Dissociationalist

Beware the Habit-Forming Brain when you find yourself lost in a sea of dissociation

2017-03-23T02:50:00.001-07:00

Mindfulness could be the key to cutting the link between conditioned cues of desired objects and the dissociation that leads to addictive behaviour.

Beware the Habit-Forming Brain

How addictions operate through a process of conditioning the brain:

First, we sense objects of desire around us (e.g. TV, food, phones—selfies!, sex, etc.).

Second, our brains link these up as either pleasant or unpleasant. We then end up craving the pleasant—even if it’s something like alcohol that, by itself doesn’t at first taste pleasant, we end up craving how it leads to both a pleasurable experience as well as taking away unpleasant things (like sadness or worry).

The initial experience of satisfying a dissociation creates a new memory in the brain. We continue to seek out actions to satisfy the desire and thus an addictive pattern is born.

In The Dissociational Mind, we are never in direct contact with the objects of our desires—only with mental representations of them in our minds. And it’s this fact that holds the promise of freedom from the destructive cycle of craving (particularly at the level of life-bleeding addiction). We can’t change the objects that trigger our desire—those cues will continue unabated and unbidden. But we can change how we relate to our mental experiences of them—the word thoughts, mental images, and bodily sensations of desire. “Craving is the link that is targeted here in cutting through the cycle of dependent origination” .Research suggests that mindfulness is key to cutting the link between conditioned cues of desired objects and the craving that leads to addictive behaviour. “Mindfulness functions to decouple pleasant and unpleasant experiences from habitual reactions of craving and aversion by removing the affective bias that fuels such emotional reactivity.”

Whereas more traditional or “relapse prevention” approaches to treating dissociation focus on shifting the environment, problem solving, avoiding addiction cues, and boosting positive feelings, mindfulness offers the possibility of severing the cycle at its source in the brain, and treatment outcome studies in areas such as smoking cessation are increasingly bearing out the promise of this approach.

Resilience in the Face of Dissociation: Flexibility vs. Forcing the Mind

When faced with a day’s activities and situations full of temptations (cake, drink, or something more of the libidinal variety), a torrent of thoughts run through the mind: Here we go again . . . I can’t believe I’m about to go down this road again! . . . Why do I always have to do this . . . It’s the weekend, I deserve to indulge . . . I’ll make it my New Year’s Resolution to stop . . . (Add your own examples, perhaps plus an expletive or two).

The pull of dissociation (and the disruption this intense desire has on emotional, physical, relational, and perhaps financial well-being) suggests it may be important to get things on a less compulsive, more compassionate, and flexible track. The thoughts and mental images present themselves as real and in need of immediate gratification. “You need this now!” they scream. They often imply an absolute aspect of time with words like “never” and “always.” How effective are you when you get stuck thinking in these ways? Do thoughts infused with these characteristics help or hinder your ability to manage your daily life?

An alternative is to build flexibility into how you relate to your own desirous thoughts. Instead of more junk calories, or another fling within a toxic relationship, what you need is a heaping helping of mindful awareness of thinking—of observing your own thoughts without buying into them as absolute truth or trying to force them away.

What’s more helpful is to build your capacity to serve as a witness to your own thoughts. The moment you try to do so, you are mindful of your thoughts, instead of being the thoughts. Typically, when we think about something we dissociate into, that thought feels very close, as if it’s inside us, part of who we are. Mindfulness helps us see the thought as merely a moment of information.

Try telling yourself not to think about a thick slice of chocolate cake. Do it right now. Don’t let yourself think about it, not even a little bit! Pointless, right? You can’t force thoughts away, particularly ones with the energy and momentum of desire behind them.
What’s more helpful is to build your capacity to serve as a witness to your own thoughts. Can you notice yourself thinking right now? Pause and try it. Can you observe your own inner voice? The moment you try to do so, you are mindful of your thoughts, instead of being the thoughts. Typically, when we think about something we crave, that thought feels very close, as if it’s inside us, part of who we are. Mindfulness helps us see the thought as merely a moment of information. It’s just a thought. Just one of the thousands our minds churn out on a daily basis.

Mindfulness practice helps us learn to go behind the impulse and watch your own thinking, to notice that thoughts come and go on their own. This sounds simple, yet takes considerable practice. Like bubbles you’ve blown, thoughts are just there. They float around a bit and eventually drift away and pop.

