As we continue our conversation with Karen Casey, she shares the benefits of embracing the concept of detachment. Karen is the best-selling author of thirty books, with her first one, ‘Every Day a New Beginning: Meditation for Women,’ celebrating its 40th anniversary.
To think it began with journalling, as all her books have!
Karen also shared her concept of how her Higher Power gives people assignments. Her story about Pat gives me the chills every time I hear it.
Karen reads an excerpt from one of her books!
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See full transcript below.
00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Intro: Welcome back in today’s episode I continue my conversation with Karen Casey as she shares her remarkable journey from journaling to becoming a best-selling author of 30 books and what it means to fully embrace the true meaning of detachment trigger warning there is discussion of suicide.
01:10
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret 01:26
Your first book that you did choose to write has been sold over 4 million times and is still to this day utilized and prevalent and very much speaks to people. Amazing Karen, what a legacy you’ve left and what a gift you’ve given so many. And that’s just one title, one book. Why was that your first? Do you remember when you sat down?
Karen Casey 01:54
Yes, except that I wasn’t sitting down to write a book, Margaret.
Margaret 01:58
That was your journaling.
Karen Casey 01:59
I was just journaling because I was so desperate to feel some kind of a connection to my higher power.
After I was sober about 18 months, I was on the trajectory to take my life. You know, I was in graduate school, I was consistent at AA, the thought of taking another drink had certainly not crossed my mind. But I felt so alone and distant. I would go to an AA meeting and feel so good, and so connected through my friends and through what happened at the meeting. But then I would go home and feel such emptiness. And finally, after about 18 months, I don’t remember how the idea.
As a little kid, I had thought at times, what would it be like not to be here just because of the pain and tension in the family. And so, it wasn’t an idea that scared me at all, to just it felt like an easy thing to do to just end the whole thing.
So, I rolled up all the towels to tuck in around all the windows in my one bedroom $100 a month apartment. And I was going to turn on the gas. It was a gas, you know, one of those one bedroom apartment gas stoves. And so, I wasn’t really even thinking about anything or contemplating anything. It was like, oh, you know, it’s so hard to kind of even say that you’re about to take your life and it didn’t matter. But that’s exactly how it felt.
And then there was a knock at the door, a very persistent, loud knock. And I finally went to the door. Because I was worried about, codependently worried about this little woman that lived next door to me. I lived in an apartment on Hennepin Avenue right across from Loring Park. And this little woman that lived in the apartment next to me. I was worried about her being concerned about the persistent knocking.
So, I went to the door, and I didn’t open it. I just said who’s there? And she said, Pat, and we have an appointment. I was like what? And she said yes, I’m a financial planner, and we have an appointment to talk about your finances. Now remember, I lived in $100 a month apartment. I was teaching at the university I earned a salary just enough to get by. So, none of that made sense, but I opened the door and she had out her daily planner which everybody used way back then
Margaret: Sure.
Sure enough, there was my name. And it was like holy crap. You know? And she just kind of little bit forcefully nudged her way into my apartment. And she was lovely. She was tall, she had red hair, and it was back in a bun. I can still see her as well today, as the day she walked in. And she said, Are you okay? And I said, no, I’m very depressed. A she went in and sat down at my kitchen table. She said, well, I understand depression a little bit. I’ve been depressed. And she said, and my husband is a recovering alcoholic. And he struggles with depression. And she said, you know, what I’ve come to believe, is that we’re depressed. Our depression is because we’re on the precipice of a new spiritual understanding. And God is really waiting for us to become aware of his presence. And the depression, that we feel, is because we’re resisting that awareness of God’s presence. And, you know, I’m just sitting there thinking, holy crap, we’re did all this come from.
And she said, you know what you need to do, this abyss you feel in front of you. And I realized, in fact, that was exactly what was in front of me, what I was about to jump into by turning on the gas, she said, reach across, because God is on the other side, waiting to help you. And she said, there’s a name for all of this, if you want to look it up. It’s called chemicalization. But it’s when you’re about to move into a new spiritual understanding.
And with that, I mean, I right away, just knew that what she told me was the truth. And she stood up. Notice, she didn’t say one word about finances. She walked to the door, she turned around and reached for me and put her arms around me. And she said, you know, Karen, you’re going to be just fine. And she walked out.
Margaret: Wow.
Karen: And, of course, I had never seen her before. I never saw her again. But I really believe that the God of my understanding, has assignments for people, and her assignment was to show up at my door.
And that was a huge turning point,
Margaret: I’m sure.
Karen: And I knew what she said was true. And this is a long way to get to the writing of my first book. I knew what she said was true. But as a matter of fact, it didn’t quiet all of that anxiety. And I went back to doing all the things I needed to do. I went to meetings; I went back to teaching. But I still felt that distance.
And I sat down and just simply started to journal. I didn’t have any idea what the journaling was going to be about. But it brought me solace. I would come home from work. And I would sit in my chair in my big ol brown recliner, and just write.
And this was after I had finished my dissertation, of course, and in fact, it was while I was working at Hazelden and Harry Swift, the president of Hazelden had taken an interest in my own recovery journey and, and he asked me one day how I was how are you doing? And I told him, I mean, I don’t know why I felt even moved to tell him why do we feel moved to do anything? Do or say except that it’s intentional. And so I told him that I was really struggling to feel the presence. And so, I was journaling about. And so, he said, why don’t you bring in to me some time, if you don’t mind? What it is you’re journaling about? I’d be just curious. And I did, eventually idea. And he said to me, he called me up, and he said, Karen, I think there’s a book here, a book that needs to be written for other women. And it was like, really, and that’s how ‘Each Day a New Beginning’ became a book.
