Grateful for a homegroup…

After several days of spending time home alone, I made it to a meeting today.  My 'home group' meets on Sunday nights at a local church.  We have a nice room with plenty of parking, nice bathrooms and a good size kitchen area in a great location in downtown Bellevue.

I am grateful for meetings in general and for my home group in particular.  It is a one hour meeting focused on studying the 12 steps in order 1-12, 1-12 and so on.  I have been going there for 6 years and so have been through the steps with the group 25 times.   While I like arcane topics as much as the next ADD philosopher, it is very good to remind myself what the program is about and how it works.  We recently started studying a tradition one night each month.

Things I like about the others in my home group is how we do a good job of keeping our sharing short so that usually everybody can share, that out of the 15+ regular attendees a dozen of us have been going to that meeting for 5-8 years.   That has the effect of making it 'our' meeting.  We don't talk about it much, but it is an extremely service oriented meeting well represented at the District level and with lots of interaction between members on other days.  The ladies have a veritable hiking club.  The guys have a high level of cross-pollinated sponsorship.  The average length of recovery is well into double-digits.

I get a sense of safety, security and love when I am at that meeting.  I know I won't have to listen to someone blather on about their drunkalog due to how focused we are on our singleness of purpose.  We are there to work a program of recovery to the best of our ability.  I love the simplicity of that concept.  Left to my own best thinking, it would be more complex and completely unworkable.  It is good to have people much smarter than me teach me by example how to simplify  and live life like Thoreau.

Car Problems

My car has an electrical for the past month or two where the battery goes dead if I don't drive it every day.  I put in new battery.  That might have helped a bit, but the problem continued for another couple of weeks.  Lately, I was driving my car every day or two and was not having the dead battery problem.  This week I went three days without driving my car and the battery was dead when I went to start it today.   That sucked.

I am grateful for Ali's Auto Repair shop in Bellevue.  They have worked on my car since they opened the shop 4-5 years ago.  Ali's does good work at an honest price without trying to upsell me on unneeded repairs.  Weird electrical problems can be tough to diagnose exactly what the source of the problem is.

I am grateful that I do not have a nasty daily commute, that I do know where I will take it to get worked on and that I have the money to pay for the repairs when needed.  It was not always this way in my life.

Serenity

I have a new roommate. She is gone more than she is here. I saw her one afternoon in the last 12 days. I like the peace, tranquility and solitude of living alone. Social interactions get a lot more complicated when other people are in the room! ;)
 
I am grateful that I can afford to live alone in a nice 2 bedroom apartment in a good part of town. The location works really well for me. Almost everything I need is within a ten minute drive. When I want to go to the big city, most of Seattle is within a twenty minute drive. 

I ordered 3 more books on gratitude. One book is the most expensive not-textbook (for class) that I have ever purchased in my life. The Psychology of Gratitude was published in 2007. The new price on Amazon is $44.33, the used price is $43.98. Apparently those that bought the book really like it and don't resell it. 

I look forward to getting more gratitude. It has been a huge blessing in my life.

China's President Hu comes to DC

President Hu Jintao and President Obama at the White House 

I am grateful that we have more pragmatic and social political leaders that are willing to discuss issues in person rather than conduct a war of words from a distance. Talking is much cheaper than fighting over issues.
Since this is a blog about gratitude, I will not review a bunch of whining senators that want China to do 'fix' its monetary policy while they continue to run the US further into trillions of dollars of debt.

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."
Buddha

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.
Chinese proverb

Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude.
Confucius

Five things constitute perfect virtue: gravity, magnanimity, earnestness, sincerity and kindness.
Confucius

Saying Grace

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink." — G. K. Chesterton

   I started writing this early in the AM with the GKC quote. Now it is late in the evening and I did not get any further. I want to post something to be 'complete' with my journaling for the day. Fortunately for me, there is not a minimum size constraint for my gratitude blog.
   Actually, my preference is to write posts that are a few hundred words long for two reasons. One reason is to keep the posts readable and the other reason is so that I keep the journaling/blogging down to a pleasant manageable task that can be done in a timely fashion.
   Today I had lunch with Mark. We had a pleasant conversation and I gave him a ride back to his office. He is going to write a gratitude list. He carries a gratitude list in his pocket. That is a bit like me carrying a picture of me at the gym in my pocket. It is not nearly the same as working out, but it is better than nothing.
   I missed a couple of days of working out and have been back at it for the last two days. I am grateful for that. My workouts are 10-minutes on a hand-cycle. Naturally I would like them to be more robust, but that is infinitely better than doing nothing. Progress, not perfection.

Friends

 

One of the best blessings of my recovery is the quality and quantity of good friends that I have now. They are the best friend relationships that I have ever had in my life—by far and away. I do best with a routine. Lately my routine has been a walk and a meeting with Leslee on Sundays, afternoons with Charlie on Mondays and Fridays have dinner and a meeting with Sandy.

Thanks to the progress I have made with my abandonment issues, when one of them is busy with other activities, I can easily find an alternative if I am willing to pick up the phone. For example, Sandy went away for a 4-day weekend to see family on Friday. Carol was more than willing to serve as a stand-in for dinner and a movie when I called her.

