tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82528252822415814312024-02-20T10:07:55.512-08:00recoveringtreasureBlog based on speeches, writings and conversations of Treasure Rice who was a pioneer in self-help mental health through her work in Recovery, International. As a "nervous patient", she gained her mental health and trained others in Dr. Abraham A. Low's system. See lowselfhelpsystems.org for more information.Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-76031639667806832922011-02-10T15:22:00.000-08:002011-02-10T15:22:54.121-08:00"I'm Not Wrong, I'm Average"<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Mother received a question one day that she recorded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think many of us have wondered at one time or another how the heck is this spot is going to sink in?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Question: I've repeated "I’m not wrong, I'm average over and over. Is there anything in Dr. Low's literature that says anything about the idea-- I’m wrong being intuitive?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Treasure: Dr. Low does talk about "body fear". Repeating I am not wrong, I'm average" is o.k.-- it is knowledge, but you may not be seeing it at a deeper level. An example may help us to see another side to this.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">One time I made a presentation in Detroit with Father Dowling (an old friend of Recovery and Dr. Low) from St. Louis, MO. The audience was made up of newspaper editors from all over the country. Driving back to Brighton from Detroit I was working myself up. "I talked too long. I should have said this! They must think I am really dumb." Of course, I was feeling very wrong... upset stomach, general tenseness, shaky. I kept saying, "I'm not wrong, I'm average."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">All of a sudden I thought, "you think you are RIGHT that you're wrong. It is natural and average to review a performance, but you have jumped to a conclusion. That is still the vanity of knowing better. Real spotting would be to know that you <u>don’t</u> know.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">With this I began to relax and each time I would tend to go back to my processing, I spotted again that I had no way of knowing what the audience was thinking. And, I endorsed myself for even making the presentation. I had faced my fears of speaking in front of any audience, let alone such an important one as this was.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Before Recovery I would not have had the techniques to really spot... that is, recognize what was happening inside of me. The processing of anything I did would go on for days. My symptoms were bizarre thoughts, panic attacks, fears of closed places and open spaces, etc., etc.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-17060700955397909422010-11-12T19:08:00.000-08:002010-11-12T19:10:24.176-08:00Dr. Low in Detroit, September 20, 1954, Part 2Part 2 of this meeting is the "rest of the story". You may find that it is a little choppy at times. Apparently the recording was not easy to hear so some words or phrases were missed, but you'll get the gist of it I'm sure. By the way, Dr. Low talks about this meeting as being the largest he had ever seen. I can only imagine what the "electricity" must have been like in that place! You can sense both the frustration and hope about how to get Recovery to those who needed it, who at the time were mostly in State Hospitals. We now pick up where Rev. Taylor introduced Father Dowling.<br />
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</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Fr. Edward Dowling, S.J.: I think if I had spoken first I would have said several of the salient things that Dr. Taylor spoke of. I got a letter the other day, [he reads the letter] this is Havana, Cuba, and I read it to let you know that if you get nothing more out of tonight’s meeting than the privilege of having given encouragement to a movement that is going to reach people, not in as populous as this, but in small places, I think our evening is eminently worth while. He says, “I am endeavoring to recover from a mental illness which commenced about one and one-half years ago. I have had electro-shock therapy a few months ago and at present take pills so that I can relax. I have tinglings in my hands and feet and scalp and have a number of other physical symptoms. I read an article in which your name was associated with Recovery, Inc., and I thought it might help me. Would you please send me a copy of the book and put the remainder of this ten dollars in the poor box. I am Irish, a Catholic, age 52, an accountant, married, and sometimes I have no hope at all. Once I tried to commit suicide but that phase has passed and now I pray, but I feel very depressed some days. Other days I feel pretty good, but I dread the next depression. God bless you and the work. As I am not in a position to attend the Recovery, Inc., meetings,” …my goodness, what it would do for him to stand where I am standing tonight and see what I am seeing. Dr. Low tells me this is the largest Recovery meeting in the history of the movement, as far as he has attended, and I think it is important that it happens not at the Center, but showing what a movement can do away off, far from the Central Office of Chicago. What can happen? Who knows, maybe some day in Havana… “do you think there is any member with more or less similar symptoms who might be interested in writing to me. Perhaps we could help each other.”… I remember when a member of my family entered a mental hospital. It was one of those ambivalent places, partly…(pause)…a sanitarium. I said, “Doctor, could this lead to insanity?” He said, “This is insanity.” There are people in this room who know how I felt; frightened, stigmatized, futile, poor. It was a bachelor uncle’s benefaction which enabled us to pay the hospital bill. Recovery, if I’d had it then, wouldn’t have made me feel so bad. The doctor used a big word. Professional people, the clergy and the doctors tend to do that. Someone…(Fr. D. chuckled)…in Recovery the other night was explaining the different types of cases that turn up and its simplicity is so typical of Recovery. Dr. Low, I think, has done something that no other professional man since Aristotle has done that I know of -- I don’t know them all. He has written a book without a professional word in it. Someone speaking of Recovery was saying, “There are two classes of problems. There is the class of problems of people who think that two and two make five, and they’re quite happy about that discovery; or quite belligerent and willing to maintain it. They don’t appear so often in Recovery. But there’s the other class who come in, who think that two and two make four, but they’re darned worried about it.” (audience laughed). You know I think…(pause)… My role here tonight is not to keep you from hearing Dr. Low…(pause)…but (Fr. D. chuckled) I assume my role…(pause)…I think I’m a decoy…(Fr. D. chuckled)…I think the Catholics of Detroit, and I speak with the permission of the Catholic authorities of Detroit, I specify that, they are quite interested, they do not know, they haven’t made a study of this enough to approve. In St. Louis, where I’m from, it works just the other way. We have a Catholic publishing house with a hall, not this big, but from that Catholic group, of the seven little groups that have broken off, one is at the Church of the Open Door, a Congregational church, and another is at the Webster Hills Methodist church, using halls. So that my role here I think is to…(Fr. D. chuckled)…say Recovery is safe. Well, I’m not going to go that far. All therapy can cause trouble, see. I don’t know if you read that story of the veterinarian who was explaining to this man how to give medicine to a horse. He said, “you take a gas pipe about two feet high and fill it with powder and then place it well down in the throat of the horse and then blow vigorously”…(audience chuckled). Well, about an hour later the farmer came back. He had powder all over him…(audience chuckled)… and the veterinarian said, “What’s the matter?” “Oh,” he said, “I’m dying. The horse blew first.” (audience roared with laughter). Now I have a suspicion…(Fr. D. chuckled)…that underneath the benign calm of even Dr. Low, sometime he must think…(Fr. D. chuckled)…that horse is going to blow first…(audience laughed). So, I do say this, disease is non-sectarian. In today’s paper, under an AP headline, is an item about a Nun, of the Order of Poor Clares, one of the most austere and saintly orders of women in the Catholic Church. This woman, gave her age on an insurance policy as 1894 when it was really 1891. It tortured her, and here in nineteen hundred and whatever it is, fifty-four, that woman, overwhelmed by the guilt of that lie told in the last century, poured kerosene over herself, soaked her robes in kerosene, and burned herself to death. Nerves cut across geographic, ethnic, and religious lines. There’s a two-way cut there, a rip-tide in that thing, the physiological and the sociological and the personal effects of moral deviations, even small, and so, I do feel, if the signposts of alienation from community which Dr. Taylor spoke of, alienation from group-mindedness, if those signposts are correct, we are not going to have less nervousness but more, and, as he himself has seen once before, in another group, the AA group, there is a Gulf Stream of hope that runs and courses down the life of our cities, whose trade winds whisper hope. I saw Recovery ten, twelve years ago for the first time. In the last four years I have had two members of my family belong and I have had a very fine opportunity not merely to watch the meetings, they occur in my building two floors below me, but I also have telephone conversations with these people. I have used it in my own life, I’ve used it with others, and I’m speaking especially to people who may be bothered by hardening of the dignity, dignal sclerosis, see…(audience laughed and Fr. D. chuckled). There are a lot…(Fr. D. Chuckled)…come on in, the water’s fine; menopause, hypertension, a lot of things that we never go to a doctor for. It can help. It can help. If the non-Catholic people won’t listen for a minute, I want to say something to the Catholics…(audience laughed)…I remember a Catholic one time who was an alcoholic. He was distinguished in a distinguished, alcoholic way…(audience chuckled)…and…(pause)…but he tells the story in Alcoholics Anonymous now. He said he always wondered if this Alcoholics Anonymous would do anything against his religion, see. It never occurred to him, he says, to bother whether this drinking and knocking lamp-posts down and ruining his family might hurt his own religion, see. There is less religion in Recovery than there is in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I suppose the majority in this room are Christians. Alcoholics Anonymous does not bring Christ in. You bring Christ in at your own discretion and at your own risk, see. Now Recovery, a good deal like things like the Red Feather and a number of other processes, does not bring God in, but Recovery is on the side of the angels. (At this point the end of Fr. Dowling’s talk is missing from the tape recording).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Taylor: You know, there is one thing that the Father and I agree on. We both accept Dr. Low as an authority. Now that doesn’t interfere at all with his accepting his Bishop and me accepting mine. Maybe you better not tell them that…(Dr. T. chuckled)…but anyway, it’s true. We accept Dr. Low as the authority. Of course, if I break my leg, I want a competent physician to fix it. I don’t care much whether he is Catholic or a Protestant or a Jew or a gentile or white or black, as long as he can do the job, and Dr. Low can do the job. Before I introduce him, I want to tell one little true incident. At one of the meetings up in our church, there was a little white-haired woman who kind of tiptoed in and sat in a back seat. She kept coming week after week, and after she had been in Recovery for two or three months, I noticed she was in church one Sunday. The second or third Sunday, she got nerve enough to sign the church register. I got her address and went down to visit her. She’d been a nervous patient for over twenty years and she told me that this was the first thing that had interested her during that whole portion and the first thing that she had been able to go to. I want you to notice, first she went to Recovery, then she went to church, then she went shopping, and then visited her neighbors; she got into one group after another, but the Recovery group was first. Some months afterwards, she dropped dead of heart failure. I had the funeral. I received a most beautiful letter from one of her sons in which he said, “Thank God for Recovery and for what it did for my mother. I hope you grow and grow and grow.” I hope she’s looking on tonight, and the man that started it was Dr. Abraham Low of Chicago. Dr. Low (applause).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. A. A. Low: I have been privileged to establish and later to lead Recovery for now 17 years and I have held hundreds of meetings in Recovery and with Recovery members. I have attended parties, anniversaries, all kinds of gatherings in Recovery, and it should be the time now no longer to be overwhelmed by anything that happens in Recovery. I have about experienced everything that I thought was to be experienced, but tonight I am overwhelmed. I have attended big meetings, meetings that were crowded, as this meeting is, although, as Father Dowling told you, this is decidedly the biggest that I have attended. But you see, that means quantity, and quantity is something that Recovery hardly deals with. It’s welcome, and it is, even in this quantitative aspect, overwhelming to see a meeting of this kind, but the moment I entered this auditorium it was obvious there was not only quantity but also quality. Many of you came up to me, a good deal of them not knowing me, just having heard about me and perhaps recognizing me from a picture, and there was so much warmth, so much not expression but implication of loyalty. That, I must say, at home in Chicago, I am naturally not experiencing it in the manner that I can experience it here because in Chicago there grows up a familiarity between my patients and me and they don’t have to express anything. It is understood that they are, well, something like my children and naturally offer loyalty and devotion that we recognize and know and don’t have to express anymore. But when I notice the same sentiments here on the part of people that I have presumably never seen, never spoken to, I was touched, and when I entered this hall and noticed various indications of something that we call spirit…(pause)…after talking to a few of the men and women that I know, well, I was overwhelmed with the impression of this Detroit group because I knew a great deal about them without knowing the individual members, at any rate not all of them, and not too many of them, and I felt that I came home to my, well, to my most effective child, the child that is extremely devoted and the child that has displayed this devotion and loyalty, well, all I can say, in a most successful manner. All of our groups are devoted, all of our groups are loyal to Recovery, but there is something about this Michigan group that is not well expressed by calling them successful. I mentioned the term and I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but what this term success means here, with this group, is perseverance, undauntedness. There is a quality of fearlessness about this Detroit group, and there are representatives here of the other groups in Michigan, so I can speak of Michigan and not only of Detroit, and it is on this occasion that I would like to make a simple statement, a statement that in Recovery we have loyalty of those that are taken care of, of those that are given leadership, towards their leader, and now comes the point to which I wanted to work up. What is truly overwhelming here in Detroit, in this Michigan and Detroit group, is the type of leadership that you have been happy to enjoy in my dear friend, Treasure Rice. I am very grateful to her for what she has done here in Detroit to further the cause in which we are all interested and of which I have had the great happiness to have been the pioneer. My speech that I was asked to offer here tonight has been titled “What Recovery Can Offer.” Well, that’s a large order. If I want to speak on what Recovery can offer, then I am afraid you will not be able to go home tomorrow morning yet…(audience laughed). That’s too large an order. I shall take the liberty of changing this title of the speech and I will want to speak to you about “Some Techniques Which Recovery Has Offered”, and true to the Recovery tradition I will do as my patients do when they meet in Recovery gatherings. I shall bring you examples; at any rate at first I’ll bring examples. About several weeks ago I was called over the phone and there was a gentlemen I knew, a distant relative of his had been my patient and I had the opportunity to meet this gentleman and he called me and, well, he spoke to me. He was literally panting, naturally with anxiety, and he told me that his daughter came home, trembling, shaking, teeth chattering, and deathly pale, and he said he would like to see me immediately with his daughter and he couldn’t tell me over the phone what precisely had happened, but he was greatly worried about the situation and then the father with his daughter arrived at the office but I did not have time to see him. I had the waiting room full of patients and I told him immediately I don’t know whether I can serve his daughter today satisfactorily but I will try my best and when I had this young lady in my office she presented me with the following story. She was a college student, and while she was sitting in class that afternoon, all of the sudden she felt a dreadful sensation coming over her and within a second or so she felt that her abdomen was freezing up and the upper part of her body, the chest, head and the extremities were swept by a heat wave and so were the lower extremities. Picture to yourself this situation. In the middle of this woman’s body there was a deep-freeze you might say, and above the abdominal region and below it there was a heat wave coursing through the parts of the body. In other words, that person was split into two portions, the one being hot, the other frozen. I must tell you I have seldom seen a patient that described her case in this manner or experience in this manner and the few patients that I have seen that presented a similar picture were indeed deathly pale as the father said, convulsed with fear, and I can well understand that this must be the psychological reaction to this splitting up of the body into two portions. Well, I didn’t have time and what could I have done anyhow? In former days, this means before I had Recovery, let me say twenty years ago and perhaps even seventeen years ago and fifteen years ago yet, this means at the time when we either did not have Recovery or when the Techniques were not yet fully elaborated, and about twelve years ago, for instance, we did not have the techniques that we dispose of today. In those days, twelve, fifteen and twenty years ago, when I had reached quite a position in the profession already, in those days I would have immediately insisted that the patient go to a hospital. I wouldn’t have dared treat such a patient in my office. I wouldn’t have dared let her go home, and then she might develop a condition that was far more dreadful than it was on the afternoon that I saw her, but when I saw her those several weeks ago I immediately had made up my mind that this girl would not be sent to the hospital. Instead, I did something that naturally I could never have done twelve, fifteen and twenty years ago. I sent her over to Recovery just two blocks south of where I have my office, and there she was taken care of and got relief that afternoon; relief, she was not cured yet. Now look here. If a girl has such a condition, then it’s inevitable that she becomes fearful in the extreme, she has to develop a panic and once a patient develops a panic then there develops a vicious cycle, and the more the patient becomes aware of his panic the more does he become alarmed about the panic, in fact, a fear of the fear, a vicious cycle that develops from this circular condition in which fearing the fear, or let me say being alarmed at the panic makes the panic worse and if the panic gets worse then the alarm about it gets worse and so there develops a vicious cycle in which the alarm whips up the panic and the panic whips up the alarm and the patient is simply distracted to a degree that she cannot possibly be left at home. She must be constantly watched and preferably behind locked doors. She