Goodbye George Jones

I learned today of the passing away of George Jones on April 26th, 2013.

I had known of him for many years and in recent years become a fan.  ‘Why’? I wonder.  Perhaps because he is widely documented as an imperfect man, and often a scoundrel.

He had been nicknamed, “No-Show Jones”, for a period due to his late concert cancellations or simple no-shows.  Reportedly due to him being caught up partying or carrying on in some fashion.  What a selfish jerk, no?

Yet, isn’t our world made up of selfish jerks?  Selves included?  And aren’t we selfish jerks the one’s God reached out to and loved anyway?

I too had been a No-Show Scoundrel when I was drinking.  God loved me anyway.

George, you will be sadly missed.  Thank you for your contribution to our world for over 50 years.

… if it didn’t hurt, it would be funny.

Why can TV sitcoms be funny while life is painful?

Could it be that we don’t feel the pain of a circumstance when we are watching it on TV while we do when we are going through it?  When the circumstance isn’t ours, it can be uproariously funny.  But when it is, and we are in the midst of it, we often feel only pain and confusion.

Let me explain what is prompting this… we have a neighbour with some annoying and disruptive behaviours.  Behaviours that are often carried on late at night or early in the morning.  Behaviours involving noise and a lack of consideration for others peace, time, and energy.

These behaviours are not illegal, one can do nothing about them, and they have been going on for years, much to the upset of several neighbours.

This week, the disruptive neighbour complained to my wife and I about our friends parking on the street in front of her house.  Basically saying we were disrupting her.  Now, where our friends parked, and it was only for an hour, was near a part of her house that nobody ever goes, does not block access, and frankly is neglected.  But, for some reason, she complained to us and even placed rocks on the gravel shoulder to prevent anyone from parking where she didn’t want.

My wife was furious.  I was ticked.  We thought of calling bylaw enforcement since the rocks were technically on public land, only a few inches from the paved public road, and frankly a danger.  Plus, there still was no law against our friends parking for short periods by her house.  

We schemed, strategized, and fumed over it for maybe a couple hours.  We thought of reporting her to bylaw enforcement, throwing the rocks in her pool, hiding them, and a variety of other energy-sucking schemes.  Then it occurred to me, if this were an episode of, say, ‘Home Improvement’ with Tim Allen, it would be awfully funny.  I began to picture this as a scene from home improvement, where some unreasonable, disruptive neigbour could be accusing Tim and his family of being disruptive and then making a silly gesture to make their point.

I sat down with my wife and shared the notion and she too began to laugh.  I then asked her, “Are we really going to declare a Jihad over all of this”?  And also, “How much of our energy are we prepared to give this… even just to fume”?.  And finally, “How about, instead of being mad, we find a way to have fun with this”?

So, at a time when the neighbours were mostly at work, I simply walked over and moved the rocks about 6″ further away from the street and more onto her lawn.  A day later, another 6″, and then another and another.

Each time we laughed and genuinely had a good time with it.  I even had a slight inkling that I hoped the neighbour would catch me so this could really turn into a farce.  Here I am, a late-40’s suburban Dad, husband, business-owner, and responsible, tax-paying member of society, sneaking over playing the rock game.

So today, the rocks are a safe distance from the street and, in fact, well onto her un-kept lawn, and she seems none the wiser.  Our friends park there with ease and even join in on the laughter of what has been going on.

Do we not have at least somewhat of a choice as to how much pain we feel over unfair situations?  If we remove ourselves from the inconvenience of it all, and treat it as if it were the silliest sitcom we know, wouldn’t it be just plain funny?  And wouldn’t we save ourselves a whole lot of grief and emotional energy by doing so?

I can’t account for all of life’s circumstances, but in this one, we did 🙂

Ciao.

Chaz

 

 

Foul Language & Profanity

Foul Language & Profanity.

Great post that really resonates to me regarding the use of profanity including in AA meetings.  Also available on podcast…. just cruise the http://www.sponsortosponsor.com site.

Ciao.

Chaz

Life Lessons from my staple-remover…

My staple-remover went missing at work the other day.  One I had had for years and came to rely on.  It also had sentimental value.

