I wonder

Hi,
I said goodbye yesterday to a friend who has decided that she can't stay here anymore.

She has MS and cancer.

Too much pain and suffering.

It was very sad.

Or.

Bittersweet.

This is hard to write about.

She has had the worst life of anyone I have ever known.

Stacked deck.

And yet.

She had so much love and caring.

I am bulimic.

I have choices.

But for what? go I?

So I am feeling alive today.

Thanks to her.

Died 6:53 this morning.

I will miss her.

Love

Bryan

Hi.
One day I was at a hospital with a friend who has stage four cancer. We were waiting on her appointment.
There was a woman sitting across from us.
She was beautiful.
I mean beautiful.
She was dying.
Soon.
Yet.
She made herself up.
Dressed really well.
Had a positive attitude.
She said that even though her cancer was not curable.
She would not give up.
She cared about herself.
I keep thinking about her.

Part two.
I don't have stage four cancer.
I can actually stop what's killing me.

Love, Bryan

There is a huge difference between believing and knowing.

You can believe in stuff without ever really seeing, or tasting, or touching, or feeling.

I can always believe in this or that.

Knowing is different.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Or do you know one?

Do you believe in God?

Or do you know God?

Do you believe in remission/recovery?

Or do you know it?

Can you chose to know instead of the shallowness of believing?

I know you.

And you know me.

Love, Bryan

THE PAIN OF REMISSION/RECOVERY

Hi.

   Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in S.Korea. This post is dedicated to her. We were talking about how difficult and painful it is to enter any kind of sustained remission/recovery. So I suggested some things about the pain we need to endure to successfully enter a new stage in our lives. I suppose that this really applies to addiction and remission. But, I suspect that we can take this model and extrapolate the process into any changes we want to make in our life.

Any changes we make come with a certain amount of pain and suffering. 

The severity of the pain indicates the depth of the change.

The commitment to change, in part, is a willingness to endure pain as long as it takes for the 
change to take effect.

   The pain of addiction is like starting out in an endless space and, at first, the space slowly starts to become less. Initially this seems like a good thing. The less space the more it feels like we have some control over the place we are. Then. The space becomes less and less at an accelerated pace. What used to feel like control starts to feel like controlled. Instead of ruling the space the confining space starts to rule us. The pain grows and increases. Soon we are in a prison, then a cell, and finally a coffin. The pain becomes agony and there doesn't seem to be a way out. We feel trapped, and scared and and crazy and worthless and fakes. It's the pain of addiction.

   The pain of remission/recovery finally comes when we cannot stand it anymore. We finally decide that something has to change. Now everyone of us is going to come to this point at a different place and time there are no comparisons. I had tried to commit suicide after ruining my music career and seriously hurting lots of people in my life.

   We decide to take a stand. We stop the addictive behavior and thoughts and guess what? We discover we are in a tiny confined place of our own making. Slowly, very slowly we start to unfold and expand. It hurts. And. It doesn't feel right. We have become so used to our little space that we forgot what it is like to be free. But, we decide that the pain of recovery is worth it! So we start the struggle and initiate expansion.We make some progress, we fall down, we cry, we make some progress, lapse, move forward, inch by inch we start to remake that space around us. One day we are finally back in the cell, and then one day we are back in the prison, and finally we break free. Into the weather of life. It is the struggle of birth,
it will come with fear and pain, and at the very end:

Our Freedom.

  The pain of addiction will only increase and if we stay addicted the space will continue to become less until we finally disappear.

The pain of remission/recovery only results in an expansion back into life. It becomes less and less as we continue to process remission.

So our choices are these:

Addiction = increased pain and confinement.

Remission/Recovery = struggle with decreasing pain and finally freedom. 

My encouragement: If you are in pain buy the time you need to wait it out, then move. You need to be very gentle, patient, and nurturing to you. 

Everyone I know is on the journey through the pain into the light. I am committed to helping anyone who is on this journey as so many are committed to helping me.

We can do this.

Love, Bryan

Aliens and remission.

Hi.

I don't much get it here.

Really I don't.

Here is where I live.

I am a cutter who doesn't cut.

I am an alcoholic who doesn't drink.

A junkie who doesn't use.

I am addicted to food.

Weird.

That part, like being addicted to air or water.

Addicted to people. (I won't admit that to anyone, please don't tell anyone I said that. )

People I know say one thing and do another.

Or.

Tell me the "Truth."

Depending on their chemical balances at the time of intercourse. ( See, its not always about sex.)

I am an alien.

I don't want to live here,

But, I don't want to die.

So

The only, one and only way out, is through it. 

And.

The rest of you are here with me. 

See, I am OK. I have you.

Aliens.

Family at the outer edge of what I suspect really "Is." 

Talk to me,

Love, Bryan

Remisson, Recovery, and Koans

Hi.

Koan and Koans. Mysterious challenges to the intellect that force us to be here and now. Usually the term is associated with Zen.

Koans are really a call to action. Do something. They encourage us to think our way into doing something. What's really crazy is that we can take years or decades thinking about something that points to not thinking. Just do.

Addicts? We think to much. Argue with that and you are already thinking too much.

About anything and everything.

I think that in the long run and without thinking about it to much.

That you and I are Koans.

Not some mystical crap with secret answers.

But.

Living Koans. We keep searching until we realize that we ourselves are the answer. We just love to think that we can think ourselves in to a remission status. And. When we are not busy with that, we are thinking about thinking ourselves in to a remission status. Or. We are thinking about not thinking. Yuck.

It seems odd to me that my belief system was that I could, think, concept, or idea, myself out of what is basically a doing. Bulimia is not thinking, it involves lots of action. ( I initially had the same idea about opiate and alcohol addiction.) 

Now that might work if being Bulimic was a concept to begin with and I had some sort of philosophic basis for being a Bulimic. But Bulimia is not a philosophy, it's a response, an active doing response to my world.

Thinking is highly over rated. 

See, we have to do remission. 

DO = MOVEMENT

We can work on the Koan of remission. Think about remission, devise intellectual ways to be in remission, talk about remission, compare stories about it, but until we are actually doing something about it there will be no forward movement.

Koan: There is a man with a plate of food. He will die if he eats the food. He will die if he doesn't eat the food. What does he do?

Koan: There is a woman who is really depressed. She will die if she stays depressed. She will die if she isn't depressed. What does she do?

Koan: You have a thought. If you keep the thought you will never have another thought. If you let the thought go you will never have another thought. What? 

Koan: You have one second to live. Now what? 

Love, Bryan