RECOVERING RELATIONSHIPS

Schadenfreude, a bit of enjoyment at the misfortunes of others.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 08:23:00 +0000

Do you take joy in seeing a colleague who "has it all" fail in some way?Credit: R. Gino Santa Maria | Shutterstock

My job is to see a lot of facebook pages and posts a lot of which include a schadenfreude effect. They are the ones that are designed to offer an envious effect.When the office slacker makes a mistake that could cost them a pay raise — do you truly feel bad, or do you have to work to hide your smile?

If you smiled, you've just experienced schadenfreude, a bit of enjoyment at the misfortunes of others. And now researchers know more about why we experience this seemingly odd emotion. Turns out, it can be a sure way to make you feel better about yourself. It's a self-affirming boost.

"If somebody enjoys the misfortune of others, then there's something in that misfortune that is good for the person," said study researcher Wilco W. van Dijk, adding that it could be due to thinking the other person deserves the misfortune, and so becoming less envious of them or feeling better about one's self.
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Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

In the study, van Dijk, of Leiden University in the Netherlands,and his colleagues had 70 undergraduate students (40 women and 30 men) read two interviews about a high-achieving student who was likely to land a great job. Then they read an interview with the student's supervisor revealing that the student had suffered a big setback in his/her studies. Next, they rated their level of agreement with five statements meant to gauge their schadenfreude, such as: "I enjoy[ed] what happened to Marleen/Mark"; "I couldn’t resist a little smile."

Those with low self-esteem (assessed at the study's start) were both more likely to be threatened by the overachieving student, and to experience schadenfreude. However, the researchers found that regardless of self-esteem, those who felt more threatened by this student also felt more schadenfreude.

The researchers thought that perhaps the reason for this was that schadenfreude was self-affirming for these "threatened" individuals.

As a follow-up experiment, the researchers gave about half of the students a self-affirmation boost by shoring up their beliefs about what the students had indicated was a very important value to them, and then asked them to repeat the same interview-reading stint.

Participants with low self-esteem were again more likely to experience schadenfreude, and also more likely to feel threatened by the high-achieving student. However, those who had been self-affirmed were less likely than those who hadn't to reap pleasure when reading about the other student's academic slip.

"I think when you have low self-esteem, you will do almost anything to feel better, and when you're confronted with the misfortune of others," you'll feel schadenfreude, van Dijk told LiveScience. "In this study, if we give people something to affirm their self, then what we found is they have less schadenfreude — they don't need the misfortune of others to feel better anymore."

Evil thoughts

If you feel an evil sort of glee at the slip-ups of another, are you a bad person? Well, van Dijk says that just about all of us experience schadenfreude at some point in our lives.

"We know that it's very good to feel empathy and sympathy for people, so if you feel schadenfreude without any sympathy or compassion for that other person," that would not be good, van Dijk said. "Our society thrives on compassion and empathy."

While some of us get a kick out of the small blunders of a colleague, say, others experience schadenfreude due to another's grave misfortunes, as van Dijkhas found in research yet to be published.

Do you have a dissociational relationship can you identify

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 04:02:00 +0000

When something goes wrong, does your partner blame everyone but himself or herself?
Does your partner refuse to be accountable for his or her bad behavior? (For example, “You made me so mad that I couldn’t help . . .”)
Does your partner believe he or she is always right?
Is your partner unable to tune in to your feelings or your children’s feelings?
Does your partner seem more concerned about how your behavior or your children’s behavior reflects on him or her than on understanding and accepting who you and the kids are as people?
Does your partner seem to be out of touch with his or her own feelings or seem to deny them?
Does your partner carry grudges against you and others?
Is it all about your partner and his/her money, time, parenting time, property, and wishes/demands?
Does your partner seem unwilling to listen to you and to hear your concerns?
Is your partner constantly telling you what to do?
Does your partner make you feel “not good enough”? Have your partner’s constant put-downs caused you to internalize this message?
Does your partner never ask about you, your day, or your feelings, even in passing?
Does your partner need to go on and on about how great he or she is and how pathetic you are?
Does your partner lie?
Does your partner manipulate?
Does your partner tell different people different stories about the same event, spinning the story so that he or she looks good?
When your partner talks about his or her kids, is it about what the kids do rather than who they are?
Are the children uncomfortable with your partner, love your partner, but at the same time are reluctant to spend time with him or her?
Have you come to realize that the kids protect themselves by not sharing their feelings with your partner?
Does your partner mistrust everyone?
Are the kids always trying to gain your partner’s love and approval?
Has your partner spent minimal time with the children?
Does your partner typically skip the children’s events if he or she does not have an interest in that particular activity or does not value it?
Does your partner push the children to be involved in activities that your partner likes or values and discourage or forbid them from pursuing activities that your partner does not value?
Have others in your life said that something is different or strange about your partner?
Does your partner take advantage of other people?
Is your partner all about power and control, pursuing power at all costs?
Is your partner all about image and how things look to others?
Does your partner seem to have no value system, no fixed idea of right and wrong for his or her behavior?
After the divorce, does your partner still want to exploit you? Or has your partner never calmed down?
When you try to discuss your life issues with your partner, does your partner change the subject so that you end up talking about your partner’s issues?
When you describe your feelings, does your partner try to top your feelings with his or her own stories?
Does your partner act jealous of you?
Does your partner lack empathy?
Does your partner only support things that reflect well on him or her?
Have you consistently felt a lack of emotional closeness with your partner?
Have you consistently questioned if your partner loves you?
Does your partner do considerate things for you only when others are around to witness that good behavior?
When something difficult happens in your life (for instance, an accident, illness, a divorce in your family or circle of friends), does your partner react with immediate concern about how it will affect him or her rather than with concern for you?
Is your partner overly conscious of what others think?
Do you feel used by your partner?
Do you feel responsible for your partner’s ailments or sicknesses?
Do you feel that your partner does not accept you?
Is your partner critical and judgmental of you and others?
Do you feel that your partner does not know and value the real you and does not want to know the real you?
Does your partner act as if the world should revolve around him or her?
Does your partner appear phony to you?
Does your partner swing from grandiosity to a depressed mood?
Does your partner try to compete with you?
Does your partner always have to have things his or her way?

