12 Step Family

The trauma of having a child, friend or relative using substances without regard to their health or safety, or that of anyone else, is one of life’s most difficult challenges. What tools do you find most effective in helping you regain your sanity when you see someone you love doing things that you know could harm themselves or others and there is nothing you can do to stop them?

When it comes to relating to those we love, especially but not exclusively those who use drugs, alcohol, or other addictive substances or behaviors, it is important to have a toolbox of spiritual, mental, and physical techniques available to you so that you do not fall apart because of their issues.

Here are a few that I and my clients have found helpful as we walk our path. See if any of them work for you:

1. Consciously breathe. The breath is one of the greatest tools we have to bring our minds back to calm when fearful thoughts threaten to take over. Notice I said fearful THOUGHTS, not fearful BEHAVIORS OF OTHERS. It is not others’ behaviors that destroy our peace of mind, but how we think about those behaviors. Breathing slowly, calmly and deeply, can help us stay fully present to whatever situation is facing us and allow us to focus on our next best step, rather than on the racing thoughts of fear and of possible tragic outcomes that tend to rush through our minds when faced with our loved one’s behaviors.

2. Become aware of yourself exactly in relation to exactly where you are RIGHT NOW. You see your loved one in an intoxicated state. Or they are telling you a story or problem with potentially dire consequences. You have started to use tool one, Consciously Breathe, but still you feel your thoughts racing. Now, as you continue to breathe, take a look around. Become aware of the wallpaper, the ceiling fan, the diningroom chair fabric. Allow your eyes to embrace your environment and see the detail and beauty in a new way. You get the picture. Take your focus off of your fear and put it right where you are. Allow yourself to see the world around you in THIS moment in order to further relax calm yourself.

3. Become aware of yourself in your environment If you are outside, feel the sun on your skin and the grass under your toes. If you are in a chair, feel your body touching the chair and your feet touching the floor. If your arms are crossed. feel your fingers touching your arms. Keep breathing of course and just focus on yourself, in your environment, breathing.

These three tools, of breathing, focusing on the present moment environment, and focusing on yourself IN the environment, all have tremendous power to bring you back to the present momen,t regardless of the news you are hearing about what just happened to your loved one or the thoughts your mind is playing about what could happen. This isn’t about going off into la-la land. It is about becoming able to hear what people are telling us without going into full battle mode, which after awhile, can create an inner trauma loop in our minds that keeps us from relating effectively to our loved ones.

Being related to someone who is often doing dangerous things, can create trauma in us. However, if we begin to ground ourselves in our own body, in our own breath, in our own environment, in the moment, we will begin to be able to physically experience the ability to detach with love. We will have a sense of inner calm that will allow us to respond in a manner appropriate to the situation, without all of the intense mental thought clutter we used to have that is grounded less in reality than in fear and panic.

To relate to others in the moment, with lovingkindness and effectiveness, to Be that Loving Mirror (TM), it is crucial to develop our own ability to feel a sense of calm underlying all that we think, do, and say. Not easy, but simple. With daily practice, you will own these tools and BE there for others in ways you had previously not thought possible. MORE importantly, you will be there for yourself, as the inner calm will minimize the wear and tear on your body and mind that stress often brings.

Practice these three things even when not hearing bad news. Practice BEING in the moment on a regular basis and the skill will be there for you when you need it.

Let me know how it is going for you!

Best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC

ICF Professional Certified Coach

Recovery – True Purpose – Career – Life

www.beverlybuncher.com
www.12stepfamily.com
786 859 4050

“Imagine a world where every addict has the opportunity and support needed to build a sober lifetime one moment at a time, and every family has the benefit of a coach to help them blaze the trail to sobriety in their home. Imagine a world without relapse.”
Join an ongoing coaching group and practice your Loving Mirror skills. Go to www.beverlybuncher.com/lovingmirror/ to register today!

Author of the forthcoming book Chaos to Sanity: Transform Your Life with the 12 Keys to Sanity

If there is a using addict in your life, download my free e-book on how to transform the chaos to sanity at www.theempowermentcoach.net and read my blog at www.12stepfamily.com

Enjoy my weekly newsletter Life Purpose in Recovery delivered right to your email and gain access to materials on the 12 Keys to Sanity for Family Members! Sign up here: http://forms.aweber.com/form/11/885999311.htm

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Welcome to the 12 Keys series of blog posts which will, month by month, explain the 12 Keys of Sanity and give you detailed ideas and activities to help you bring them alive in your life. This post will is the first in a month-long series that will post on Developing Relationships with Others.