Carol and I had a great time on Friday night. Dinner was at the Café Firenze with delicious Italian food. The movie was so-so. It was the Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D. I think it was based on a ginned-up story for the movie instead of being based on a book by CS Lewis like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. After the movie, we went to Barnes & Noble for a little book browsing.

There might have been a book on gratitude at B&N, but I did not see find it. I did find a nice leather-bound sheaf of lined paper about 8x10 inches that would be ideal for journaling. Carol found another journaling book that had 6 prompts for topics for each day. It (apparently) was supposed to be a two-year journal when the first year was written on the outside column and the second year was written on the inside column of each page. I got it for Carol as a belated Xmas gift. She committed to sending me an email after she journaled. So far, so good. It has been two three days and she has sent me two three emails (I just checked my email to find she had emailed me 5 minutes ago that she had journaled).

Carol and I became friends years ago doing volunteer work together at Echo Glen. EG is essentially a prison for wayward minors. We stopped going out there after a year or so due to scheduling confusion on their part.

In the last five months, I have gone to EG three times for 12-step meetings with the kids in a 'recovery lodge'. I even applied to get clearance to become a regular volunteer again at EG when I went there for the third time on Saturday. It is an experience unlike any other working with the kids at EG.

As much as anything, it seems the most common offense committed by the delinquents at EG was to have been born into families that were not able to provide responsible adult supervision for their children. That lack of supervision manifests itself in a variety of crimes from drug use to car theft to assault and so on. Often the counselors and volunteers at EG are the first responsible adults the kids have met in their life.

It was a good weekend for relationships. For that, I am grateful.

Social Justice comes in many forms

Here are two great stories about the triumph of good people over bad things. The first story is from my sister who moved to Sydney, Australia several years ago. There was a massive flood in Brisbane that flooded the CBD and many residential areas. The second is about the US Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers that was wrongfully fired by the Bush II administration for pointing that she could not hire more police without funding after 9/11.

The flood waters have receded in most of the flooded areas. The cleanup has begun.
The Queensland Premier called for volunteers to help with the cleanup. She said "If you can operate a mop or a broom, please volunteer to help". Over 22,000 people have in Brisbane.  The government organised buses to take volunteers, who are armed with buckets, brooms, and mops, to areas that are hardest hit. The TV news has shown clips of dozens of people cleaning homes, businesses, golf courses. The homeowners and shopkeepers are overwhelmed: they had not known where to start. And now to have this small army of workers, sweeping, taking out rubbish, mopping. It is incredible. Some volunteers flew in from other states to participate.
This week, photos were on the news of Haiti. It is the one-year anniversary of the disaster there. The rubble remains. Even a Catholic Church remains strewn with rubble a year on.
In Queensland, the mess will be mostly gone in a matter of weeks. Some houses will be demolished and rebuilt: those bits could take a year. But what a big difference between Queensland and Haiti. I think a big factor is that people in Australia pitch in and work to fix things. In Haiti, they wait for someone else to do it.
It is very moving to me to see the thousands of everyday Aussies, queuing up to get on the busses, sweeping footpaths and homes, raking golf courses, taking out rubbish.  If I didn't have to go to work tomorrow, I would travel there to be part of it. Amazing.


REINSTATEMENT ORDERED
After seven years, one month, and six days, Chief Chambers has had all administrative charges dismissed by the Merit Systems Protection Board, which has ordered that she be reinstated as the Chief of the United States Park Police.  Here's an excerpt from the MSPB decision:
Accordingly, we ORDER the agency to cancel the appellant's December 5, 2003 placement on administrative leave, cancel the appellant's July 10, 2004 removal, and restore her effective July 10, 2004. . . The agency must complete this action no later than 20 days after the date of this decision.
The Board also ordered "the agency to pay the appellant the correct amount of back pay, interest on back pay, and other benefits under the Office of Personnel Management's regulations, no later than 60 calendar days after the date of this decision" and has invited Chief Chambers to file a motion for attorneys' fees and related expenses.
Meetings have been scheduled to work out the logistics of transitioning Chief Chambers back to the position that was illegally taken from her.
The members of the Merit Systems Protection Board are to be commended for taking a fresh, unbiased look at this case, carefully reviewing the evidence, and seeing that justice was served.
http://www.honestchief.com/nj/index.html#twodown

For more information on government employees fighting for what is right and/or legal against the crush of the corporations, check out http://peer.org/.

 I am grateful that there are people and societies out there that take it upon themselves to do the right thing, no matter what. Chief Chambers story is one of amazing dedication, perseverance and sacrifice. If there were more like her, we would not have invaded Iraq under the pretext of non-exist WMDs. It is good that we have Teresa Chambers standing up for the rule of law.

alternative input devices...

I can also blog via my tv using a virtual keyboard one mouseclick at a time, with a mini keyboard like on a cell phone, or with a full size wifi keyboard.  It is good to have choices. Too bad none of those choices come close to using my pc keyboard.
'nuff for now
Kevin

PS: Doing some editing with my usual keyboard.  There is a reason those alternative devices are not the primary input method!

