When you follow your bliss, and by bliss I mean the deep sense of being in it and doing what the push is out of your own existence -- it may not be fun, but it's your bliss and there's bliss behind pain too. You follow that, and doors will open where there were no doors before, where you would not have thought there were going to be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anybody else" 

 Joseph Campbell.

    When I first read this and other words by Campbell I was fascinated, here was a statement that said just start walking toward what your heart desires and doors will open for you...your own doors, meant just for you. I took this to mean that my journey was my own, that I needn't follow a specific dogma or course outline, that I could trust my own heart and mind to lead me where I would find my path. Campbell also says that there is pain in the pathway to bliss, I have found this to be true as well. I have spent countless hours in study and reflection over the last 4 years as I pursue my education. The path to a degree for me was choppy and strewn with fits and starts. I dogmatically continued to move forward, without a clear vision as to where I was going, but it felt that I was on a path. When asked what my major was I had to admit I had no idea, I started with General Studies, I didn't know what I didn't know. I could never have picked a major when I first started out because I only knew that I was starting out on a path and that it was to be my own, no one was going to pick my classes, or do my homework or take my tests. No one could tell me where my passion would lie, or what my aptitude was for. I tried aptitude tests and looked over different majors and careers in them, I simply did not know what I wanted to know. After almost 2 and a half years I chose Communications. I look over my transcripts and marvel at how many classes I have taken. I saw a pattern in interest that went between psychology and communications, I knew that I had no real interest in delving into the psyche's of others and analyzing their issues. I also did not feel compelled to pursue media as a career path either, but media, ethics, communication, psychology, mythology, literature and such were always my top choices for classes. I have taken way more classes than I need in some of these areas and consequently I am lagging behind in actually obtaining my degree. But what is most interesting is that I do not care how long it takes, I am in it for the journey. I am on My path. I still do not know where it leads, but I KNOW it is my path, for I tread it alone, no one has been exactly where I am, I am not following anyone. I am not merely filling in the blank pages of the qualifications of a degree, it has been messy and spread out, both difficult and exciting, but overall it has been an experience that I cherish. 

     He said...Forget everything, forget your biography and just Be-discover yourself in this way, in the shining light of the present moment. "How can I stay myself if I willingly forget all that I was?"  he replied..."The important stuff stays."

     I heard a man say once, "You already are everything you're ever going to be...I know that must be a disappointment to you but it's true."
 The good news is you don't need to add anything to you, you already have everything you need. The object now is to remove everything from you that keeps you from acting on what you already are.
In the beginning of my life I was this perfect magnetic sphere, beautiful and shiny, positively glowing with beautiful energy. Then I slowly but surely rolled it through a long series of junkyards, until I could no longer see what I once was. I only saw the junk. When I finally hit bottom and was borderline suicidal and my addiction to chemical peace of mind had taken it's toll I found my way into a group of spiritually-minded people who specialized in treating malady's such as mine.
     They couldn't see the junk, all they saw was the perfect spherical magnet that I could no longer see. They showed me how to remove the junk. They told me that I didn't come into this world, I came from it. I was a child of whatever force of spirituality that I identified with and that I had a right to be here. I had thought that my addictions were because of the harsh emotional life I had led up until that point, I soon learned that I had been treating a bio-psycho-social and spiritual malady with chemicals and distilled spirits that would have only responded to a spiritual remedy. 
     James Allen says in his little volume "As a Man Thinketh" written in 1892 that "Mind is the infallible weaver of destiny; thought is the thread, good and evil deeds are the warp and woof, and the web, woven upon the loom of Life, is character." 
     The thoughts I had carried so long were resulting in deeds that attracted the junk to my sphere of life, these thoughts and acts created my character, and I wove them through the only life I have, until all I saw was the shoddy garment I thought I was, and the evil corroding thread of fear shot through the fabric of my existence. 
     Today I honor the decision to submit my will to a greater law of being by letting go of the biography of my past life. I now realize that thoughts cannot be kept  secret, they rapidly crystallize into habit, and the habits solidify into circumstance. I cannot travel within and stand still without.
I will become as small as my controlling desire or as great as my dominant aspiration. 
     I know I cannot control the thoughts that come into my head, some days it's like Grand Central Station, with trains of thought coming and going in rapid succession. I have come to find that I do have control over which thoughts I choose to ride out of the Station, that I am not the sum total of my thinking. Mindful Meditation is akin to watching your thoughts, letting them come in, acknowledging that they are just thoughts, and then letting those go that do not serve the Vision that I cherish in my heart.
     Today I have had a different experience with the memories of my past, I honor the present by not attaching the junk of my past to my life in such a way that I am re-living it over and over. My past exists only in my mind, amends have been made and as a result my perception of my past has changed, I no longer see it as junk, it is a tool with which I may help others to avert the suffering and misery that I once experienced. It has become an asset. 
     Like the man said..."The important stuff stays". 