And that’s how you know when I sit here today, and I looked at ‘Let Go Now,’ ‘Embracing Detachment,’ I look at ‘A Life of My Own’ and ‘Meditation For Codependency.’ You know, I look at my most recent book which was ‘Each Day of Renewed Beginning, Meditations For a Peaceful Journey.’ None of it, did I ever say, you know, now this is what I really need to do.
Margaret: All been journaling?
Karen: It all has resulted from my sitting down and just beginning to write about something. And then it becomes what it needs to become.
Margaret: That’s amazing.
Karen: I go to 4 AA meetings a week and do 2 Al-Anon meetings every week. I mean, I’m still consistently committed to both programs.
But you know, I think that when it comes to family issues, and I know that that’s a crux of what you do with your life is help families. You know, probably the most important thing I ever learned in my life. And it was through Al-Anon was about detachment. I had never heard that word before. And when I first heard detachment, I just thought it meant shun. You know, we just kind of detach and push people aside. It never dawned on me that what it meant was allowing others to have their own life.
Margaret: That’s a gift.
Karen: A gift. I mean, it’s a gift. It’s a wonderful gift.
11:24
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12:23
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Margaret 12:34
A lot of families struggle with detachment and detaching with love. So is there a passage or something you want to read from that book that you think would behelpful for listeners?
Karen: Sure.
Margaret 12:48
And again, the title of the book you’re reading from is?
Karen Casey 12:50
‘Let Go Now, Embrace Detachment as a Path to Freedom.’
Margaret: Perfect.
Karen: What this book consists of those 200 little kind of page long essays, page long, journaling essays about detaching, and all 200 are related in one way or another to the whole concept of detachment.
But the quote at the top is
“Detaching from our companions does not mean discounting them, dismissing them, or rejecting them.”
And that’s actually essay number 131. On page 154.
“Keeping our focus on our own lives, in no way means we don’t care about other people. Letting others be free of our focus is actually a gift to them.
As a youngster, I seldom averted my eyes. from others’ activities, I was obsessed with wondering what they were thinking about, and if it related to me. Was I okay? Were they mad at me? Were they going to reprimand me or reject me? This obsession didn’t leave me until a few years after finding Al-Anon. The miracle is that it did leave. I know that what happened for me can happen for anyone.”
And then the message goes on. I mean, the beauty is that we can finally learn how to let go of what others are thinking about us.
I mean, the real gift is that we don’t get to live our own lives if our focus is always on somebody else. And when our focus is there, we’re not giving them the respect, the freedom to live the journey that they were born to live.
Margaret: And my language is that I’m chasing a moving target much as an alcoholic is chasing it through alcohol. There’s never enough to sustain fill me make me feel good enough. None of that outside stuff is going to help me find peace.
Karen: Right.
Margaret: And we’re chasing it just like somebody who’s now call it chases the right amount of booze.
Karen: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that another line that I just picked out a couple.
“Detachment is understanding that we are never the cause of someone else’s actions.”
You know, I think that as a kid, and growing up in a family like I did, and I’m sure like a lot of our listeners grew up in. I somehow always felt like, everything was my fault, that when my mother was upset, it didn’t occur to me, it was because my dad was treating her poorly, I must have done something.
I think that codependency is so caught up in thinking we are the cause of what somebody else is feeling. As well as we are responsible for changing that person’s feeling. We’re the cause and responsible for changing their feeling.
Margaret 16:06
Well and it goes to speak to Karen, if we think we’re the cause of the problem and the pain, then by God, we’re gonna have to figure out a way to fix it no matter what.
Karen: Yeah.
Margaret: And it is probably the most common as you know, thought of children in any situation, because of the egocentric and the necessity to survive. And when families don’t talk openly about this with their children, assuming they don’t know, don’t feel, don’t see, we’re doing such a disservice, because then they’re making it make sense in their own mind. And the number one thought is, what did I do wrong? Or what is wrong with me? Or why is this happening?
Karen Casey 16:42
Exactly? You know, obviously, that’s how we all grew up in my family. But back then, I told you about the interview with my mother.
Margaret: Yeah.
Karen: And when I interviewed my dad, and he said, I’d been afraid every day of my life. He had become a very successful man in Lafayette, Indiana, and was a banker that everybody looked up to. And he went to work, he told me every day afraid that he would, in fact, approve a loan or something that a person would default on. And I said, what that wouldn’t have been your fault,
Margaret: Right?
Karen: He said, yes. If pounded the picnic table, yes. By God, it would have been.
Margaret: Wow!
Karen: You know, to have lived and at that period of time. I know I was 37 or eight when I came home to talk to them, because I had been sober just a couple years. And so, I know that that made my mother who was 30 years older than me 68. And my dad was five years older than her so he would have been 72. So, from the time he was six years old to 72 he had been afraid, afraid.
And the fact that families then and still don’t really tell each other how they’re feeling, creates not only a distance between them, but no way for them to kind of walk through anything together.
Margaret: Keeps that distance.
Karen: Yeah. And it makes what you’re doing with family so crucial.
Margaret: Thank you, I love what I get to do with families.
Karen: Yeah, families just have to be brought together but they don’t know how to come together by themselves.
Outro: Come back next week as we will close our conversation out with Karen Casey.
In our final episode Karen will discuss family dynamics and why it is so vital to continue actively participating in your own recovery work.
Margaret 19:10
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website.
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you!