Quotes from religions on gratitude

       While it would have been great to have the WWW when I was a student, I probably would have got kicked out of school for plagarism. I am grateful that was not a problem.   It is too easy to cut-n-paste from other writers that have already made my point in far more eloquent fashion that would defy editing. Plus, I know I was the kind of student that would not simply borrow a sentence at a time, but entire pages en masse —> busted!

       Today I do have access to the web and don't have problems with Fair Use of another's web pages.  Thanks to the miracle of Google & the web, I have quotes from Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and more—all with about 2 minutes worth of research.

       I was going to post definitions of gratitude.  Surprisingly, such as powerful concept has only one definition per several different dictionaries.   Gratitude definitions might be worded differently, but they all mean "a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation".  Gratitude seems to be a universal emotion across all cultures, it seems like that would lead to many definitions.  Some languages do have happiness synonymous with gratitude, but that is a different definition of happiness from ours, not a different definition of gratitude.

       My goal is to blog on gratitude 5x/week.  I am incredibly grateful for the internet which translates my writer's block time into Googling (reading) time with the net result of all of us learning a little more about gratitude.  How cool is that?

        Kevin 
        January 13, 2011

The following is from http://www.unification.net/ws/theme108.htm (gotta love that Fair Use!)

       GRATITUDE

       A sense of gratitude and indebtedness to others is an important wellspring of a generous and virtuous life.  All people can recognize that they are indebted to their parents, who gave them birth and raised them at considerable sacrifice.  But our indebtedness extends much further than that. Fundamentally, we are indebted to God our Creator and the powers of nature that nourish and sustain our life.  Then, since the food we eat travels from the soil to our dining table by passing through many hands--that cultivate, harvest, clean, package, transport, sell, and prepare it--we should recognize that we rely on the labors of many people in order to survive.  A sense of gratitude to others is thus acknowledging our interdependent existence; it is an antidote to the illusion of egoism. Such gratitude is recalled and expressed in the prayer of grace or thanks offered before meals.

       Another dimension of gratitude is directed towards those who are responsible for our education and enlightenment in the way of truth and salvation.  Gratitude towards one's teachers, and especially towards the sages and founders of religions who offered their lives to find the truth, is a proper attitude of faith.  Most of all, we should be grateful to God, who quietly has been guiding and nurturing each person toward salvation, and without whose grace the world would be plunged in darkness.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the

Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

                      Christianity.  Colossians 3.17

O you who believe!  Eat of the good things that We have provided for you, and be grateful to God, if it is Him that you worship.

                       Islam.  Qur'an 2.172

God created foods to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.  For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

                      Christianity.  1 Timothy 4.3-5

Abraham caused God's name to be mentioned by all the travelers whom he entertained.  For after they had eaten and drunk, and when they arose to bless Abraham, he said to them, "Is it of mine that you have eaten?

Surely it is of what belongs to God that you have eaten.  So praise and bless Him by whose word the world was created."

                      Judaism.  Talmud, Sota 10b

The unworthy man is ungrateful, forgetful of benefits [done to him].  This

ingratitude, this forgetfulness is congenial to mean people...  But the

worthy person is grateful and mindful of benefits done to him.  This

gratitude, this mindfulness, is congenial to the best people.

                    Buddhism.  Anguttara Nikaya i.61

One upon whom We bestow kindness

But will not express gratitude,

Is worse than a robber

Who carries away our belongings.

                      African Traditional Religions.  Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)

Be not like those who honor their gods in prosperity and curse them in

adversity.  In pleasure or pain, give thanks!

                   Judaism.  Midrash, Mekilta to Exodus 20.20

Even if you cry your heart out, hurt your eyes by constant weeping and

even if you lead the life of an ascetic till the end of the world, all

these untiring efforts of yours will not be able to make compensation for

a tithe of His good will and kindness, for His bounties and munificence

and for His mercy and charity in directing you towards the path of truth

and religion.

                    Islam (Shiite).  Nahjul Balagha, Khutba 57

It is God who has made the night for you, that you may rest therein, and

the day, as that which helps you to see.  Verily God is full of grace and

bounty to men, yet most men give no thanks.

It is God who has made for you the earth as a resting place, and the sky

as a canopy, and has given you shape--and made your shapes beautiful--
and has provided for you sustenance of things pure and good; such is
God, your Lord. So glory to God, the Lord of the Worlds!

                     Islam.  Qur'an 40.61, 64

O my Father, Great Elder,

I have no words to thank you,

But with your deep wisdom

I am sure that you can see

How I value your glorious gifts.

O my Father, when I look upon your greatness,

I am confounded with awe.

O Great Elder,

Ruler of all things earthly and heavenly,

I am your warrior,

Ready to act in accordance with your will.