Recently I received this post from a reader:

Dear Bev, after being married to an alchoholic for 20 years, I got divorced, I met a wonderful man I was dating for almost 5 years. We only saw each other on the weekends. As we became closer it became clear he is also an alchoholic and partier & to top it off his 2 adult children are drug users. I am devistated. I feel duped and stupid. How did I miss the signs this time? – Feeling betrayed…

Dear Betrayed,

First of all, thank you so much for your note and question. Your willingness to put out there the exact dilemma that so many ex-spouses of alcoholics/addicts face will help many others better understand the seeming insanity of what has happened to you.

Many people who marry an active addict the first time around often find an equally dysfunctional person the second time around (and in some cases the 3rd, 4th, and 5th time as well…).

So, what is that about and what does this have to do with the 3rd Key to Sanity: Developing Loving Relationships with Others?

Everyday of our lives, we are bombarded with images of what the ideal mate looks like, talks like, acts like. We see, on television and in the movies, people with perfect bodies, perfect jobs, perfect smiles, and lots and lots of money and we see what they have as what we really want, but yet, the only place we see life playing out like that is on fictionalized shows and in movies. We may go to church, temple, mosque or synagogue and get a different perspective on what good and perfect mean and begin to develop ideals that compete with those of the media and culture around us.

Then, deep inside of us are the tapes we’ve been playing since our childhood of what we are worth, who we deserve, what we can get in life and what kind of life we will live. If our parents were dysfunctional in anyway and/or if they abused us emotionally or physically, we carry those tapes of being less than. If we were sexually abused by anyone, in our family or outside of our family, we carry those tapes of shame and unworthiness.

When we look for a mate initially, we carry all of these competing views of ourselves and others along for the search. Unless we have developed a very strong relationship with a Higher Power along with a very healthy, sense of self and a relationship with ourselves that consciously and subconsciously knows what is best for us and will accept nothing less than that, chances are, our choices may have been less than ideal. Then, once we have a marriage, we begin to think of ourselves in certain ways and to see our lives in certain ways based on what we experience in relation to our mate. And if that mate is an active alcoholic/addict, we may feel extremely isolated, confused, lonely, and afraid. How did this person who we loved so much turn into such a_________________ (you fill in the blank- monster, meanie,etc.)

So, there we are in a marriage with another person who at first appeared to be very much in sync with who/what we wanted in life, but now, as we look deeper, has lots of issues that we have no idea how to cope with. Being stuck like that, many of us put the dysfunctional coping mechanisms we learned at home into place. We cry, sulk, scream and yell to get them to behave better toward us. When these don’t work, we ignore, get bitter, put our interests and energy elsewhere, and, if we don’t have the means or guts to GET OUT, or if our religious beliefs encourage us to stick it out NO MATTER WHAT, we ENDURE.

Perhaps you can relate to that scenario. Your story may be quite different. If possible, find a piece of it that works for you and stay with me here.

So, after awhile, six months, six years, 12 years, 20 years, 35 years later, you change your mind. You are done enduring and decide to get the heck out of this unendurable marriage and start over. So you do. Maybe your spouse did the unspeakable: cheated on you, and that was your breaking point. Or maybe after the 16th time they cheated on you, you realized this was not going to get better and you left. Or maybe they left you for the other woman/man. Anyway, you get the picture. The marriage is OVER, done, finished.

You are out on your own, finally out from under the thumb of this person who “made you so miserable.”

Now what?

For many who find themselves in this position, it’s lonely! Even though the marriage was lonely, someone was at least THERE. There was a warm body on the other side of the bed or in the next room and not everything about the marriage was bad, etc., etc., …Of course, not everyone is that upset. The freedom can be intoxicating! the chance to meet others and have a good time is grand.

But now what?

All of the above is written to set the scenario for meeting partner #2. After whatever amount of time you have taken to ‘get over’ the last one, you begin to look for your next mate. Perhaps you hardly have to look at all and they find you…or perhaps you spend years looking. Either way, the hunt is on.