might at any time do something to herself, and this will give you immediately one of the differences between my private practice twenty and fifteen and twelve years ago, and my present practice in which, as you now realize, I am enabled to do things that I could never have done in former days and the thing that enables me to do these things is the fact that I can now send my patients to Recovery. I will want to explain this situation to you in another fashion. You see, when I sit in my office and the patient sits opposite me and I try to reassure the patient…(pause)…Now that patient that I saw that afternoon was not in an ordinary fear. She was in fear of instant death, of instant death, and if I sit down opposite her and try to reassure her, well, I can only use words, nothing but words. And words are powerless when there is a vicious cycle between panic and alarm, but when she comes to Recovery just two blocks south of my office she arrives there and she does not see a doctor. Now you will naturally not understand what I mean by that. She will not be taken care of by somebody who will merely use words, and perhaps gestures, and friendly looks, I grant you all of this, but essentially words, and when the patient sits opposite a doctor who uses words, the words are pale when it is a matter of the fear of instant death. No words can give reassurance in this situation. Twenty years ago this patient would have been hospitalized and we would have had one first-admission to the hospital in this case. Today I avoid, in cases of this kind, the first-admission in an astonishing number of my patients that I would have immediately sent to the hospital in former years. The patient listens to the doctor if he can, in a panic. But even if he is not in a panic he listens attentively to the doctor, he still has great difficulty to be reassured by what the doctor tells him. You see most of the patients, especially if they are in a panic, have of course given up hope, and if the doctor reassures them and tells them, well, that’s not a serious condition and I can take care of it, the patient immediately thinks, “Well, what else can a doctor tell me. The doctor is of course not going to tell his patient that he is going to die. If I have a dangerous disease, the doctor will not tell me the truth, it would be against his ethics, “ and most likely it would be and I, for one, if I dealt with a patient in a dangerous sickness, I would not tell him, “Well, you have only so and so long to live.” I would not do it. I know that some doctors say that should be done, but I would not, and that’s what the patient thinks, the doctor cannot tell him the truth, otherwise he would run afoul of his Hippocratic oath, if he would. And so the patients come to us doctors, to us psychiatrists, and they come naturally to us usually as chronic patients, some of them as acute panics as in this case, but most of them come to us after two years of suffering, five years of suffering, ten years of suffering, and at that time they have made up their mind that they cannot be cured any longer, they become hopeless and they are helpless and if the doctor tells them, “Well, I’ll help you. I’ll get you well again,” the patient thinks, “What else should the doctor tell me. Naturally he will not tell me I am hopeless and incurable,” but the patient thinks he is hopeless and incurable either in an acute panic or after he has gradually drifted for ten or five years or shorter or longer into a chronic psychoneurosis or a nervous condition. In Recovery that patient is told nothing. No words are used in exchange with him. He is merely asked to sit down and listen. He is not spoken to when he comes for the first time and that method…(pause)…that was the method that I wished to secure that afternoon for this patient. She was not to be spoken to during a meeting or during the visit in an office. Instead she had to listen and what she listened to was a very simple thing, as simple as all the techniques of Recovery, Incorporated, are. There was a patient at the table sitting together with about fifty or sixty other patients, and one patient gave what is called in Recovery an “example”, that patient gave an example of how he or she had developed a severe fear, or rather severe symptoms and thereupon severe fears, and thereupon the heart began to palpitate (here the tape recording is hard to hear for a few words)…but then he remembered what he had learned in Recovery. He remembered that he had been trained in Recovery to think of these nervous symptoms and he instantly knew from the training that he had imbibed, that nervous symptoms, no matter how threatening, no matter how distressing they may be are never dangerous, and while my patient of that afternoon was listening to another patient describing her panic that she suffered on the street and while my patient went on to listen to this report, it dawned on my patient that here was a case similar to her own and there this person, this panel member, had demonstrated to my patient that I sent over that afternoon that the most dreadful of fears can be controlled by a certain technique and that that panel member that had given the first example that my patient listened to had precisely produced that control or that remedy of her fear that my patient was just now suffering from and was so deadly afraid of it that she had drifted into an extremely severe panic. My patient had feared that she was going instantly to die and the panel member reported a very similar story that happened to her on the street and will you understand that this panel member did not talk to my patient; she reported a story to anybody who would want to listen and not to my patient particularly and the patient was not spoken to, she was merely a casual listener to a story coming from somebody who was not at all interested in talking to this patient, she didn’t know her, and you see the difference now between what I do without Recovery when I see a patient in my office and what the Recovery people do without me. I talk to the patient as an official and the patient feels that I am interested in keeping the truth from him, the patient feels that I want to sell health to him and then the patient develops what psychiatrists have called “resistance”, and they all develop resistance. Now we can call it, and we do that in Recovery, “sales-resistance”, because the patient feels the doctor wants to sell him health and the patient develops the sales-resistance, but when he comes to Recovery there is no salesman of health, no doctor to try to convince him the patient that she is mistaken in thinking that she is going to die, and I hope you understand now the basic principle of Recovery action. There are no professionals at the panel meetings, nobody that speaks officially. There are only people that tell stories, stories about themselves, not about the patient that sits at this corner or that corner, and the patient listens passively without suspicion that somebody wants to sell him a bill of goods, and what goes into your ear passively has a great tendency to sink in. When it comes passively to your ear then you are not skeptical, unless you are told a tall story, but if you are simply listening to a report of somebody who gives an instance of his own experience without any reference to you, then this…(here the tape recording is hard to hear for a few words)…to the brain and has an excellent opportunity to sink in there, while, when the patient is faced with the physician, he offers resistance, he becomes skeptical, and the story may enter the ear but it has hardly a chance, or hardly a good chance, to be settled in the brain…(pause)…another great difference between what a physician can do in his office and what Recovery can do in meetings. Reverend Taylor and Father Dowling mentioned one thing that is so remarkable about Recovery; I doubt whether anybody can be in Recovery for some length of time, let me say for a day or two, without forming friendships with somebody. And if the patients stay on for weeks and weeks, don’t they find a second home in our organization. That’s not my words. These are words that I continually hear from patients and I tell you what that means. You see, if this patient had been treated in my office alone, well, that patient would not have come back to my office unless the father dragged her to my office and she would not have come back to my office because she felt that she was going to die instantly and so she wanted instant relief, but in former days I would have told her, “Well, sit down and I’ll explain the situation to you”, and I would have talked to her for an hour and what much can you tell in an hour if you begin to explain what a fear is, and especially if you go into details as the academic professor does, and I was a professor at that time and I was academic. You see, it takes months and months in ordinary office practice ‘till one gains an improvement, not a cure, and you know the psychiatrists have to spend endless numbers of hours until they see some initial results, but the patient in panic will not wait endless or dozens of hours ‘till he will get relief. That patient may do something very desperate and in the days when I did not have Recovery a patient like this had to go to the hospital for shock treatment otherwise I would not take care of him, and be certain that I am not the only one who did that. Everybody, as far as I know, did that with such a patient. You see, Recovery prevents first-admissions to the hospital, I don’t say that we do that in every case but in large numbers, by giving instant relief, not a cure, but relief. The patient is now likely, and in most instances certain, to come again because he got relief, and then to come again then to come again, and so in Recovery we can wait ‘till the patient gets more relief, more improvement and finally is being cured, whatever a cure means. In private practice we can’t do it because, if the patient comes in a panic or in a marked anxiety, he will have to wait ‘till we are ready to give him substantial relief, he will do something or he might do something, desperate and therefore we don’t dare let the patient go home in a condition of a panic, of a panic of a kind that I have described, and we demand that the patient of this kind should go to the hospital and there is our first-admission and they should be prevented wherever that can be done and Recovery has as its one objective, to prevent first-admission; the second objective is to prevent relapses after the patient has had his first-admission, then improves, goes home, and then is threatened by the relapse. I will not describe to you how Recovery prevents the relapses, but I hope you will realize there is the distinction between the first-admission to the hospital, and Recovery’s method of prevention of first-admissions, which was explained to you. There is the relapse after the patient has returned from the hospital, and that’s the second objective of Recovery, to prevent relapses. I could explain to you how such relapses come to pass, but time does not permit me to go [into] some techniques employed by Recovery. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> Now, you would say, well, if that is so, if Recovery can prevent first-admission in large numbers, and relapses, although I have not described it but you, I hope, you will believe me when I tell you that we have prevented relapses, again in astonishing numbers, then you will presumably ask, if that is so, well, the State hospitals are precisely looking for methods of preventing relapses, and, if they could, for preventing first-admissions, and here Recovery has gone on for seventeen years and has not one single workshop in any of the State hospitals, and, you may ask, how is this possible. Well, I can’t go into details, but I want to tell you that in 1949 the first state in the Union approached me and asked me whether Recovery could be introduced into the hospitals of that state. It was the state of Iowa, and the Director of the Department of Public Welfare in Iowa was very eager to have Recovery Techniques introduced into his hospitals and he immediately wired me asking whether he could come to Chicago and confer with me and I naturally consented immediately and Dr. Graves, he is still Director of the state hospitals of Iowa, came and he attended one meeting of Recovery and that was convincing. He saw the method that they needed in the state hospitals of Iowa. The man is a gentleman, who seems to have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm, and he left Chicago and within a few days I received a letter from him asking me whether I could help him introduce these techniques in the state hospitals of Iowa. He had been so inspired by what he had seen and heard that he thought it would be a great neglect of duty not to bring these techniques to the benefit of his patients and the State of Iowa began in the right fashion. They immediately sent an employee to Chicago for training in our techniques. That employee, an occupational therapist, went back to the Mt. Pleasant Hospital, the largest hospital in Iowa, and she started groups, Recovery groups, and they worked remarkably well and one day I received a message from Dr. Graves in writing me to come to Mr. Pleasant and a representative of the Governor would be there and Dr. Graves himself, and I came, naturally, and we inspected the work done and we were greatly elated over what this occupational therapist had done for the hospital and for the Recovery patients, and, we drafted plans to get these techniques introduced in all the other hospitals of Iowa and everything was arranged down to minute details and that was the last I heard of it, and it was broken off; there was no more continuation of it. No explanation was given to me and I wish to tell you Dr. Graves did not do that. He was for the project, but somebody, I don’t know who, was against it, somebody obviously in power, that’s all I can tell you, and I was discouraged, but after all, I thought, “Well, we’ll try again.” In 1953 there was an auspicious opportunity in Illinois when a former associate with me gained office, I would say a deciding power, in the Department of Public Health, Public Welfare and I went to the gentleman and told him, “why don’t you introduce Recovery in the state hospitals of Illinois” and he said, “Well, I’ll be glad to do it” and he did and he did it in good faith, there was no question about it, and he acted promptly and there were two psychiatric aids sent to Chicago for training, naturally by the state, and they were inspired by the noblest enthusiasm. After a week they came back to the Mantego State Hospital, started their groups, and they flourished and then the project was dropped and I was not told about it. I was not given any explanation. It was simply dropped. Some people that had power obviously obstructed that project. It was not a man in the State Administration. They went ahead and did what they could to get the project started, they wouldn’t have dropped it. Some other people dropped it, I can’t even tell you whom I suspect or which kind of people I suspect. That’s not for me to say. Then I received a notice from our dear Treasure Rice, that was last year, telling me that she saw the Governor of the State of Michigan and the Director of the State Hospitals and she wanted them to introduce Recovery techniques into the state hospitals of Michigan and the Governor directed the Department of Public Welfare or whatever…(pause)…the Department of Mental Health to send somebody to Chicago to investigate and later I was invited by the Mental Health Commission to meet with them and tell them about Recovery and now I must say, the State of Michigan was quite honest and decent. They didn’t start the project, therefore they didn’t drop it…(audience laughed)…Well, I like an honest procedure, whether it is against my work or for my work. I don’t say that the other States were dishonest, I don’t mean that, but somehow or other they acted in a manner that was not just gentlemanly like, it seems to me, and now you may ask, what is to be done about this situation. We produce a type of work that is so badly needed by the tens of thousands of patients that pine away in the state hospitals, and we have definitely demonstrated to anybody who wants to see that we have the method for preventing relapses and preventing first-admissions, and the state hospitals, whom we have petitioned again and again, and who in two instances proved themselves that the work can be done by them, in Illinois and in Iowa, and the state hospitals just let the patients pine away and die away while so many of them could be saved, not all of them, don’t misunderstand me, but so many of them could be saved with our method. Well, I have nothing to say in point of answering the question which I asked, but, in 1951 when I noticed that I could not get through the wall that surrounded me, I gave up, although later as I told you in 1953 I took up again. At that time I was determined that I had failed in my effort to get the state hospitals interested in our work and we called a convention in Chicago and the men and women from the various states came to Chicago and I declared to them that I will now turn over this issue to the organization, that means to the patients, and let us see what the patients can do in the matter of expansion of Recovery into the state hospitals and today three years later I must say the patients have done much more than I could do. What I did ended in failure, but the patients, especially here in Michigan, have expanded to such an extent and have created a spirit of such magnificence that I count especially on the patients in such centers as Detroit, in Louisville, in St. Louis and wherever we have branches, that they will, indeed, solve this problem of finally freeing and liberating the thousands and ten-thousands and perhaps one-hundred-thousands of patients needlessly sacrificed in hospitals, and I am particularly hopeful now because we have with us now a fairly significant number of churches, at present in two localities only, in and around St. Louis and in and around Detroit, but this has just started, except for St. Louis that has started four years ago, but in Detroit this movement has just started about a year ago or nine months ago. But it seems to me what you, our patients and guests here, and the public in general will have to do and will have to be aroused to, is the realization that it is a grave injustice. I don’t want to use a stronger term, gravest injustice, to have help for a great portion of suffering humanity and refuse to offer it. Thank you. (Applause). <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Taylor: I think we have a couple of minutes that we could allow any questions from the floor, but before that I want to make a couple of announcements. In the…(pause)…just outside this door there are some books, which were mentioned by the Father, Dr. Low’s book on “Mental Health Through Will-Training”. They are five dollars each, or you can get some copies of his News that are bound in booklet form for two dollars, you can get those as you go out. Now, any theological questions you can ask…(audience laughed)…of the Father. Any psychological questions you can ask of Dr. Low. If there are any other questions, I’ll dodge them…(audience laughed)…Is there anyone over here would like to ask a question of Dr. Low or the Father before we dismiss. Anybody in this section over here? Yes.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Questioner: Can a schizophrenia case be cured by this?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Low: Well, that question cannot possibly be answered. One would like to know what kind of a case it is, and one would like to know various details and of course this cannot be taken up here. I’m sorry that this question cannot be answered.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Taylor: Question here. This man is just back from Chicago.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Questioner: This is sort of new to me. I guess I’ll probably have some nervous symptoms up here too, because this is the first time I’ve ever really faced a large audience like this, but, to get to my point, I’d like to explain a little what Dr. Low’s Recovery training has done for me. In the last four years I have been sick, on and off; most of my trouble is deep depression. I guess I had times where I was in bed two or three months, kept right in bed with my nervous symptoms and I really didn’t know how to handle them at all, that’s what compelled me to stay in bed that long, but through Dr. Low’s methods now I know how to handle myself more and to handle these nervous symptoms when they do arise and I feel very fortunate that I was able to go to Chicago and receive this training. It has helped me a great deal already. I haven’t been in Recovery too long, but after I got into Recovery the first day I guess I began to put it to use immediately and, as Dr. Low explained tonight, it can give you some immediate relief, not an immediate cure, but it can relieve you a great deal. Well, I think I better get back to…(pause)…I was supposed to ask a question, I didn’t want to talk too much, there isn’t much time for questions, so, Dr. Low, I’d like to ask why are the psychiatrists against Recovery…(audience laughed).