Congrats and I hope you have a great day :) :smiley_aaxn::bye:
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Hi Everyone,
I am new to the board. I am looking for support. I am in my 40s, completely alone, and still drinking -- and want to stop. Is there a chat room on this site for non-12 step? I'm not able to see how I can access it. I decided to check this site out, because SMART has been of no help to me at all (I'm not looking for a chat room to talk about anything and everything and to fit in -- just support in saying NO I'm not going to drink. Lots of recent tragedies in my life, but the drinking has always been a problem. It's late, and I will try to sleep now. Thanks.
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Geez, it's March already. Looking for some signs of Spring here, but can't even find my driveway with all this snow!
Hopefully we'll be celebrating March with some nice pictures from cody and Fifi's vacations. :yeah: At least someone is having a good time~
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Suffering...? Just thinking a bit here...
Buddhism teaches the impermanence of life, of feeling, of thought, and that change is the only constant. This fundamental principal of Buddhism seems very practical to me, and when I truly embrace it, I can shorten "suffering".
Toward that end, "mindfulness" has been helping me a great deal this week: focusing TOTALLY on what I am doing, how I "feel" about it, whether I am bored, content, awfulizing...or spending valuable time with magical thinking that somehow the moment "should" be different (usually according to some long-held notion that either needs to be tossed or at least adjusted).
I am lonely, as an example, but it is really a product of my mind saying "others" are not lonely, but I have nothing! I like to cling to what I have had in the past which is gone, but I want to believe that it can be recreated or found again.
This so obscures the truth that a whole world surrounds me, and I leave no room for it by clinging to what "has been" or "should be". Thus nothing new or different can enter my life, let alone stay long enough for me to embrace it.
To be mindful, and thus relieve loneliness or other negative "feelings" I think i need to recognize my interconnectedness with the world: not easy to feel always, all the time, but that doesn't mean I won't feel it again. A sure way to delay feeling it again is for me to LABEL myself lonely, unloved, "unhappy" and believe that there is no possibility of change. Silly, because feelings are so short-lived (I love Missy's? avatar that says a "mood swing" is coming in --? minutes).
If I get "stuck", my "suffering" continues. For me, I think, I need to understand that I don't NEED (people, animals, situations, ...especially what I cannot bring back) to feel love and interconnectedness (yes, I PREFER it). But if I get rid of the idea of "need" my mind feels "cleansed" and ready for new feelings and connections to enter.
We as humans do crave intimacy (we are tribal, after all!) and we have a great capacity for loving and to be loved, but the surest way for this not to happen is to impede the "flow" of life, I hope to practice experiencing life as it comes and neither anchor myself nor fight the current...
Gianna
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