Energy Work

I began researching recovery about 5 years ago.  Two and a half years ago, I began really working it hard.
My recovery work has included reading books, watching clips and movies, writing, journaling, reading scriptures, receiving Priesthood blessings, regular meetings with my Bishop, working the Healing Through Christ 12-step program with a sponsor, and attending meetings via phone or online, reading through the church's 12-steps and attending meetings when possible -leading them in my hometown when anyone showed up, working the s-anon 12-steps with a sponsor, attending Addo recovery's 6-week free program and doing the homework, attending counseling, attending group counseling, working through some of LifeStar (I work the workbooks on my own from time to time), praying, praying, praying, dailies and who knows what else?

I have been BUSY.  I can safely say that my life is worked around recovery.

As Danny is moving back in and we're trying to figure out how this all works again, I quit teaching piano lessons and slowed my life WAY down.

I have NOT been working on my physical body.  Not even a little.  I've been so busy working on my mental, spiritual and emotional health that the physical stuff just fell.
I'm really all right with that because my faulty beliefs about my body were so powerful that I believe had I worked on my physical health, it would have come from a place of loathing rather than a place of love and compassion.

I was excited to notice a few months ago that God was prompting me to start taking care of my BODY.  It somehow marked -in my mind -progress!  If God felt I was ready to work on my body, I must be READY TO WORK ON MY BODY.
I started out slow: detoxing through drinks and baths, switching out my deoderant for a more natural aluminum-free option, buying new razors (when does THAT ever happen?)...

I went to the store with $50 and spent it all on myself and bought 2 new shirts, among other things.
I buy myself fresh flowers to keep on my piano as well.

I began drinking more water, adding in daily walks.  I started emailing my best friend (who works in a health-related field) what I was eating everyday, and she challenged us both to go without sugary treats Monday-Friday.
So I basically went from eating primarily sugary treats to eating FOOD (at least 5 days out of 7, anyway).

Still, the struggles are here.  I work on self-care A LOT, and I work on recovery A LOT and still I find that I struggle.  Does that mean I'm doing it right? or wrong?
I think it simply means that I'M DOING IT, and when you actively put your mind and shoulder to the wheel, it's a struggle.

I've gone from feeling so much love for Danny to feeling like I can't live with him in a matter of minutes.  My anxiety has returned full force and depression is starting to eek it's way back into my life.

It's almost like... Danny got sober -REALLY sober, I mean (he quit actively seeking out lust hits for a year and a half now.  And he's almost 3 years sober from porn, I think.  I'm not totally certain because I don't keep track like he does) -and NOW the hard stuff is happening.

Isn't that bizarre?  You'd think getting sober WAS the hard stuff.  It's not.  This we now know, and this we now hate.

As I lost my mind two weekends ago, I decided I needed to REST.  I figuratively sat down on the mountain climb and just rested.  And then I went to get a massage and my massage therapist does "Body Talk" which is energy work.  I felt God wanted me to have it done, so I signed up and went.

My massage was wonderful -being touched is something I crave.
The Body Talk was fascinating, and I can now see that along with 12-stepping and therapy and spiritual guidance... it's going to be an integral part of my recovery.  My Body need HEALING.

As she worked on me, she uncovered:
*My difficulty with nightmares which is a sign of a greater underlying issue.
*That issue -she found -is death. 
*My body required "switching" which means that I'd had so much stress and stimuli coming IN to my body that it just flipped a breaker and shut down.
*I am not processing stimuli correctly.  Probably because I'm on overload.
*There are elements in our cells (fire, water, metal...) and my cells are on FIRE.  They were begging for more water.  "Fire is intellect and wisdom," she said, "And water is listening... things like that.  That's strange.  Usually this doesn't happen."
"No," I said, "That sounds about right.  I'm guzzling info and not listening to anyone AT ALL."
*There is a thick matrix of betrayal around my heart... it is very deep, and present on many levels.  She said it was from Danny, but as she worked on me she found that it ran deeper than Danny. 
"This has been here all your life.  Things have happened in your life to bring this out, and it is also ancestral.  When you already come with something like this -a betrayal matrix -and then it manifests itself in your life, it is disturbing and so hard to heal from."

Her words were SO VALIDATING. 
I struggle and I work SO HARD to recover, and I was starting to think something was completely wrong with me.  But knowing my ancestral history, I believe I DID already come equipped with betrayal issues.

I've been doing some of the exercises she sent me home with, and it is changing a few things.  I'm excited to see how it helps, and I am certain that it will.

I'm still laying off sugary snacks on weekdays (and I've lost a few inches and A LOT of water retention), trying to drink more water, walking daily.
I'm giving my body sun and fresh air instead of giving myself a thinner body -does that make sense?

I can see that energy work -Body Talk for me -can be a necessary tool in recovery, and I'm grateful to have landed on it.
My body is giving me a lot of information right now, and I'm trying to be still and listen.