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Low: I would like to remind you, Jerry, that I am a psychiatrist myself…(audience laughed).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Jerry: Excluding you.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Low: Let me tell you I don’t know whether psychiatrists are against Recovery. I don’t know who obstructs Recovery. I have my suspicions but I will not speak of suspicions. If I say I don’t know, this means I have not the kind of knowledge that one can make public. I have only suspicions. I will tell you that I have tried to get men that have influence over state hospitals and I know them because I was once one of them who had influence over state hospitals, and I was unsuccessful and if you ask me why then I wouldn’t tell you because I have only suspicions. I think that my suspicions are well rounded, but who am I to judge. I am naturally biased in this question and so I will not mention mere suspicion. That’s all I can tell you…(audience laugh).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Taylor: Judge Jeffries used to have a story of a little boy that was fighting out in the alley and his father called out the window and said “Stop fighting”. He said, “But he called me a name”. He says, “That’s nothing.” He looked back a little bit later and they were fighting again. He says, “I told you to stop fighting”. “But Dad, I got a nickel under my foot and he’s trying to get it”. Now whether some people feel that this self-cure might interfere with their fees in the office I don’t know, but I always look for the nickel under the foot…(applause)…Are there any questions down here?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Questioner: Dr. Low, may I ask is this Recovery a substitute for psychoanalysis or is it a supplement?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Low: Well, I am loathe to speak about persons and groups. I only spoke of hospitals and that’s neither person nor group, that’s an institution. Well, the answer to this question I have given partly, or in good part, in the preface to my book. There I mention something.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Taylor: One question over here.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Questioner: Dr. Low, would Recovery help nervous people as well as nervous patients?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Low: Now this question I can answer with an unequivocal yes. No doubt. I mean there is no doubt in my mind and in my experience that the average adult person who is always nervous in our culture, I have yet to see any of my neighbors, or members of my family, or friends, co-workers, doctors, lawyers, or ministers and priests, that are not nervous. I don’t mean jittery, I don’t mean shaking, but nervous. I am nervous, I am not as stolid as I should be, I am not, and whatever people see in me that connotes steadfastness is relative, and very relative, and a good deal of it is mask, successful mask I hope, and the mask helps a lot. If you wear a good mask this means you control well, and that is a great help in controlling tenseness. A nervous patient naturally mainly suffers from nervous tenseness, and there are very few people in a metropolitan environment that can avoid tenseness, and these tense people every once in a while produce severe symptoms. I produce them every once in a while myself, and very frequently mild symptoms. The difference between us, you and I, and the long term nervous patient, is that with the nervous patient the tenseness and the symptoms are almost continuous, and with us they are intermittent, and another distinction perhaps is that the nervous patient develops frequent, enduring vicious cycles, which the average person does not, and so I think I am entitled to say that both the nervous person, the average person, and the nervous patient suffer practically from the same thing, but in different degrees, and so it should be assumed that this technique would cover both fields. (At this point the tape recording ends, which was just about the end of the meeting).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-12898430469018988432010-11-07T19:55:00.000-08:002010-11-07T19:55:52.452-08:00Dr. Low in Detroit, September 20, 1954<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i> <!--StartFragment--> </i></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">There came a point in Recovery’s history when the strategy changed from getting the psychiatric profession on board with us. The plan instead was to turn to the clergy for help in getting Recovery to those in need of it. After Michigan's expansion took off, there was a large gathering in 1954 in Detroit. Dr. Low was in attendance and of course gave a speech. So many speeches were made that I have decided to share the transcript in sections, so stay tuned for more very soon. I'm doing this in "part acts" as we say in Recovery!</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment--> </i></span><br />
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</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">September 20, 1954<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“Some Techniques Which Recovery, Inc. Has Offered”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">This is a transcription of a tape recording of talks which were presented at a meeting at 8 PM, June 4, 1954, in the Central Methodist Church, 23 E. Adams, Detroit, Michigan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The transcription is almost verbatim, although some parts of the recording were hard to understand clearly.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Mr. Castle Avery:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My name is Cass Avery, and if you don’t think I have nervous symptoms right now, you’re crazy (audience laughed).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A year ago this month I was at home afraid to do anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was afraid to face my job, my social responsibilities, my domestic responsibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had battled nervous symptoms for many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had made the rounds of doctors and hospitals and clinics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had tried all kinds of diets and medications, bland diets and rough diets and pills, and everything that the various doctors could prescribe and nothing helped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got worse and worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, a year ago, I was at home feeling hopeless and helpless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I started in Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a year of practice and study I still have some symptoms, but they are mild, they do not incapacitate me from doing the things that I should do in connection with my various responsibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am once more handling critical situations in my work that I used to run away from, I think I am nicer to my family than I used to be, I am leading a Recovery group on the West side (of Detroit) and am also serving as Michigan secretary for Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A year ago that would have been unthinkable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My experience in Recovery is not unique and just to prove it I would like to ask you Recovery folks who have experienced material improvement or actual cures through Recovery to raise your hands…(pause)…which ought to prove something or other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it is my privilege to present to you the person primarily responsible for the phenomenal growth of Recovery in Michigan during the past year, the lovely lady whom we all respect and admire for her practice of Recovery, and for the help she gives us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our Michigan leader, Mrs. Treasure Rice (applause).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Mrs. Treasure Rice:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boy what a spot to put a nervous patient in (Mrs. R. chuckled).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little over a year ago one of our Detroit newspapers printed a story about the Michigan branch of Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time there was only one group in Michigan, with a membership of not over 25 active members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We received about 250 requests for help from this first article.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We mobilized ourselves to try to stretch Recovery’s benefits to these people throughout Michigan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drew on older members as leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mother-group in Chicago rushed to our aid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Subsequent newspaper publicity in the same paper and another local paper have netted us, to date, around a thousand cries for help in Michigan alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After our first year of experiences here in Michigan we are proud to announce that we now have 35 active groups functioning, with a total membership of about 500, and it looks as though, in the near future, we will be able to take in the hundreds who are still on our waiting list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there has been a growing concern among the members and their friends for the hospitalized patient who cannot now reach the benefits of Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have offered Recovery’s techniques to the State hospitals, but so far no action has been taken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently we have received quite a few letters from hospitals, Veteran’s organizations, some from psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, and particularly from the relatives of hospitalized patients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we in Recovery felt that it was wise to schedule this meeting so that you folks, who show by your presence here tonight that you are vitally interested in the Nation’s number one problem…excuse me, I should say number two problem; we shouldn’t take precedence over the Army-McCarthy hearings (audience laughed)…<u>The purpose</u> of this meeting is to present a comprehensive picture of what Recovery has accomplished and what it can offer the hospitals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the first batch of letters that we received, one caught my eye from a member of the clergy, and by the way, right here I would like to seize this opportunity to speak for myself and all Recovery members, to express our gratitude to not only this man of the cloth, but to all others of the clergy who have seen our needs and have reached out to help us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I contacted this minister and before I knew it he and his wonderful wife were off for Chicago where they spent a week at Recovery headquarters learning the ins and outs of Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand that when he returned from Chicago he preached a sermon one Sunday morning on Recovery and had slips of paper at the back of the church so that members in the congregation could sign up if they wanted to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To make a long story short, his church has become a regular Recovery center in Redford (Michigan).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I would like to take my place among the members where I belong and turn this meeting over to him and introduce him to you now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May I present on of Detroit’s finest ministers, Reverend I. Paul Taylor (applause).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Rev. Taylor:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know, after that introduction, I can hardly wait to see what I am going to say…(Rev. T. chuckled and the audience laughed)…I got into Recovery and became interested in Recovery because of the impossibility of doing my job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I needed help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had nervous, mentally disturbed, frustrated people in our church and in the community and it was just impossible for one man to try to minister to all of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I found out about this Recovery movement and its employment of the practice of group therapy, I became immediately interested because we already had a group of Alcoholics Anonymous in the church and I knew what they were doing and could do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, before introducing the two speakers on this evening’s program, I want to tell you of just one thing, one way, let us put it that way, one way that Recovery works, of one technique that it uses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think all of us, whether we are nervous patients, nervous persons, or consider ourselves normal, or average, will admit that one of the strongest desires in a human person is to be a part of a group, to belong to something, or to somebody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are social individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We long for the security,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>comfort, and protection that comes from belonging to this group or that group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an old, old thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wasn’t it Kipling who said: “now this is the Law of the Jungle- as old and as true as the sky; and the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back – for the strength of the pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the pack.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We feel secure when we are among loved ones and within their protection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now a person who does not long to be within the group is sick, he is mentally and emotionally disturbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We recognize that first of all among the alcoholics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the first symptoms of an alcoholic is that he goes off and drinks in a corner by himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where I use “him”, I mean “her”, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, they retire from the group and isolate themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The person who withdraws, picks up his marbles and goes home and doesn’t want to belong to the lodge anymore, the club, the church, the card-party, whatever group it is that he is associated with, and goes home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The person is sick, and if he doesn’t stop, pretty soon he doesn’t speak to his neighbors, he retires within his home, he builds a shell of protection around him, isolates himself in his house, and then in a room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is afraid to go to the shop, he won’t go to the store, it makes him sick to ride in the bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says it is the movement of the bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It isn’t it’s the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’ll tell you “people make me sick.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not so, they can’t make you sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But your attitude towards them can make you sick, and does make you sick, and this isolation away from the group is one of the first symptoms of a nervous person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They withdraw from the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I can use a theological term, Father, they excommunicate themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They draw themselves out of the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now this is attacked by Recovery by forming these groups and bringing people into the group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You find your isolation is a vicious circle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then you find the weakest place in that circle and then you get the courage to break through that weakest spot and then another spot, and then another spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have attended group meetings in Detroit and in Brighton (Michigan), all over Detroit, and in Chicago, and I want to tell you that one of the characteristic things of every Recovery group that I’ve ever walked into is that there is a certain warmth of fellowship that makes you at home because there you meet people that are fighting the same problems that you meet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now this is what Dr. Low calls “being group-minded.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we’re not preaching any unselfishness to you, but if you want to be mentally and emotionally healthy you must be group-minded, you must join a group, you must have fellowship, and not isolation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe they’re fighting that problem out in Washington right now, among some other ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, we want to give you personal help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll never forget when we first started our Alcoholics Anonymous group, I went downstairs one Saturday night and one of the founders of the group came up to me and he collared me and he said, “Now listen, Reverend, I don’t want you to get me wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m here for a purely selfish purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to stay sober.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s all I’m interested in but I can’t stay sober unless I’m a good Samaritan to somebody every day.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t stay mentally healthy unless you get into a group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t be a mentally and emotionally well person and isolate yourself in a room by yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Fosdick in his book “On Being A Real Person” has one chapter on accepting ourselves and the very next chapter is getting ourselves off our hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, it’s the <u>way</u> you meet your problem; not your <u>problem</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take a man whose child is taken sick with polio, comes out a cripple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can meet the problem in one of two ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can immediately face it in a realistic manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can say, “Well, now this is what I’ve got to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what we’ve got to do for this boy, this is what we’ve got to give up in our family, this is the way we’ve got to rearrange our family because of this boy’s illness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the way we’ve got to handle it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or he can retire within himself, not be group-minded to even his own child, but be a rugged individualist, except he’s not very rugged, he’s a shrinking one, surround himself with self-pity, and say, “why did it happen to me, why did this happen to me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did God send this affliction upon me?”, and certainly ‘round and around and around he goes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s individualism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recovery stands for fellowship, or, if you want it in Biblical terms, you can get it there too, “He that will save his life, individually, shall lose it, but he that loses his life, it’s one group, shall save it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this is only one aspect, and this is the aspect that interested me first in Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m rather proud of the fact that I was the first Protestant minister that went to Chicago and became interested in it, but someone else beat me to the gun and that man we have with us tonight, who has organized a group within his own church down in St. Louis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the real pioneer in the church relationship to Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m very, very happy to have met him tonight and I know that you will listen with great interest to his experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Father Dowling (applause).