Finally, you meet. Certain that this time will be different, you find someone who is not an alcoholic, not an addict, not a…the list goes on. Or so you think. So you get together to live happily ever after. Sometimes the honeymoon lasts weeks, sometimes years. But eventually, it comes out: They may not be an alcoholic, but they may instead take pills or have a sex addiction or a gambling addiction. And there you are again in your own new version of the same Hell you endured the last time around…or maybe something even worse…

What went wrong?

The reason Key 3: Developing Relationships with Other People comes 3rd and not 1st, is that without good strong inner work on ourselves, our relationships with others will often come up short. What I’m saying here is that the relationships we have with others are much more about us than about them! and the kinds of people we choose to have in our lives are also much more about us than about them!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that life with an alcoholic or addict is easy. I’m not saying that if you aren’t yet married and you find that your partner is deeply troubled (sex addict, drug addict, gambler, alcoholic, etc.) you shouldn’t run as fast and as far as you can.

What I am saying is that when you look at who you are involved with, who your friends are or aren’t (if you don’t have any), or who you choose to end up with as a partner, the most important person in the relationship vis-a-vis these choices can be found right in your own mirror.

So, what does this all mean?

As shared at the beginning of this post, all kinds of outside input from society, school, friends, and parents, contribute to how we see ourselves and what we think we are worthy of in life. When we really want the perfect mate, but on some level feel we aren’t worthy of him or her, the feelings will often win out. Getting our insides congruent with our outsides, our feelings congruent with our desires, is one piece of the puzzle of finding the right person. Jerry and Esther Hicks write about this in all of their books about the Law of Attraction.

Another key to becoming congruent on the level of feeling, is to do the deeper work of healing the sorrow of a less than perfect childhood and unhappy1st marriage. This can be approached through therapy, 12 step work, parts work, voice dialogue, and/or other emotional healing modalities.

Life choices happen on so many levels, many of which are below the surface of our conscious awareness. Once we are in a difficult situation, it can be much more difficult and complicated to get out of it than it was to get into it in the first place.

For those who are not yet involved in a first or second dysfunctional relationship, yet have a history of family dysfunction behind them, the best advice is to do the inner work first. I remember being given that advice and feeling too anxious to get my life moving toward the future, marriage, kids, etc… Maybe you remember that feeling too?

But wherever you are planted, it is never too late to begin the inner work of healing. The 12 Keys of Sanity which culminate in Key 12 “Being a Loving Mirror” provide a series of recovery principles designed to help you see yourself as the person you need to change in your life in order to make your life better! This may be a harsh pill to swallow, but it is true.

For some, these principles alone provide a good foundation. For others, the support of others is crucial…This can come in the form of a recovery coach to help you move in the direction of your dreams while looking honestly at what is going on in your present life that you may want/need to look at in order to get there!
For others, who have experienced severe trauma or distress, the help of a coach can be supplemented by that of a therapist.

Many find help in a group setting. There are Alanon and Naranon meetings all over the country and all over the world. Once you start going, get a sponsor and begin the 12 steps of recovery, where tremendous healing can be found. I work the steps daily and have found tremendous strength and healing in them. But for me and many others, more help was needed.

To add to your recovery by combining the help of a group with that of a coach, feel free to join a Loving Mirror Coaching Group. For 12 weeks, you will gain the insights and professional guidance of a Family Recovery Coach, along with the support of a group of others who have decided to take the lead in their lives in learning how to improve their relationship with themselves and the others in their lives. It’s an inexpensive way to have both a coach and a support group, all in one and the meetings are as close as your phone! A new group starts tomorrow, Wednesday, 8-3-11 at 8 PM ET. To learn more, click here.

So, dear reader, there you are with your boyfriend of five years who turns out to be a drinker, a partier and the parent of 2 adult drug addicts. Only you can decide if you have hit the jackpot in a negative or positive way. Only you can decide if your best bet is to cut your losses and GET OUT or to stick around and play the song again.

If you decide to stay, if you do the INNER work, this time CAN be different. That may mean he will decide to get well due to your example OR it may mean your interests will become so blatantly dissimilar, that one or both of you may leave the relationship.

If you decide to leave, AND are willing to let go of relationships for awhile while you do the INNER work, next time CAN be different!

If you simply keep blaming this whole repeat performance on the OTHERS, chances are, you WILL keep bringing dysfunctional people into your life – to repeat the performance again and again….and only once you realize that the only constant in the play of dysfunctional people in and out of your life is YOU, will you start to decide it is time to begin an inner journey of your own.