You may be wondering why a post on such a trivial matter.  Well, isn’t life made up largely of trivial matters?  Small matters that we blow up into big things.  Numerous small matters that accumulate and affect how we feel and eventually form who we are and how we treat others?  Often it is.  Very often.

And experience has shown me that we won’t handle the big things any better than we do the little things, so why not perfect how we handle the little things?

At first I was frosted.  Then quickly realized…. it is a staple remover for crying out loud!  And the person who borrowed it and lost it is a wonderful person!  They just made a small mistake.

I laughed when I saw where my thinking and attitude were going.  A staple-remover for crying out loud!  Worth $2 at most!  Replaceable!

Yet somehow, my subconscious wanted me to ramp up emotion and turn this into an incident.

In light of years of sobriety, a deep belief in grace and forgiveness, and more emotional balance than any other time of my life, there is still evidence of remnants of un-health and immaturity that pop up from time to time.

My task is to decide what to do with them.  My solution for today… laugh at them.

Newsflash…. Wonderful people will continue to make mistakes in my life.  Minor inconveniences will continue to happen.  Laugh at it and move on.

Chaz

Anxiety and Depression

“Hello darkness my old friend(s)” 🙂

I had been revisited by these two familiar friends recently.  I didn’t panic, I didn’t jump in with both feet.  I just said, “Oh, you guys again”, and sought a new solution.

Pharmaceutical anti-depressants have never worked well for me.  Side effects negate their value.  Maybe there is a good one out there, but I haven’t found it.  

Nor has the medical community around me encouraged me this way.  They have all felt that the basis of my conditions are not primarily chemical. And this has proven true in the amount of help I have found in non-pharma solutions such as cognitive behaviour therapy, 12-step processes, exercise, and just old fashion “pressing through”.

 

Yet there must be a chemical component because I get revisited at consistent times and under consistent circumstances.  So I consulted a Naturopathic Physician as an exercise in open-mindedness.

My biases feared a “Mother Earth” approach.  A lot of natural remedies, in my experience, are folklore and wishful thinking.  Then again, I have no trust for the mega pharmaceutical machine either.

So off I went to the ND expecting to meet a guy with a beard and birkenstocks.  Well far from it.  He was a soft-spoken southeast Asian fellow who proposed a couple of possible reasons why I battle these two enemies at certain times and under certain circumstances.

Complete with diagrams of science-supported process of brain chemistry.  Then, rather than tell me he had the answer, he proposed a first approach to address the most likely cause of my symptoms.

It was simple, and rather than some crazy hemp suppository, he recommended a few simple supplements that, in fact, my regular Dr. could prescribe so my health benefits would cover them.  None of them were patented, commercial pharmaceuticals.

For the past two weeks, I have felt better.  Go figure.

Is it the placebo effect?  Could be.  Time will tell.  But Just for Today, I feel better.

Ciao.

 

Chaz

Do it scared, do it hurt… again.

I have posted on this subject before.  It is relevant in my life again, but perhaps at a healthier level.  I have grown in my ability to press past fear and pain, and just do things anyway.  Do them while you are scared and/or hurt.

This advice came to me from an unlikely source, at an unlikely time, when my life was falling apart.  I was paralyzed by fear and would often stay in bed for days, feeling I could not face the day or anything in it.

The advice was simple, “Why don’t you just do it scared”?  By ‘it’, the teacher was referring to whatever life task you were dreading at the time.  Whether it be brushing your teeth, working, exercising, going to an appointment, or whatever.

I had never up til that time thought of the notion of simply doing things scared or hurt.  I always figured that fear or pain were indicators that what I was doing was a mistake.

Fast forward to a couple years later when ads for the anti-depressant, Cymbalta, started airing.  Now, I am not on Cymbalta, nor any other pharmaceutical anti-depressant, nor do I even know much about it.  But the ads jumped out at me with their amazing representation of what depression looks and feels like.  The blank stares, the pain, the preoccupation with darkness, the loss of interest and motivation in pretty much everything.

The pics in the this post are all from Cymbalta ads.  Why? Because I related when I saw them.  They described verbally and visibly what I felt.