Why S-anon

I was asked a few times yesterday why I choose s-anon, so I'm posting one answer here to link to... all wrapped up and ready to link to whenever I need it!

The first recovery material I ever picked up was Colleen Harrison's "From Heartache to Healing."  So far as I could tell -or as Google would tell me at the time -it was the ONLY thing out there for women on the butt-end of the sex addiction stick.  Her words poured into my parched soul for a whole... FEW pages.
And then they started saying things like:
You can't control this.
You have to let go.
Try a 12-step group.

 

So I just discarded those ideas.  They felt SO SO wrong.  They went AGAINST everything I'd been doing!
When I finally did attend a support group,  I went with the intent purpose to simply sit next to women who knew my pain.  I didn't want to work the steps. I just wanted some friends.
They sent me home with a Healing Through Christ manual.  I only read it when I went to group -which wasn't every week because it was a 45 minute drive away to a completely different town.

In that place, I was ONLY ready to face my husband's issues and how they applied to me.

I was only ready to feel victimization, pain, anger... everything that could be traced back to HIM.
HIS choices.
HIS shame.
HIS addiction.

And that's okay.  It was where I needed to be.  I needed to feel those emotions, and I DID feel them.  Truly and thoroughly and sincerely.
I continued to attend group without working the steps, but each week my shell began to crack a little here and a little there.  As I STUCK WITH  IT... going, even though it was something totally against what I'd ever done before... the Spirit spoke to me in small, quiet ways.
Soon, I was reading the manual at home.  Surely, there could be no harm in simply READING.  It didn't equate to WORKING the steps.
I maintained I didn't need the steps because it was my husband's addiction.  Not mine, thankyouverymuch.

It didn't take long for the questions to look appealing... I would read them and realize that I had answers, and they were really applicable to me.
Before I knew it, I was working steps 1, 2, and 3.  At that point, I began finding support online from women working the steps.

Hope and Healing Forum
Blogging


This entire WORLD opened up to me where I began blogging and leaning about TRAUMA.
TRAUMA!

It was SUCH AN ANSWER to prayer.  To find trauma!  Feeling trauma fit right into my healing schedule of blaming my husband for EVERYTHING.
He did it to me, so I was more that ready to find healing.  Even as I educated myself, I was a victim.

Again, THAT'S OKAY.  It's where I needed to be.

 

I worked AddoRecovery, and a sponsor found me.  I completed steps 4,5,6, and 7 with my sponsor.
I was beyond excited!
A SPONSOR!  Alone, I made it through three steps over the course of a 2 years.  With a sponsor, I knocked out 4 steps in the course of a few months!

A few months prior to my finding a sponsor, I began to do something I'd never FULLY done before... I looked in the mirror.
I didn't glance or shy away or retreat... I figuratively stood full-form and stark nakedly in front of the mirror and LOOKED AT MYSELF. 
I didn't put my husband in front of me and ask him to please notice his addiction and how it was hurting me.
I stood there myself and stared in wonder and the WHY of me... the WHO of me... the WHAT of me.

Why was I hurting in specific ways?
Why did I find myself learning the same lessons over and over again?
Who am I, really?
What do I like?
WHAT CAN I DO?  FOR ME?

Steps 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 helped me decode these patterns, helped me to see myself in a mirror with the light of Christ shining down on me.
And as I flew through them, I found myself wanting MORE.  Healing Through Christ was great.
AddoRecovery was good and educational.
Betrayal Trauma brought some good light on my path, but it didn't light the ENTIRE WAY.

That's when I picked up the phone and called someone who had walked this path, someone without a license but with experience.  Someone who was actively working what they taught.
And that someone told me about s-anon.

 

With s-anon I found a cleaner and bigger mirror.  It was bold and honest and TALKED BACK.  It gave me what I needed in the same gritty and satisfying way a good, solid hike does.

Had someone given me an s-anon manual when I picked up that first book by Colleen Harrison, I would have trashed it, wholly and completely.  I wasn't ready to look in the mirror.

But now I am.
Now I am.

And s-anon is specific and simple.  It's approachable. 
It's taught me about surrender more than anything else, and practicing the surrender process has brought me PEACE.

S-anon is not a therapy program to be worked and rehearsed, it is a guideline to God, mapped out and ear marked and highlighted.  There's others on the pathway waiting to walk with you: men, children, other beautiful and wonderful women!

Reading the s-anon manual might make the reader feel broken and can feel somewhat offensive if you're still in a very painful place, but I would only ask that -if you are interested -you stay with it for a few weeks: attend at LEAST 6 meetings before you dump it.

In everything I've tried, this pathway has held more truth, more clarity, more light, more hope, more peace than any of them.

And THAT is why I choose s-anon.  God wants me here.

Questions? 
Get started HERE at SA Lifeline -it's a great resource and jumping off point.  I prefer the SA Lifeline website to the sanon website! 

Here's a link to an article addressing the question, "Why do I need the 12-steps" with a link to finding meetings in different areas.