Dealing With Loss

Last Saturday, May 5, I had to put my little Silva cat to sleep.  I had written in a previous blog about Silva not doing well and coming back when I did some energy work on her.  That, sadly, did not happen this time; she was ready to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

I believe on some level I knew this was coming; I think that knowledge had a lot to do with my depression and total lack of motivation for the previous month.  Also, the last couple of days I just knew it was my last time grooming her and that I should take more pictures because I didn't have long left with her.

Then, last Saturday morning, she just went downhill very quickly, could hardly stand and wouldn't even let me hold her for long.  I knew it was time to make the call to the vet.

Honestly, this is the first time in my 4+ years of sobriety that I really considered drinking.  I mean, I've had passing thoughts of it, but never anything where I really had it planned out.  And this time, I really had it planned out.

I was going to have Silva put down, go home, work as a tarot reader at a fundraiser I had promised to do, go to work the overnight shift at my full-time job, then spend Sunday drunk.  I could have picked up a bottle in between the fundraiser and work and been in oblivion all day Sunday.

For a couple of hours that actually seemed like a really good solution.  You would think that with four years of sobriety I'd know better, and eventually I did, but not for a while. 

Then again, that is the way that I dealt with pain for many years, so its only logical that it would appear as an option to me.

What stopped me from actually drinking?? It wasn't any deep-seated belief that I can never drink again.  I have never given myself that limitation.  Drinking is always an option for me in my mind,  mainly because I have my father's mindset, that if you tell me I can't do something, well, you can be damn sure I'll find a way to do it.   It's the consequences of having that drink that I'm not willing to accept; and that, together with how far I've come since I got sober, is what worked to keep me from drinking.

I know that I was the absolute best mama I could have been to Silva, and no kitty has ever been more loved than she was with me.  I also know that that would never have been possible if I'd been drinking.   Although I always did my best for my animals and they were never abused, I reached a point in my drinking that I couldn't take care of myself or them properly.

As much as I will miss and mourn Silva, she deserves a better memorial than me being a drunk-and useless to myself, Googles-my other cat, and anyone or anything else.  It honestly feels like it would be an insult to Silva, to let her loss stop me from improving myself and being the best person I can be. 

So, I will mourn Silva for as long as it takes, but I will also move on and remember her with love and joy.

Blessed Be!

Grief and Grieving-Pagan Blog Project

Any powerful emotion can be used to help motivate us.   These emotions can help us to take our lives and/or attitudes in new directions, to give us purpose or motivation, even to strengthen out spells.

Grief is undeniably one of the strongest of emotions there is.  Its potential to cause great harm or great good is almost unlimited. 

We can wallow in grief and use it negatively: indulging in drugs or self-pity, anger, and lashing out at others. 

Or we can use it to motivate ourselves to become better people or to change something that needs changing.

I am finding grief to be very effective in breaking through emotional blocks to contacting and working with my ancestors.  Like most people, I'm not real fond of everyone in my family, and some of them I really didn't want to spend a lot of time with when they were alive, so obviously, I haven't wanted to contact them now that they're not with us anymore.

But part of grief, at least for me, is regret and wondering what I could have done better.  In wondering that, I wonder if those who have passed over have regrets and wish they had done things differently while they were on this plane. 

For me, this has broken down some barriers I've had about contacting certain family members who have passed over.  I'm going to be taking a class in mediumship to help me learn to contact those on the other side better.

Right now I can feel the presence of some family members at times, though only those that I always felt close to; but I have a hard time communicating with them. I can pick up feelings that they are sending me, such as love and sympathy, but I can't seem to receive messages from them.  And as for initiating contact on my own, forget it! I definitely need help learning how to do these things.

So, my grief at the passing of my little cat, Silva, and the love and sympathy I have felt around me from family members (human ones) I have already lost will hopefully lead me to real communication with those on the other side, both animal and human. 

Blessed Be! . 

Perspective and Possibilites

This is something that is always hard for me to do, keep perspective when I'm looking at all the things I want to do.

Recently I've been having trouble staying motivated to do anything, but with the help of some carefully crafted spells that lethargic period is rapidly falling behind me.  I took my first Martial Arts class last nite and will be taking my second one today!

I sometimes feel that because there is so little time in the day, I will never get everything done that I want to do.  Then I remember how long the day can be when I'm lying in bed recovering from a drinking binge; that's when I realize how much I can do in any given day.

Partially because of my depression, I have a bad habit if I do a few things on my to-do list of thinking I can just take the rest of the day and veg out watching TV or reading.   Now don't get me wrong, vegging out sometimes is a great idea, everybody should do it regularly!   I just need to remind myself that if I've done 3 or 4 things on my list by noon, there is still a lot of time in the day to do more things. 