Can we remember situations in our life where we denied childhood emotions we were having?

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 13:40:00 +0000

On arrival at The Ten Stages Course we have often never considered fully feeling any painful emotions like loss, betrayal, disappointment, regret, sadness, or anger all we ever wanted was to be happy.

What we didn’t realise, was that this is a maladaptive coping mechanism in order to not deal with the uncomfortable emotions that come with growing up. Somewhere along the way, primarily in our childhood, We picked up the message that it wasn’t safe to feel. That we are safe, secure and loved when we were perfectly happy, and that this made everyone around us happy too. As a result, we had some well hidden ghosts.

When we aren’t allowed to grieve and feel our emotions, they get stuck in our body — in our Being. Emotions are energy in motion, E + motion. They want to be released — otherwise they get stored and fester creating problems later in adult life. We have an emotional child withins body just like we have a physical body, and when one of them is displaced our whole energy system is lost. As a result, these subconscious memories of our childhood will dictate the frequency we create our life from. Think about this, if we are cutting ourselves off from a valid part of the human experience, aren’t we in a way saying we don’t completely accept ourselves? That we don’t accept who we are, childhood and all?

We can better align with a frequency of recovery and create with more ease and flow when we accept and nurture all parts of ourselves. we start doing this by contacting our child hidden within instead of using our head when we feel a strong emotion. We allowed the emotion space and we even fall apart from time to time. We can ask ourself a series of grounding questions like “Where do I feel this?” “How old do I feel?” we are careful not to shame ourself about having our childhood emotions. we can lovingly nurture ourself, instead of dissociating to someone else to do it; and we would say “It’s okay to feel this, we are a child within.” And when we are done feeling whatever it was that was coming up for us, immediately we feel lighter, and more WHOLE! Releasing trapped emotions from our child within from years past is a detox for our emotional body.

Feeling the uncomfortable emotions is never as bad as our adult head had built it up to be, in fact the emotions moved through us much quicker than we had ever anticipated. We don’t have to react from our childhood emotions. It’s actually better not to; but we can honour them, use them as our guides, and give them space so they don’t get trapped and show up as toxic behaviours like addiction, projection, shame and lack of self trust.

Using deep contact with our child within is a great way to stay focused, keep our monkey mind at bay and develop new neural pathways to our intuitive voice; but they only work on the rational and logical level. If you are using them at the expense of other parts of our child within that are asking to be heard we are possibly be blocking our doorway into the healing intuitive voice. Fellow Stagers know this: We are dynamic, multidimensional beings and we need to feel to recover our child within! Then we can go out into the world and share all that recovery we have just given to ourself.

Can we remember situations in our life where we denied childhood emotions we were having?

Dissociations came in all different forms–pills, alcohol, shopping, relationships, food, work, television, gossip, distractions

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 12:57:00 +0000

The biggest misunderstanding that ever existed is that there was something inside of us that we needed to avoid, run away from, an emptiness that we needed to fill up with something outside of us.

And so we created pain-killers. Dissociations came in all different forms–pills, alcohol, shopping, relationships, food, work, television, gossip, distractions, even holding onto a diagnosis and letting it be our identity–addictions and dissociations on different levels that kept us running from the pain of believing in our own fears from childhood.

My drug of choice was relationships and I ran from my fears and let them control me by finding false comfort and security in my romantic relationships–my perceived lack within fueled the need for this love outside of me and made me believe I was only whole and complete when the relationship was there.

Whatever we are using, holding onto tightly, and the most afraid to let go of, is our pain-killer and this is our self-imposed prison, which means we have the key to unlock and free ourselves.

The truth shall set you free. The truth is love. The key is the path of self-love. It’s the courageous path that we step onto when we finally throw up our hands and say we’ve had enough and we know there’s a better way–or maybe we hit our knees and are finally ready to listen. The process of self-love is to begin to look at our pain and fears in the face so that you can finally release them rather than be controlled by them. Forgiveness, letting go, and opening our heart encourages self-love.

The limiting pattern, trigger, or codependency in our daily lives is in response to pain–pain from a past experiences of our childhood that when left unprocessed comes into our present lives and is projected into our future. In every moment we feel triggered we can break our heart open more and love ourselves more or we can close our hearts and put walls up of blame, judgment, shame and allow the outside circumstance to control how we feel and who we will be in the world.