                African Traditional Religions.  Kikuya Prayer (Kenya)

Quotes from religions on gratitude

While it would have been great to have the WWW when I was a student, I probably would have got kicked out of school for plagarism. I am grateful that was not a problem. It is too easy to cut-n-paste from other writers that have already made my point in far more eloquent fashion that would defy editing. Plus, I know I was the kind of student that would not simply borrow a sentence at a time, but entire pages en masse —> busted!
Today I do have access to the web and don't have problems with Fair Use of another's web pages. Thanks to the miracle of Google & the web, I have quotes from Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and more—all with about 2 minutes worth of research.
I was going to post definitions of gratitude. Surprisingly, such as powerful concept has only one definition per several different dictionaries. Gratitude definitions might be worded differently, but they all mean "a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation". Gratitude seems to be a universal emotion across all cultures, it seems like that would lead to many definitions. Some languages do have happiness synonymous with gratitude, but that is a different definition of happiness from ours, not a different definition of gratitude.
My goal is to blog on gratitude 5x/week. I am incredibly grateful for the internet which translates my writer's block time into Googling (reading) time with the net result of all of us learning a little more about gratitude. How cool is that?

Kevin
January 13, 2011


The following is from http://www.unification.net/ws/theme108.htm (gotta love that Fair Use!)

GRATITUDE

A sense of gratitude and indebtedness to others is an important wellspring of a generous and virtuous life. All people can recognize that they are indebted to their parents, who gave them birth and raised them at considerable sacrifice. But our indebtedness extends much further than that. Fundamentally, we are indebted to God our Creator and the powers of nature that nourish and sustain our life. Then, since the food we eat travels from the soil to our dining table by passing through many hands--that cultivate, harvest, clean, package, transport, sell, and prepare it--we should recognize that we rely on the labors of many people in order to survive.
A sense of gratitude to others is thus acknowledging our interdependent existence; it is an antidote to the illusion of egoism. Such gratitude is recalled and expressed in the prayer of grace or thanks offered before meals. Another dimension of gratitude is directed towards those who are responsible for our education and enlightenment in the way of truth and salvation. Gratitude towards one's teachers, and especially towards the sages and founders of religions who offered their lives to find the truth, is a proper attitude of faith. Most of all, we should be grateful to God, who quietly has been guiding and nurturing each person toward salvation, and without whose grace the world would be plunged in darkness.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Christianity. Colossians 3.17

O you who believe! Eat of the good things that We have provided for you,
and be grateful to God, if it is Him that you worship.
Islam. Qur'an 2.172

God created foods to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe
and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is
to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is
consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
Christianity. 1 Timothy 4.3-5


Abraham caused God's name to be mentioned by all the travelers whom he
entertained. For after they had eaten and drunk, and when they arose to
bless Abraham, he said to them, "Is it of mine that you have eaten?
Surely it is of what belongs to God that you have eaten. So praise and
bless Him by whose word the world was created."
Judaism. Talmud, Sota 10b


The unworthy man is ungrateful, forgetful of benefits [done to him]. This
ingratitude, this forgetfulness is congenial to mean people... But the
worthy person is grateful and mindful of benefits done to him. This
gratitude, this mindfulness, is congenial to the best people.
Buddhism. Anguttara Nikaya i.61


One upon whom We bestow kindness
But will not express gratitude,
Is worse than a robber
Who carries away our belongings.
African Traditional Religions. Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)


Be not like those who honor their gods in prosperity and curse them in
adversity. In pleasure or pain, give thanks!
Judaism. Midrash, Mekilta to Exodus 20.20


Even if you cry your heart out, hurt your eyes by constant weeping and
even if you lead the life of an ascetic till the end of the world, all
these untiring efforts of yours will not be able to make compensation for
a tithe of His good will and kindness, for His bounties and munificence
and for His mercy and charity in directing you towards the path of truth
and religion.
Islam (Shiite). Nahjul Balagha, Khutba 57


It is God who has made the night for you, that you may rest therein, and
the day, as that which helps you to see. Verily God is full of grace and
bounty to men, yet most men give no thanks.

It is God who has made for you the earth as a resting place, and the sky
as a canopy, and has given you shape--and made your shapes beautiful--and
has provided for you sustenance of things pure and good; such is God, your
Lord. So glory to God, the Lord of the Worlds!
Islam. Qur'an 40.61, 64


O my Father, Great Elder,
I have no words to thank you,
But with your deep wisdom
I am sure that you can see
How I value your glorious gifts.
O my Father, when I look upon your greatness,
I am confounded with awe.
O Great Elder,
Ruler of all things earthly and heavenly,
I am your warrior,
Ready to act in accordance with your will.
African Traditional Religions. Kikuya Prayer (Kenya)

Emotional Abandonment - not such an issue anymore

I have a friend that I meet for lunch every couple of months.   We have settled on Asian Bistro in Woodinville as our meeting place.  The food is delicious, healthy and $10/plate.  We meet at 1 PM.  The lunch crowd is gone and we have a nice quiet place to talk with great food.  We were going to meet last Tuesday, but I had to help a friend and so we rescheduled for the 18th. 

In a brief spurt of blind faith, I headed for the restaurant without double-checking my email nor by phone.  I got to the restaurant in a triumphant moment of punctuality a few minutes early.  Fortunately, I had my latest Jack Reacher book by Lee Child.  I got a soda and started reading.  It was a nearly sunny winter day outside the large storefront window while I read my book.

Mark drives a late model fancy light-colored SUV.   Everytime I glanced up, there was at one or two more light-colored SUVs driving through the parking lot access road or parking at the curb.  It was amazing!  