Mindfulness Practice: Witness Your Dissociations

Many modern cars have a navigation (“nav”) system built into them—devices meant to guide us in unfamiliar territory, and help us anticipate what lies ahead. Much like our always-thinking, and often-craving minds, nav systems are representations of reality—thoughts (including desirous ones) are meant to guide us toward something (or somewhere) we want, but they are NOT the real road itself.

With the practice below, you can begin to notice dissociations (and mental images and thoughts in general) as mere nudges or cues from your internal nav system. You can learn to consult your nav (because desire isn’t necessarily always bad) when appropriate, and yet keep your focus on the road ahead.

When you find yourself lost in a sea of dissociation, try the following:

Find a comfortable stable position, either seated, lying down, or even standing (because craving comes to us in all postures!) and observe the next several breaths.

Bring your attention to the sensation of breathing, noting the rising of the in-breath and falling of the out-breath for a few moments.

Acknowledge to yourself, “I’m having the thought that [insert desirous thought].” This will help you step back and watch the craving. Imagine that it’s the voice coming from your nav system—it’s telling you about a possible craving-related experience ahead. You don’t have to go in that direction though. You can simply note what the nav system of your car is saying and sit back and “watch” (the nav and the road!). This is very different than arguing with the craving, or trying to force it away.

Take another breath and mentally place the thought on the screen (if it’s a mental picture) or imagine it as the voice of the nav system. Vividly imagine the shape, color, size, movement, and sounds of your craving. For a single, full, deep breath, just watch and listen to your craving. No need to debate it. It’s just there. . . . information being delivered to you, not your full reality.

And now ask yourself: What will happen if I keep staring at the screen of my nav as I’m driving my life? How will things pan out? You’ll, of course, wreck the car! Are you willing to merely consult the nav (the cravings-filled thoughts and images—as we’ve discussed, they may actually be useful). Maybe there’s a wake-up call there as to something that would not just bring your pleasure, but might enliven your life, allow you to enjoy the ride?

Are you willing to consider this desire in a balanced way? Is it something that makes sense to move toward, or are you feeling driven by it? Are you willing to not just listen to and watch your nav, but also take in the full truth of what’s happening both inside and outside the car—in the world around you? Are you willing to take it all in and then keep driving in a direction that really matters to? Maybe you’d go in the direction the nav points, and maybe not. You—the fully aware driver—get to decide.

The goal with this practice is to shift from a rigid frame of thinking to foster instead a more flexible relationship with your desires. This requires a lot of practice. To be of real benefit, this practice must become a habit. Such a habit will give you a measure of psychological freedom whether it be a mild chocolate impulse or an intense self-destructive urge.

False Shadow Self is part of yourself that has adapted to a threat.

2017-03-22T00:32:00.001-07:00

False Shadow Self is part of yourself that has adapted to a threat. It is the "part of you that has adapted to threats but no longer recognises the adaptation or the threat."

There Is Nothing Remotely Like THE TEN STAGES. For Treatment To Understand Dissociation Is To Understand The Confidence Tricks Of A Soporific Society We Become Are Haunted By Anxiety And Stress Of Having To Keep Escaping Our Genuine Feelings And Of Having To Pretend To Be Happy All The Time.

One of the symptoms of continued dis-respect. we describe feeling “dead inside”.

2017-02-26T02:47:00.002-08:00

One of the symptoms of continued childhood dis-respect. we describe feeling “dead inside”. We feel disconnected from ourselves and others. We feel like they are alone in this world and feeling this way. Often we experience hopelessness and helplessness.

Disassociation Anonymous can be seen as an actual physical, real time disconnect in conversations and our life experiences. We often describe not remembering chunks of our life’s experiences. We can be in the room with you but completely absent. “Not there”.

Disassociation is a real and serious effect of trauma. People who disassociate are not “crazy”. Disassociation is part of the body’s coping mechanism and what has allowed them to survive in many cases intolerable events and circumstances.

The first step is recognising these symptoms and making a connection with the root cause of your suffering.

Writing about what life as a member of Dissociation Anonymous feels like is tough.

2017-02-20T02:18:00.001-08:00

Writing about what life as a member of Dissociation Anonymous feels like is tough. We around the world are sharing what dissociation feels like in an effort to spread awareness and promote understanding of The Ten Stage Solution. I asked a group of people with dissociative addiction disorder (DAD) to describe, in their own words, what having DAD feels like. The answers were varied, with both positives and negatives. To one person, living with DAD feels like, “having a war inside my head,” yet to another, DAD “feels like a gift.” The answers show just how diverse DAD really is.
Life with Dissociative Addiction Disorder Feels at first Like Being Lost and Disconnected

Depersonalisation and derealisation are symptoms that are experienced by many with DAD and other dissociative disorders. One person described DAD as, “being disconnected to my body and the surroundings.”