We clear emotional patterns by allowing the feelings to come up to release and we move through them into the truth–which is our recovery. On the other side of childhood pain is freedom.

Forgiveness allows us to unhook from painful emotions from past experiences. Rather than saying we think it’s okay what happened, we’re choosing to free ourselves of anger or resentment, and other emotions so that we can move forward in our relationship with our child within and create the future for ourselves that we truly desire. We begin with forgiving ourselves first and then we move to others because we cannot give to others what we have not given to ourselves first.

Through the process of allowing pain and emotions to come to the surface, not only does everything come up to release but our child withins desires come up as well. And this is our push to really go forward. We find out what we’re really here for.

As we dissolve pain, hurt and fears, this purification process allows us to step into being the co-creators that we are. As we clear these blocks to who we really are, we experience a new way of being, a lightness, and aliveness. From this new place of freedom from fear, we begin the co-creative dance with our freed child within. We step into the flow of life with our inner guide, the intuitive voice of love and knowing, showing us exactly where to go. We are no longer blocked from anything we desire, the belief in scarcity and lack is a distant memory, and through this radical internal shift we allow our child within to flow its abundance to us, allowing us to serve on a higher level, becoming a beacon of light for those who are beginning their journey. We are all in this together.

We see, as children, we are dependent on others for our survival.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Growing up, many of us have learned that in order to receive love from our parents or our primary caretaker, there is a certain way we had to behave. And we also learned that there were ways that we couldn’t behave.

We see, as children, we are dependent on others for our survival. And so we begin to adapt our behaviour to get the approval we desire from our parents. We are geniuses at understanding patterns – it’s called pattern recognition. As children, we see the patterns that, if we follow them, get us rewards from our parents. And we see the patterns that will never get us rewards and approval from our parents.

This type of pattern recognition creates our “model of association,” i.e., how we learn to get approval from not only our parents, but also our immediate world. We then we take this model of behaviour that many times was decided by us by the time we were 5 or 6, into our adult life. What many of us have come to understand is that there is still a scared and helpless 5 or 6-year-old version of ourselves that is running the show in all our relationships – both romantically and professionally.

Obviously, what we learn from our parents, no matter if the experience was good or bad, has served us to this point. We made it to today and so we learned how to survive, cope and survive.

Many of us were praised when we achieved and followed the rules and not praised when we acted out, acted too silly or too empowered (a.k.a. against our parents’ will). Many parents value our security so much that they let financial certainty be the bottom line as far as what is “good” for us and what isn’t.

Very few parents actually want us to cultivate our creative or artistic skill set because the dominant belief in the world is that it’s very hard to get paid to do that. While they think they are loving us in that moment, they are actually holding us back from living an authentic life, because we want approval from our parents as a young child, we obey.

But could it be true that some of the decisions we made as a young child no longer serve us? Is there a part of us that we have been ignoring that wants to come out and play? Is that part of us is scared to come out because that part of us believes that our needs won’t be met if we show that part? What if our journey today was to show more of that other side of ourselves that has been shut away for so long? What if our needs can and WILL get met as we become more and more ourself? What if an even BETTER life was possible if we did that? Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

We see, we learned a model of approval in a different stage of life. If we tried to wear the same shoes that we wore when you were 6, chances are those shoes wouldn’t serve us now the way they did then. So don’t we think it’s time to upgrade our model of approval and consciously design it? Don’t we think it’s time to take charge of our life and start living it instead of letting it live us? Aren’t we ready to re-connect to our child hidden within us!?

Aren’t we ready to live a self-approved child withins life instead of being an old carbon copy of someone else’s desire for us?

This is what The STAGES Recovery Path is about. Learning what stories and patterns we’ve been running that no longer serve us and consciously create new contact with our child withins intuitive voice and CHOOSE to live with this contact every day.

So – what new model of our child withins life would we like to decide today? What new recovery story would we like to live shed of our old childhood coping strategies?

BOOM – nice Stager is GONE and triggered Stager shows up.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 17:48:00 +0000

BOOM – nice Stager is GONE and triggered Stager shows up.

It’s inevitable.

We’ve come to believe that the course work is really about seeking the peace within the chaos – the Truth within the triggers.

Life is not about NOT being triggered. Life is about bringing understanding and AWARENESS to our triggers and moments when our emotions come up.

We see, a lot of people we know who make the mistake of shooting for a “recovery bypass” – where they try to deny their humanness, they try to deny their emotions, they try to put their negativity and triggers in a box and then pretend they don’t exist.

And then – over time – they stack up – and BOOM – we have a breakdown, an emotional explosion or other expression.

Having these moments doesn’t mean something is wrong with us. It means we are human.

Here at The Stages, we advocate full acceptance and expression of our human nature.

This lets us be fully alive. From there, we also believe in tapping into the higher awareness that is our child within, that is the observer of the human mind and emotions from our childhood.

We are part child within, part intuitive voice. To deny either is to deny who we are.

We can’t just sit around and justify our negativity as “being adult.” And we also can’t not express ourselves because we are “child within.” We need both. We are both.

This is the beautiful balance that we get to walk as the child within having an adult experience.

We have found that when we let ourself express, when we allow our child within to be who we are – without any judgment – amazing things happen.