If I can keep myself motivated like that, I can accomplish so much more than I think I can.  The only thing holding me back is me!!

This applied when I was drinking.  I knew I was the only thing standing between me and sobriety, but I had taken the easy solution and just accepted that I was a drunk and all the consequences that went with that.  Thank the Goddess those days are behind me!

Its funny though how I still have the mindset that holds me back.  When I look at all the things I want to learn about, I sometimes feel so hopeless-I'll never be good at all that stuff.  But when I can get my mind in the right place then I know that I can learn about all of those things.  Which, if any, of them I become good at is just a matter of which ones I have an affinity for and which ones hold my interest.  ( I've noticed I'm generally not very good at things that don't interest me).

Well that's all for today.  With my new-found dedication to making the most of the day I must  leave now for my second martial arts lesson!! Then lots of apartment cleaning, rune studying and tarot readings!!

Blessed Be!

Anniversaries, Sobiety, & Spells

I have never been a big fan of celebrating my sobriety anniversary.  For a lot of years it was an excuse to drink-“Well, I’ve been sober this long I deserve one”!!

So, I’ve just been keeping my anniversary date in the back of my mind and if it crossed my consciousness I would look at where I was before I got sober and where I am now.   That, for me, is a lot more motivating than just having x amount of time sober.

This year, however, my anniversary seems to have set off some serious depression in me.  I just have had no motivation for the last couple of weeks.  I have made it to my full time job and that’s about it-no blogging, no working the psychic line, no much of anything else.

I guess, looking at it, there are probably several reasons for this.  My oldest cat Silva, is old (18 years) and probably not going to be around much longer, its been 8 years since my father passed (the date of his passing is very close to my anniversary), its been about 7 years since I had any contact with my family (my doing, not theirs), and I, again, am not that fond of celebrating my anniversary anyway.

Naturally, the longer I feel this way the harder it is to dig my way out of it.  I’m behind on blogs, behind on money, had to postpone starting my Mixed Martial Arts class because I couldn’t motivate myself to go, and we won’t even mention the amount of cleaning that needs doing. LOL

Scarily enough, as I see these things get more behind, and realize it’s only my own lack of motivation that is causing this, I feel eerily like I did when I drank. Like my life is totally out of control and that even though I know what I need to do to fix it, I find myself incapable of doing that, of just doing what needs to be done.

This is one of those times when I cast a spell to help with my sobriety.  I know from sad experience that spells alone will not keep me sober, but I also know from happy experience that they can help me through the rough spots.

I did a spell to banish my lethargy and depression last week, and since then I have put in some hours on the psychic line, done quite a bit of cleaning (still a lot to go-sadness), and now I’m back to blogging.

I personally find spells and magick to be one of the most important tools I can use to help me stay sober.  For me personally, talking to someone about anything like this feels like I’m whining and then I just feel worse about myself.  Many times talking to someone helps me feel better, but when it comes to my depression, talking about it just makes me feel worse.

So, when necessary, I’ll use a little magick to banish the blues and keep me going in the right direction. And that's all I'm really trying for right now; is to keep going, no matter how slowly, in the right direction.

Flexibility

Lately, I have been finding flexibility, especially in my attitude, to be invaluable in my sobriety.

It really doesn't do any good to be too firm in my goals or expectations.  I've found that just being open to what comes my way and accepting it gives me far more peace of mind than if I truly plan on something happening and am disappointed when it doesn't work out.

Over the past couple of weeks I had looked into the idea of starting a local Pagan Support Group.  I really didn't hear from very many people that were interested but I decided to have a first meeting just to see who might show up anyway.  One person said they couldn't make it due to illness and no one else showed up.

At one time, I would have taken this very personally and felt hurt for weeks.  Last Friday, I was strangely relieved.  I have my full-time job, I'm still building my psychic business, I would like to move by the end of the summer, I'm taking 3 correspondence courses and I return to school at the end of May.  Somehow,  I knew that the lack of interest was just the Goddess' way of letting me know I have enough on my plate right now.

She was not done with me yet though.  Apparently, she felt another lesson in flexibility was required.  I have been looking forward to returning to school full time over the summer.  I was planning on taking mainly online classes and pulling 14 credit hours.  This is not meant to be!!LOL

My apartment building has a very high turnover and several of the newer tenants fight often, and vocally, and in the common areas so everyone hears them.  Now, lately they've been fighting more frequently!! Mornings, afternoons, evenings, even later at nite!  Frequently!! I do sleep afternoons and frequently their arguing will wake me up.  Have I mentioned they fight frequently?!!