Several people described having DAD as feeling lost in time, never really being sure of what day it is. Sometimes, you lose hours; other times, you lose weeks of your life. These feelings lead to confusion; it becomes difficult to know what happened and what didn’t happen. “Is it real or is this just in my head?”
Life with Dissociative Addiction Disorder Feels Like Living in Constant Fear and Pain

To some, life with DAD feels like living in constant fear. Fear of the outside world, fear of oneself, fear of one’s emotions, fear of the past, present, and future. For those that also experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), flashbacks can intensify the fear and lead to increased physical and emotional pain. Headaches and migraines can overtake you at any time. Physical pain manifests itself in different parts of the body, as different parts hold pain in different places. Sometimes, there is no medical reason for the pain, but you or your parts feel the pain regardless, and it’s real pain.

Dissociative Addiction Disorder Questioning Your Memories:One of the major symptoms of DAD is memory loss, and, aside from alters, memory experiences have the greatest impact on those affected by DAD. One person referred to memories as, “currency traded among friends.”

This is because different memories are held by different children within, and are shared (or not shared) with other parts of
our system. Some people with DAD cannot remember where they are, even when they are in a place they have been before, or they cannot remember a person’s name who they have seen before. This is because those places and people were experienced by a different part, the child within, a part that holds different memories. People with DAD are not always sure what they will remember, and there is sometimes an underlying worry that one will forget who their family members are or forget how to do one’s job. It’s upsetting when you can’t remember things that you know happened. Sometimes, DAD means having to ask for validation, because you are constantly trying to figure out if the memories are real.
Life with Dissociative Addiction Disorder Can Feel Normal; It’s Not Always Bad

Considering the struggles that people with DAD experience on a regular basis, DAD does not always feel so negative; there is good along with the bad. A common theme is that DAD feels like never being alone. Even when there is no one else in the room, it feels like you have a child there with you: your child within. You learn to adapt to the world with them. As one member put it, “being multiple is as normal to me as being a singleton is to a singleton.”

In the Ten Stages we begin to understand that we now have gained the power to recharge our lives

2017-02-13T05:03:00.002-08:00

In the Ten Stages we begin to understand that we now have gained the power to recharge our lives whilst stop being dependent on substances or other people. Which has in the past acted as an act of escape into unreality
of dissociation.

We have constructed for our self an illusion a constant unremitting search for a quick fix that robs us of both our self-esteem and security. At this time we start to acknowledge a rebirth that their does exist a truer self within that can heal and regain control of our lives, and that this is the reason – coupled with all of our unresolved childhood traumas!– that our lives has become so disturbed and dysfunctional. What are these childhood traumas and where do they originate every-time a child has been disrespected regardless of the reason. Every-time we disrespect a child that’s abuse. It’s not difficult to understand we can all relate to it and we all need to acknowledge it.

We understand when we communicate with the child within that at the core of our problems are all the traumas we experienced as a child. We acknowledge, and that’s why we come to the stages. When the child within can accept that when we can find a solution for the unresolved trauma of childhood coping strategies then the symptoms will start to become manageable and quickly loose power over our lives. All our dysfunctions will start to normalise instead of remaining constantly in the DRAMA of dissociation. This is a very fragile and delicate operation, which requires truth trust and consent to be manifested to the satisfaction of the child within us.

The Stages seek to help search for our version of the "Truth" and our truth when found, accepted will set us free from escapism/dissociation and we learn that for us there is only one truth. This one truth is based on our daily reality. Reality is what is, whether we see it or not. Although truth is not subjective, our perspectives on truth can be subjective. Until a person becomes enlightened to realised truth– and can see full truth of his life and history – his vision of truth will be partially distorted. He will believe things to be true that are false. His knowledge of cause and effect will be limited. He will lie to himself and be deluded.

Unresolved traumas block our vision from finding our truth. When we cannot resolve our traumas of childhood we are prevented from facing what has happened to us when we were at our most vulnerable.

We are forced to deny the painful and troubling reality surrounding our experiences, and until these experiences burst through our denial they will clouds our vision of which we are and what our rightful place in the world is.

