this one too. So many good things have happened for us since that earlier loss, and we trust this new loss is also going to be followed by much good. We can be thankful for the experience we had, despite the loss that followed, and we can go on with life.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Forgiving the Dead

On November 2^nd, I posted about researching our family tree to understand our ancestors and the history of dysfunction in our families. A friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote to me in response to that blog, and I’ve asked him to share his personal experience from working on his family of origin. What follows are his own words:

 

I was raised a Catholic. I always struggled with understanding why the Catholic Church honors people as saints and why Catholics pray to the saints for intercession. After reading your blog about family of origin, I think I better understand this partly by better understanding my paternal grandfather.

 

I was always close to my maternal grandfather, and although he’s been dead more than twenty years, I still find myself talking to him and thinking perhaps he’s watching over me. I’ve never talked to my deceased paternal grandfather in this way. But after doing my family of origin work, I’ve gone from seeing him as an ornery old man to a human being deserving love.

 

The same day I read your blog, I happened to be reading Melody Beattie’s book “The New Codependency,” in which she briefly talks about praying for our ancestors. I have started praying for my paternal grandfather now, asking God to forgive him for his faults, or perhaps to let him know I forgive him and I still value his contribution to my life—I want him to know that despite his flaws, his life did matter.

 

The first time I prayed for him, within just a few minutes, I felt overcome almost with tears but also with a great feeling of release. I felt love beyond just sympathy for him. I barely knew him because he died when I was only nine and lived a few hours away. I know him mostly from what people said about him—mostly negative things about his temper, but I’ve learned to interpret these things against the larger picture of how difficult his life was. Now I feel I do know him. Now I talk to him like I do my other grandfather.

 

This experience has made me think I better understand about asking saints to intercede for us, or even the idea of ancestor worship—we pray or simply talk to our ancestors—it’s like we are asking them to witness our stories just like people would do for us at a Twelve-Step meeting. The saints may not respond to our requests, but they witness our struggles and our words. The Bible says the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with great groanings when our own words are inadequate. By talking to saints or ancestors about our lives, we are putting our thoughts into words. We make our thoughts and intentions more clear and we bring about healing in the process. The Bible tells us the Word is the Creation. I get that now. Even if it’s only in our heads, by believing we have a loved one, a sympathetic soul listening to us, we create our own healing.

 

By speaking to my paternal grandfather, I’m letting him know I honor him, that had he lived longer, as an adult I would have wanted to know him, to have a relationship with him. I am healing a family rift. I’m providing healing for him and healing for myself, and hoping that someday my loved ones will equally forgive my faults. Sometimes I even listen to my grandfather. I feel he is telling me to love his son, my father, since he is not there to do so any longer and he wishes he had done a better job of it. My relationship with my father is not what I would like, but by reconnecting with my grandfather, I better understand my father now too.

 

Doing family of origin work and praying for and talking to my grandfather has made me realize how human we all are, and it’s given me gratitude for this incredible learning experience that our family gives us. It makes me appreciate that only by having this human experience can our souls learn these lessons about the value of relationships.

 

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.