By building a relationship with yourself first, your chance at building a great relationship with others will be greatly enhanced.

If I can be of further help to you on your journey, give me a call and we can set up a time to talk further.

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC

ICF Professional Certified Coach

Recovery – True Purpose – Career – Life

www.beverlybuncher.com
www.12stepfamily.com
786 859 4050

“Imagine a world where every addict has the opportunity and support needed to build a sober lifetime one moment at a time, and every family has the benefit of a coach to help them blaze the trail to sobriety in their home. Imagine a world without relapse.”
Join an ongoing coaching group and practice your Loving Mirror skills. Go to www.beverlybuncher.com/lovingmirror/ to register today!

Author of the forthcoming book Chaos to Sanity: Transform Your Life with the 12 Keys to Sanity

If there is a using addict in your life, download my free e-book on how to transform the chaos to sanity at www.theempowermentcoach.net and read my blog at www.12stepfamily.com

Enjoy my weekly newsletter Life Purpose in Recovery delivered right to your email and gain access to materials on the 12 Keys to Sanity for Family Members! Sign up here: http://forms.aweber.com/form/11/885999311.htm

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Welcome to the 12 Keys series of blog posts which will, month by month, explain the 12 Keys of Sanity and give you detailed ideas and activities to help you bring them alive in your life. This post will continue our focus on Key #2: Developing a Relationship with Yourself.

For me, one of the most interesting things about having a mindfulness meditation practice is what happens to my thoughts. They rise to the surface without freaking me out. It looks like this: I face a difficult situation and, instead of being overwhelmed by thoughts that lead to a knee jerk reaction, I internally ‘see’ the thoughts and become aware of the different perceptions going through my mind. This provides me with the time gap necessary to gain ground in Becoming a Loving Mirror.

And, the longer I meditate, the greater my ability to simply watch those thoughts, and then, choose the ones I am going to let go and the ones (if any) that I am going to act on. This ability to detach from one’s thoughts is a powerful side effect of mindfulness meditation that I, as a family member and a recovery coach, have found extremely helpful. That’s why, at the beginning of every Loving Mirror Coaching Group session, we spend five minutes cultivating the quality of mind that is able to detach by quieting our minds together.

Parts work, introduced in my last post, is a process of recognizing and giving voice to the many voices (aka thoughts) within in order to get to know them, share their concerns about how I am living my life, and, eventually, give them an option to evolve their perspective and role in my life.

These two practices, that of mindfulness and that of parts work, complement each other in that, when the thoughts are closer to the surface, they offer me clues to the inner perspectives of my parts that I may benefit from exploring.

I enjoy following up on these clues through my parts work, which I do through the type of written dialoguing that I described in my Key 1 blog post on Dialoguing with a Higher Power. (Of course dialoguing with ego parts has a different purpose than different than dialoguing with a Higher Power, but let’s talk more about that on another day.)

During yesterday’s monthly free Loving Mirror Teleseminar, my guest, Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Valerie York Zimmerman, guided participants through a couple of brief mindfulness exercises designed to quickly give practitioners relief from the incessant barrage of obsessive thoughts that can, at times, overtake the mind. Of course, being related to a person struggling with drugs and alcohol can increase one’s propensity to obsess and worry. Participants found the practice relaxing, and an interesting discussion ensued about how practicing this or any relaxation technique can impact not only one’s life, but that of one’s loved ones.

To learn this peaceful method of dealing with crisis in the moment, click here and I will send you today’s free teleseminar on Key 2 and Mindfulness.

All the best,
Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC

ICF Professional Certified Coach

Recovery – True Purpose – Career – Life

www.beverlybuncher.com
www.12stepfamily.com
786 859 4050

“Imagine a world where every addict has the opportunity and support needed to build a sober lifetime one moment at a time, and every family has the benefit of a coach to help them blaze the trail to sobriety in their home. Imagine a world without relapse.”

Join an ongoing coaching group and practice your Loving Mirror skills. Go to www.beverlybuncher.com/lovingmirror/ to register today!

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Welcome to the 12 Keys series of blog posts which will, month by month, explain the 12 Keys of Sanity and give you detailed ideas and activities to help you bring them alive in your life. This post will continue our focus on Key #2: Developing a Relationship with Yourself.