While reading and waiting, I reflected back on Mark's last email.  I had the nagging suspicion that while I was thinking 'next Tuesday', he wrote 'the 18th' for our rescheduled lunch date.  I could have gone out to my car and called him from my cell phone, but figured he would either be there or I would get to come back another time.

I ordered Chicken Phad Thai at the cook's suggestion.  It was fresh, light, delicious and spicy.  After I finished lunch, refilled my soda and read some more.  Driving the slower route home past Mark's office located in a big giant warehouse, I decided to stop in and drop off a book on…you guessed it…gratitude!  Inside the office was a empty foyer with some stairs going up to the second floor.  Me & my wheelchair were not going that way.  A man came in from the warehouse.  I told him I was a friend of Mark's and left the book.

It was a beautiful day for a slow drive through the farmland north of Redmond.  The joyride came to an end when I was faced with the conundrum of getting to my doctor's office in Factoria from downtown Redmond.  The phrase you can't get there from here came to mind.  I got back on the freeway and zipped over to her office with only a slight cheat by taking the carpool-only exit that is five minutes faster than the regular exit through a traffic knot.

The two ladies at the check-in desk were helping others and would be a couple of minutes.  I rolled around to the side and checked-in with the check-out girl.  There was another gentleman waiting at the lab.  Typically people get taken first come, first served.  I told the new vampire that the other guy was there before me.  She had my name and so off we went to get my monthly blood test to check the level of my anti-coagulant.  I have to take Coumadin to avoid further blood clots in my left leg and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

Being a regular patient, the lab staff knows that I am willing to let the nursing students and lab tech interns take my blood.  Today's student was a cute tiny demure 40ish Filipina.  She did okay with the blood draw, but forgot to have gauze in-hand to press on the vein when withdrawing the needle.  The regular tech took the blood sample and handed her a piece of gauze.  She taped-up my arm with a couple of strips of tape with a bit of joshing from the nurse that had come to take me back to the consulting room.

Normally, I sit there for a minute or two after giving blood with pressure on the draw-site to keep the blood from leaking out of my vein on the inside of my elbow (we always use the same draw-spot due to it being the best site to get blood).  Today I rolled off after the nurse to get my blood pressure and temperature taken like every other visit to the doctor. 

After the nurse took my vitals, she noticed that I had some blood on my shirt sleeve.   I had not waited the usual minute with pressure on the draw-spot.  There was a raisin-sized blood pool in my elbow.  The nurse got more gauze and an elastic wrap to hold the gauze in place with pressure.

She let me know the doctor would be in shortly and left the room.  Most of the time, my doctor is there in a few minutes with the lab results.   Today she was running a little behind due a rush of patients before the clinic closed early to avoid an impending snow-storm.  The nurse popped back in and let me know it would be a few more minutes.  I had my book, I was good.

My pro-time, which is a unitless measure of coagulation rates, was in the okay range—not too fast and not too slow.

I love my doctor.    After giving her my update on gratitude since my last visit right after I started my gratitude kick, I told her she is a great doctor and a kind lady as she was leaving the room.

I am supposed to come in every month.  I always reschedule for every six weeks.  After getting my next appointment, I came back by the lab room.  I flashed the blood on my shirt sleeve and the two regular techs dug up some hydrogen peroxide to was the blood off before it set in my shirt.  A minute or two of wiping by one tech and the student nurse came in as if she was looking for something.  We got her to take over wiping off the blood and I talked her through what happened and how I got blood on my shirt.  It wasn't her fault that I bled on my shirt, but she was the one that stuck me, so she was the last one to touch me before I bleed a ¼ teaspoon of blood.  I reassured her that it was okay, gave her a hug and was on my way.

In the past, somebody not showing up when expected (whether scheduled or not!)  or less than good care would trigger my abandonment issues causing me to be afraid and act like a cornered rat.  Today I got to read a great book with lunch in the sunshine and then get a hug from a little cutey at the doctor's office.  That is a LOT of progress to be grateful for.

Bonus, it snowed a couple of inches around 7 PM and then was getting washed away by rain in the wee hours of the morning.  I got all the beauty of looking out my window at a winter wonderland without having to actually deal with snow.

Naikan - A Method of Self-Reflection

 

Naikan is a Japanese word which means "inside looking" or "introspection". A more poetic translation is "seeing oneself with the mind's eye". It is a structured method of self-reflection that helps us to understand ourselves, our relationships and the fundamental nature of human existence. Naikan was developed by Yoshimoto Ishin, a devout Buddhist of the Jodo Shinshu sect in Japan. His strong religious spirit led him to practice mishirabe, an arduous and difficult method of meditation. Wishing to make such introspection available to others, he developed Naikan as a method that could be more widely practiced.

 

Naikan self-reflection asks people to ponder daily:

What have I received from…

What have I given to…

What trouble have I caused…

 

Today I received two books I had placed on hold from the King County Library (KCLS), spent a delightful afternoon with my sponsor discussing gratitude, attended a meeting at a treatment center, got my apartment electrical problem fixed (loose wire), and had a nice dinner of broiled chicken breasts with broccoli. I also received a thoughtful email from a fellow trudger checking up on me since I did not go to the District meeting last week.