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-11979600095435270742010-10-19T11:16:00.000-07:002010-10-19T11:16:24.598-07:00Suppression Versus RepressionThis is an excerpt from Mother's letter in response to an article in the "Recovery Reporter" (Recovery International's in house newsletter) many years ago. I think it addresses an issue that is sometimes misunderstood in and out of Recovery. This was from an ongoing correspondence, and though it's just a piece of it I found it interesting. She added a P. S. saying Dr. Low certainly never expected us to be perfect!<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">... your correction to the article on leadership that was in the last issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In your correction you say that you inadvertently used the word “repression” and then you say it has a slightly different meaning than the word “suppression”.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I guess that is what I’m getting at when I say don’t rely on the dictionary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thing is, it makes a whale of a lot of difference in the practice of Dr. Low’s techniques.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we “repress” temper, which means “stuff it down without resolution” where it will fester and continue until it breaks out on its own…and in any case result in symptoms for the Recoveryite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas, if we learn to spot and stop the judgment of right and wrong in the same incident and suppress expression of the temper, then we have resolved it and can feel free to express our feelings of antipathy, providing the other person is in a position to understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not then if we can even express the feelings to someone else, it relieves us of the burden of the feelings and also prevents antisocial trends.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I don’t quite know how it should be handled because of room in the Reporter, but I think there are two good reasons to make room for an explanation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, Recovery has been accused down through the years of using a technique which represses temper…and indeed it is not a good mental health practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, it really gives a wonderful opportunity to point out the difference, so members will be able to understand exactly what to do with temper.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Do you think a chapter in <u>Mental Health Through Will Training</u> could be pointed out, or could an example and the correct spotting be put in as explanation?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Anyway I hate to belabor this point, but it is such a central issue to good mental health and this is in our “in house” newsletter, so I think your use of the words “slightly different meaning” do not address the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Can you see what I mean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And please know that I will be glad to do anything I can to help. </span></i><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-87889071542988546502010-10-03T17:47:00.000-07:002010-10-03T17:47:28.669-07:00Angry TemperOnce again, I unfortunately do not have a date for this. My guess is that it was fairly early as it is a transcript from a tape. Mom used the tape recorder to save her time and traveling in the early days. I remember that old recorder. It was a big reel to reel recorder and seemed to weighed a ton. Sometimes Mom asked groups to record their meetings so she could listen since she could not be everywhere. Other times, she made a tape and sent it as it was quicker than a letter for her. Eventually she discovered a member (Emily, a sweet woman) in her group who could type like the wind and so she started to transcribe tapes or type up letters for Mom.<br />
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The following seems unorthodox and it is, but I would imagine Mom was feeling her way along in helping others to begin to practice Dr. Low's Method. It was said, that in Recovery we lead by example. In this tape she is talking to someone named Bill about angry temper and eventually uses an example of how it was spotted. I love the end of her tape when she says, "Now - hop to it... ." She never said anything in a grim way. There was always compassion in her communication whether in person or otherwise.<br />
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On another note, regarding the chapter Mom cites, I was very struck by something a psychologist once said to me. I was at the V.A. hospital in San Diego where she worked and we were passing each other in the hall. She stopped me and said, "You know Treasure, I don't think I have ever read a real description of temper the way Dr. Low describes it and breaks it down. He was such a genius!" <br />
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Here is what Mom said to someone named Bill:<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I think that all of us are in Recovery for one reason – and that is to get rid of our symptoms.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr. Low tells us that nervous symptoms are caused by tenseness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the only things that cause tenseness are fear and anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are neither fearful nor angry – then you will be relaxed, and if you are relaxed you will not be tense, and if you are not tense, then you will not have nervous symptoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than try to discuss both fear and anger in one tape, I will follow the suggestion you gave me, Bill and discuss anger only this time.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr. Low used the term – angry temper – whenever he spoke of anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a good reason for this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anger is a feeling – but a feeling is always attached to a thought, and the thought that is attached to the feeling of anger is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Someone has wronged me – or they are wrong.”<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Well, if angry temper is the cause of tenseness and tenseness is the cause of our symptoms – we’d better take steps immediately to get rid of the angry temper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Dr. Low never told us to do anything unless we followed this advice with definite instructions in <u>how</u> to accomplish it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words he gave us a method to use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you do not know this method – then how can you possibly get rid of your temper?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you have a method, … then all you have to do is to follow that method, and you will be certain of success.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Angry temper has what is known as the “temperamental cycle.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if temper is left to itself it will consist of three definite stages: 1. The immediate effect. 2. The aftereffect. 3. The anticipation of a renewed outburst. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To explain these three stages, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would like <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you to <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>read chapter 48, "Intuitive Versus Discursive Thought in Temper" in <u>Mental Health Through Will-Training</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr. Low said he did not expect us to succeed the first time nor even the fourth, fifth and sixth time – but he said that if we were really determined to change our temperamental habits, we would stick with the method, until we had our tempers licked.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I remember well the first time I ever tried to use this method. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had feebly tried to use it with my husband and children, but found that my temper was very strong, there, so I reasoned that I would attack my temper at its weakest link.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept watching myself for temper with outsiders where there was little emotional tie-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t have to wait long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I happened to be in Detroit one day, and was to take the bus home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had a return ticket, and waited in line to get on the bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I finally got to the gate, I handed the bus driver my ticket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I suddenly thought that I didn’t have anything to read on the bus, so I ran over to the newsstand and bought a paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I went back to the gate and when I attempted to pass through, the bus driver said, “Where’s your ticket, lady?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I told him that I had already given it to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, he didn’t remember my giving it to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I said, “Do I look like the type of person who would try to cheat you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, “I’m no judge of human nature – all I want is your ticket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you’re not getting on this bus until you produce one.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I was white with rage, but I had to get home on that particular bus for Brighton, or wait two hours – so I stamped over to the ticket window and bought another ticket, and grudgingly gave it to the driver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After I got on the bus and we started on our way – I began to fume and fuss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought what a horrible person he was. I thought I had good reason to be mad at him, anyone would feel the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll bet even Recovery would say I had a right to be mad over this injustice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, when the word "Recovery" went through my mind, I started to think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noticed that my heart was pounding, my face was hot, I was perspiring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had head pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I thought, “Gee, maybe this is what Dr. Low means when we have to spot and get rid of temper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m getting quite a reaction here.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I thought about the temperamental cycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had already gone through the first stage called the immediate effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I certainly <u>had</u> been in no condition to reason anything out then or think of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had been fairly out of my senses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now this must be the second stage I was in, the cooling off process, or the aftereffect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I struggled to become objective with my thinking and not to endorse the outburst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mind you, I had had no big outer fight with the bus driver, my remarks to him were guarded and couched in fairly quiet tones befitting a civilized person, but inside I had had the outburst. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have learned that if this eases, just as much tenseness will too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So as I rode along, my thoughts went something like this: “Now maybe this bus driver has corns, and feels crabby – maybe he had a fight with his wife.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Nevertheless – nobody should treat a paying customer like that”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I would have to make another effort to reject the last thought and I would say, “Well, be fair now – what if all the passengers decided to buy a paper after getting their tickets<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- why should you demand special privileges?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then another thought damaging the character of the bus driver would sneak in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so it went during the hour’s journey out to Brighton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I got off the bus I had the impulse to make a nasty remark to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to say very sneeringly – “Thank you so much for your consideration – It cost me two tickets to ride out here and I hope I never get you as a driver again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also wanted to write a letter to the bus company and complain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I recognized this as the anticipation of a renewed fight, where I possibly might be the winner.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So actually, my temperamental cycle in this instance, had run its full course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t tell what my symptoms were from this particular case of sabotage, because to tell you the truth, at that time, I felt lousy all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had fatigue so bad, I had to drag myself to walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had confusion, preoccupation, the fear of people, sweats, palpitations, heaviness in my chest and stomach, a humming off and on in my head and ears, sleeplessness at night sleepiness all day, nightmares, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might wonder how I could take a bus home from Detroit in such a condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I could struggle through this after I came into Recovery, as long as I didn’t meet anyone I knew, or as long as a stranger didn’t try to talk with me for any length of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have stepped on the bus to go into Detroit from Brighton, and seen someone I knew on there, and have gotten off and given up the trip pleading a sick headache or some flimsy excuse, because I would be too panicky to go through the experience of visiting with them.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Well, I kept using this method over and over, and I soon found that it worked like magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact I began to be able to check the outburst before it started, and to consider the event a triviality in comparison with good mental health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found that the things I got mad over were so trivial, that usually within a few days I had forgotten what it was I got mad about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took me months and maybe longer than that to accomplish this with my husband and children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They first had to become outer environment for me, but that’s the subject for another tape – inner and outer environment.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To sum up – nervous symptoms are caused from tenseness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tenseness is created by fear and anger only. Anger or angry temper runs in three discrete stages – and the Recovery member uses the method of rational, objective thinking during the second stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, the Recovery member begins his attack at the weakest link in the chain of his angry temper, not the strongest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now – hop to it, and change those temperamental habits if you would like to be rid of your symptoms.<o:p></o:p></i></div><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-66407506299990190162010-08-31T12:13:00.000-07:002010-08-31T12:13:39.642-07:00SETBACKS AND RESPECTING THE ILLNESSThis piece was not dated. It must have been written some time ago as it is very faded and was somewhat hard to read. I'm so glad I have it though as it really demonstrates how much effort we have to put into giving up sabotage and substituting Dr. Low's thinking for our own. <div><br />
</div><div>As I read it, I thought of how hard Mom had to work at overcoming her symptoms and suffering. I have no memory of her displaying any of this around me. She always said that since she had been so sensitive as a child and could see that I was too, she was careful to protect me. Well, that said, I'm sure there were some things I was aware of even if on a little conscious level. I was about one when Mom saw Dr. Low, so I did benefit greatly from her inner work. In my eyes (and others), she became the personification of serenity. As I've said before, she shared so much with me and was a tremendous help when I needed it. If you are having a difficult time pulling out of a setback right now or dealing with some symptoms, I hope her humility and wisdom she shares here will help you too. </div><div><br />
</div><div>This is what she wrote.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">After I had been in Recovery for several years I had a major setback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had been enjoying a reasonable amount of relief from my symptoms, although I had had setbacks too, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most encouraging things to me was that I seemed to be losing my panics, and although I had many times of extreme discomfort, I still moved my muscles and didn’t particularly worry about it but looked upon it as average.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was quite contented with my progress in Recovery.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One morning, the minute I opened my eyes, I became conscious of a severe feeling of anxiety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to wonder what had brought that on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later on in the day I found that I couldn’t shake the feeling no matter how hard I tried to practice Recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had a feeling of foreboding as though something terrible was about to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This went on for several days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I developed a sick feeling in my stomach, tightness in the chest and head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My thinking seemed to be very confused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noticed that I was sweating and sometimes felt as though I had a temperature – and then again I would feel very chilly, and my hands would be like ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took my temperature but it was normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My throat seemed to lose its rhythm for swallowing, so eating became an ordeal and even swallowing my saliva would sometimes make me choke and cough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried and tried to spot what was causing this, but nothing seemed to help me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t break through the symptoms and my thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to really worry because I realized that I had not been without symptoms now for over a week, and had even awakened in the night with a feeling of terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It began to dawn on me that I was in a setback.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even this thought that I was in a setback seemed strange to me too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought that I might get a feeling of relief to know that I was in it, but gradually instead of feeling more secure I began to feel utterly lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I grasped at the idea of the meetings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I would feel better after I had talked with the members and could finally get some Recovery into my head that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did feel a little more secure while I was with them, even though my symptoms were with me all the time, but what a disappointment – that a short time after I left them I would feel hopeless again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think this is one of the worst feelings in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only do the symptoms cling to you like a cloak surrounding you, but also they are inside of you permeating every fiber of your body and mind.