Brother Steve

I moved to Idaho from Oregon in 1993, my now ex-wife had grown up in Pinehurst in the Silver Valley so we settled there. I met some people in local 12 step meetings like I always do, but mostly stayed to myself and home. Then I met a man named Steve who had a sense of humor like mine and we hit it off, he was new to recovery so he asked me to sponsor him, I had about 6 years then. I accepted and we started hanging out and just being friends. Then Steve went on a binge and his wife left him. I tried talking to him but he just shined me on. Then one night he called me and said he had died in his bathtub and  then came back to life underwater. I picked him up and took him to the hospital detox. Then cleaned out his house of all booze and emptys. He struggled, lost his home, I let him stay with me and my family. He got a job in CDA and hitchhiked to and from work in the winter to a car wash job. I helped him get an apartment in CDA. He stayed sober about a year then relapsed, within a year he found himself heading to prison for attempting to blow up a cop car with dynamite he had smuggled from his job in the mines. When he got out I had relapsed, gotten divorced, and was deep into drugs. When I got sober again we became roomates. That was one of the best years of my life, we had steak dinners, pizza and movie nights with friends, went camping and to banquets, he got me back into playing guitar...etc. The point is he is one of the first people besides my family that I have truly cared for and can call a best friend, today we still hang out on occasion and go to a couple of conventions on the Oregon coast twice a year, we still have that instant rapport and humor, I can call on him anytime I need a hand, and he can do the same. We shared a history of struggle and watched each other suffer while helplessly looking on, unable to do anything. I love my friend Steve, he helped to teach me that you never give up on a true friend, sometimes we can be the only motivation that keeps them from slipping over the edge, he taught me how to love unconditionally, when he was in his cups, I still cared and tried to help, I wanted my friend back. He and I both have been to the gates of insanity and death and have come back to tell the tale. Hopefully in doing so we can help others to turn back before it is too late. 

       Making Amends and how the Hero's Journey comes full circle.

This is one of my favorite stories to tell.

 I was a sneaky, selfish, and self-centered teen. My mother had been divorced for several years and had met a man at her work named Ed Sharp.
He was a hard-working man with a sly sense of humor and no tolerance for liars and thieves.

Unfortunately I was both, so naturally I resented his intrusion into my little family—just my mother, my brother, and myself. In time Ed moved in and we established a mutual tolerance, I would cross boundaries he would set with regularity but little consequence. My mother had been my ally for years as my previous stepfather had been quite abusive verbally, and at times physically. I am sure that she and Ed had many a talk about how I was always getting away with things.

One day I had rode my motorcycle home from school and the clutch cable broke. I didn’t want to wait for Mom to get home to take me to get a replacement, so I went into their room and got a jar of half dollars that I knew Ed kept in his dresser drawer. I got the cable, put it on, and when my mom got home I told her what I had done. She was angry, but took me to the bank where we bought a quantity of half dollars to replace what I had taken.

As we arrived home I was a bit nervous to see that Ed had come home while we were gone. I figured he wouldn’t know what was up right away so I wasn’t too scared going into the house. My mom went first, I followed. As we came in the door I noticed Ed sitting on the couch, he looked up at us as we came in, and as he saw me his face flushed with fury and he lunged at me. I thought I was dead. My mom got between us and he stopped, but he poured out his fury toward me as he said he had been collecting those half dollars for years, many were gifts from his kids as they knew that he was saving them. None were old enough to have value greater than a half dollar, but they had sentimental value. I escaped as he and my mom argued about the situation. I had never been so afraid of anyone before that moment, I had seen hate in his eyes.

Things calmed down and we reverted to our mutual tolerance once again, but I continued to be a source of heartache and annoyance to those two fine people.