So on Thursday, after being awoken yet again, I decided it was time to change my priorities.  I am still returning to school in the summer, but instead of taking 5 on line classes, I'm taking 2.  I have rearranged my fall schedule to include more online classes and less class time, also taking one less class so that I can free up some school money to use to relocate sooner.

Not so very long ago, having to change things like this would have made me feel like a failure.  I would have very much felt like I should have just been able to work even more hours and come up with the extra money to move sooner while maintaining the class load I had wanted to take.  Even a year ago, I would have tried to do it all, instead of just adjusting my priorities.

Last year, I still felt like I had to do everything and do it now.   Fortunately, as my sober time increases my perspective keeps changing.  Everything doesn't have to be done right now.  I'll still be back in school for the summer, going part time is fine.  Its the fact that I'm going, not how many credit hours I take that is important.  If I decide to cut my fall hours to part time to accommodate other interests,  that'll be okay too.

I just have to be open to what comes my way and know that everything will work out as its meant to.  The Goddesses and Gods are there to help and support me, both on the journey I would like to take, and on the one that I am meant to take!!

Blessed Be!

Self-Improvement

This is something I struggle with daily.  There are so many things about myself that I would like to work on, become better at, learn about, whatever and just not enough hours in the day. Worse yet, there is no spell to add hours to the day!!

I am always trying to do the mundane things: exercise more, eat better, clean my apartment daily, meditate daily, daily ritual.  The problem is time.  I work a very nearly full-time job, I'm still working on building up my tarot readings, I don't drive so that's an extra 3.5 hours on every shift I work in the office instead of at home plus extra time for errands, I go back to school full-time the end of the summer, and I have to make a special effort to spend time with people outside of work because I am great at isolating myself.

I've always been a loner, even as a child I was very happy shut up in my room reading rather than being outside playing with friends.  Now this probably has a lot to do with the fact that my depression most likely dates back to childhood but preferring to be alone has always been a big part of me.

So, I make an effort to reach out every day and spend at least some time with people that I'm  not dealing with as part of work.  Many days its just spending the time before my shift starts at work chatting with coworkers instead of reading or just walking outside to avoid being with people.  Some days it means forcing myself to leave my apartment, even if I just go to the store and pick up a newspaper or bottle of soda.

I actually do like the people I choose to spend time with, that's why I chose them, but it is frequently still an effort to not just hide away when I'm not working.  Making this effort every day, and spending time with other people has gotten easier for me over the months and years I've been doing it. 

I have been feeling very drained lately and I know that it is because I have been neglecting myself in other matters.  So, beginning today I start working on some of my other self-improvement goals.

Daily meditation, daily exercise, eating better and remembering to take my vitamins are all on the top of the list.  I'm hoping if I make these things a priority instead of a when I think of it, if I have time at that moment, kind of priority then I will have not just more energy but will feel better about myself.

I know when I force myself out of the house, frequently kicking and screaming mentally, I always feel better for it; so I'm hoping these things work the same way.  And ok, I'm also hoping the daily exercise part means I can wear skimpy tops all summer without any possibility of a gut or even a muffin-top.

We'll see what happens!

Blessed Be!

Support Groups

I've been doing a lot of thinking about support groups lately.  I had been tossing around the idea of starting a local pagan support group and now have the extra time in my schedule to do that. 

I know  a lot of pagans really aren't comfortable at AA with their focus on a "higher power" that really fits the Judeo-Christian idea of a higher power.  I am one of those people who just couldn't seem to fit in with the AA people at the meetings I tried.  I just didn't feel like my beliefs were accepted and valued as were the more mainstream beliefs.

I also tried Save Our Sobriety where I felt much more comfortable.  This is a sober support group for atheists and agnostics basically.  They try to do sober without any reference to a higher power.  I was more comfortable here than at AA, I didn't feel like an outsider at the SOS meetings, but I did want someplace where it was acceptable to talk about my faith and its role in my sobriety.

So what I am hoping to do, is start up a Pagan Support Group that is a combination of the best of both of these programs.  Since so many people who suffer from substance abuse issues also have some type of mental or emotional imbalance I want those who feel that is their primary issue to feel welcome.  There are also many who have suffered from abuse, I want them to feel welcome also.

I'm hoping to establish a group that is there to support people trying to get better, regardless of their tradition or even whether or not they actively practice.  I really would like a group that will help us to help ourselves without judging or preaching at each other; one that is not a meat market, one that people don't use just as a place to come dump how unhappy they are even though they're not really trying to change.  I know, a certain amount of that is bound to happen, but hopefully very little.

Our first meeting is tonite, just so I can see how many people are interested and what type of group everyone else is looking for.  Goddess willing, we'll all be able to help each other and give each other strength.

Blessed Be!

That would be the ideal.  Now if we can just start a group like that