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I became very self-conscious about my performance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I seemed to drop things and stumble and bump into things easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I dropped a full bottle of milk one morning and I thought for sure that my mind was gone, because I couldn’t direct my hands to hang on to the bottle of milk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My housework looked like a gigantic task; in fact it seemed impossible for me to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as though everything I had to do in life was piled in front of me and I couldn’t do it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My children began to be a great irritation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The little average things that children do would either send me into a rage or I would say to myself, “What’s the use?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t the energy or the brains to raise these children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t any experience and just don’t have what it takes to live an ordinary life. Others have, but I haven’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then I had a period of seeming to be in a vacuum when I just sat in a chair or lay on the bed, and it was as though my thinking had stopped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt as though I were in a stupor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think others even realized it, because I did what I could to look normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The feeling of unreality was very strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People, even my own family looked strange and unreal to me. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I felt angry with everyone, but at the same time I had a great feeling of being unworthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept thinking it was too bad my husband wasn’t married to someone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This other person I felt could take my place so much better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always pictured her as being pretty and smart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would be smiling and serene and her house would be in apple-pie order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would play with the kids and have them under perfect control because they would love her so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would plan so many things for their fun, and I could just see her fooling around with them and being such a darling with my husband and children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I know now this is what I thought I should be – and what high standards, eh?)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the face of this type of thinking, my own performance sure looked hopeless to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My house was a mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was depressed and moody, and I was in and out of temper all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had temper tantrums with my son and he and I would go around in a sullen mood for hours and days at a time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept my husband in a constant state of apprehension towards me, for fear he might say or do something that would “hurt” me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to “freeze” everyone else out of my life, including my husband and children.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Well, I guess this is enough description.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is even painful for me to recall that I was ever like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t remember how long this went on, but after a good long time I finally began to grasp at straws of Recovery practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it was the intense suffering that I got sick of and it actually forced me to grab for anything that might help me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this time I had been attending my own meetings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recited the principles, and even told others how to practice, but none of it had registered with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I finally began to realize that no miracle was going to happen and that I would have to start using the method of Recovery to help nature restore me to balance, if I was going to lose the suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I remember very well what it was I first used to help myself get out of the setback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read in the book where Dr. Low said that patients say they will do ANYTHING to get well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he said that we don’t want to do the one thing he asks, and that is to exchange our own view of insecurity for his view of security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I began to force myself to take a more hopeful attitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I endorsed myself for doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I reasoned too that anyone who thinks he is hopeless isn’t going to feel very well, in fact is going to feel pretty miserable about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the same token, anyone who thinks he will eventually feel better and get better is going to feel at least more hopeful, so he will have a chance to get over feelings of depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first it seemed to me that I was trying to fool myself, but again I read that Dr. Low says that to cling to the view that our case is hopeless, is a harmful view and that it is our abiding sense of insecurity that makes us choose and cling to this view.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After a little practice with this one thing, using my Will to Believe what I was trying to think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to notice a little bit of clearness in my thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was able to begin spotting on the small irritations and frustrations again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I realized again that I had accepted all my “feelings as facts” and had been in a severe “working up” process without realizing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took tremendous effort sometimes to act secure with my muscles, talk secure, and hardest of all to think secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I clung with tenacity to the thought that I was average.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps I was poor average in many respects, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have the intelligence and the ability to improve on my performance in time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At present, I would have to accept myself as I was, and WAIT until I learned to become the person I would like to be (with average standards of course).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could learn to put effort into life without becoming discouraged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise I would live in constant fear and anger, with symptoms to boot.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This particular setback sure was a wonderful experience that has helped me so much in maintaining good mental health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It made me respect my illness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It made me realize that keeping well is a serious business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It helped me to develop a wariness in spotting and stopping my temperamental reactions to outer and inner environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must reject with trigger velocity the suggestions of insecurity that come to me, either from without or within.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t mean that I didn’t have setbacks after that, but I sure did remember the painful experience of being mired and bogged down with helplessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I learned when I started into a set-back I could actually limit it to a few days or perhaps a week or so by being quick to spot and reject beliefs of insecurity, as though they were poison for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I learned to move my muscles and act and talk and think as though I didn’t have the insecurity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then by WAITING I found that nature took care of this brief flare-up of my old illness.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Last of all, I am predisposed to the thought that I may still have to experience the setback although I haven’t had one in years and years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last one I had lasted three days and was very mild.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But to me it is realistic to be expecting it, so I will remember and know what to do about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></div><!--EndFragment--> </div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-54620806673810249182010-08-11T15:28:00.000-07:002010-08-11T15:28:37.249-07:00Moving the MusclesWhen I was growing up and especially when I was probably in middle school, I'd inwardly roll my eyes when Mom would say, "Dr. Low told me..." or, "Dr. Low says..." But of course, later on I learned to pay attention. First I paid attention out of intellectual interest, later to help friends, and then out of a need to recover from my own suffering! Thank goodness I had that background as I really knew when I was in the grip of my symptoms, that I might be helpless but it didn't mean I was hopeless. That kept me going as I started to REALLY practice (there's nothing like pain to get me motivated) and wait the Recovery way for the balance to come. <br />
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The note I found in one of Mom's journals is about moving muscles. It's so basic. I remember Mom telling me this and when I read it, I thought it would be good to share it with you. It's true that sometimes I forget that moving the muscles and then endorsing myself has much to do with practice, practice, practice! It is by this (and more) that I go from being "symptom-led" to "self-led" and with self leadership I gain self-respect. This is what she wrote:<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Low told me that many members misinterpreted the principle “Move your Muscles”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, “They’ll say, ‘I moved my muscles and scrubbed the floor.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well this is not what I had in mind at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">We were interrupted in our conversation at this point and I never did get the opportunity to query him on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I think I have figured it out – or at least I have a guess as to what he meant.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Our society is very “production” oriented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moving my muscles and scrubbing the floor may give me a feeling of accomplishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may feel more <u>worthy</u>, and may even feel more acceptable as a person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may temporarily give me a lift, a bit more energy, but is this what Dr. Low meant by this principle?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">In contrast, I’ll cite the case of my nervous fatigue that debilitated me to almost a stand still (lying in bed, not bathing often, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned from Recovery that I should move my muscles to take walks every day and to try to increase the distance gradually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not exaggerating when I say that I felt I didn’t have the energy to walk from the front door of our home to the sidewalk, but I moved my muscles to go ahead and walk – not in a weak, hanging back timid way, but with a bold vigorous step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dizziness came, the world outside me swam in a blurry, unreal way, but on I walked, striding out for several blocks.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">By the time I returned from my walk, I would feel no better – in fact I might feel worse because of the severe discomfort my walk had brought on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless the principle of taking walks, was the practice I had accepted, so next day, out I went again.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">There were times on these walks that I would feel I might have to lean against a building or a tree – or possibly drop down and crawl home somehow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trembling and sweating I would go in our house and wonder when I would begin to get some results.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">My nervous fatigue kept on for a long time – or it would leave for a short time and come back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But somehow with persistence there was a cumulative effect that finally emerged. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“Move your muscles” was the Method.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What did it do? My muscles proved to my brain that my fatigue was not organic but psychological.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mere act of walking physically was not the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue was that my brain was convinced that I could not function as other people do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moving muscles was not an act worthy of praise from others – but it was a means of dealing with the psychopathology of my illness. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-28185245070602246162010-08-09T06:40:00.000-07:002010-08-09T06:40:04.596-07:00Self EndorsementIt seems like one of the hardest things for me to remember is to endorse myself for my effort. I remember Mom remarking over and over how important it is. Endorsement encompasses a lot. Effort refers to many things. I will post one aspect of this and what Mom had to say about it later. It was more about "moving the muscles", but still it's about effort. I ran across the following in her journal. It was a short note, but worthy of repeating for myself and perhaps for you too. <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Low to Me- <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">You have not fully controlled your temper (fearful mainly) until you have endorsed yourself for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Self-endorsement fortifies the growing <u>belief</u> that control is called for, desirable, and that it reaches a standard in your own table of evaluations regardless of how others may regard your behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With endorsement for your effort to control you add to your coming conviction that the [temperamental] judgment of yourself and/or others is not a plus in your life – but a real minus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are conditioned to think there is a standard that calls for retribution, or winning a victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Endorsement says, “It <u>is good</u> for me to win a victory over my own temper</span></i><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-43134777859300232842010-07-29T11:26:00.000-07:002010-07-29T11:26:51.902-07:00Custody of Recovery<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Recovery has experienced many challenges over the years. At this time, we are going through what many other non-profits are experiencing -- the impact of a slow economic turn around. So once again we are challenged and have had to make changes. It has always been this way. The ebb and flow of our organization through the years has been noticed by some, but quite often, by very few. I came across this speech which Mom gave when Mrs. Low was still alive. I don't know what the event was, but I'm guessing it was the annual meeting. It seems like it's another reminder of what work and effort has gone into our Recovery family. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I have a friend who says that I always see more in a situation than is actually there. This may be true too, but I’d like to tell you an incident that happened last year during the Annual Meeting weekend, which I’m pretty sure you were not aware of. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>First though, I’d like to say a few words about a subject that is near and dear to my heart… namely… myself. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I was raised in an old fashioned general store of the cracker barrel, pot-bellied stove variety. When my father died, my mother sold out the grocery business and concentrated entirely on women’s clothes. I used to accompany her when she went to the city on buying trips. Since I was in high school and very much interested in clothes my size, I used to love to go though the racks of dresses, and coats. I couldn’t understand why my mother picked out what I considered some ugly styles. One day my mother surprised me by wheeling out an empty rack and announcing that I was to select all of the junior size dresses that day. I will never forget the mixed emotions I had at that moment. Very much like a man watching his cantankerous mother-in-law go over a cliff in his new Cadillac. I felt pleased that my mother had so much trust in my ability. In fact I felt about nine feet tall. But rolling up on the heels of this pleasure was a distinct feeling of fear in meeting this responsibility. The task itself and its problems loomed very big to me at that point. I knew there was a trick to buying for a store. You were not to pick out just what pleased or fitted yourself, since girls come in all different shapes and sizes and have tastes different from one another. I thought about the money involved, perhaps several thousands of dollars. More than this I felt somehow that success or failure in this endeavor would mean a great deal to me from the standpoint of self-regard. To end this portion of my life’s story…I did fairly well, I guess with the buying because from that day on I did all of the junior size buying for our little shop.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Now to relate the incident that happened last year, as there are some similarities. Many of you who attended this meeting last year will remember that a letter was read from Mrs. Low announcing her retirement from active duty on the Board of Recovery. She did not attend the meeting, but chose this means of informing you, because she felt the atmosphere would be too charged with emotion and would be hard on her and difficult for all of us. As it was, when the letter was read, I saw many handkerchiefs flutter into view.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The incident I wish to relate happened just before the meeting. Mrs. Low and I had dinner alone in a downtown restaurant. When arrangements were made for this I thought Mrs. Low probably wanted to talk over the future of Recovery, perhaps setting out some guidelines for us. But strangely enough we chatted about everything imaginable except the subject that was uppermost in both of our minds. Before long we found ourselves in the Palmer House, where I was to take an elevator to my room to wash up before coming to this meeting. She was to take a taxi back to Evanston. I wondered now what this moment would hold for us. Mrs. Low very quickly took my hand and said, “I’m not going to say anything, Treasure. I’m just going to walk away.” And that’s just what she did. I stood there watching her as she walked down the corridor, never looking back.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I was amazed at my reaction. And maybe my friend is right and I was seeing more than was actually there. I’ll have to leave that up to you. But it seemed at that moment that I was just a symbol representing all of you and hundreds of thousands of us yet to hear of Recovery. And that Mrs. Low in taking my hand and then walking away had symbolically given us the custody of Recovery, Inc.