My sponsor already had two birthdays this month—his belly-button birthday and his recovery birthday. He is a vegetarian. I got him a nice organic card from Whole Foods and the version Sun Tzu's The Art of War that comes with a forward by James Clavell. It was a nice moment being able to give a gift to another man with grace and gratitude for having him in my life.

The trouble I caused that comes to mind is that I did not complete some forms that I would have liked to have done today. That will leave me with some mental baggage knowing that I did not fulfill a small promise to myself. (Interesting to note how that made me feel when I wrote that last sentence. I want to be the kind of person that keeps their promises to myself and others.)

Football Saturdays with Pizza

The 7-9 Seahawks beat the defending Superbowl Champion Saints 41-36. It was the first NFL playoff game that I had watched in 6 years. I used to work on weekends and then did not get broadcast TV with the games for two years. I ordered a pizza, salad and soda. With a coupon, the large Papa John's pizza was $10. The pizza was good, the salad was less than expected.

The second game of the day was a nail-biter that went down to the wire. With 3 seconds to go, the Jets kicker made a 35-yard field goal to win the game. It was an entertaining finish. I will probably watch more playoff football this year.

While watching the game, the maintenance guy came by to work on my powerless electrical outlets in the kitchen. He spent 40 minutes testing and checking without being able to determine the source of the problem. Another guy will come by tomorrow to work on it some more. It is one advantage of an apartment to have that level of service. It would have cost hundreds of dollars for an electrician work on the problem if I had to pay for the repairs if it was my condo.

My friend Mike's funeral was today. I did not go. None of my current friends knew Mike and I did not want to go to a sad family event by myself. I did just post a comment on his online guestbook at the Sunset Hills Funeral Home. Some deaths are sadder than others. Mike was in a lot of psychic pain and will hopefully find relief in the next life—whatever that might be. I am grateful we got together several times in the last year. It had been years since the last time I saw him. I don't know what he died from, but strongly suspect it was a secondary effect of the spinal cord injury he had in 1987. Mike was always very supportive of my efforts to find sobriety. When I went to rehab in 1999, he brought me sugar-free candy as suggested by the staff. Goodbye and god-bless you, MO.

Now I will use my hand-bike to exercise for a few minutes and call it a day. My newfound gratitude has made exercise something that I am now willing and able to do. I had known for years that exercise was a really good thing, but was not able to break through the inertia to get started. Being grateful has either given me more energy or lowered the threshold, either way, I am now able to do some exercise. It might not be a lot of exercise, but it is a HUGE improvement from where I was. Thank god.

 

Seahawks have an NFL playoff game

The Seahawks were the best of the NFL Worst (West) this year. The Seahawks are the largest home NFL playoff underdog in the last 25 years, and they're tired of hearing about how a 7-9 team doesn't belong in the postseason and has a home game. Since Qwest Field opened in 2002, Seattle holds a 4-1 mark in playoff games, winning the last four, while the Saints are 0-3 all-time in road playoff games.

Off to a great start with my goal of blogging about gratitude 5x/week for the first week of 2011. Only 51 weeks to go!
Serendipitous benefits to my gratitude focus has been an amazing increase in empathy and bonding with others. For much of my life, I knew that I did not bond that tightly with others. Some might see it as a shortage of loyalty to friends. For years in my recovery, I felt like I lacked a bonding molecule in my brain like serotonin-for-bonding. I attribute my bonding problems to family of origin issues. I now have a recovery family that is always kind and supportive instead of being critical for my own good.
I have had a fantastic time with my adventures in gratitude. I have learned some positive psychology, had great conversations with others and heard stories that I would not have otherwise heard. I also go to be of service to others in ways to that were new for me.
A friend died last Saturday. We had not seen much of each other for 8 years and then we got together a handful of times this last year for lunch or to go shooting pistols. I am extremely grateful for good memories of our last few outings togething. RIP M.O..
Being/feeling grateful feels really good. Writing about gratitude enhances that feeling. There is a strong positive feedback loop to my writing more about gratitude. Today, life is very good!

Retail Therapy…

I signed up for Amazon Prime (free shipping on many items) last summer when I was helping a friend get some gear to start a home business. Amazon shopping was certainly easier than driving all around for price comparisons on a couple dozen different items. The prices were better than what we saw at a few local brick & mortar (B&M) stores. The convenience factor was out of this world. Place an order, wait a few days, open the door and SHAZAM! The goods were there.

I am in awe of American stores and love to go through them like a free trip to the museum of Conspicuous Consumption. Local grocery stores vary from practical like Safeway or QFC to the over-the-top Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) where you can buy 15 kinds of Italian seltzer but not Coca-Cola.

As a bachelor living alone it is still practical (using my logic) to shop at Costco, although that last 10 pound bag of frozen corn is going to last for at least another 6 months. There is a tremendous sense of 'food security' when they shelves are stacked with pallets of food 30 feet high. Home Depot has replaced the neighborhood hardware store of childhood memories with a 130,000 square foot (3 acres) wonderland of plumbing, lumber, appliances, tools and garden supplies.

