Today is another solo episode!
Spirituality has been a challenging part of my recovery journey. To say I had resistance to God being in the meeting literature and skepticism that I could choose what God meant to me was prevalent.
I created a lecture ‘Who’s Driving Your Bus,’ many years ago because many recovering people struggle with the spirituality part of their journey.
As a person who values visual exercises, the bus analogy has been a helpful one for me.
As you will hear, the way I received this analogy was a ‘God Wink.’
I hope you can become open to receiving messages from your Higher Power – when, where, who can often be a fabulous surprise!
Stay open!!
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.
Margaret 00:24
Welcome back to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. It feels like the right time to have another solo episode. And what struck me today is I haven’t talked about one of the lectures I’m most known for Who’s Driving Your Bus?
00:41
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 00:51
So, a little backstory, spirituality has been a very challenging part of recovery for me. When I landed in the rooms, I reacted to the God word in the literature, and I shut it down. Thankfully, a wise person shared with me, you don’t have to have a defined Higher Power to begin the recovery process. You just have to have a knowledge that you are out of control and powerless and need something to guide you. For me in early recovery, that something was the fellows in the rooms, and the concept of
Good
Orderly
Direction.
What I knew going in the rooms was, I had no clue how to get myself from this pit of despair that I found myself in. I had tried every trick I knew, to feel better in my skin, and nothing was working. And so, when I landed in the rooms, I was desperate. I was in pain. And I assume in enough pain, to take suggestion.
Was I a willing recipient of suggestions? I’d listen. But my monkey would say, what do they know? You’re different than them. This isn’t gonna work for you. This is crazy.
But thankfully, I sat in those seats long enough, till I started being able to hear the suggestions and take them. I have come to believe that my Higher Power shows up in skin. I never know where, never know when, and I never know who the messenger is going to be. And trust me when I tell you, some of my messengers have been the most unexpected people you could ever imagine. And Who’s Driving Your Bus came from one of those people.
So, I was a student in the training program at Hazelden Betty Ford, and part of our student time was doing a lecture in the public lecture hall for the patients. And so, I had my lecture prepared, and I was ready to go. And part of the job was we listen to each other’s lectures, and they listened to ours. And one of my classmates was not someone I, I felt very comfortable with. I actually really couldn’t stand them if I’m honest. And so, when they got on stage to give their lecture, my eyes probably rolled my head certainly said, oh, gosh, don’t want to hear this. And yet, what they shared was life changing for me, and I have utilized it in my recovery more than I can ever tell you.
So, they gave the concept of who’s driving your bus. That we’re on a bus, any bus, picture your own bus, whatever one you want. For me, it’s got to be the big pink bus with the blue stripe that you see in the island of Bermuda. And the goal of recovery is to be able to get to that back seat of the bus trusting your Higher Power has the wheel.
I can tell you that in my mind in the beginning. And even at times now. I was not only standing over the driver, taking the wheel anytime I thought I knew best. But also leaning my hand out the window taking hold of my ex fiancé’s bus, my family’s bus, my children’s bus whomever’s bus I think I need to take hold of to make everything okay. And in those moments take on the role of their Higher Power.
So the goal is taking my hands off the wheel and gradually going to the back of the bus. Now in hearing that you could think so what you just let go and walk away.
No, it’s work. In order to get the back of the bus. I’ve got to be willing to rely on a sponsor, and my fellows to show me when I am slipping into old behavior and relapse mode. I need to be willing to do my meetings, have a sponsor, work the steps, follow the direction of the program, be honest with myself, but mostly with others who will be helpful to me to see when I’m not able to be honest with myself. Because my monkey doesn’t want that.
Has it been easy? Has it been natural? Has it been automatic? None of the above. It has been diligence, work, and being willing to give myself grace and know that even though I may know, that’s where I need to be sitting, I have a monkey within me that wants me up behind that seat faster than I can even blink.
This visual has been a goal of mine, a touchstone, a measure of my spiritual growth. And thankfully, I’ve had examples of when it worked. And when it didn’t. When it didn’t, it’s painful.
Bumper: This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Call to action: It is amazing to me to think that I have gone from one listener to almost 5000 downloads of this podcast, that just blows my mind. And I’m so excited to see this expand and grow and reach more people. I am grateful for the feedback I’ve been receiving of people saying it has given them tremendous value, and support on their journey of recovery as family members.
So, I’m calling out to all my listeners. And I’m saying let’s grow this some more. And in this being the second year of being in the business, my business embrace family recovery, I’d like to expand the content of the podcast. So, if you have any ideas, interest areas, people you think would be fabulous guests, please send me an email. My email address is Margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com.