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Up until that moment I had felt nothing but confidence that we could carry on the work of Recovery. But suddenly instead of feeling about “nine feet tall” I cringed with fear at the enormity of the responsibility you and I were undertaking.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>You see, I began to think discursively about the fact that Dr. Low, a great physician, many call him a genius in his field, had spent his entire professional life on an </i><u><i>idea</i></u><i>. That he had staked his whole career on this idea and had given his talent, his genius, and his very life’s energy to the developing of this Idea: That nervous and former mental patients, could within the framework of his system, which was professionally developed, rely on themselves for self-leadership both on a personal basis and as a group organizationally.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I thought now with trepidation about some of the projects we were initiating such as our plan to bring people on to the Executive Board from New York, California, Canada and the Midwest. This program was to be widened even more a little later. This was going to be expensive. Would we be able to use good judgment or would we bankrupt Recovery? Somehow the self-help future of nervous and former mental patients, as a whole, seemed to rely on whether or not we succeeded in this venture. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Frankly when I walked in here last year, I felt scared, not of this meeting, but my heart was heavy with responsibility, and the question of whether we would be able to discharge this responsibility.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Then I heard Casper’s strong masculine voice open the meeting. I looked over and saw Phil, who has devoted his life to the same Idea that Dr. Low had. I saw Caroline at the back of the room, another good friend who is dedicated to the same Idea. I saw on this platform the Executive Board with whom I had worked for several years. The Area Leaders, the district leaders, leaders, assistant leaders and the membership, all fervently listening and ready to do whatever they could do towards this great Idea that Dr. Low had worked out.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Then I relaxed. Confidence returned. And I guess you would say that my Will to Fear was gone. I realized that certainly caution and some fear for the future of Recovery was called for because we </i><u><i>have</i></u><i> been entrusted with a very precious thing. But as far as good judgment was concerned, and as far as carrying out the responsibilities of Recovery, who, in all truth could do as well as we can do?</i><i> </i><i>In fact, who else can do the job?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I don’t think this is overconfidence. And I’ll tell you why:</i><i> </i></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><i>1.</i><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"><i> </i></span><i>We are especially suited because as Phil once said (and I was very impressed with this thought) “We have an ear for hearing things in Recovery that might escape others. It’s like a musician who hears certain sounds or chords that a non-musician would not hear.” We are tuned in on the same wavelength.</i></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><i>2.</i><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"><i> </i></span><i>Secondly, since we have been trained to Spot for ourselves, we are in a good position to have healthy introspection as an organization. We can honestly face our weaknesses and ways in which we are sabotaging our own goals as an organization and do something to correct them.</i></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><i>3.</i><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"><i> </i></span><i>We know that Recovery as an organization is a long range goal. We have been trained to </i><u><i>WAIT</i></u><i> and wait patiently. Therefore, we can move slowly and stick to our program with steadfastness, courage, determination, no matter how long it takes to accomplish our purpose.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>I’m not going to go into what has already been accomplished during this first year since you and I were given custody of Recovery. You will hear the Annual Report. You will hear from several people who are in areas that have not let any grass grow under their feet this year. Recovery has been given to us for safekeeping. Personally, I don’t think it could be in </i><u><i>better</i></u><i> hands. The question is are we going to accept this challenge? </i></div><!--EndFragment-->Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-26120718334453396042010-07-13T07:44:00.000-07:002010-07-13T07:44:11.559-07:00Benefits<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"> <!--StartFragment--> </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">My mother wrote in journals, sometimes for herself alone and sometimes to share with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They covered all different kinds of subjects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following is what I titled “Benefits” for obvious reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point she makes here is one she repeated often and to many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you find it as useful as I did over time and time again.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">In Recovery, one of the benefits of what is called training is the application of remedial techniques over and over in many contexts of daily living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Training takes time, which situation offers opportunity to learn intellectually and to utilize that intellectual knowledge while living ordinary life until it becomes a living part of the person in training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therein lies an important message!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Patients suffer symptoms – enduring symptoms!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These symptoms cause not only much physical discomfort (torture) but mental discomfort as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is only one word in the vocabulary of nervous symptoms – DANGER – imminent uncontrollable, pressing, threatening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The patient is under the tyranny of symptoms and wants more than anything to get rid of this tyranny NOW!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patients think, “How long can I stand this? Will my body old up under such agony? Can my mind function and keep from going berserk?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It becomes paramount for self-protection, to find relief now!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">In Recovery, members are urged to have the Will to Bear this “torture” and <u>wait </u>until their condition responds to the techniques they are learning to apply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is an added incentive for them to <u>take hope </u>that this urging from others may pay dividends of relief if they put the techniques into practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hope engendered by others who have done it and are obviously much improved or even well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But working on symptoms to get some relief is not the only way to go about Recovery training.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The principle at work in practicing Recovery on other than the symptoms is this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything in life dovetails.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I practice waiting patiently for my three-year-old daughter to climb into the car (“I want to do it myself!”) rather than picking her up and placing her in the car in spite of her wishes, then this practice is “money in the bank” of my training because it doesn’t matter if you are waiting for your child or for an elevator or for anything, it’s all the same thing!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">So when a symptom strikes, causing much stress and urgency to get it to leave, if you have practiced dozens of times where only your impatience, arrogance of not wanting to wait (like all average people have to do in average life) are involved, then that practice has already prepared you to handle the seeming crisis of the nervous symptom and members find they <u>can </u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stand the mounting stress of the symptoms, knowing it is the same idea as waiting for anything else in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything passes in life, and waiting patiently , the Recovery way, is a great boon to the patient, especially after extended training.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">There is no expense involved, just time while improvement slowly leads to more improvement and finally to sustained mental health with all it’s benefits! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">My husband, Bruce and I just celebrated our wedding anniversary and I happened to read something my mother wrote on partnership and would like to share it with you. It was part of a dialogue (by letter) between Mom and another person. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The person she wrote asked her, "... there was something you said in a different letter where you talk about Dr. Low's use of language and specifically focusing on partnership. How Dr. Low might use a word that is in the dictionary, but uses it in a different way. You said<i>, “Of course acting as a partner has a good effect on the other person or persons but the real reason, I think, that we are to practice partnership is the effect it has on our <u>self-integration</u> and our sense of <u>wholeness.</u>”</i> You go on to say, <i>“Although maybe when we take a total view of ourselves, it gives a sense of self-respect to ‘see’ that we have not failed in our effort to be part of “THE GROUP’.”</i> The letter writer asked her to write more about this. What follows is an excerpt of Mom’s response:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">It is as though our temper and habits in connection with our dearest ones, block the insight – <u>no</u> way for it to get through the barriers we have set up.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">In one article Dr. Low talks about our father, mother, sister, children, etc., are “inside” us – almost inner environment. You know what deception we practice with our own inner environment on “Self”. No wonder the others are blocked out by complexity of emotions … I think the self-integration and wholeness come from the fact that it takes <u>persistent </u>effort towards partnership, whereas partisanship is like falling off a log – very easy.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">When we make a business of practicing being a partner and forget about the “perks”, that is, that people like us better and that we are succeeding in that realm – leave that part of it to itself—because the results <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">[for our mental health]</span> <u>are</u> great. But the Will to Effort and Control, and the value we place on our own efforts towards “evolution” as a human being finally begins to strengthen our SELF objectively and we “see” that we are succeeding in this endeavor to be a partner, which brings real self-respect. Self-respect cures a nervous patient, but it can’t be faked. It has to be real and probably figuring on how becoming a partner instead of a partisan is a <u>real</u> accomplishment no doubt about it!<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">After writing this, I found the letter from which the original discussion started. This is a little more on the meaning of the word "partnership" and related to the topic. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>Language again... Dr. Low said that the titles of his articles are couched in terms that are usually not used in our everyday language but the words are found in the dictionary. People who marry are partners, people who join the same club are partners, people who talk to one another to exchange views are partners for that moment. He went on to say that even when we ally ourselves with others into partnerships there are always differences of opinion and therefore trouble... But this was a good chance to look at a word like "partnership" and hear Dr. Low's explanation of why it has a different meaning in Recovery. The rules of group behavior apply. I can remember being on the street, stopping to visit with someone I didn't especially want to see or talk with but remembering that we had formed a partnership for those few minutes and I was obligated to act as a partner, to listen, to reply, to not act as though I had to hurry away, to look at him or her and not keep glancing away... I'm thinking, I'm thinking".</i></span><br />
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</div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-10523189518584012962010-06-12T12:49:00.000-07:002010-06-12T13:18:38.531-07:00The Feeling of UnrealityThe first time I was really aware of a "serious" nervous symptom was probably when I was in college. I was walking across the quad at the University of Michigan and suddenly I felt as though I was underwater and everything was unreal and in slow motion. It startled me but I quickly remembered hearing my mother speak of this symptom as she also had it. Because I had some Recovery training already I was able to spot that it was distressing and not dangerous. I continued on with my day, but it was a harbinger of things to come much later. <div><br /></div><div>I don't know if this was ever published in our Recovery Reporter but Mom did write about this symptom. Her telling me about it and hearing her talk about it helped me a great deal. She often used the expression in spotting, "it's only a harmless outpouring of a nervous imbalance." It's a spot which I have used and shared often. Maybe it will help you. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>One of my most persistent symptoms, long after I had joined Recovery was a peculiar feeling that did not seem at all physical but was rather in the nature of a mental feeling. It was as though I could see and touch things and yet they didn't seem real. My husband and children looked strange as did the trees, the sky and other objects. I diagnosed this as a sure sign that I was losing my mind. It was most difficult for me to accept the fact that this too was the harmless outpouring of my nervous imbalance. The worst thing about it was that I knew from my Recovery training that I could not manipulate the symptom and would just have to put up with it until it decided to leave. Finally I began to get relief from it and quite a long period had gone by without this feeling making its appearance even once.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>One day, after a Recovery meeting, while I was visiting with members during the mutual-aid period, I suddenly felt again this strange phenomenon. It was as though an invisible curtain had descended between me and reality. Immediately, I became panicky and thought, "This time I'm sure that I am losing complete control of my mind." My heart began to beat rapidly and I broke out in a cold sweat. But I started to spot and look through my fear. I spotted that I would have to regard this symptom just like any other one and stop listening to the threat of the symptomatic idiom. There was plenty of discomfort connected with this, but no danger. I was able to use my Will to bear the discomfort of it and to reject what the body language told me.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I scarcely paused in my conversation and decided that I would do absolutely nothing about the symptom. I would just let it rise and fall. If I didn't make an issue of it, it was more liable to leave quickly. But I decided that if it didn't leave I would refuse to work it up anyway. This decision steadied me and to my amazement the feeling disappeared shortly. By the time I left the building I felt relaxed and secure.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I made a mental note of the fact that nervous symptoms sometimes return and that I must be predisposed to expect them and not be frightened by them. This was not the last time I had to deal with the feeling of unreality, but each time it came I remained calm. Now the feeling has not been with me for several years. I write this with the hope that other members who are plagued with this harmless symptom will accept that fact that it IS harmless and that with persistent Recovery practice it finally yields and is gone.</i></div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-74981489557684235932010-06-04T10:43:00.000-07:002010-06-06T18:46:27.429-07:00BalanceThe following is taken from a notebook in which Mom wrote about a number of subjects. Some were just thoughts jotted down and some were more organized. You will see that she would add - more on this later. I have not found anything specific to this in the notebook, which has created a bit of a challenge to see if she wrote more somewhere else. If she did, you'll be the first to know! I titled this <i>Balance</i> as she had not written anything at the top of the page. As usual, her writing is in italics.<div><br /></div><div><i>Dr. Low talked a lot about balance. When balance is achieved on an enduring scale, there is more freedom. This holds true with a very basic matter in psychiatric patients - exceptionality versus averageness. Much of the suffering in psychiatric illness comes from imbalance in this contrast pair.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>There are levels of exceptionality and also levels of averageness. There is undesirable exceptionality when we go "bottom fishing" in our personal assessment of who we are. We take the partial view that reveals our short comings and faults, recalling our blunders and this can be instantaneous - a kind of total acceptance of the lowest portion of our self. This is false.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Then there is exceptionality that sees only that partial view that reveals a self that is above everyone and everything. It admits to such a perfection, it is one-sided and is, of course, false.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Both of the above views are opposite ends of the same stick and a linear look at that stick reveals that we range between the two states of being. This linear view, or all encompassing total view of ourselves produces the real, or the balanced total view.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>By nature and by predisposition the two partial views take precedence. In other words, we tend to favor one over the other during some event in our life. The undesirable exceptionality creates suffering and self punishment. The partial view, that we are above everyone and everything may create a feeling of euphoria and joy, but this feeling can only be present while the illusion of this unreal partial viewpoint is there. There is also toxicity in the tenseness which such "high flying" produces. And since life is not static and frozen something will happen which begins a change. In patients, Dr. Low described it as a picnic turning into a panic.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>The opposite of the teeter-totter of high and low is averageness which in Dr. Lows method is part of the philosophy he built into his system. By the way, another part of his philosophy, as I see it, is the self-healing, self organizing ability of "being". More about that later.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Averageness has levels too; at least three levels; poor average, plain average and good average. In truth all human beings are average, so it is an illusion to say we have to strive to be average when in fact we already are, nevertheless, we, especially patients, have to keep reminding ourselves or we will fall prey to a sense of exceptionality. The word "sense" is a conception, a belief, a feeling, a thought in the inner environment.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Exceptionality or more accurately a sense of exceptionality will spoil the balance just as with a weight scale - if you load more on one side it will not balance. More on this later.