Thank God antidepressants didn’t work for me.  The numerous side-effects made me a bigger mess than not taking them.  But this ineffectiveness forced me to look for other answers.  Most of them non-chemical.

My strain of depression turned out to be largely cognitive.  Non-medically speaking, my thinking sucked.  And I had rehearsed these lousy patterns of thought until they were embedded deep in my subconscious.  They became my defaults and I suffered because of them.  So did my family around me, not unlike the image of the child onlooking his depressed parent above.

I revisit this topic because I am fighting some negative thinking these days.  So I am going back to basics.  I am making sure I am eating and sleeping the best possible.  I am filling my mind with positive thoughts.  I am keeping positive company.  I am taking some natural supplements that help me a lot.

And where some hurt or depression work their way in still, I just do it scared or do it hurt.

It is amazing when you confront an enemy how puny he becomes.  A line from an early episode of the TV series Mad Men was, “Our greatest fears lie in anticipation”, speaks to this point.

Pressing through the pain, and just doing it even though you hurt, or are twisting with fear, is probably the way of many a great achiever.

I am grateful today for the coping tools I have picked up in my journey of recovery.  And for how quickly they are effective if I pick them up again.

Ciao.

Chaz

The Pentecostal Funeral

I attended a funeral last week. An amazing man… long, long life…. survived trials in family, business, health… yet never wavered from his faith.

Even years ago when his wife died mere weeks after diagnosis, leaving him with 3 young kids, he never wavered. Even when his thriving business took a staggering blow in the recession of the early 1980’s, and he was forced to sell his mansion…. yes, mansion… nobody even knew why he sold it and saw no sign in him and his second wife that they were in financial peril.

His countenance, attitude, and behaviours didn’t change one bit through these and other adversities. He continued to reach out to others through it all. Share the gospel, invite someone over for a meal, pray with someone, cry with someone, laugh with someone, love someone, sooth someone, mentor someone. He didn’t miss a beat through any of it.

His funeral drew a packed crowd. Standing room only. And it was a Pentecostal Funeral if ever there was one!  All the old hymns and choruses popular in Pentecostal culture from the 1950’s on up to today. I was immersed in this culture in the mid 1980’s when I first came to believe. It was so rich in tradition, I had a hard time feeling part of because I didn’t understand how to do their style. It wasn’t their fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

But there at the funeral of one of the most amazing and respected men I have ever known, were all of the mannerisms and behaviours of Pentecostal culture…. the hands waving, the well-dressed Pastor leading worship, the “amen!”s, the preaching, the testimonies, the phrases, …. and for anyone who has been to a Pentecostal service…. you know, what we call, “The swaying prayer ball”?…. you know when a group gathers around to lay hands on and pray for someone at the front…. and it goes on and on and the whole group connected by hands on shoulders begins to sway side to side in unison? 🙂

The funeral went on for hours. It was strange and wonderful. Strange in that I have not been a part of that culture for many years and was reminded why I no longer am. I just don’t relate, I just don’t get it.

Yet wonderful in so many senses. These people were zealous! These people were connected! These people loved God and each other. Wow!  And like the man we were there to honour, the room was filled with so many amazingly selfless people who, although I am a bit of a stray sheep to their organizations and culture, beamed when we met again after so many years.

One particular, who knew all about my antics of my spin-out years ago, a successful man, a wise man, a strong and caring man, took time to tell me from the heart how great it was to see me again, made my wife feel welcome, and …. well simply treated me with an amazing amount of kindness and love.

It was quite a day indeed. It has been bouncing around my head for days. Such a duality my allergy to the culture yet affection for the people.

Not yet sure what God is saying to me…. as I sit here listening to… of all things, gospel recordings by George Jones…. don’t ask me why…. but maybe I relate to the riotous-living Jones who seems to have returned to the faith of his youth…. maybe I trust another stray sheep?

But whatever the reason…. I think God is trying to show me something. Wow…. what an odd season these past few days.