In time they separated, briefly, because it was just too much for them to tolerate, but my mom always gave me the benefit of the doubt. One day I sat across the table from my mother as I had just been caught doing one more thing to cause her distress and she looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m done. I am sick of you and how you treat us.”

Then she uttered the coup de grâce, “I hope you grow up and have kids just like you someday, no, wait … I wouldn’t wish that on anybody!”

I deserved that and I knew it. But it still hurt, and it fed an already growing self-hatred I felt inside. Those formative years set the stage for what would soon become chronic alcoholism and addiction. I believe that I had had an alcoholic predisposition long before I took a drink, and drinking and drugging became the medicine that I used to tolerate the self-prescribed misery that I felt about my life and how I lived it.

Fast-forward several years. I ended up in a drug and alcohol treatment center in Baker, Ore in 1987 at the ripe old age of 22. My probation officer, Russ Scharn, sent me there in lieu of getting a probation violation for a petty theft charge. Miracles never cease. I got sober and embraced recovery. Mom and Ed were very happy to see me start a new life; they were relieved and finally able to relax around me. I started working steadily and came to, and participated in, family functions. I apologized, and began a living amends. I got full legal custody of my daughter after divorcing my first wife—we had married in our teens and had only lived together about six months, but were still legally married. I remarried to a good woman and we started a clean life together. About seven years into my sobriety, we moved from Pendleton, Ore to The Dalles, Ore, and finally to Coeur d Alene, Idaho where my wife was from. I got a job at an Applebee’s restaurant working as a broil cook.

It was early December and we weren’t planning on going to Oregon for Christmas as we had our own little family now and it was a very long drive. One evening a waitress came back into the kitchen and announced that some customer had paid his dinner bill in half dollars. I instantly knew what I had to do. I approached her and bought all the coins that she had collected. The next day I added some more that I got from the bank. As I wrapped presents to send to my brother, mom, and Ed, I took the half dollars and filled a toilet paper tube with them. There was a little slack, but they pretty much filled it. I don’t remember how much money there was, but it was quite heavy, and I felt a strange sense of completeness as I sent the packages off.

About a week later I got a call from my mom, it was mid-December. She said they had received the package. I had wrapped all the gifts and sent them in one big box. As they pulled the packages out Ed had picked his up and gave it a gentle shake, and as he did the wrapping at the end of the tube gave way and all of the coins spilled to the floor, making a racket and rolling everywhere. Mom said Ed just froze and stared at the floor and all the coins … then he started crying, and they hugged and cried. I cried when she told me this, and I have tears as I write this now. At that moment we all connected, we all understood what the coins were for and the memories were softened by our tears. The tears we felt that day were tears of joy, of healing, and making right a long-standing wrong. We had healed as a family over those last seven years. I knew that day the power of amends, the power of forgiveness, and the power of love. I had gained an immense respect for Ed and his uncompromising integrity. I had learned from him that in order to gain respect one must earn it, and if you want to gain self-esteem, do esteem-able acts. My recovery program taught me that amends needed to be made in order make peace with the past and to not carry yesterday’s pain into today’s joy. I fully experienced just exactly what that meant, at how simple, thoughtful amends can change lives for the better—not just replacing an item that had been broken or stolen, but to give that person back their dignity and the security that I had robbed them of. I didn’t just take a few coins, I had caused Ed to feel pain and hate through my actions, both very powerful emotions that take a toll on one’s psyche, and discolored any future associations we would have together.

Ed died several years ago. I went to their home in LaGrande, Ore and stayed with my mother for a week as we prepared for the funeral and went through some of his things. There were no coins; they had long ago been disbursed, perhaps to a grandchild. But he had saved every gift I had ever given him, even the dumb ones a child picks out. Mom told me that he was very proud of me, and that he loved me very much. I knew he did, I had no doubt, and I had loved him very much as well. He treated my mother like gold, and they had a wonderful life together. He was the love of her life, and he deserved to be.

Over the years I have been able to help others in recovery initiate and go through the amends process as outlined in the 12 steps by simply telling this story—because I can transmit my genuine heartfelt gratitude for having our lives restored and renewed through the power of amends and forgiveness. The rewards are priceless.

Thank you, Ed, for being a man that showed me more true grit than John Wayne ever did.