<br /></i><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-8469408459846070502010-06-04T09:07:00.000-07:002010-06-06T18:13:04.441-07:00The Intoxication of JoyThe following is an interesting letter written by my mother to a person in Recovery some time ago. I remember Mom and I having discussions about this subject and how much it has helped me over time. Maybe this will resonate for you too. Sometimes Mom would say "Dr. Low said," and it might have been something he said directly to her or she heard in a lecture that was not recorded, so don't be confused if you haven't read it somewhere. If you are not familiar with this blog, please go to my first entry on January 17, 2009. <div>This is what she wrote:<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Dear XXXX,</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I'll start out with a few words about the stimulation factor, since you asked for any ideas I have on it. It's very seductive. Success is so sweet. You are also using your creative talents and Dr. Low said that to have a blueprint in your mind and then see it happen in the outer world, is very satisfying to humans.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Right now you are caught up in event after event - good results- it validates your creative ideas as being good ones. When this was happening in Michigan, I was ecstatic. I was needed, I was competent to do what had to be done. It meant working with all kinds of co-workers which again called on my abilities to handle the frustrations and irritations this brought forth in Recoveryites.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Well, I was "on a roll." Then I sat down one evening to watch the news. My mind was still reeling with past and future events. I wasn't listening to the news but sitting with the other family members, looking at the T.V. and trying to look absorbed in the news.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I felt terrific and yet, I noticed that my shoulders felt tense. I tried to loosen them up but the tenseness remained. My tongue even felt tense and I began to realize that this is what Dr. Low called the intoxication of joy and that was toxic, not healthy as to balance.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I made a firm decision that to preserve my good mental health I had to do something before the tenseness would ease and leave my organism free to function in balance. It didn't all take place with this one example. I'm just using this situation as a focal point, but it did happen just like that.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I had to LEARN to slow down my muscles first. To do this I made a conscious effort to eat more slowly and be more deliberate as I raised the fork to my mouth. I willed myself to talk more slowly. The thoughts still kept racing, I suppose because my brain had become "tense."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>By the way, this wasn't at all an uncomfortable feeling. There was plenty of motivation to continue it, but by then, I knew my mental health was my supreme goal and that self discipline was the answer.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>I looked at my schedule (a mish mash of plans... do this while you are in that neighborhood when you visit your mother in the hospital, then on your way back swing over to meet that priest you made an appointment with, then on and on...) an exceptional person like me? Of course, I had to get them all done. Remind you of the gnarled clothes line in MHTWT?</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>So, in spite of my feelings that I <b>should</b> take care of all these duties and that Recovery would suffer if I didn't, I began to eliminate from my schedule some of the extras. I remember it very well, because I had had depression and I'd also had the "highs".</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>In the meantime, while I was making a personal project of my own inner environment, I still kept doing a good average job of doing what had to be done. My thoughts eventually became more orderly and the tenseness left my head, tongue, neck, shoulders, stomach, etc., etc.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>We'll discuss more, okay? Let's face it though, you and I are both cut out to do this work, but we need our mental health to do it!</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Love,</i></div><div><i>T</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-37120778437235907962010-03-24T20:15:00.000-07:002010-06-06T18:00:16.403-07:00A Moment in Conquering StigmaThis happened to me back in 1979 and I shared it with Mom. Since I just wrote about her dealing with stigma, I thought this a good follow up example of how we pass things on through our demonstration of self-leadership. I had joined a new group and was asked to read a preamble at a meeting which was quite large. As I started reading my hands and legs began to shake and it was hard to see the words on the shaking paper. I kept spotting that I could bear this discomfort in front of everyone and wondered what the realistic thing to do was. I grabbed a chair and as I pulled it up to the front of the room I explained to the group what as happening to me. I finished reading just fine and endorsed myself. Several people came up after the meeting to say they never thought of doing that and it helped them. Most of all it helped me! I endorsed myself for the effort and bearing the discomfort. I later shared this with my mother and this is what she wrote back to me. She was always encouraging in her words and we were so fortunate to be able to share the Recovery language with each other. Here is what she wrote in June, 1979:<div><br /></div><div><i>Dear T. Ann,</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>It was just wonderful to be able to share your experience of victory over your fearful temper. Boy! It certainly proves what Dr. Low said that there is no danger and that a threat constricted to a pin point by tension one can still have a well modulated voice. Also, that "fear can be borne" and cause only discomfort (either severe or mild).</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>But it's one thing to hear that, read it, or even hear about someone else going through it, and a completely different thing when you are the person shoved into the situation and suddenly there you are - all alone in your body - with that body firing off swarms of symptoms! And of course, when all is said and done about 90% of it is danger to the social personality.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>You took care of that when you mentioned your discomfort so forth rightly and proved again to yourself that there's no danger to your social personality either, because people didn't get up and leave or condemn you - in fact you know several people were helped by your action.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>This "running forward" to meet discomfort and embracing it as a common human experience (perfectly average) begins to unhinge that fear. It may return, but next time you have this experience behind you and it is part of your memory bank. Having put your muscles through the experience, you will follow that up shortly by leading that meeting and shortly there after another challenge - until immunity forms, the fear will be yours. Not that you won't feel some nervousness - that's part of nearly all such "appearances" before a large group for practically everyone, but it will no longer be of overwhelming severity and intensity.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>By the way, even if you had not sat down - you still would be in no danger - but the task at hand and the goal were to get the passages read aloud for the group. You finished the task and reached the goal and even further by laughing at the stigma we feel about our nervous system developing tenseness. The entire group must have relaxed when you did. Good for you. That really took courage!</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Love,</i></div><div><i>Mom</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-6336064600612866012010-03-14T12:05:00.000-07:002010-03-23T20:07:55.465-07:00How I Lost the StigmaThis was originally published in the "Recovery News", 1949. Mom had probably been in Recovery less than two years and was becoming more and more active in her own Recovery inner work and helping to start Recovery in Michigan.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">By Treasure R., leader of the Brighton Branch of Recovery<br /><br />When I first started the Recovery Group in Detroit, I was still suggering miserable. Because other treatment had failed to help me, I was desperate and decided to accept Recovery without question because Annette and Gertrude had told me of their relief through Recovery. And I believe one of the most importnt lessons I learned was to lose the stigma.<br /><br />After reading the Recovery Literature, I started to apply the principles explained in detail therein. One afternoon, I had the opportunity to attend the dedication of a new mental helath clinic in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The governor was to make a speech and many other notables were to be present. I forced myself to attend. In former days I would have begged off with some fancy excuse. With the new assurance gained from meeting Recovery members and reading Recovery literature, I was not TOO uncomfortable, while listening to the speeches and only slightly preoccupied with fears and sensations.<br /><br />I was regaining a feeling of normalcy when I was shown through the clinic by an intern. I spoke to him of my interest in Recovery, briefly, making sure he understood what I told him. By this time, I felt quite elated at my successful afternoon.<br /><br />Recovery really worked and I was beginning to see light for my future. I was then invited to have tea in the dining room. The very mention of food brought on a few sensations for eating with others wasmy biggest difficulty. However, applying what I had learned in Recovery, I "moved my muscles," went into the dining room and got my tea and cakes (with trembling hands). Then I sought a secluded table (sabotage) where I could eat alone. To my dismay the intern who had taken me around the clinic asked me to join four other doctors at their table. There was no escape. I walked to their table like a prisoner "walks the last mile." No sooner had I ben seated than heat waves began to come over me, my heart palpitated wildly, the blood pounded in my ears, y mouth felt dry, anmy mind was racing with thoughts soething like this: A panic...they'll know I'm ill, I can't concentrate...<br /><br />As quickly as I could, I excused myself and walked outside to my car. I felt very depressed and shaken. What was the use of Recovery? Sure it had helped me sit through a meeting but if I couldn't drink a cup of tea with others what sort of life could I look forward to? I had read the literature over and over (we had been having meetings) and yet when my panic started, nothing helped. Where was the principle to apply there? What was the answer?<br /><br />At the next meeting I reported my panic to the other members but decided not to speak of y discouragement. We read an article from the Journal that dealt with the Stigma and gave examples where other patients lost their symptoms when they learned to speak of them without fear of censor. Then the understanding (insight) came. I must give up the idea of shame and disgrace connected with my illness if I wanted to be free of it.<br /><br />NOW I had the insight but could I put the principles into practice and WOULD it work? It wasn't long until I had a good occasion to try it out. It was while I was eating with some friends of my husband. Before, when panics developed while eating I would find some excuse to leave the table until I could regain my composure. This time I decided to practice Recovery by facing the panic as quietly as I could and if my confusion became too severe an I felt anyone noticed it, I would speak of it. After all, many people mention nervousness and distress without feeling they have "lost face." I was feeling quite tense but this new thought, that I could mention my feelings if I had to, was so comforting that I relaxed and finished the meal with ease.<br /><br />One Recovery principle proven. After several other similar tries, I decided to give up the idea of the STIGMA. Now I feel free to mention m illness or to admit I have nervous sensations at any time. This relieves me of tenseness AND my symptoms.<br /><br /></span>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-89829015152069283682010-03-14T11:34:00.000-07:002010-03-14T12:03:19.300-07:00SetbacksOne day, years ago, my mother (also named Treasure -- see first blog) wrote a woman on the east coast about handling a setback. The letter was passed around so much that it became tattered and worn. I believe that she finally wrote something for the "Recovery Reporter" . If she did, this may be it. There is no date on it. I found it upon my return from a long vacation in CA. Most everything I type will be done exactly as it is on paper except I will change the font to italics.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Setbacks</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Believe it or not setbacks seem to serve a purpose. We learn from them and, of course, they are pretty grim reminders of the fact that we must not indulge in sabotage. The setback also seems to help us to acquire a better balance by teaching us, I suppose, the art of spotting. It is so easy to work up temper against our symptoms when we are in a setback. This starts the vicious cycle. Our old set of symptoms, panic and all, return for some unknown reason. We notice them and instead of accepting them calmly we start thrashing around in our minds with the sabotaging thought of "The permanent handicap" and so we discover that our will to bear discomfort is not as strong as we thought it was when we were feeling well.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">One of the things I always did, would still do in a setback is to start over again at the weakest point. It seems like you go back quite a way to do this but then think of the very word, setback. I would have to start first thing in the morning -- handling irritations with the children and spotting my performances every minute of the day, most of it being done through the muscles as usual. This method seems to bring me out of it the quickest.<br /><br />One of the most important things to remember if not the most important is "waiting", because when you feel fearful, you have the sense of fatigue and don't handle yourself the way you would like with people. You feel that you are worse than ever and can't seem to look forward to the time when it will lift. Don't you agree? No doubt you know from experience that the whole picture can change for you and you will again feel secure and spontaneous. I have had it happen overnight.<br /><br /><br /></span>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-21624921556184620832010-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:002010-01-28T20:33:23.224-08:001954 Letter to Michigan Groups on Dr. Low's Death<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;">You might well imagine how difficult it was for Recovery members when Dr. Low died. I was very young but remember my mother crying into a wet face cloth. She sent me over to a neighbors shortly thereafter. I'm sure she was working on herself both with grieving and using her Recovery to deal with all that was ahead of her. What was going to happen to Recovery? People wanted to know! The following letter was to be read by Michigan group leaders at their meetings. I want to mention that this was 1954 and State Hospitals and the profession for the most part, have since changed quite a bit. I know there is always room for improvement but I think it is important to note the progress that has been made. We can especially look at Oregon State Hospital and what they have recently achieved there! You can see more about this on www.lowselfhelpsystems.org by clicking on "For Professionals" . Also, for newcomers, you may notice our old name was "Recovery, Inc." and that has changed since then. Our new name, Recovery International, reflects our presence in several countries. Wouldn't the good doctor be pleased!</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;">Here is what went our to group leaders:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>Brighton, Michigan</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>November 29, 1954</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>(Group Leaders: Please read the following letter -- or have it read -- at your next meeting; read it slowly, please. I can't tell you how much all of your wonderful letters have meant to me at this time. I'll thank you personally at our next leaders' meeting which will be held at St. Matthew's Methodist Church, Evergreen at W. Seven Mile Rd., Detroit, next Saturday, December 4 at 10 A.M.)</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>Dear Members: I wish I could visit each group personally to say what I have to say. Since this is impossible, I want to chat with you for a few minutes via this letter: The death of our beloved Dr. Low has been a real loss which defies description. However, I feel somehow that soul reaches out to soul at this time, and that we share a common grief.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> </i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>Dr. Low was a medical genius who devised a system of psychotherapy that restores nervous and former mental patients to normal, healthy living. It is common knowledge that few great men live to see their works accepted by the world. We must accept the fact that this is </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>average</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> </i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>My message to you at this time is one of reassurance. Recovery, Inc., </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>will</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> continue to function just as it has in the past; we hope with an increasing amount of efficiency. Trained leaders both here and in Chicago have become experts in the practice of Recovery's methods. These people have the desire and the spirit to help others and because of this, there will be no slack in the training program. Phil Crane, our Executive Secretary, assures me that there are adequate funds in the treasury to carry on for a good long time. Should the need arise, I feel certain we can find a way to finance Recovery. Why Dr. Low took it upon himself to see that you and I should receive psychotherapy practically without cost is more than I can say, but it is a fact that he was our benefactor even in this matter. The sale of the literature which he toiled to produce helps to keep Recovery alive--but he also actually made up any deficit out of his own pocket . . . many years to the tune of thousands of dollars. This further attests to the man's greatness--whose love and concern for us transcended any earthly standards.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> </i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> </i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>I would like you to consider the fact that we have never really had Dr. Low with us in Michigan except through his books and his records. </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>We still have these.</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> In Chicago they have carried on most successfully without his personal leadership since last July. So let me repeat: we who are now in Recovery are </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>safe.</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> Furthermore, anyone who finds his way to us through publicity or referral from a doctor will receive the full benefits of Recovery and will have the opportunity to get well. It will be simple for us to carry out this program, and let me assure you that I, for one, find it a most enjoyable and gratifying task.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>I sincerely wish that this were our only concern. However, one thing preys upon my conscience. The system of psychotherapy now being used in our hospitals and by the profession in general is futile. It's approach is irrational and cannot possibly work except for a meager handful of patients. Therefore, thousands of people--yes, tens of thousands--are doomed to suffer and rot away. Surely, you and I, who know so well the agony of such suffering, cannot look away from this issue. We must take up the fight for professional acceptance of Recovery's methods and system of psychotherapy. Dr. Low carried on this fight for seventeen years--and failed. Now </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>I </i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i> feel dedicated to this purpose, and I hope that all of you will join forces with me here in Michigan. Shortly, I will get word to you how we will go about accomplishing this job. In the meantime, rest assured that you are safe in Recovery's hands. Dr. Low says there is only ONE nervous case and Recovery's methods can restore all to good mental health on a permanent basis. I genuinely feel that the bond between all of us is stronger still with the death of our founder. I send you my love and pledge my support to all of you.