Living by myself or with the occasional roommate in my 2-bedroom apartment, there is no need for 90-some percent of what they sell at these dollar-devouring dinosaurs, but it is nice to know if I did somehow end up with a waterfront castle in Medina that I would not have to go far to rebuild the garage and restock the rec room.

I go for a walk on Sundays about 35 times a year at Bellevue Square. While it lacks the 30 foot stacks of Costco or Home Depot, it still competes on the goods-for-sale dollar/sq-foot basis by selling more expensive smaller goods such as jewelry or $20/lb chocolate ($600/sq. ft or $126/trip for 16 million visitors per Wikipedia). There is a thrift store where I buy vases as gifts for $2 each.

The Egyptians built the pyramids, the Romans had the aqueducts and the Appian Way, the Chinese built the Great Wall, but none of them had a shopping experience to compare with what I have within a mile of my home. Admittedly, it is a 15 minute drive to the nearest Costco's to the North, East or West—thank god there is also Costco.com for those days when I need to shop and don't feel like leaving town!

Fortunately for me, I am not a very materialistic person. If I was into accumulating possessions, I would already need a bigger place for all my toys and be up to my ears in credit card debt. In this last year, I have gone a little wild for me in buying a laptop and a new TV. Last Xmas, I bought a Home Theater system—as a gift for a friend. 1000 watts of TV watching audio power is probably more than the neighbors want me to be listening to in the middle of the night since they work during the day and I don't. I did get a cool set of Sennheisen headphones last month that make for the best TV sound I have ever owned.

I have a medical disability pension that puts me at the high end of the poverty spectrum in Bellevue. It is nice to be low-income here. I love my heated apartment with hot and cold running water, appliances and DSL. In more than a few ways, I am grateful that I don't live at the high end of the rich spectrum in Bellevue. Self-moderation has never been my forte. With age and experience comes wisdom. Today I am grateful for what I have.

Grateful for Choices

I am still working on the page formatting of my blog. I write the blog in MS Word 2007 and then hit the Publish button. Blogspot converts the format a bit to add space between paragraphs and deletes leading spaces. Tabs are working okay. I am grateful for having the tech skills to work this out. If I cared more about minor formatting issues, I could go back and make every post look the same. Today I will try using a hanging indent instead of a tab for each paragraph.

As a kid growing up on a farm 8 miles out of town, running errands was limited to tasks that truly needed to be done. There was no going down to the corner store to buy a piece of candy. One of the favorite things about my apartment is how conveniently located it is near the places I need to go. After going to a meeting today, I was headed home and turned off the main road (NE 8th) before I remembered that I needed to pick up my medications for the month. My premature turn could not have added an extra minute to the trip as I drove through a less-direct route to the pharmacy.

After getting my meds, I walked across the street to the barber for a haircut. The stylist finished with her customer, collected her fee and was ready to cut my hair before I had even found a worthy article to read in a magazine. Apparently Time magazine no longer has an editorial on the back page.

I had lived next to the pharmacy for 3 years. 6 of the 8 stores in the barbershop strip mall had changed in the last 7 years. Fortunately, Greg's Greenlake Cycle only moved a block away to a new narrow 3-story building with an elevator. It is strange but cost-effective to have a 3 story bike shop in downtown Bellevue. I am glad they are still around, Greg's does a great job of truing the spokes on my wheelchair wheels. The wheelchair vendor won't even try to fix them.

Dinner was a New York steak with garlic bread and a salad. It was delicious.

The mail today was two more books on gratitude and a Netflix DVD. That is way better than the usual slew of junk mail. The mail gets delivered right to my door—which is vastly more convenient than trying to get my mail out of the apartment complex mailbox at the bottom of the hill.

Discerning readers will notice that I am rambling on a bit here. As I practice being more grateful by reflecting and journaling on gratitude, I find many little things in my life that help make my life more pleasant. A friend called this afternoon, she started a gratitude blog http://shawnabloggityblog.blogspot.com/.

Gratitude is infectious. Talking with Leslee on Sunday night while waiting for my car to warm up, she told me about her experience discussing gratitude with her friend & hiking companion Christine. Christine has some chronic health issues and found that she was able to mitigate the impact of them with gratitude. Christine shared her success with another friend that has cancer for the second time. Her friend told Christine who told Leslee who told me how gratitude was able to help her. It was a nice story of having a positive impact on the lives of others who I have not even met. One book I am reading mentioned 'ripples' of gratitude going 3 people deep like from me to Leslee to Christine being typical. In only the first month of my gratitude focus, the ripples have gone at least 4 people deep.

The Magic of Electricity…or NOT!

This afternoon when I went into my bedroom, there was a power failure. A brief investigation determined the power was on in my apartment hallway and the master bath, just not in my bedroom. I reset the circuit breakers. That did not fix the problem. I left a message for maintenance while wondering what happened. Really liking electricity in my bedroom, I continued to work on identifying the problem. The problem was a wall outlet with loose connections. Implementing an interim repair (I wiggled the outlet), power was restored.