If you have ever found yourself wondering why a part of you feels one way while another feels the other, you may be ready to explore the topic of getting to know your ego parts. The very concept of having an ego that is made up of many parts each with their own perspective on you, your life, and the situations facing you, is one that has been written about, studied and taught extensively.

Thinkers, therapists, life coaches and teachers including Carl Jung (Active Imagination), Robert Schwartz (Internal Family Systems), Hal and Sidra Stone (Voice Dialogue), and Tim Kelley (True Purpose work) have written about, taught, and/or teach this understanding of the ego having parts or subpersonalities that play different roles in a person’s life.

If you are wondering if this cold be true, that your ego could be subdivided into a bunch of parts, each of which wants a say in how you run your life, think back on the last decision you made. Did you notice one part of you that wanted you to go in one direction and and another that wanted to go elsewhere? one part that wanted you to quickly move forward and another that was scared and wanted you to wait? Take a moment to think about this. Maybe you have a decision right now that is pressing against you. Something you want to take action on, but then again…

Each of these parts, or subpersonalities, was, according to this theory, formed at a point in your life when your ego felt you needed it. One might be a protector, another a controller. One could be a worrier, another a risk taker. Some of these parts are like cheerleaders, always telling you what a great job you are doing, while others doubt everything you do or say. Take a moment to stop reading for a moment and take out your journal or a piece of paper. Think about the functions of the parts within you. Do you have a manipulator? a scaredy cat? a wounded child? a crybaby? a victim? a bully? Keep going. Get them all down on paper. The one that gets you to clean up all the time and the one that keeps your place cluttered. The one that is constantly bugging you to improve your work habits and the one that says you work too hard and need to lay back and take it easy…

By now, you may be getting confused. You could be thinking that only sick people have multiple personalities. Well, there is an illness called multiple personality disorder. But that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about multiple personalities. We all have them. The question is, are we in touch with them and how can speaking with them help you with Key #2: Having a Healthy Relationship with Yourself.

In my opinion, both written parts work and voice dialogue are amazing ways for a person to enhance their relationship with self. This week we will talk more about how these work and how these practices can calm the inner storms that so often go with life in relationship to any type of addict or dysfunctional person – including oneself!

In the meantime, make that list of your many parts. Think about all of the inner turmoil you experience. Name how the part in charge of that inner turmoil functions, and let’s talk again soon!

Looking forward to writing more about this topic soon and by the way, remember, this Thursday at 11 AM ET is the How Mindfulness Can Help You Become a Loving Mirror. We will speak with Mindfulness Instructor Valerie York Zimmerman AND she will teach participants the 3 Minute Breath Space, a mindfulness technique to calm your angst in a moment or crisis or upset. To sign up, go to Key2: Self . Even if you can’t attend, by signing up you will receive a copy of the recording which will give you the 3 Minute Breath Space to practice with at home!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC

ICF Professional Certified Coach

Recovery – True Purpose – Career – Life

www.beverlybuncher.com
www.12stepfamily.com
786 859 4050

“Imagine a world where every addict has the opportunity and support needed to build a sober lifetime one moment at a time, and every family has the benefit of a coach to help them blaze the trail to sobriety in their home. Imagine a world without relapse.”
Join an ongoing coaching group and practice your Loving Mirror skills. Go to www.beverlybuncher.com/lovingmirror/ to register today!

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The textbook of AA, referred to as the Big Book, talks about the detrimental effect that resentment can have on a person’s recovery. For the co-addict or co-alcoholic, the effect of resentment may not start a binge or substance relapse, but can turn into a codependent relapse that can get the whole family off kilter!

Yes, you are that powerful. If you’ve been reading for awhile, you are probably familiar with my thinking on this: You do have tremendous power in the family. While you didn’t cause, cannot control, and can’t cure the addict’s using, you can contribute to the addictive behavior by continuing to be actively addicted to your addict and all of the craziness that surrounds the using lifestyle.

Your power comes from recovering from co-addiction and being a living example of sane happy living. So, what role does forgiveness play in this?

It’s easy to resent the addict, his dealers, his doctors, his drinking buddies, her pimp, her boyfriend, her husband, his wife, etc. When we are in the “poor me’s” about how sad and awful it is to be married/related to an addict and about how desparate the situation is, sometimes blaming others in the addict’s life is the only comfort we can find.