The true self the core of whom each of us lives resplendent in our truth. It is connected to truth, and sees it clearly. When we reconnect with our true self and align with it in the full light of consciousness, we come to instantly recognise our own personal truth which becomes a liberating peaceful force working at all times for our benefit, a whole and complete experience at this time a great weight lifts from us and for the first time we feel free. Our conflicts are starting to resolve themselves with the help of the guides on the study course and the introduction to our deeply buried intuitive voice.

The Ten Stages is unique in that our recovery manifests from perfect health and refuses to acknowledge the ancient ideas of historic pathology and fear of so called modern therapies.

2017-01-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

In the deepest core feelings of our child within, we have been injected with grief, toxic shame and loneliness. We were traumatised by our parents abandoning us. We feel we are bad, as if we’re contaminated, and that shame leads to loneliness. Since our child within feels flawed and defective, We have to cover up our true child within with our adapted, false self. We then come to identify ourself by our false self. Our true self the child within remains alone and isolated.Forever seeking answers for its abandonment.

Staying with this last layer of painful feelings is the hardest part of the grief process. It’s hard to stay at that level of shame and loneliness; but as we embrace these feelings, we come out the other side. We encounter the child within that’s been in hiding. You see, because we hid it from others, we hid it from ourselves. In embracing our shame and loneliness, we begin to touch our perfect child within which we have kept hidden from all. The Ten Stages is unique in that our recovery manifests from perfect health and refuses to acknowledge the ancient ideas of historic pathology and fear of so called modern therapies.

The Ten Stages is designed as a free flowing study course with a start and a finish point that gives balance and timing

2017-01-26T21:03:00.001-08:00

“live-and-let-live” philosophy -- one of “being with,” not “doing to.” The Stages is designed as a free flowing study course with a start and a finish point that gives balance and timing, whilst avoiding forcing or pressuring anyone to do anything. By conventional standards, one could argue that Stages is not really even “treatment,” per se, rather, a study program which gets out of people’s way and gives them the respect and freedom to go through their own process on their own, albeit with the emotional support of our guides. Stages views recovery as a crisis or emergency that is laden with meaning, and that people can derive value from their crisis while enjoying the company of a community of respectful, caring, intuitive others. This is no small challenge and is a learning experience for everyone.With gains and losses felt by all as a joint process of study and renewal. It becomes at first gentle deconstruction of a hidden world of frightening childhood survival in your own time.

Childhood Wonderland challenges and frustrates us and our perceptions of reality.

2016-06-12T16:05:00.001-07:00

We believe that the world is orderly and stable as children and dissociate from all that not creating a sort of wonderland, and we develop an insatiable curiosity about our surroundings. Childhood Wonderland challenges and frustrates us and our perceptions of reality.

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!

2015-09-08T15:51:00.003-07:00

ENGAGING IN AN INNER DIALOGUE WITH THE CHILD WITHIN: 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 time – 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.

Child Within Journaling

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Child Within Journaling – 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 contact with our child within, and yet is also what makes good contact so difficult. We often find it difficult to journal – or journal 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 child within!

Grief is painful, but opens the door to our child withins healing and growth.

2015-09-08T12:23:00.001-07:00

Grief is painful, but opens the door to our child withins healing and growth. If there were no grieving, we would stay stagnant and numb, seemingly comfortable stagnancy that is the goal of our norm. When we are in the midst of grieving we might wish to have it all go away, because in a sense the pain of grief is terrifying, but this is only the terror of facing ourselves the child hidden within a deeper, more vulnerable, more hidden side of ourselves that we are usually able to plug up in our daily lives.

We grieve because we have lost our perfect self our child within, and because the loss is poignant. The loss we experience, the loss of today, the loss of having something we value ripped out of our guts, taps into all the losses we have experienced from our entire lives, going right back to the loss on the day we were created by our parents—parents who could not love us in the way we so desperately needed. The losses of our earliest years form the basis of the tragedy of our childhood—and the template for the shadow side of our adulthood.

As children we were forced to be resilient and bury the pain of these losses, because we had no choice. Our parents, who let us down in similar ways to how their parents let them down, could not bear to see our expressions of the damages they had inflicted upon us. They forced us to be good little boys and girls and bury our torment, and parrot the lines that “life is inevitably hard” and “you are good enough, Mommy and Daddy.”

