Steps on the Road to Recovery

Steps On the Road to Recovery for 9 to 15 November 1998.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my second year anniversary since starting this site. Page Down for the next days that are added a day at a time. I have moved to http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com and this daily page is now here at https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/daily.htm . I would appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions that you have.

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What I am going through now is the DSM-III-R Desk Reference a "disorder" at a time and commenting on the spiritual and recovery aspects. The DSM is what the American Psychiatric Association uses to label symptoms to facilitate communication in their community. Unfortunately, the labeling from the DSM can shut down communication with those seeking temporary assistance and spread the stigmas of mental illness. The DSM can also bring some comfort by telling some that others have had the same experience. I am adding additional comfort by pointing to some ways to start getting out of the "disorders". I am not writing about cures. I am writing about how the cure process works over time. Instantaneous cures can be as traumatic as the original event that generated the disorder or illness. Instantaneous cures do not do us any good when we get the same disorder back since we have not changed the thought system that caused the disorder in the first place.

9 November 1998

Last week I was continuing writing about some of the symptoms of Generalized

Anxiety Disorder [GAD]and some hints on what to do at first. What one does later

is a matter of how much we are getting in contact with our intuition and guidance

from our lord most high within. I ended the week with one of the generic processes

to transform our upset symptoms into a better life. I took the nine generic personalities

of the enneagram and gave a forgiveness statement for each. It helps to do all nine

since we have aspects of all nine.

Today we can do an affirmation for getting unstuck in what ever levels we are

stuck in for each of the nine aspects.

I am going to keep this simple. The blessing in disguise is that I may have lost

some work I did that is more complex.

The ritual words are:

I am an enlightened ___________. or I am becoming an enlightened ____________.

The nine blanks to fill in are:

1. Inner Critic.

2. Inner Mother.

3. Inner Creator.

4. Inner Actor.

5. Scholar.

6. Inner Child.

7. Clown.

8. Inner Father.

9. Inner Coach.

10 November 1998

The next secret hint is the third step in this process. We have forgiven

the names of where we are stuck. We have proclaimed the promised land

of where we are going. Now we need to track where we are. One of the

best ways out of denial is to track where we are. Where we are and the

trends of where we are going gives us some hints on how to get where we

want to go. As we get on our road to recovery we run into the roadblocks

we have built in our minds. Sort of like the mines in our minds.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to use the enneagram matrices

here to rate where we are on our road to recovery. All we need to do

is to give each level a number from 1 to 9 and to plot where we are

at some frequency. When we are in a hurry, daily will do. When we

are more patient, monthly will do. Weekly is reasonable.

Actually we are plotting a band of levels. We usually do not just

stay on one level. We usually span levels. All we are looking for

is just an upward trend. At first we may experience some downward

oscillation, but that is just part of a normal process of getting started.

Sort of like a test of do we really want to go up the levels and lead a

better life.

11 November 1998

The last step for each of the nine types is to just ask our wisest

aspect, what can I do today to improve my levels. The challenge

is to be aware of what the answers are. In the enneagram matrices

here the top levels make find affirmations by themselves. We have

spent a lot of time making negative affirmations in the past and one

way to overcome this past is to continue to make positive statements

about ourselves to balance the equations. When we see what the top

levels are it gives us a vision of what we can be lifted to. This is not

all about us doing something to get better. The other side of the coin

is to let ourselves get better. Both sides support each other. That

way we take all of ourselves to the kingdom of peace.

12 November 1998

Continuing the break from the "disorders" of the DSM today can be

fun when we look at the subject of free and freedom. Grace and healing

come free, it is just sometimes that we need to pay to get into the lines

where grace and healing are. They are grace and healing when they are

making a better life for us.

Free is something of value, only when we can use that free thing to our

advantage and advancement. Today I ran into an index I like on free web

things at http://www.freeindex.com/. I am adding this reference to my page

on doing web pages. I also will be starting a free stuff page starting with

this index.

There is nothing wrong in trying what is free, first. Sometimes what is free

can be paid for simply because some one has done the work to save us a lot

of time in putting the free stuff together. When you have the time and you are

enjoying the search, more power to you and me.