And once we fully express ourself – without judgment – we do our best to bring our awareness, our child withins perspective into the moment.

Our aim is to have our child awareness be there as we are being triggered, so that we catch ourself faster from crashing into dissociation.

We all have triggers. We all have intense emotions, both dark and light. These are not good or bad – they are just information.

We must allow ourselves to express ourselves; we must allow ourselves to be FULLY child within and FULLY adult.

This dance is the dance that allows the greatest version of life to be lived.

How can we allow ourself to be both child within and adult?

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 11:44:00 +0000

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson

Our life matters. Choosing recovering relationships will bring us great joy and great recovery.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 11:38:00 +0000

Our life matters. Choosing recovering relationships will bring us great joy and great recovery. This RECOVERY is a choice we can make.

It’s very easy to look for recovery outside ourselves; in a relationship, a dream job, or the perfect body weight. When we chase recovery externally, we’re simply looking for Recovery in all the wrong places. The outside search is based on false projections we place on the world. These projections build up a wall against true recovery, which lies in the child within us. We need to understand how nothing “out there” can save you from the conflict that resides within us. You must develop a contact with ourselves to begin enjoying life altogether.

Each time we make this shift and choose happiness, we experience our recovery. Our mind shifts from fearful delusions and reconnects to our truth, which is contact with our child within. Creating these shifts requires a dedicated commitment to choosing recovery. To begin our commitment to our new perceptions, of contact with our child hidden within we practice The Ten Stages.

The more we retrain ourself to choose our released intuitive voice over fear, the more recovered we will become. Repeating our new perception is what makes our contact stick. When we repeat a new contact with our child within often, we are literally changing the neural pathways in our brain. This shift helps true recovery settle in.

Recovery is our choice. We can choose today.

Your energy has far more power than you can even imagine. There is energy in your spoken words, in your emails, and in your physical presence. When we function from a fearful, low-level energetic state, our thoughts and energy can literally pollute the world. Conversely, when we function from a place of positive energy, the world around us becomes more positive. The truth is that fear cannot coexist with love. Therefore, we must learn how to dissolve all boundaries with love by taking responsibility for our own energy. In doing so, we’ll raise the energy around us.

Now, let’s get this miracle train on the tracks and start busting through your blocks, releasing anxiety and living a fearless life. Let’s begin creating Miracles Now.

Recovering Relationships an experience-based support for individuals and families across the stages of long-term recovery

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 21:32:00 +0000

Recovering Relationships an experience-based support for individuals and families across the stages of long-term recovery – spanning pre-recovery priming, recovery initiation and stabilisation, recovery maintenance, and enhanced quality of personal and family life in long-term recovery. No other existing helping role offers this type of span of support.

Recovering Relationships is now emerging as a contributing force, as the field revises its approach to developing functioning, stable recovery.

It has been discovered that, when studying approaches are introduced to recovering people looking to build and develop change in their lives, they work. This should be no surprise. It is widely accepted and known that studying as a relationship technology and approach works when proficiently practiced.

“experienced based support”, the main emergence of recovering relationships study has been in the peer-to-peer support environment and movement which has existed for some time in mutual-aid organisations, as well as in developing recovery communities.

This is not the only place where recovery studying has been developing. We who take the courses and who are in recovery ourselves recognised the potential which a taught course offers recovery. The development of recovering relationships and its differing approaches sprang from the truth,trust and consent approaches to mental health.

RECOVERING RELATIONSHIPS OVERVIEW
Recovery Relationships primary focus is on studying what behaviour impacts on individuals and communities of people to develop and live meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling lives while initiating, building and developing recovering relationships. We enter into a collaborative and designed relationship where we uses foundational and advanced course skills, principles and contexts to facilitate the empowerment, transformation and development of the individual. Examining existing conditioning from childhood experience into a holistic course centred method of understanding how they impact on person centred recovery.

As our developmental courses occur, the course does not promote or endorse a particular pathway or methodology that leads to recovery but a joint experiential realisation of what constitutes a healthy, nurturing relationship. While there exists an active recovery relationship, the recipient is a partner in the other person’s life journey, facilitating access to their own child withins human resource, as defined by ourselves. We who are receiving the taught course are in charge of and provides the agenda for recovery and we are seen as the experts in our own life.

Our progress in our lives and recovery are supported by developing awareness of our current choices, actions and responsibilities. Our recovery is always grounded in agreed actions with agreed accountability.

We do not work in isolation but develop and maintain relationships with others, peers and volunteers in the field and their community as referral and support resources for their course work.

KEY CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES
Recovery comes from the persons actual recovery. The key principle on which recovering relationships rest in our practice which is that recovery is something that is re-generated by the person looking for, or in recovery. This deep respect for an individual’s history, ability and resourcefulness in finding their own path to recovery lies at the heart of recovering relationships.

Recovering Relationships is systemic. Recovery recognises that recovery develops and takes place in a series of relationships or a lack of relationships.
Recovering Relationships always is grounded in action and the accountability of our course work. All Recovering Relationship sessions ground in agreed action that we will attempt to take. We create mutually agreed relationship goals based on truth, trust , consent and feedback within the sessions or singularly so that they have an external process by which to evaluate the consequences of actions taken, or not taken, on our own recovering lives.

