healing

be free from your reasons

We act the way we do because of our genes and our environment. These are our reasons. If someone treats me with cruelty, I don’t need to get angry at them, because they have many good reasons for acting the way they do. But if I get angry, that also is okay, because I have my own reasons.

Breathe. There is no Great Bookkeeper of sins. We are free.

transformation

Healing is about become free of our reasons. If you have reasons for living a life of resentment, then fine. Live like that and be resentful. But if you see a way out of that, snatch it with both hands. Find a way to get free, and find a way to live a life as though the reasons were never there.

In the second level of Reiki, students are given a way to send healing back to their childhood self. This seems ridiculous, but there is power in it. It is the reasons of the past that obstruct our full living in the present. You can understand the healing in a mystical or a psychological way (or both, if you’re like me), but what is important is that you are unlocking the chains.

You have every reason to stay unhappy, to stay in that abusive relationship, to keep eating crap food. You will not be held accountable for these things, because you have your reasons. But within you is the power to change; you are free to find a way, any way, to break free from your reasons and start a new way of life.

pimply cold alcoholic turkeys

I love a good drink. If I make the effort to cook-up some good Italian food, I usually open a bottle of wine. To be honest with you, I hope I will always be able to enjoy alcohol like this. This is healthy drinking.

The unhealthy side is when I use alcohol to ease inner tension. It’s very easy to spot when I am doing this, but I often do not want to see the truth: some time about mid-afternoon, I get a bit tired (after spending too long in front of a computer) a bit tense, a bit on edge. It’s just the way my daily cycle goes at the moment. For a long time, this feeling was a cue for me to drink, or at least to look forward to drinking when the working day was done. I would ride an edginess that promised a future resolution: the fresh taste of a nice cool beer. Ahhh, relaxtion, the good life, letting-go.

But this sucks. It’s alcohol dependency. It was every day.

Now that I’ve consciously clocked these processes, and decided to make a positive change, things are getting interesting. When I feel uptight and in need of a drink, I tell myself that I’m not going to get one. Chug-stutter-groan- Can you feel the gears shifting in my internal universe? Can you feel metal grate on metal?

I’m left without my comfort blanket and am out in the cold. But I get to ask some interesting questions. Why did I let myself get uptight? Why didn’t I take breaks from my computer, from thinking? Why didn’t I do some stretches, and breathe some beautiful air?

This is all basic stuff. If you put bad food into a human, you get bad humanity coming out. If you force your brain into over-activity for extended periods of time, you get stress. You put a sedative in and the stress goes. Or you stop the stress building-up in the first place.

But now that I’m sitting out in the cold, I’m quite enjoying it. Blanketless, the chill night air touches my skin, and I feel. Consciously. Aliveness beckons and says to my groaning being that more freedom is possible.

I know someone who alternately drinks way too much, and then goes for a year without any alcohol. I think he is right when he says that it’s easier to drink nothing than to drink just a little. But I will try and walk this space in between: to drink only for joy, not for comfort or tension relief. To drink as a celebration of good life, good food, and good company.