But, spending your precious energy and time on who done your addict and you wrong over the years just doesn’t help. In fact, it hurts. How? Well for one thing, it keeps the focus where it needn’t be: on things you have NO control over. For another, left unbridled, such unforgiveness and resentment can only do you and your addict harm. Over time, it will grow and fester into hate, fear, envy, anger and discouragement that will only hurt the person who dwells on it.

Now this isn’t to say that it is not natural to have those feelings. It is. But the question is, what do you, as a recovering co-addict, do with these feelings?

In the 12 step programs, forgiveness plays a big role: forgiveness of self and others. The steps provide a mechanism to forgive through first becoming aware of the feelings, then asking HP to remove them, then making amends to people we’ve harmed, and then staying spiritually fit, which includes praying for people who have harmed us daily in order to let go of the negative feelings we harbor about them.

Forgiveness is not at all an unselfish act. It is something we do for our own benefit. Unable to handle the festering without becoming bitter, miserable human beings, we forgive others for what they have done to us in order to free ourselves of the bad feelings that go along with a victim mentality.

There’s a saying in the program: “There are no victims. There are only volunteers.”

The beauty of working a recovery program is that it gives us tools to no longer walk blindly through victimhood. We wake up to our own role in the family illness of addiction and have the power of choice to get well and move our lives forward. Forgiveness is one of the tools and the blessings of this process.

If you would benefit from getting help with your forgiveness work, go to Nar-Anon and/or Alanon meetings, work the steps with a sponsor. As we say in the program: “It works if you work it!”

A recovery coach can help with the process as well. Armed with lots of unique methods, techniques, and technologies of growth, a recovery coach is there to help you move forward in your own life and let go of the unproductive attitudes and behaviors of the family disease.

Call me at 786 859 4050 to set up a complimentary consult. Let’s explore the possibilities of how family recovery coaching could help you move forward!

And if you are ready for more advanced steps in your own recovery, take a look at my Life Purpose In Recovery Blog ( www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com ) to learn more about how you can find your very unique and specific life purpose. I’m here. Give me a call today and let’s talk!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly Buncher, MA, CEC, CLPF
Family Recovery Coach/True Purpose Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.com
786 859 4050

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Are you trying to figure out if there is more to your life than what you have experienced so far?

Do you know why you are here? What your own specific life purpose truly is?

Isn’t it time you found out?

If you think there is more and have been looking in all the wrong places, that doesn’t mean there isn’t more. There is!
Knowing your unique life purpose and gaining the skills to manifest it is about as cool as life gets!

To help you do so, I’m offering a nine week teleseminar called

True Purpose: Life Purpose in Recovery.

Take this course and take YOUR recovery to the next level and beyond!

Learn more at:

http://www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com/2010/05/more-details-about-upcoming-life.html

Warning: This course is for people who already have some recovery under their belt. To find out if you qualify, take the survey listed on my life purpose in recovery blog (see above) or give me a call at 786 859 4050.

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA CEC
Family Recovery Coach
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
786 859 4050

And remember to call for a complimentary consult if you are looking for help finding your purpose or with the addiction issues of a relative or a friend or with your own recovery from a substance or behavior of your own.

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Did you ever meet someone who is always cranky? Or constantly complaining about something? Or desparately in need of attention? Chances are, that person is being run by a part of their self that might do better with some healthy, uplifting attention….To learn more about how ego parts could be running your show and what you can do about it, read on…

On Sunday, Darren Littlejohn, author of 12 Step Buddhist, spoke to a large audience of In the Room members in South Florida in a workshop sponsored by In the Rooms and The Treatment Center. The message I got from his talk is that regardless of what we do to grow our recovery, 12 steps are the foundation and looking to enhance the process with additional inner work does really help. In Darren’s case, he is a Buddhist and he shared meditative techniques with the audience as well as a technique he called “Aspects of Self”.

According to Darren, his Zen teacher studied with the creators of Voice Dialogue, Sidra and Hal Stone, and developed a Zen adaptation of their work, which Darren further adapted into what he calls “Aspects of Self”. (An interesting look at Voice Dialogue, developed by the Stones, can be found in their book Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual, in which they discuss the parts of self that can plague us when kept unconscious, but can add to the strength of one’s self, when respected, accepted and understood.)