The agenda for a recovering relationships session always flows from the Stager (Ten Stage Recovery).
Accessing meditational resources. Recovering Relationships has become an invaluable gateway to resources that may be practical – such as local meetings – web-based meetings, google hangouts and webinars. The emphasis is on the taught course to add structure to develop a relationship to and interact with these recovery resources.

The recovering relationship is consciously designed between students and guides (those that have completed the course). The emphasis is on the students needs and requirements. The solid and clear design of the relationship provides a strong container which, adjusted as and when we and students agree positive solutions providing a robust and powerful place for us to be present.

Recovering Relationships is applicable across all models and approaches to recovery. As recovering relationships have no agenda other than to assist and support others to find and develop recovery, whatever that might be to the student, they work with whatever particular recovery pathway a student is developing at any given time.

Recovering Relationships are not experts in treatment nor are they offering it. Recovering Relationships is an addition to the existing environment and should be seen as new combination of tools which performs a particular role and function outside of medical or therapeutic treatments but often in alliance with them.

What is its impact? People receiving recovering relationships report increased feelings of confidence in their approach to and experience of recovery, a deepening of their belief in their own existing and future capabilities and positive actions. Also reported are feelings of being respected and individuated, of not being cogs in a system or recipients of a programme of treatment. There is an the increased sense of the possibility of self determination. The process and experience of being in recovering relationship and receiving the taught course also instigates a ‘self coaching’ facility which impacts as much on the personal development of the students as it does on the people they grow to support.

FACTORS ENCOURAGING GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF RECOVERING RELATIONSHIPS
Widening the road to recovery. Recovering Relationships offers a particular pathway of engagement for many people unable, unready and/or unwilling at a given time to engage with other pathways to recovery such as 12-step programmes, treatment programmes, spiritual pathways and so on. Significantly, recovering relationships are proving to be excellent first lines of engagement for people presenting with problems with misuse of substances or behaviours who are far away from accepting an engagement with others, it is a start to breaking social isolation.

Recovering Relationships is liberating. Course work and studying ways of approaching relationships rub off on other people. The non-judgment and acceptance which recovering relationships offer and tends to be attractive to others as well.

Low barriers to entry. The ability to acquire and use recovering relationship skills requires no prior or particular educational or academic experience. Almost anyone can learn and practice them.
Immediate returns. As the skills and approaches which form foundational recovering relationships skills and principles are essentially already aligned to existing innate human behavioural tendencies, they are easily understood from almost the beginning of the courses. There is an almost immediate return on the investment made in learning them.

As many of us working to support recovery look for new and more effective ways forward, recovering relationships offers support for the further empowerment of people and communities at grassroots level. In addition, it can expand the skill sets being offered by service provision organisations and individual practitioners.

Two people can live together with little meaningful, intimate contact, separated by walls of silence

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 22:37:00 +0000

If we are honest, we can feel isolated in the middle of a crowd. Even in the midst of a sea of family and acquaintances, we can feel intensely alone. We can even feel alone in a marriage or partnership—and sometimes most poignantly so. Two people can live together with little meaningful, intimate contact, separated by walls of silence or denial of honest feelings. Depression and addiction mute painful feelings that lurk beneath the surface. Posturing in routines and roles replaces authentic living. All too often, couples have children and use them to fill in the gaps of emptiness that are too hard to face.

Do not seek straight paths in darkness, possessed by fear.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:54:00 +0000

Do not seek straight paths in darkness, possessed by fear. But gather force and support each other. He who supports his neighbor strengthens himself

Recovering Relationships was birthed to provide experience-based support for individuals and families across the stages of long-term recovery

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 05:32:00 +0000

Recovering Relationships was birthed to provide experience-based support for individuals and families across the stages of long-term recovery – spanning pre-recovery priming, recovery initiation and stabilisation, recovery maintenance, and enhanced quality of personal and family life in long-term recovery. No other existing helping role offers that type and span of support.”

Recovering Relationships is only now emerging as a contributing force, as the field revises its approach to developing recovery.

It has been discovered that, when studying approaches are introduced to recovering people looking to build and develop change in their lives, they work. This should be no surprise. It is widely accepted and known that studying as a relationship technology and approach works when proficiently practiced.

“experienced based support”, the main emergence of recovering relationships study has been in the peer-to-peer support environment and movement which has existed for some time in mutual-aid organisations, as well as in developing recovery communities.

This is not the only place where recovery studying has been developing. We who take the courses and who are in recovery ourselves recognised the potential which a taught course offers recovery. The development of recovering relationships and its differing approaches sprang from truth,trust and consent approaches to mental health.

RECOVERING RELATIONSHIPS OVERVIEW

Recovery Relationships primary focus is on studying what behaviour impacts on individuals and communities of people to develop and live meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling lives while initiating, building and developing recovering relationships. We enter into a collaborative and designed relationship where we uses foundational and advanced course skills, principles and contexts to facilitate the empowerment, transformation and development of the individual. Examining existing conditioning from childhood.

As our developmental courses occurs, the course does not promote or endorse a particular pathway or methodology that leads to recovery but a joint experiential realisation of what constitutes a healthy, nurturing relationship. While there exists an active recovery relationship, the recipient is a partner in others person’s life journey, facilitating access to the our own child within human resource, as defined by ourselves. We who are receiving the taught course are in charge of and provides the agenda for recovery and we are seen as the experts in our own life.