13 November 1998

Now back to the "disorders" of the DSM with "300.70 Hypochondriasis

(or Hypochondriacal Neurosis)". This is where we have a fear of having a

disease and there is no physical confirmation, and yet we keep our fear. Is

this the only area that this pattern exists? Certainly not. Sometime we fear

we do not look good enough, are not smart enough, are not rich enough, and

so on and no matter how much someone assures us that we are enough, we

do not trust their opinion. The theme that is in common is a fear that we are

not good enough and that we can not trust others or ourself.

Not thinking that we are good enough is a form of spiritual unworthiness.

Not trusting others or ourselves is a form of spiritual unworthiness. All that

I have been writing here for years is telling how to discover or learn to

believe that we are worthy enough. All of the spiritual paths are about

discovering who we really are. The unique thing about the Master Jesus

was that he atoned for all of us and made us worthy in God's eyes. So we

are all worthy children of the most high. The most high knows that we are

doing the best with what we are conscious of. As we realize these facts

we realize we are worthy. Then we can go on to realize that we are good

enough for today.

14 November 1998

Today it is "300.81 Somatization Disorder". This is where we have

at least 13 of 35 physical symptoms for several years after age 30. As I

have written before, there are levels of anything and there could be a range

of 1 symptom of any level to all 35 symptoms at a high level. Like

Hypochondriasis above, the doctors can not find a physical cause and the

patient is concerned enough to take some remedy and or change their life

style. Symptoms are significant and need to be paid attention to and we

need to verify medically that there really is no physical cause that can be

cured.

The first symptom is vomiting. We could ask ourselves what do we

really want to vomit from our life? Perhaps are vomiting from our guts.

What are our guts telling us? What is in our lives that we have not digested?

The second symptom is abdominal pain. We could ask ourselves what

gives us a pain in the stomach? What is it we can not stomach?

The third symptom is nausea. What are we nauseous about?

The fourth symptom is "bloating (gassy)". What gives us gas? What are

we bloating ourselves with?

The fifth symptom is diarrhea. What shit in our lives do we really want

to get rid of?

The sixth symptom is intolerance of foods, this is the last of the gastrointestinal

symptoms. What is it about this food that reminds us of something we are not

tolerating? Note that all of this group of symptoms have to do with something that

we are not tolerating well in our lives. We can become more tolerant by forgiving

the names of what we are calling "them" and ourselves and God. As we become

more tolerant, we may still discern better that we need to change our life style in

some ways and see what happens to our symptoms.

15 November 1998

I have written this one from time to time, because I get reminded from time

to time from my unconscious. I write unconscious, because I was not conscious

of what was going to happen. In a variety of ways I managed to loose access to

my main computer's hard drive and only had recent backups of most files. I then

had to repartition and reformat my drives. Then I got to reload all my programs

and reinitiate the cards in my computer.

The major blessing in disguise is that I get to start over again. Starting over

again is something to do each morning. The next blessing in disguise is that there

is a lot of stuff I will NOT have to go through to find value in it. I will either find

something better or be reminded to do something better, like backups, file

organization, change my procedures, change my on line work here. One thing

I plan to do is to add a quick response form in a week or so to this daily page

to make it easier for comments and for sign ups for my monthly e-mail. I would

appreciate a note from any of those that requested my monthly e-mail since 26

August. The last blessings in disguise is that I got to learn more about my

computer and now it works twice as fast and I have more room in my

Windows 95 drive. There are probably more blessings, but this is enough

for me for now. Good enough for today.

I foster Discovery and Recovery and the Life of Your Dreams,

Michael Foster, M. A.

Mental Health Coach

"Learn HOW to recovery by discovering the blocks you need to remove and the actions you need to take and what you need to let go of as your blocks to your blessings."

From my book in process, The Spiritual Cookbook (Generic Recipes for a Better Life)

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I started my daily page, because it is useful for me to look for some recovery tip or secret each day for my spiritual growth. we and I only need one secret to work on and let it work on me each day. They are secrets because they are usually the opposite of what the majority of society teaches. They must be secret because they are not commonly used. A friend of mine once said "Common Sense is not much in Common.". Now that I have grandchildren I am also writing for them. I would have really liked for my grandparents to have passed on what they learned.

I am including Sunday as it is my formal day of learning the lord most high's secrets. If you would like ask questions, or contribute some of your wisdom, or want to make some comments or want to vote for which day to put on my tip of the month page or tell your success stories, click Michael Foster, M. A.