In Darren’s ‘Aspects of Self’ part of the workshop, he asked audience members to get in touch with and then “be” different aspects of themselves aloud in answer to specific questions he asked. For instance, he asked people to “be” their controller and then he asked the controllers questions aloud and asked them to answer aloud. Then he called on individuals in the audience to tell the group what they, as the controller, had to say about different things like what their job is, how they get along with others, Higher Power, etc.

The interesting part came when he asked people to take on the persona of the addict within them. One by one, members of the audience shared their feelings as ‘the addict’ and you could feel a subtle shift as people gave voice to their addict and learned from the addict in the people around them.

As someone who does this work a lot, both individually and with clients, in a written form, I found Darren’s workshop valuable in that it opened doors for me to further work with my own inner addict, inner controller, and others who were mentioned.

When I do this work with my clients, I call it ‘Parts Work’. Trained by Tim Kelley, founder of the True Purpose Coaching Method and author of True Purpose: 12 Strategies to Discover the Difference You are Meant to Make, I find parts work to be one of the most powerful tools in my coaching repertoire, especially for clients in recovery from substances, behaviors, and codependency.

Parts work is designed to allow the participant to get to know all of the disparate parts of self that have long been pushed down yet keep popping up and wreaking havoc on everyday life. By forming a respectful relationship with one’s parts, or to use Littlejohn’s language, ‘aspects of self’, the recovering person now has a way to learn more about the motivations behind the character defects that run so much of the show, and gains tools to negotiate with the parts and help them learn new ways of being and becoming aligned with the recovering person’s new, healthier lifestyle.

To take it a step further, when I do Life Purpose work with clients, through which they get detailed, useful information on why they are here and what specific contribution they are meant to make in this lifetime, I teach them parts work to help them break through the blocks that are keeping them from manifesting their purpose. In fact, parts work is an excellent tool to align one’s ego parts with the intention of one’s soul, also known as one’s life purpose.

I completely agree with Darren’s invitation to start with the steps, consider them your foundation, and then move beyond them to gain additional inner and outer growth. They provide us the ability to clean up our relationships with God, ourselves and other human beings. In two weeks, I’ll be leading a 12 step weekend workshop at the GCNA Naranon Memorial Day 2010 Convention at Bahia Mar Hotel. (Go to www.Nar-Anon.org for more information on this convention or contact me) I do this work with others because of the foundational nature of the steps to recovery. They provide a priceless paradigm for recovery that is open to enhancement and expansion. Indeed, for many of us, there is more out there to help us grow that can help us go even further in these three vital relationships of God, self and other that the Steps guide us to heal. Therapy, coaching, and meditative practices to name a few.

Parts Work, too, is one of the many paths available to bring about this inner healing. Neither Darren, nor Tim Kelley, nor the Stones, invented the idea of addressing the parts of the ego and becoming a more integrated, whole person as a result. In the 1970′s, Depth Psychologist Ira Progoff wrote At A Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability which includes an entire section called The Dialogue Dimension, in which he has participants do dialogues with persons, works, the body, events, situations and circumstances and society. In a later chapter, he invites them to dialogue with their Inner Wisdom. (For more information, go to www.intensivejournal.org.)

I attended his Intensive Journal workshops regularly through the 1980′s and found them hugely helpful in my ability to grow my relationship with my Higher Power as well as to better understand my relationship to my body and wrote an article on the intensive journal and the 12 steps (under the pseudonym Jane A.) which I will be happy to send you if you contact me. Now, as a result of studying with Tim, I’ve taken this work much further, both in relation to my ego parts and in relation to Higher Power, which he refers to as ‘Trusted Source’.

Tim Kelley’s unique contribution to this work can be found in his approach which guides clients to align parts to purpose. Through working with Tim and then sharing this work with my clients in recovery, I’ve witnessed and had the privilege of being a part of transformations that have allowed people to move forward tremendously in their recovery and in their lives. You can order Tim’s book True Purpose by going to http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?af=1043560 .

If you would like to learn more about parts work and/or the life purpose in recovery work that I do with clients, please contact me for a complimentary consult or visit my blog at www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com and take the survey to see if you have enough recovery under your belt to do this work and find your life purpose. I am more than willing to meet with you by phone or in person to introduce you to this work and help you find how it could help you move your recovery to the next level!

Til next time,

All the best!

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA CEC CLPF
Family Recovery Coach (aka The Empowerment Coach)
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org

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