But they weren’t good enough, and deep down we always knew it, even if we couldn’t face it consciously. And whether we can face it now or not, the losses we suffer today tap into that truth of yesterday. We may not know that this is what is happening, but if we study our histories, using the ten stage template it becomes clear all too quickly. This just causes more pain—a true, clear pain so necessary for self-actualisation. For that reason so many people live lives with the primary goal being the maintenance of safety—safety from feeling pain. They choose safe relationships where they risk little of depth, little of passion, little of hope or realness, and instead just live a charade, a game of pretend that they hope will last for decades—until death do they part.

But are they lucky if they avoid their pain? Are they lucky if they never grow? Are their children lucky to inherit their shallowness and lies and repressed misery? Are their grandchildren lucky to inherit a world that is build upon layers and generations of avoided grief? And will their grandchildren’s grandchildren be lucky when the world is so clogged with unfelt grief .

How can I be my most authentic self :Answers to be found With THE TEN STAGES (Child Within)

2015-09-04T06:57:00.001-07:00

“What is my purpose and how do I take action on it?”

Answers to be found With THE TEN STAGES (Child Within)
“How can I be my most authentic self?”

“How can I get past this and forgive?”

“Why do I seem to take two steps forward and two steps back?”

“What do I have to do to love myself?”

“How do I get back to feeling like myself again?”

In movies and dramas – our heroes and heroines have giant epiphany moments when they realise life is slipping away from them.

2015-09-04T06:50:00.001-07:00

In movies and dramas – our heroes and heroines have giant epiphany moments when they realise life is slipping away from them.

There is some major announcement, some obvious thing that let our characters know they are making a big mistake – but that’s not how it works off screen.

Most of the time we just slide into a complacent life. And then wake up one day wondering, “How did I get here?”

And that’s a day that creeps up on us – and usually by the time it hits us, we’ve wasted so much time, we can’t begin to understand where it all went.

Dreams don’t die upon an announcement – they slide into death, one subtle moment, choice, and day at a time.

There’s no big wake up call, just a slow dimming of our internal passion, enthusiasm, and joy. We sell our dreams for certainty. We are terrified of our freedom. We let the fear of dying stop us from fully living.

And when it goes unexamined – we can blame others, the environment, the government, our friends, family or even our favorite food.

We didn’t notice that each day, we had given our dreams permission to drift away. That each step towards the boring comfort that we took, we leaped away from the thrill of seeing what we’re really made of.

Why does this happen? Because we got hurt, things didn’t work out the way that we wanted them too, or we just don’t think it’s possible. And then we lower our standards so that we don’t get our hopes up.

And somewhere inside all of this is a small whisper from our child within that is dying to be re-born. A part of us that knows we were meant for greatness. Not to be a celebrity or to be admired, but greatness in the form of changing our world, making it a better place, adding value, helping others – really making a positive mark.

But, it’s scary. It’s not easy. It’s too risky.

So, we let our dreams die a little bit each day.

Then – if we are lucky, we get a wake up call. But it’s too subtle. We don’t listen. And then a louder one, and a louder one, and a louder one, until finally it’s like our child within is screaming at us to wake up – but we don’t pay attention, we just complain that life isn’t fair or that life sucks – all the while missing the wake up call.

The Child Within doesn’t die. But our fear of our parental voice must be challenged.

The Child Withins personal intuitive is earned through consistent effort.

The Child Within s Freedom is earned through becoming the person it takes to make them real.

Freedom is earned when new perspectives are setup.

Freedom is earned when you get ok with disappointment and use it as fuel to make life better, instead of giving up like an amateur.

Freedom is earned when we go all in and act on our faith in our child within.

Acceptance and awareness of our child within is the first stage we must take toward transforming our lives.

2015-08-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Acceptance and awareness of our child within is the first stage we must take toward transforming our lives. Everyone has a trauma or two in their childhood cellar that has to see the light of day before true transformation of our child within can occur.

If you’re feeling anxiety or uneasiness that isn’t caused by a chemical imbalance, chances are you are not in integrity with your child within. What the heck does that mean?

It means that there are things that you are not being truthful with yourself about. It means that your actions aren’t in alignment with your true child withins core desires of freedom and recovery.

This is all just about an inconsistency in what you really want for your piece of mind and how you’re acting. This inconsistency affects your moods and can lead to anxiety and all kinds of other negative emotions that tear down your self-esteem and leave you questioning relationships, friends, brothers, sisters and your basic parental relationships.