It brings to mind a saying that my dear friend, the man who had passed away, told many times. The brilliant businessman who had mentored my friend in the 1950’s and 60’s, whenever he got into a pickle or was going through something he didn’t understand, “Won’t it be exciting to see what God does with this one!”.

Well God, I’m excited! Looking forward to what you’re doing with this one.
Chaz

Raising Teens: Do you ever feel like puking?

Do feelings of being used by your teen ever leave you feel like puking?

You love them from the bottom of your heart. You adore them. You celebrate their achievements, give them things you only dreamed of when U were one, make time to help them, drive them here, drive them there, pay for this, pay for that, cook food they like, counsel them, mentor them, then they break your heart and leave you feeling like…. well… puking (at best).

Requests to do the clearly stated chores… which still only amount to 2% of the housework are responded to with reluctance, eye rolling, avoidance, and arguments.

They report to you how their friends don’t have to do chores and their parents give them what they want.

You redecorate and re-furnish their rooms only to have them be kept in squalor.

You take them on vacations only to have them argue and fight with each other starting as early as the passport office, then on the plane, then while on a tropical beach, and continuing til arrival home when you ask them to unpack their own luggage.

I am ranting, yes, because I am determined to not take it personally and love them anyway. Believing more and better for them than they can for themselves at this stage.

But it hurts! At least it does today. Yet I know this too will pass.

Parents, step-parents, grandparents, guardians, would you throw me a lifeline here? Just for today?

Thanks.

Chaz.

From drudgery to habit…

I am up early this morning…. my head has been working me over.  Lots on the go with family, work, business, taxes, …. just life really.

I am both employed and self-employed.  My wife and I run a business that has thankfully been working out.  My job outside of the business is stressful but rewarding enough to keep going… yet I am conflicted.  My heart is barely in it, yet I value the income and benefits.  Gratitude is my best antidote to the nagging voices in my head that try to discourage me.

I slept only a short while last night, then my head woke me up and wanted to tell me about how life sucked.  “Ya, ya, whatever”, is my typical response then I move as quickly as I can to filling my mind with the authentically good.  I stress, ‘authentic’, because this isn’t just an exercise in fluffy feel-good.  It is not just another self-deception that things are good when really they are bad.

Things that need attention need attention.  Like paying bills, caring for family, raising kids, eating right, staying sane.  Amidst the challenges, there is so much to be grateful for.  I have a great marriage.  Amazing when I think about it.  I will spare the details of everything I love about Mrs. Chaz, but suffice to say she is amazing in my eyes and I am grateful for her.

Gratitude did not come naturally to someone like me who is predisposed to both depression and anxiety.  The medical community figures that the basis for my anxiety and depression is not of a nature nor severity that it is treatable by medication, but rather the core of my conditions stem from a collection of bad habits of thought.

So my task and focus over the past several years has to been to continually become more skilled at, more habitual at, redirecting my thinking to the positive.  And it works as long as I do it.    Which is a reason I am up early blogging.  Blogging is part of my discipline of redirecting immersing my brain in, and redirecting my thoughts toward, positive things.

At first it was drudgery.  I hated it and didn’t trust it.  It was counter-intuitive on a core level.  Frankly, it was like passing a freakin kidney stone.  I felt like the annoying, fictional Stuart Smalley character trying desperately trying to kid myself that all was well when it wasn’t.  Yet, the truth was, much was already good, and even more was getting better.  But my unrecovered self wanted no part of it and tried everything to invalidate it.

I was so self-deceived, I didn’t know what positive looked like.  Positive to me had mainly been a chemical buzz or a pipe dream of one day in the future when everything was perfect, but until then, I had little to no skill to recognize the positive, let alone redirect my focus to it in the heat of  the battle of negativity bombarding my head from within.

One day though, and I can’t really tell you all of the reasons why, the shell of the nut of my thinking cracked, and a small amount of light shone in.  Question began to appear in my head, “Could this be real”?,  “Can I trust this”?, “Is there value in these positive everyday things like a roof over my head, my health, my less-than-perfect family, my job, this country, God, and those annoying people in those bleak rooms of AA”?