Our progress in our lives and recovery are supported by developing awareness of our current choices, actions and responsibilities. Our recovery is always grounded in agreed actions with agreed accountability.

We do not work in isolation but develop and maintain relationships with others, peers and volunteers in the field and their community as referral and support resources for their course work.

KEY CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES

Recovery comes from the person recovering. The key principle on which recovering relationships rest in our practice which is that recovery is something that is re-generated by the person looking for, or in recovery. This deep respect for an individual’s ability and resourcefulness in finding their own path to recovery lies at the heart of recovering relationships.

Recovering Relationships is systemic. Recovery recognises that recovery develops and takes place in a series of relationships or a lack of relationships.

Recovering Relationships always is grounded in action and the accountability of our course work. All Recovering Relationship sessions ground in agreed action that we will attempt to take. We create mutually agreed relationship goals based on truth, trust , consent and feedback within the sessions or singularly so that they have an external process by which to evaluate the consequences of actions taken, or not taken, on our own recovering lives.

The agenda for a recovering relationships session always flows from the Stager (Ten Stage Recovery).

Accessing meditational resources. Recovering Relationships has become an invaluable gateway to resources that may be practical – such as local meetings – web-based meetings, google hangouts and webinars. The emphasis is on the taught course to add structure to develop a relationship to and interact with these recovery resources.

The recovering relationship is consciously designed between students and guides (those that have completed the course). The emphasis is on the students needs and requirements. The solid and clear design of the relationship provides a strong container which, adjusted as and when we and students agree positive solutions providin a robust and powerful place for us to be present.

Recovering Relationships is applicable across all models and approaches to recovery. As recovering relationships have no agenda other than to assist and support others to find and develop recovery, whatever that might be to the student, they work with whatever particular recovery pathway a student is developing at any given time.

Recovering Relationships are not experts in treatment nor are they offering it. Recovering Relationships is an addition to the existing environment and should be seen as new combination of tools which performs a particular role and function outside of medical or therapeutic treatments but often in alliance with them.

What is its impact? People receiving recovering relationships report increased feelings of confidence in their approach to and experience of recovery, a deepening of their belief in their own existing and future capabilities and positive actions. Also reported are feelings of being respected and individuated, of not being cogs in a system or recipients of a programme of treatment. There is an the increased sense of the possibility of self determination. The process and experience of being in recovering relationship and receiving the taught course also instigates a ‘self coaching’ facility which impacts as much on the personal development of the students as it does on the people they grow to support.

FACTORS ENCOURAGING GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF RECOVERING RELATIONSHIPS

Widening the road to recovery. Recovering Relationships offers a particular pathway of engagement for many people unable, unready and/or unwilling at a given time to engage with other pathways to recovery such as 12-step programmes, treatment programmes, spiritual pathways and so on. Significantly, recovering relationships are proving to be excellent first lines of engagement for people presenting with problems with misuse of substances or behaviours who are far away from accepting an engagement with others, it is a start to breaking social isolation

Recovering Relationships is liberating. Course work and studying ways of approaching relationships rub off on other people. The non-judgment and acceptance which recovering relationships offer and tends to be attractive to others as well.

Low barriers to entry. The ability to acquire and use recovering relationship skills requires no prior or particular educational or academic experience. Almost anyone can learn and practice them.

Immediate returns. As the skills and approaches which form foundational recovering relationships skills and principles are essentially already aligned to existing innate human behavioural tendencies, they are easily understood from almost the beginning of the courses. There is an almost immediate return on the investment made in learning them.

As many of us working to support recovery look for new and more effective ways forward, recovering relationships offers support for the further empowerment of people and communities at grassroots level. In addition, it can expand the skill sets being offered by service provision organisations and individual practitioners.

it is only about returning to the child within

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 20:44:00 +0000

It is not about changing the Self …. it is only about returning to the child within ….

She let go…. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 20:38:00 +0000

She let go…. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.
_

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.
_

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.
_

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
_

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore… "
~ Rev. Safire Rose

Love is in essence dispassionate and unemotional.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 13:02:00 +0000

To idealise something means to overestimate it, to place it on a pedestal, to worship it, or create an idol of it. The Love which creates and rules the world is very different to idealization. However paradoxical it may sound, Love is in essence dispassionate and unemotional.

Unconditional Love is admiration without worship or the need to possess.

In other words, it does not create interdependent relationships between the one doing the loving and the object of their love. This simple truth helps to determine where love ends and idealization begins. We have such power within ourselves but we still want something more, we try to steal someone else‘s right to freedom and happiness.

The problem isn’t that we are looking for what’s wrong. The problem is that we can very easily slip into only looking for what’s wrong.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 20:06:00 +0000

Coming from a point of perfection , our child within one of the things that we’ve seen to be key to our re-transformation is that we are not treated as broken, faulty goods.

In the West, our perception is always looking for what’s wrong. We call it looking for a pathology. Webster’s defines pathology as, “The study of diseases and of the changes that they cause.”

This is a good thing to study. We need to know what’s going wrong in the body, mind and spirit. That’s why we have X-Rays, MRI’s, Mammograms and all kinds of other tests that are designed to go looking for things that may be wrong.