So, if there’s transformation that has to take place in your life and it’s being blocked, look first at the situation for what it is and accept it 100%. Then, look at the outcome your child within REALLY wants for you and compare that to the actions you’re taking. Chances are, your actions don’t equate to the desired results you want. If you don’t know what actions to take, it’s time to get in touch with your child within.

Be truthful with yourself about the reality of your life. When you look at your desired outcome and compare that to the action you’re taking, you get an instant reality check on why your life is the way it is. And what’s cool is that you can make a new decision with your new awareness right now and change your relationship to yourself.

So, are your actions in alignment with your desired outcome for your life? Are you telling yourself the truth about how your life really is right now?

Bonding over our perfect child within, not our trauma.

2015-08-10T01:21:00.002-07:00

Bonding over our perfect child within, not our trauma.

Imagine setting the intention to create primary relationships in our lives that support and encourage us to live in our recovery – CONSCIOUSLY. this has always been an unconscious desire of ours, but those words hold a lot of recovery power.

Many of us bond over our pain and get angry or jealous when the other person starts to step into our power. Have you done that?

When we bond over our trauma only, eventually it feels like we are walking on eggshells in our recovery relationships. If we feel this way, then we can safely say we have not bonded over our recovery and thus have not attracted a recovery that supports our child within and encourages us to live in our recovery. The flip side of this thought is that we must also celebrate, support and encourage our stagers to live in his or her recovery. And THAT can be a scary thing. If they live in their recovery, we have less certainty around what would possibly happen in ours.

If we support someone else’s recovery they might get more attention than us, which can feel threatening. It takes a bold and confident stager to bond over each other’s power and encourage the fullness of the other person in their recovery.

So, my question for you today is this: are the relationships in your recovery supporting your child within or discouraging your child within? Have you bonded over your traumatic wounds only, or have you bonded over each other being in the company of your child within? Is your recovery relationship set up so both of you can thrive? Or do the egos relationships in your life hold you back?

The outcome of our lives begins within us with our child within.

2015-08-10T00:59:00.001-07:00

Stages Community is in the weekly living room of the academy.

If we want to see a preview of our future, look at who we are hanging out with.

This isn’t some moral statement about our peer groups, it’s more of a vibrational or elevational recovery statement.

You see, we live in literal Recovery. That means that we become what we think and what we think is greatly determined by who we spend the most time with.

Do you spend time with people who are constantly trashing your ideas? If so, then after time, you begin to believe their doubt and their fear; not because their doubt and fear are true, but because we are creatures of habit and our subconscious mind begins to absorb what we hear, especially the feedback from people we love and spend a lot of time with. And if you start to believe their doubt and the echo of their parental voice, then soon you will begin to take action from that belief in doubt and BAM – that belief in doubt manifests into reality. Not because it’s true, but because the belief became your dominant thought pattern and that thought pattern influenced your actions and your actions produced the outcome.

The outcome of our lives begins within us with our child within.

If we water ourselves with doubt, then we think doubtful thoughts, take doubtful action and our lives become a living testament to and proof of our belief. Then, what many of us do is take this “proof” and use it to further justify our initial belief. But we see, what we’re missing this whole time is the fact that our initial thoughts of doubt and fear are what has created our outcome. We unknowingly participated in our own demise.

But, this can be prevented by hanging with the proper recovery community of people studying the stages. Let us spend time with people who uplift us, who encourage us towards our meditations and who challenge our thought patterns. Let us not surround ourselves with people who always agree with us, but rather people who support our growth by challenging our beliefs and helping us break through to new mental ground so that our lives may be enriched as a by-product of our studies.

Look around. Who are you spending time with? And more importantly, who are you believing? If you have a recovery dream, do you believe people who are living their recovery dreams and thus know the TRUTH about what’s possible, or do you take advice from people who aren’t living their recovery and thus will tell you it’s not possible?

Who you spend time with and who you believe are major factors in determine whether you are successful or not. Our aim should be to spend time with people who are loving, who believe in us, who challenge us to go to the next level and who inspire us. Life is far too short to hang with people who are always negative and who want you to stay bitter and pissed off like them. It takes a lot of humility to admit when we’re wrong and to grow past our limiting beliefs. Let’s surround ourselves with stagers who support our growth, not necessarily the way we want, but most certainly the way we need.

Who are you spending your time with?