That was all it took for me to try trusting it for a day.  Or in some cases a minute.  It was drudgery, but to whatever degree I could, I did it.  And I sought help doing it.  Any time my thoughts tried to pull me down the sewer, I would muster all that was within me, and redirect toward the positive, and ask for help doing so if I absolutely had to.

Some say “Trying is lying”, meaning if you only try and not do, you are kidding yourself.  Well, the applications of this saying are limited.  Because try was all I could start with, and it worked.

What started as drudgery became like a trusted friend.  It became more familiar and more frequent.  I found I redirected more often, and many times without realizing it.  This was a process that took years and lots of support and learning.  I have talked about it, been counseled about it, blogged about it, read about it, shared about it.

Then, on a morning like this morning, awakened by the remnant of my dark thinking, trying to tell me numerous negative things, without even realizing it, I simply said, “Ya, ya, whatever” to those voices and went out to my office to connect to some positive thinking.

I didn’t even realize it til I got to the office that the choice was barely conscious.  It was mostly habit.  I even made a pot of coffee on the way.

So what was once insurmountable, and kept me in bed depressed for days, and on an occasion or two, hospitalized, has grown through a phase of painful discipline and eventually to a level of virtually effortless habit.  Wow… that is a lot to be grateful for!

Yet here we are in 2013 and this is nothing new. How many years ago was it that someone wrote, “… whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—keep thinking about these things”?

Wow… this stuff is finally becoming real!  And helping me in a time when my family and I need it the most.

Ciao.

Chaz

Giving

Thanks to all who contributed to the dialogue of my last post about me being blasted by a fellow AA member.

The topic of contention between us was the 7th Tradition of AA, which is to do with giving financially to AA.  Or more accurately stated, members taking responsibility for the costs of running our own meetings and not looking to outside support to do so.

I feel this is a brilliant tradition and practice for an organization such as ours.  It keeps us free of being tainted by the influence of outside donors who may wish to weave in agenda of their own by their financial influence.  Whether it be gifts in cash or in kind such as free meeting space, coffee, supplies, etc.

I had shared in the meeting, and it was intended for the ears of the newcomer, that the 7th Tradition (contributing to the passing basket… typically some change or a few dollars) was not required.  Our tradition specifically states that “Every A.A. group ought to be fully self–supporting, declining outside contributions”.

Another tradition states that, “The only REQUIREMENT for membership is a desire to stop drinking”.  Both of these are straight from the second most widely read piece of AA literature, specifically, the Twelve Traditions, and in my view are unambiguous.

I often clarify this as I would not want a newcomer to be turned off by simply another institution that is after his money.  Which is the culture many of us have experienced “out there”, especially if we were in the drug world.  People are constantly trying to shake you down and rip you off.

So I often emphasize to newcomers that we are here for you, and ask nothing other than a desire to stop drinking.

Now, as we mature as AA members, I think we OUGHT TO require of ourselves to support the very efforts, people, and organization who helped us get sober and sane.  I believe this is a universal principle and that to not do so would hinder our growth.  But it is a choice each of us OUGHT TO make individually and not be required to do.  Or so the traditions state.

And to take it further, I do believe that if a person is in the rooms and gaining from AA or any other organization without giving is essentially a free-loader… unless of course unable due to mental or physical restrictions.  Does free-loading really indicate any maturity spiritually, socially, or any other way?

In my experience, compelling AA members to give comes better in private dialogues.  preferably between mature members and newer members, or better yet, sponsor-sponsee.

How many of us have been turned off religious and charity leaders who coerce, campaign, and manipulate the public for donations?  Is this really effective?  I’m thinking not.  So why would it be any different in AA?

So my friends, that is what the bone of contention was about the other night.  I simply stated for the sake of the newcomers that we only wanted to help them if they had a desire and that payment into our 7th Tradition basket was not a requirement.

The old timer felt differently and felt compelled to identify my specific point and essentially reprimand me and it.

But is this a surprise?  Is money not a sensitive issue?  Is this sensitivity not the very reason AA does not accept outside contributions?

Perhaps we ought to consider the topic of money alongside politics and religion as dangerous areas to bring up in social settings.

Who knows.

Thoughts?