The problem isn’t that we are looking for what’s wrong. The problem is that we can very easily slip into only looking for what’s wrong. Perhaps nothing is wrong but our perception.

This is true in any healing arena. Medical, psychological, emotional or spiritual.

At some point, once we think we understand what’s wrong, we must begin to take action to correct the error. The problem is, the action we tend to take these days isn’t the action that will best serve us. The error may well belong to others.

What we really need is a change in our perception of how we want to recover our life, our child within.

Time and time again, we will work with others who have been told what’s wrong with them. But they don’t know what’s right with them. It’s so easy to focus on what’s wrong, and as we said, it's still important. But we can’t dwell there.

There has to be action out into the unknown of our childhood remembrance.

And that, is why we get stuck on the problem so much.

We can find tremendous amounts of comfort in talking about our problems.

Because if we talk about them and focus on them, then we aren’t talking about or focused on taking action towards a movement of our perception. Because that action can often be scary, we decide to focus on the problem and not rock the boat too much. not look at our belief systems.

So – what is our perception? Have we spent so much time focused on what’s wrong that we can’t see what’s right?

Do we trust our child within enough to allow us to become once more brand new and totally recovered in this moment?

We’re scared to receive, we’re scared to be vulnerable and admit we need help

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 19:42:00 +0000

We want to help others. Helping others really makes us happy. We would do almost anything to help other people, to take care of them, rescue them and nurture them.

But one thing is wrong – we don’t take care of ourself.

So, we become full of resentment, anger and sadness. We feel depleted. What was once the joy of giving and being of service has turned into being worn out and not getting our needs met.

But – we’re scared to receive, we’re scared to be vulnerable and admit we need help and a part of us doesn’t think we’re worth the trouble anyway.Our child within needs the joy of self-nourishment.

Sound familiar?

Well, it does to us too because that’s how we’ve felt about ourself for a long time. Until things get so painful that we have to change and acknowledge that our child buried within needs to be acknowledged.

We have become the story of the healer who can’t seem to help him or herself.

Something is off with this story. Taking care of others with out taking care of ourself isn’t selfish. It’s dissociated. Its a form of escapism its ceased to work.

We have to have a healthy level of self-focus and self-care in order to be able to acknowledge our child withins journey and in so doing we gain enough compassion and loving-kindness to give to others.

it’s totally OKAY and totally necessary to take care of ourselves.

We want to be around to live our purpose and give our gift of recovery for a long time. If we are so worn out that we end up resenting others that we are helping, what good is that to us or them?

It will be scary to dive into self-care. It can be scary to take time for us. But it is just what we need.

Maybe clear out that packed schedule for some down time. Maybe take ourself out for some yoga, a massage or just take time for some good old fashioned silence and a little meditation. Maybe say no to all those people asking for our help — not because we’re selfish, but because we need some peace!

The world won’t come to an end if you say no to others so that we can take care of ourself. Though we sometimes might think otherwise, others can survive without us for a little while while we take care of ourself.

Also, consider this – is it possible that we’ve been dissociating/escaping from living our own recovery by putting all our focus on someone else and not on us?

Hmmm... what a convenient distraction from our recovery!

W’re not suggesting that we abandon those whom we Love, but what we are asking is have you abandoned yourself in the process of taking care of others? If so, what might getting ourself back look like?

Recording you can nurture a wonderful relationship with your greatest ally: your own true self!

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 16:21:00 +0000

Recording – that is, writing down the truth of your feelings, your point of view, your fears, your angers, your hopes, your expectations, your desires, your fantasies, your hatreds, your regrets, your thoughts, your memories, your prejudices, your secret loves, your painful experiences, your humiliations, your past traumas – requires massive intimacy with yourself. This self-intimacy is the essence of good recording, and yet is also what makes good therapy so difficult. Many people find it difficult to record – or record in a deep and prolonged way – because of the strange feelings of being so emotionally intimate with oneself. But if you can tolerate the potential discomfort, if you can sit with the truth of who you are and look at your truth expressed on the page in front of you, then you can nurture a wonderful relationship with your greatest ally: your own true self!

Some of the biggest challenges in recovering relationships

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 15:20:00 +0000

Some of the biggest challenges in recovering relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.

Our Recovery grows from the fertilised soil of our suffering.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 12:55:00 +0000

We who are dissociated do not suffer. But this is only because we have abandoned our healing recovery process and numbed our emotional pain. Our Recovery grows from the fertilised soil of our suffering.

We who are dissociated call ourselves recovered. But this is only because we have they have no conception of what recovery really is. Our Recovery is the polar opposite of our dissociation.

We who are dissociated are not easily emotionally ruffled. But this is only because there lies a thick wall buffering our hidden, vulnerable self from the sharp and often honest edges of the real-world. The Stagers are much less protected, but have such a deep core of self-love that they can defend themselves.

We who are dissociated feel we have mastered forgiveness. But this is only because we completely deny the harm done to us – and the damage remaining. Stagers forgive spontaneously and without effort because we have fully embraced our damaged childhood and grieved every honest ounce of our misery.

We who are dissociated are extremely self-confident. But this is only because our self-deceptive armour is impenetrable to self-reflection. The self-confidence of the ten stages is fed by the universal spring of life.