</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"><i>Treasure Rice--Michigan Leader</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#1B1B1B;"> </span></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div></span>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-6376008640293578022010-01-24T13:18:00.000-08:002010-01-24T19:29:02.946-08:001956 Welcoming Address by Treasure Rice to Michigan Recovery Christmas Party<div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Our Christmas is now over.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I thought I'd share with you an address Mother made to those attending the 1956 Michigan Christmas party. This was an exciting time to be on the ground floor and taking Dr. Low's work beyond Chicago. Michigan Recovery was really starting to "hum". Even though it was given in 1956 (she joined Recovery in 1947) I think her words will still inspire us today. Here is what she said:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I think it is especially appropriate that we folks in Recovery get together at this time of the year. For many of us it is a time for exchanging gifts, and I think that we have one of the most precious gifts of all to exchange -- and that is the gift of </span><u><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">acceptance</span></span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span></i><span style="font-family:Georgia;mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I could no doubt make this statement without fear of being challenged: Every one of us has felt the Stigma of our illness.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Gut, you know, the shame I used to feel has largely been replaced with a real feeling of pride, because, honestly, I have found the folks in Recovery to be one of the grandest groups of people in this world.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’ve found you to be warm-hearted, sensitive and responsive</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">– where else can you meet a more wonderful group of friends?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So I’m really proud to be listed as one of us.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And this is the gift we exchange – acceptance – not only of each other, but a feeling of respectability.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I can remember that all my life I felt set apart, different, and there are times, even yet, when maybe I am with my own family – and suddenly again I will feel alone – set apart—different.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But that is when this wonderful feeling comes welling up with in me, and I remember all of you, and I know that some where you too are having to control – and then I don’t feel alone any more – I feel that I </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">do</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> belong, really and that I’m not so different.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Another thing that makes me proud to be classed as a Recovery member is the fact that I think there is much courage – pound for pound – in this organization we call Recovery as you will find anywhere else in the world, and I’ll tell you why:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We battle with a phantom!</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The thing we fight doesn’t even exist – and I’m speaking of course, of the </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Idea of Danger. </span></u><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Low says we are addicted to it, that it is an obsession with us.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So we shadow-box, and live in the shadow of life – not sick enough to be put in a hospital for any length of time, and yet not well enough to take our place in life on a sustained basis.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And only we who have been through it or are going through can realize how much courage it takes to overcome this foe – and only we can really know how formidable is this phantom enemy of fear that seems as real to us as if it were constructed of concrete and steel.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When it was suggested that I give this talk today, the committee asked that I give a brief resume of the year.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">has</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> happened in Michigan in Recovery this past year?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I thought about it for a while and I thought, if I really wanted to make it brief it could be told in one word:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Successful</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Michigan has</span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">been very successful with its Recovery project this year.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Many of you already know that Michigan has more paid members than any other branch.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Recently another branch leader said to me, “Why is it that Michigan has been so successful?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">After all, people are people, wherever you go.” And I said, “maybe people are people—but no kidding—I think we have the most exceptional group of average people you will find anywhere!” [laughter]</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Every one of you, and many who are not here today, has been responsible for the growth and success of Recovery in Michigan.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">All of us have played a part in the total picture.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What better time could we have than right now, however, to give credit to a group of people among us whom we call our leaders?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">These people have started groups I think without exception while they were still going through the discomfort of their own illness.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They have borne the discomfort of discharging a group obligation at the sacrifice many times of their own personal inclination.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I will ask each leader to stand and take a bow.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Last night I went through this list and wanted to make a remark about each one of them, but two things prevent me from doing this:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One—if I said even part of what is in my heart, we’d be here all night and tomorrow too.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Second—what I have to say would only embarrass these people, because they are not looking for public endorsement.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">May I ask that each leader, as he stands, instead of thinking about how he looks, or should he smile, etc. – that he silently give himself an honest endorsement for all the effort and control he has used, and all the discomforts he has borne and the spotting he has done in leading his group.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(The leaders’ list was read in its entirety and those who were present took a well-deserved bow.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Before I finish, I have one more thing to add.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Low and many others have labored to establish Recovery and to make it available to all who can use it.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The literature is inexpensive and written in a simple language that most anyone can read and study.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We are working hard toward starting more and more groups, so that Recovery training can be at our finger-tips, merely for the taking.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But there is one factor that must necessarily be left up to each and every one of us.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That is – just how much will each of us take advantage of this opportunity offered us in Recovery?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Several weeks ago, I heard a story that I think illustrates this very well:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Two scientists were exploring on the Sahara Desert, when they came upon a strange pyramid that was not charted on their maps.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When they went to enter the pyramid, they noticed an inscription over the doorway:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“</span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He who takes of my sands will be sorry.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We who does not will be sad!!”</span></u><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The two scientists went into the pyramid and found it to be dark inside, but they explored it as best they could.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When they were ready to leave, they thought of the mysterious inscription over the entrance.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The one scientist thought he would not risk taking any of the sand, but the other one curiously reached down and in the inky blackness scooped up a handful of the shifting sand on the floor of the pyramid.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When they returned to their camp, one of the most dreaded events that can take place on the desert began to occur.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A sandstorm raged all night, and the scientists struggled to hang onto their possessions.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In the morning after the storm had subsided, they emerged from their camp.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When they surveyed the vast expanse of desert before them, they saw that the pyramid had disappeared, buried in the sands for perhaps another two or three thousand years.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Suddenly they remembered the peculiar inscription.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The scientist who had taken the sand put his hand into his pocket and drew out his clenched fist.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When he opened it, there to his amazement, glistening in the sun was a handful of DIAMONDS.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then he </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">was</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> sorry – sorry he hadn’t taken two handfuls.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And the other scientist was sad, because he had taken none.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The sands of opportunity in Recovery lie all around us.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Let’s not be content to take one handful or two handfuls, but let’s dig deep and take all we can carry away!</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I hope that you will have a peaceful holiday, especially </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">within</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> - not only now but always.</span></span></i><span style="font-family:Georgia;mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;font-size:16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-91101395321257811692010-01-19T12:06:00.000-08:002010-01-24T19:49:04.272-08:00Not Being a China Doll: Response Versus Reaction<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Helvetica, serif;font-size:medium;"><blockquote type="cite"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">1/17/10</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">Not being a China Doll: Response Versus Reaction</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">I was recently reading a letter someone had sent to me. It’s a copy of one of Mom’s letters.<span> </span>As I read it I thought of how often she spoke to me about this idea of being too thin skinned.<span> </span>I think the first time she mentioned it I was probably in High School.<span> </span>She said “You don’t want to become a China Doll that everyone has to tip toe around for fear of breaking you.”<span> </span>Her letter to this person said as much, so this is a good way to share it with you and I consider it from Treasure Rice to any of us.<span> </span>Here is her letter:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><i>Dear One,</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span><i> </i></span><i>You are definitely getting to a place where you are not as sensitive to comments and behavior of others. I remember very well the years I worked on “using” the “slings and arrows” as a means of strengthening my ability to </i><u style="text-decoration: none; "><span style="text-decoration: underline; "><i>not</i></span><span><span style="text-decoration: underline; "><i> </i></span><i>react. In other words I would spot my fearful and angry </i><u><span style="text-decoration: none; "><i>response</i></span></u><i> as just that – a response to an event. Then I would immediately (or very rapidly) see that I didn’t let it become a </i><u><span style="text-decoration: none; "><i>reaction. </i></span></u><i>This meant catching that first feeling, sensation, thought and/or impulse and turning it into a plus for </i><u><span style="text-decoration: none; "><i>me.</i></span></u></span></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>One day I was in the tub taking a bath. My husband hollered at me about something I had not done. His tone was angry and his words “put me down.” I had an immediate response – a surge of anger and the thought response “How dare he speak to me like that?” So I immediately decided </i><u><i>not </i></u><i>to let it become a reaction for me.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>I looked at it as a wonderful opportunity for me to develop my ability to take my place in life as one who is not super sensitive to such events.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>I had the thought, “This is a plus for me.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>He’s average to have temper and I’m not </i><u><i>really</i></u><i> threatened." I forget what I said to him, but I really remember how I was able to keep it to the realm of a response.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>During that time of my training I paid particular attention to:</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>fearful and angry response</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><i>VS</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>fearful and angry reactions</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>dividing them into two separate compartments.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>The responses you cannot control – either you respond or you don’t (that is </i><u><i>have</i></u><i> a response or not) but if you are able to pay close attention to the difference and look upon each one as a </i><u><i>real </i></u><i>chance to develop and strengthen your ability to “take it” without becoming a person who goes on reacting to these responses like an automatic machine then you are self-led.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>Ordinary opinion is that we shouldn’t let people “get away with it” or “if I give an inch, he’ll take a mile” but it’s really just the opposite.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>This doesn’t mean I don’t assert myself at times – I do. I learned to do </i><u><i>that</i></u><i> too in Recovery – but I’m not the helpless victim of the responses nature furnishes me with when it counts.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>I can speak up – but these times are few and far between.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><i>I can see you getting to the place where you are much less apt to react.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>That reaction doesn’t even have to be voiced but can be the working up process inside.</i><span><i> </i></span><i>A sense of humor and the inner smile is such a saving grace and you sure have that.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><span><i> </i></span><i>Love,</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Cambria, serif;font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><span><span style="white-space: pre; "><i> </i></span><i> </i></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><i> Treasure</i></span></span></span></p></div></blockquote></span>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252825282241581431.post-67243640523743647962010-01-19T11:44:00.000-08:002010-01-24T19:46:16.675-08:00A Little History First...<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;"><blockquote type="cite"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">1/17/10 </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">For quite some time I have been wondering just how to write about my mother, Treasure Rice.<span> </span>She had so much experience and wisdom from a well-lived, long life.<span> </span>She used that life to learn more about herself, raise a family, be a great wife to an adoring husband and try in the best way she knew, to help alleviate the suffering of people with some form of mental or emotional stress/disorders. Call it what you will, but it is all suffering when one experiences a “break-down”, panic, or has some nervous/mental illness or brain disease.<span> </span>There continues to be new descriptive words for so many maladies.<span> </span>When Mom first put her toe in this water, she was indeed what was once called a “psychoneurotic.”<span> </span>I know she had depression, anxiety and other difficulties.<span> </span>In Recovery terms, she called herself a “nervous patient.”<span> </span>It was in 1947 her life came to a head.<span> </span>According to the therapists she was consulting, the outlook was bleak for her.<span> </span>She even began to wonder if it was time to give up.<span> </span>Then, for her, a miracle happened.<span> </span>She discovered Abraham Low, MD, a neuropsychiatrist in Chicago who told her she could get well! <span> </span>He was developing a system that was helping others and would help her. <span> </span>That was the big moment. The turning point in her life that would come to help not only herself, her family, but thousands of people over time.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">Much has been written by Dr. Low and can be viewed and bought on the <u>Abraham Low Self-Help Systems</u> web site.<span> </span>There is also a biography, <u>My Dear Ones</u>.<span> </span>It gives a lot of Dr. Low’s story and some of mother’s story as well.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">This blog will have the purpose of sharing with you, my family, friends or those who are seeking to evolve, mother’s words that she passed on to me and to others.<span> </span>Some come directly from what Dr. Low told her and some from what she learned.<span> </span>She was very good at synthesizing both information and experience and then sharing it through both her own words and being an example of how one might “be.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;"> There is at present, no order to the letters I’m sharing, but I hope I can glean something more than memories and lessons.<span> </span>Hopefully some of her essence will flow to you as well. I will try to keep each entry short with a hint in the title of what she wrote.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;">I will also share my own experience of having panics, anxiety, depression and how I handled it and who helped. Of course this is a lifetime of learning, so, as the saying goes, “the beat goes on”. After I had my breakdown, Mom was telling me one day about how after practicing and integrating the Recovery system, we are often better than we were before we broke. I recall her saying Dr. Low said through our practice we were a human beings "plus." Please remember that when I say something like "I recall", that, it is going back many, many years and certainly is not anything authoritative! This blog may look and feel different, but I hope it will be of some interest or help to the reader. It has been so interesting for me to "recover" my mother in her letters. The name of the blog "recoveringtreasure" is a play on both of our names and our inner work. So here it goes!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Cambria, serif;font-size:16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p></div></blockquote></span></div>Treasure2http://www.blogger.com/profile/02781078587180775162noreply@blogger.com3