    This evening when I tried to start my car to go meet a friend at the mall for a walk, the battery did not have enough oomph to start and the starter motor ground to a halt. When I was 15 minutes late meeting my friend, she called me, agreed to come over and give me a jump-start. Somewhere along the way, I came up with a pair of jumper cables on steroids that are made out of a 15 feet long heavy copper cable. Normally, they work great to give someone a jumpstart. Tonight they did not work. I had noticed that the spark of the initial connection was weak. Wiggling all four connections did not fix the problem. A closer look determined that the auto shop had not tightened up the negative connection on the battery when they had serviced my car last week. Since it was literally freezing outside on a clear January night, I twisted the cable clamp back and forth to make a better connection without digging out tools in the dark. The car started right up.

    My friend and I chatted outside on a beautiful clear cold night while waiting for my windshield to defrost. Once I could see to drive, we went to a meeting in separate cars.

    While this all may sound like a pain, there was a lot to be grateful for. On the short drive to the meeting, I reflected back on experiences growing up on a farm with a father that had a degree in electrical engineering, did his own electrical work, and saw no need to run a ground wire. Along with the crazy experiences of watching my sister get a 220V shock from a clothes dryer and my father having a tractor battery blow-up in his face, I did learn some basic troubleshooting skills.

    Today, those skills came in handy. I would go through withdrawals not having lights, clock and TV in my bedroom. Tonight, I will read more on gratitude and watch TV for awhile. Tomorrow I will tighten the battery post on my car.

    On my way to the meeting tonight, I got to grateful to my father for the skills he taught me growing up on the farm. There was healing in that experience. We were estranged when he did almost 20 years ago.

    I love the many uses for electricity around my apartment. Heat, hot water, cooking, lights, clocks, computers, phones, TV and the internet. I am grateful for each of those uses that all make my life better and far more comfortable.

Happy New Year!

Greetings to the new year of 2011. I have many gifts & blessings in 2010 that I am grateful for having been given.



It would be easy for me to cut-n-paste from gratitude sites on the web or paraphrase them. What is more difficult for me is to write about my thoughts and experiences from a perspective of gratitude. Reframing the language from what I achieved to the gifts I have been given is readily done in my head. Writing that down knowing that others will read my write is stressful for me in a good way. It makes me think more about what I am doing and be accountable for what I write.

Growing up as the youngest of four kids in a dysfunctional family, I learned to not share my dreams and aspirations since they would torn up and attacked as if by harpies. A huge part of my 12-step recovery is learning how to feel my feelings instead of suppressing them. 12-step recovery has a zillion slogans typically consisting of sentence fragments from the literature. One slogan is especially apt for me is that we are only as sick as our secrets. When I share my secret thoughts with others, the thoughts lose power to create a self-destructive OCD-like repetition in my head.

I am grateful for having learned these new skills to help me find a much better way of living my life. It was a huge amount of work on self-improvement to get to where I am. The odds are at least 9:1 against a real alcoholic getting long-term sobriety. Life as sober alcoholics is often described as a miracle. It is not clear why some get sober and others die a slow humiliating painful death on skid road. Willingness to do whatever it takes to get sober is a crucial component. I have been blessed with the gift of being that willing. Willingness is quite likely the most important personality trait in my life. That is a god-given gift I am grateful for getting.



It was a great year for helping others in early recovery that could use the help that I had to offer. I have never helped anybody so much in my life as I helped "D" in 2010. She went from being a homeless alcoholic panhandling for money at an intersection to having her own apartment in Seattle and then moving to Arizona for the winter. At one time, D had 5 months of continuous sobriety before she drank again.

Watching D be overwhelmed with the tasks of basic living such as paying her bills on time, planning her work and then implementing her plan was an eye-opening experience. That made me extremely grateful for the skills, abilities, resources, sobriety and spirituality that have been given to me in my recovery.



In my readings on gratitude, studies have shown that those that experience life-changing trauma often go on to be some of the most grateful people. A classic example is the ambitious type-A executive that experiences a heart attack in his 50s that changes his life from being career-focused to being family focused. While I was never the type-A executive, being paralyzed from the waist down at the age of 22, in June of 1981, and having a crack-addiction in my 30s were certainly traumatic experiences.

I will be a paraplegic drug-addict for the rest of my life. What I can change is how that impacts my life. Rather than focus on what I have lost, I can focus on what I have. I have been blessed with economic security from a pension that pays the bills including medical insurance that covers 100% of the health-care costs of primary and secondary impacts of being paralyzed. I live in a nice apartment in a quiet neighborhood with excellent access to business, medical and community services that are important to me. My relationships with my friends are the best they have ever been in my life.

Being gratitude-oriented helps me feel better about my life. Heck, I even exercised and journaled today. Toss in a lobster for dinner, watching part of a New Year's day college football game (Urban Meyer/Florida won over the legend Joe Paterno/Penn St), a possible new roommate, finding audio ebooks on gratitude on the King County Library website and today was a great way to start the new year.


 
In future writings, I will give Naikan a try.

A Buddhist exercise, called Naikan self-reflection, asks people to ponder daily:

What have I received from…

What have I given to…

What trouble have I caused…