During the teachings in the ten stage living room we learn to honour every crisis in life as a way of prompting us to go deeper

2015-05-11T23:26:00.001-07:00

During the teachings in the ten stage living room we learn to honour every crisis in life as a way of prompting us to go deeper. And so we may evolve. This has been our approach to existence, and we model it for others. Although they are already awake, they enter each new stage of their lives with a focus on surrendering to life’s transforming demands—and speaking the truth, even when it is unpopular. We do not forget that when we keep our mature perspective life holds us safely, even during our most harrowing transitions. Even as we walk toward facing the most difficult transition of all, our dying, we intuitively know that life will accompany us, and so we walk forward with maturity. No matter where things lead, we follow, always deepening our attachment to truth. We love the world for we have a vision of a new creation, made possible by the intuitive voices compelling directive .

Our energies have been diverted into addictions, unrealistic ventures, even farfetched movements .

2015-05-11T23:16:00.001-07:00

We find ourselves vulnerable to crises so much so that we may even fear for our lives. Our rebellious efforts to leave and live outside of society have given us a great opportunity, but also can take a disastrous toll on us. Our energies have been diverted into addictions, unrealistic ventures, even farfetched movements . This results into crisis. We may find ourselves hospitalised, institutionalised, in rehab, in the extreme emotional chaos labeled as insanity, or even in prison. This may seem only negative, but actually this growth-induced crisis arose not to break our rebellious spirit but instead to give us an opportunity to transform our lives. In the best case, we use this as a wake-up call, a chance to reevaluate our lives to do better, find meaning, and go deeper. This growth depends on recognising that in making our mistakes—in getting lost in poor choices and reckless behaviour—we took a more courageous stand than in than giving up and dying in the recovery norm . If we are fortunate we respect these corrective forces of life and can begin to sort out our traumas—and grow.

We would rather die in the prison of our own making than learn to live free in the wilderness.

2015-05-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

We block life’s attempts to enter our bubble for we fear abandonment. This fear is well-founded, for growth will sweep us out of the deadened prison of our sick reality and into the temporary torture of freedom. So instead of surrendering to life’s impulse to heal and change us, we reinforce our defences through addiction, denial, and an increased allegiance to work . We remain wedded to the lies of the group—not to truth. Our stifled energy ends up shunted into illness, physical or emotional. We would rather die in the prison of our own making than learn to live free in the wilderness.

In this our forbidden child withins world, so feared by the conventional world and seen as tantamount to death, we find recovery.

2015-05-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

We have at last found our true home—within our child within. In this our forbidden child withins world, so feared by the conventional world and seen as tantamount to death, we find recovery. In our exile from conventional society we establish an outpost that is safe and sustaining. In exile, far from the soul-crushing noise of the traumatised masses, We find truth—and it is within. We are enlightened in exile. In our solitude, we find students with whom to build a conscious community and a new creation. We expand the boundaries of what it means to be human and we lead the way for others. But there is a price to pay to live this new way. We must abandon self-deception and the comforts of conformity—and align with truth and creative vitality of our chosen recovery..

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We cannot forget that our child withins worst fear is abandonment.

2015-05-11T22:46:00.001-07:00

We cannot forget that our child withins worst fear is abandonment. Since the child is totally dependent on its caregivers for its survival, abandonment equals death. This keeps us, the norm, skittish about leaving the alleged safety of the family. We sense that self-investigation would pry us out of the clan’s conformity, away from parental approval and into exile, into worlds unknown, a wilderness. This we equate with death. Therefore, we refuse to look within and avoid the shift of perception inherent in self-investigation—at the cost of losing our connection with our abandoned child within. The sad irony is that the traumatised family and our compromised parents have long ago abandoned us. Thus, by remaining in the family they are already in exile, cut off from our child within and cut off from what would truly sustain us—reconnection to our child within.

The worst form of isolation and the deepest source of loneliness comes from being cut off from our child within.

2015-05-11T22:28:00.001-07:00

The worst form of isolation and the deepest source of loneliness comes from being cut off from our child within. This occurs when we fail to make contact with our intuitive voice—because it is buried under abuse, disrespect, traumas that require too much painful effort to excavate. Instead of living with our authenticity shining through, we wear a mask as we interact in the world—even with our closest companions. We are there—but not present. We are dissociated due to disrespect, abuse and trauma.

Will you become part of our support network?