I would love to expand the guests to include other types of addictions, we’ve mainly focused on substance use disorder, chemical addictions, I’d like to get some behavioral addictions in there. Food, sex, gambling, gaming, whatever aspect of this illness has affected you as a family member, and how you found your way through the journey of the disease, in active behavior or use and into recovery.
So, if you fit that category, and you’re willing to share your story, you know by now, if you’re listening that this is a conversation, a place where we just share, and that seems to be working as a way to offer people the chance to feel less isolated and know they’re not alone in this process.
So please reach out to me with ideas, being willing to be a guest.
Again, my email is Margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com And thank you for all your support. And let’s keep this growing and reaching more family members out there. Please share this podcast with anyone who’s been touched by the disease of addiction.
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Margaret 08:12
But if I truly let go of the wheel, and I walk my way back to the back with the help of my fellows and program, I have much more peace. Because if someone else’s recovery goes well, it’s not on me. And if someone’s recovery is not going well, it’s not on me. But if I stay behind the driver’s wheel, and I take their bus and try to drive it, first of all a crash is going to happen. Think about two buses going down the interstate with me driving both. It’s not pretty. And it’s painful. And when those crashes happen, I feel responsible and guilty. And when I take the wheels, and it doesn’t crash, it’s an ego boost. It’s a false sense of control. It’s a gosh, look at me. I don’t want that I don’t want to rob the people I love of getting to feel the growth and sense of accomplishment of their own recovery.
So, my most poignant memory of having this visual reinforced was when I was in early recovery with my food addiction, which I’ve talked about before, but I’ll mention recovery with food addiction is different because you have to eat to survive. You can’t just be abstinent and put it down.
So, working a program of not eating wheat as a trigger food for me or sugar unless in fruit, or fifth on the ingredient label or beyond, weighing and measuring food. Being abstinent is requiring that of me and no alcohol.
I went to a birthday party with my family. Amelia was probably one and a half, Abbi was about four and a half, and the Pool Party was happening. And it was my job according to my sponsor to be of service to the mom. So that meant helping serve clean up, do whatever to make her life easier at the party, I can do that. That keeps me out of my diseased mind. And so we were at the party, and it was time for cake. And I remember feeling quite peaceful and being able to cut it and help and pass it out. And so, once everyone had cake and was out of the pool and eating it, my job was clean up.
So, I put the cover back on the cake. And I started throwing away trash when people were finished. And I remember being over by the cake with my back to the pool. And I got this overwhelming feeling Margaret turn around. And I did, thankfully, and when I turned around, I saw Amelia had got back in the pool, and she was sinking towards the deep end, looking at me terrified going under the water. And I screamed and I ran, I jumped in. And I grabbed her, and I brought her to the side of the pool. And she was crying, so she was breathing. And they checked her over there was some EMTs there. And they checked her over and said she’s okay. So, we left the poolside. And she and I went to a room. And I remember sitting on the edge of the bed with her on my lap. And if I can share a picture with you that just I can feel it right now talking about it. She was clinging to me like a little monkey hanging on to me, and her head fit under my chin while she was sitting on my lap facing me. And I was holding her, and she was crying, and I was crying, and it was a scary moment. And all of a sudden, I got this sense of calm. And I heard, I felt because I don’t try and analyze it, but this is what came to me. Amelia has a higher power, and you’re not it. Your job is to be healthy, so that you can step in to help me when necessary. That stuck to me every day since. But I forget it and have to remember it.
What I know to be true. As a food addict had I not been in recovery. When I was touching that cake. And I was putting it away. I would have been doing anything I could to get it out of the room so I could eat a bunch of it without anyone seeing. Do you think I would have felt the message to turn around? Would I’ve been so preoccupied with getting what I felt I needed to be okay in that moment that that’s all I would have been focused on. I know the answer that feels right for me today. If I work a recovery program with my food addiction, and my Al-Anon, codependency issues, one day at a time, I am showing up healthier for the people I love the most in the world, the people I serve in my business, and anyone I come in contact with one day at a time.
Whatever your spiritual journey is be on one don’t shut it down. Don’t shut it out. Many of us have given food, substances, people the ability to be our Higher Power over and over again. Have we ever looked at alternatives that could help us like the universe, nature, our fellows?
My wish for each and every one of you is to explore what is it that helps you surrender control, and have the ability to give the people you love the most over to something, someone, an entity to help them that has far more ability to do so than we do if we get honest with ourselves.
I am so thankful for the messengers who’ve been placed in my life. And I am a bullheaded broad. So not always do the messengers show up in a way that I can hear them or not dismiss them. But I’m grateful every day for being willing to make progress on my spiritual journey and to be open to whatever form my higher power is for this day.
Please find resources on my website.
embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you!