We who are dissociated gravitate naturally toward leadership roles. But this is only because we are experts at leading ourselves away from our heart’s true course. Stagers lead right to the heart of the matter.

We who are dissociated have gone through hell to get to where we’re at. But we fail to realise that we’re still stuck right in hell. The Ten stages are the freedom of our emotional integration.

We who are dissociated feel we have found our true self. But this is only because we equate our true self with no self at all – or at best a false self or ego based on a distorted sense of consciousness. The Ten Stages are the true self linked with the conscious mind.

We who are dissociated consider ourselves paragons of spirituality. But this is only because our spirits are so buried behind walls of denial that we have no conception of what spirit is. The Ten Stages are the passionate spirit of the child held by the consciousness of the adult.

We who are dissociated are quite motivated, sophisticated, and convincing. But this is only because we perennially risk returning to suffering if we do not convince everyone of our lies. The Ten Stages brings a motivation to spread the truth that is everyone’s birthright.

We who are dissociated act decisively. But this is only because we cannot see or question our unconscious motivation. The Stager is also decisive, but only because he/she has no unconscious, because in his/her healing process it, like a now-useless appendage, it has dissolved.

Dissociation is contrary to RECOVERY.

Stagers forgive spontaneously and without effort because we have fully embraced our damaged childhood and grieved every honest ounce of our misery.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 12:21:00 +0000

We who are dissociated feel we have mastered forgiveness. But this is only because we completely deny the harm done to us – and the damage remaining. Stagers forgive spontaneously and without effort because we have fully embraced our damaged childhood and grieved every honest ounce of our misery.

Social Media can be seen as still a favourite way of feeding our dissociation addiction.

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 11:21:00 +0000

Social Media can be seen as still a favourite way of feeding our dissociation addiction. As an alcoholic has bottles hidden all over the house, We have Facebook,twitter, Instagram etc. What will happen if there is an empty moment, and we did not have a phone or tablet to whisk our mind away from actually living in the present? What would happen if we actually had to ‘be’ instead of constantly dissociating???

The only way we have learned to deal with our difficulties is to dissociate. The idea of their being any other option is foreign to us. We have even trained our children to deal with their difficult emotions by dissociating. When our children are very young and having trouble managing their emotions, We would tell them, “Go into the next room and do not come out until you have changed.” We have learned to become very obedient; we leave the room in a tantrum state, but soon will emerge, smiling, pleasant, and happy. Any vestige of a problem is gone without a trace.

Having dissociative parents, you learn dissociation from them – both by being taught it directly, and by example. Parents who

dissociate are unable to help a child go through their emotions. They are unable to help the child learn that an emotion is nothing to fear, but

something that is very valuable and precious, helpful in living life. We sincerely believe that switching off an emotion is the best way to deal with it. We had never heard of the concept of self-soothing, it was pleasant to do some so-called ‘self-soothing ‘ activities, and I felt mildly better when I did them. But the concepts of staying with an emotion, sitting with it until it changes, and using a self soothing technique instead of switching, are all foreign to us. We are too terrified of emotions to ever do this. We are afraid of fear itself, and will go to immense means not to experience the emotion of fear, or any other emotion, without ever realising that we are doing this. We have control of ourself. We feel we can handle anything.

We become careful with organised groups of people, and with individuals who might not be safe. We learn what to look for, how to tell whether or not something was safe, how to tell whether or not we are accessed. Eventually, we realise we are safe, our children are safe and well on their way to healing, we all have our safeguards in place.

We have no reason not to live in the present, We are relatively free from harm from external sources, so there was no longer a need to dissociate, so we are DONE with dissociation, right? we lived happily ever after, end of story? NOT SO......Obviously WRONG! Related articles

Recovering Relationships is a unique, radically different method of recovery

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 05:20:00 +0000

Recovering Relationships is a unique, radically different method of recovery based on the child withins ten stages

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ RecoveryRelationships

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 22:00:00 +0000

http://feeds.feedburner.com/RecoveryRelationships

Recovering Relationships includes ENGAGING IN AN INNER DIALOGUE WITH THE CHILD WITHIN OURSELVES

frasertrevor@gmail.com (Fraser Trevor) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 17:34:00 +0000

Recovering Relationships includes ENGAGING IN AN INNER DIALOGUE WITH THE CHILD WITHIN OURSELVES: This form of self-reflection allows us to ask ourselves a question in our own mind, and let ourselves freely associate to the answer. Our intuitive mind has the capacity to always give us just the answer we need at any given time1 – and to answer with the most beautiful truth – if only we ask and listen for the answer. Inner Child Within Dialoguing is a magical intuitive technique, because it is so simple and obvious: ask yourself a question and just listen for the answer! Why it can be so hard for so many of us, however, is that we live our lives so dishonestly that we are terrified to GET an answer. It might really rock our boat. But that can be no excuse for the truth-seeker engaging our child within. If our boat is faulty it needs to be rocked, and sometimes a good rocking shows right where the weaknesses are – which allows us to repair them. We actually use Child Within Dialoguing regularly as stage guides – in session with stagers – when we don’t know where or how to proceed. The part of our child within that answers our thorniest questions is a better stages guide than any we have ever had.