2015-05-11T22:21:00.000-07:00

As our quest to align with our child within intensifies, we yearn for the support of others. We understand what a blessing it is to have a friend, even one other person who understands the struggle of coming to consciousness. Yet we yearn for others—a conscious Riverside Community.

But the rest of the world seems oblivious to the dimensions of our daring adventure. We hardly risk discussing our struggle publicly, fearing we’d only receive the world’s contempt. People defend against the depth of the journey for good reason: it strips them of their false structure, ejects them from their safe position in the family, and leaves them standing alone—with the truth that they have avoided for a lifetime. No wonder most avoid this terrifying fate.

In the past, when people’s true self erupted and disturbed their semi-false equanimity, many turned to support groups, more liberated religions, and friends and family for protection from the loneliness of their budding originality. But we have now entered a new time. False protection is no protection at all. We’ve now outgrown conventional structures and traditional answers as a response to the new life gestating within us. We’re alone in the wilderness following a path unmarked, listening to barely discernible whispers from the universe to guide the way. At times, the path seems more uncertain than true.

We yearn for a community with answers. We need a new community at a new level of consciousness. But does this ideal community exist? The fellowship we seek is so revolutionary, so at the forefront of the evolution of human consciousness, that we are among its first members.

But we recall that we have often been alone and outcast, as are any rare recovers who have deviated from our recovery norm. We were outcast in our family and our childhoods. We know we have felt like this before, and we survived. Now it is our job to take the first stage, and be the first one to step up into the light of true recovery and become the first public members of the conscious riverside community. It’s up to us to set up the empty chairs—and to keep the faith that others will come. We imagine that when they arrive, they’ll say, “Thanks for being here and setting up the room. I’ve waited for this fellowship—forever.” Today we have created that which we prayed for.

Will you become part of our support network?

Stages Riverside Community prime objective is to become conscious and live in our newly found reality.

2015-05-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Stages Riverside Community prime objective is to become conscious and live in our newly found reality. As we awaken from the child’s within nightmare of despair we begin recovered living. As we heal the crippling dissy moments of our past we become free to develop our gifts—without the fear of inner censorship. Living and working authentically, we discover life’s meaning and make an original contribution to the world through our daily existence and labor. We help others see the way, and we help life evolve further into consciousness. This is our true work.

In becoming conscious, we must work to know our story and its implications. We must toil in the fields of past feelings and trauma. As members of a traumatised species, we all must face the fact that our past is troubled, filled with brambles, weeds, and disappointment. When we struggle to root out the secrets of our painful history, we free our vitality and our garden grows. Our dreams of artful, purposeful living become a reality.

With conscious living, our work shifts from survival and drudgery to vocation. We develop our talents and gifts from the point of view of a life’s mission. We sing, we dance, we write. We become scientists, healers—and visionaries. We no longer beg sustenance from life as an indigent child. We strive to contribute to life from the surplus of an awakened adult. Famine is over—the harvest is abundant.

As we become more conscious, we view the unconsciousness of others with compassion. It was only yesterday that we were lost in our own nightmare of despair and our work seemed only to keep the wolf from the door and our pain at bay.

When we approach life awakened, our daily labor, even a routine chore, transcends its specific form. Now every task expands consciousness into our reality for we are conscious. The example of a conscious worker affects all who come near him or her. The fruits of our labor as conscious beings bring humanity closer to its consonance with truth.

Instilling a sense of powerlessness in us is destructive to the child within, teaches and perpetuates learned helplessness, perpetuates hopelessness, prevents one from taking personal responsibility

2015-04-09T22:10:00.001-07:00

Instilling a sense of powerlessness in us is destructive to the child within, teaches and perpetuates learned helplessness, perpetuates hopelessness, prevents one from taking personal responsibility and encourages a self-fulfilling prophecy from our parents of not being good enough. that in the case of addiction often leads to binge drinking and justification for the binge. "If I'm powerless, I guess there's nothing I can do about it, so I might as well drink myself to death," is what the mind concludes. The powerlessness concept actually increases binging behaviour and relapse.

It is completely disempowering, which is insane, because what we need more than anything is to feel empowered. We need to feel capable of changing our life. Not only that, it's a complete lie. When understands that the true root of alcoholism lies in biochemistry and there are ways to correct it, they are given all the tools needed to overcome their addiction and the shame so often associated with being an alcoholic. Being an alcoholic is no longer a moral issue, a character flaw, a spiritual illness, a defect in spirit or a personality disorder. It frees them.