Sharing Secrets

 I have been a Grapevine writer for many years. I love to write, share experience, strength and hope so it has always been a good fit for me. I find the Grapevine staff will publish anything that is a members personal experience but "our" voice. That seems to be the common denominator. We are all Grapevine writers when we take pen to paper.
   For the first time, I wrote about an experience that went to the bottom of my soul where old wounds lived. I was sent the Grapevine release form and returned it requesting  the article be signed "Anonymous". We can help others even when we can barely utter a word, that's how God's grace works. It is given to us freely, and by it's very nature has to spill on everything around us. I'm not in charge of fixing anything, but I surely know where the tools are that do.

Dear Friend Bill Borchert will be one of the Keynote Speakers on the 13th Annual Halloween Gratitude Cruise October 26-November 2, 2014. If you are local, please come and hear this wonderful man speak on June 10, 2014. I never get tired of his smile, his warmth and his connection to our program history.

 

Movies or Move-Mes?

 

 

 

 

     Last night I saw “Captain America, the Winter Soldier”, an outing with my husband and another couple.  I am always happy to see friends I love and any movie, even it’s just another lazy man’s comic book.  We got the 3D glasses, climbed high in the stands at IMAX and watched an incredibly fit and deliciously handsome Chris Evans save the world. This movie was another exercise in Hollywood success.  As a nation, we will always buy products and services which endorse our patriotism and youth culture fantasy. It matters not that most of us are past 32 years old, the hero’s current age. The movie was explosively entertaining, or should I say, entertainment about explosives. It had no nutritional value and the post cinema chatter could only be about the subtitle on the grave marker, a reference to Samuel Jackson’s part in Pulp Fiction. That  was the extent of  "deep thought”.  

     This morning I finally found the time to see a movie sitting on my coffee table for a couple of weeks, “Happy”.  Now, that was a real meal!  I could only burst into tears when an Englishman who gave up his prosperous life to help in Mother Teresa’s House for the Sick & Dying said, “My life is on loan from God. I can only give it back with interest”. If that isn’t the core of a happy life, I don’t know what is. In a world where narcissism is applauded, giving back, creating joy, manifesting happiness for others is not the general goal. This is the first thing we are taught in recovery, get out of yourself and give back! Go pick up the ashtrays! Think about someone else for a change!  Start to wake up to the world around you! Your addiction had you but we want you back!

      As it turns out, "Flow", doing something you absolutely love that makes time stand still (like painting, playing the piano, gardening, etc.) is a necessary component of happiness. The others are friends, family, & sharing food….just being together! From the swamps of Louisiana to the slums in India, happiness has so little, we can virtually say it has NOTHING to do with money! Brain scans show a monk/scientist’s brain to light up on fire when he does Compassion Meditation. We can actually grow our brains with the activities we choose to do, and guest what? We have the choice!

     Everyone is born with a baseline for happiness. 50% of our nature is genetic, 10% circumstance, but the 40% that is left is intentional. We can intentionally change our happiness level. That is mind blowing because change & happiness is definitely optional! The history of the field of psychology has always looked at what is wrong with people. It’s only in the 1980’s that they started looking at what is right with people. It’s now an actual science that is measurable.  You can be by making a Gratitude List at least once a week! Sound familiar? I wish everyone would go to Amazon right now and watch this movie! Bring a paper and pencil to this  documentary about the most intimate feelings of our species. You can easily make a list to put a smiley face on your day, which is, after all, your life!