Inspirations

A little trick of mine

/ fearsomebeard / 4 Comments

I often have to remind myself that to have a positive outlook is that I must remember to work for it. By work I mean I need to seek things that make me feel good, look for the good in the world, appreciate beauty around me wherever I am and to give kindness as much as I can to others, even to strangers. A positive outlook helps me to focus on what I want instead of focusing on what I don’t want.

When I focus on what I want I find more of it around me. With more of it around me I feel better and I’m able to see more.

In today’s world it’s easy for me to get overcome with things that bother me and to in turn see more negative things and thus I end up defeated and depressed. Defeatism does not serve me, it only makes me feel bad and in turn I pass that energy to everthing and everyone around me. Becoming Debbie Downer is not who I want to become.

Therefore, for me, I must work at finding the good. It doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the bad, nor does it mean I approve of it. However the only way I can win and overcome negative things is by being well myself, and feeling good helps me to be well.

Today I’ll start my week off with a tune from my childhood that just makes me feel good. May it help one of you reading this as well.

Simon & Garfunkel – The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) – 1966

May peace, love, joy and understanding prevail on earth.

In search of a power greater than myself

/ fearsomebeard / 14 Comments

As many of you know I’m sober. I haven’t had a drink nor a drug in well over 13 years. I was one of those who, although he tried to, could never control my drinking. Once I started I never knew where I would end up. I continuously tried to balance a working productive life with a drunken mess. If I had to work then I just couldn’t drink. If I could arrange a few days away from work I was off and running on another bender. It was exhausting.

When someone offers me a drink today I kindly say thank you and ask for something non-alcoholic like a nice club soda with a twist, or glass of unsweetened ice tea. If they persist and say “come on just one” I politely reply with “Have you ever met someone who couldn’t handle their liquor? Well I’m that guy so let’s stick with something else.”

Getting here wasn’t easy. I thought my life was over and I’d never have fun again when I realized to my innermost self that I could not go on the way I was living and reached out for help. Fortunately I knew someone who didn’t drink because he’d previously had such an issue. He offered to pick me up for lunch. When he did he said that we would get to lunch, but first he had to show me how he did it and proceeded to drive me to an AA meeting. I did not want to go but went in with him as I didn’t know what else to do.

I don’t remember much about that first meeting except that I felt safe there. The people were accepting of me and friendly. They seemed to understand the pickle in which I had found myself. I know today that they did understand me as they had once been exactly where I was in that very moment. My hangover was horrendous and I’m sure I still reeked of used booze. I kept coming back to those meetings, and in fact some 13+ years later I still attend 3 meetings a week because now I want to.

There was an issue for me early on and that is the 12 steps use the word god and the literature talks about finding a higher power. God was an issue for me. I grew up in a church that told me that god would doom me to hell because of who I loved. I had left that church for I wasn’t going to stop being who I was. Then there were those nasty people with their signs on the corners and bullhorns regularly told me that god hates me and I was going to burn in hell as they preached on street corners at pride parades, comic-con and even outside of Padres baseball games.

God didn’t want me, and I sure as hell didn’t want god.

But stay in AA I did because I knew to continue drinking meant a slow agonizing death for me, or even worse it may have meant death for someone else might they meet my car being driven drunk by me at an intersection some unfortunate night. I did my 12 steps with a sponsor and a spiritual awakening I did have. However my spiritual awakening was with a power greater than myself that wasn’t that judgmental god preached by so many religions, but a great power that I could acknowledge was greater than me and I could work with.

A few years into my sobriety I had been asked to come lead a predominantly LGBTQ meeting that I had never attended. I was told to come up with a topic and share my experience on that topic. I was at a loss but figured I’d find something in our literature. Several days before that meeting I heard someone in a meeting I was attending say the words “Love is god”. I’d never heard it in that order, always the reverse. As that person continued to share my mind ran with it and I replaced the words “god”, “him” and “his” in the 12 steps that were posted on the wall in that room with the word “Love”. Suddenly my previous spiritual awakening was deepening in that moment, and was something I could only describe as out of body. While I had made it through the steps believing that I wasn’t the center of the universe and that something was greater than me, in that very moment I had a higher power I could Absofuckinglutely work with. My higher power was Love.

That would be my topic, Love and sharing Love as a higher power. I started my share at the LGBTQ meeting where I’d never been, in front of people I’d never met, by reading the 12 steps aloud just as I had re-read them in my mind that previous meeting.

1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Love as we understood Love. 

4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 

5) Admitted to Love, to ourselves, and to another human being the nature of our wrongs. 

6) Were entirely ready to have Love remove all these defects of character. 

7) Humbly asked Love to remove our shortcomings. 

8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. 

9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 

10) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 

11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Love as we understood Love, praying only for knowledge of Love’s will for us and the power to carry that out. 

12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principals in all our affairs.

The entire room of some 60 people including myself were in tears at the end of my reading. We were a group that find the word god divisive, as that word is often used against us. Love however was a power we could work with. Many other alcoholics have heard me share about my higher power since that day, and many have shared with me how Love has changed their lives, as Love is something they too can work with.

Today my life is beautiful, fun, fulfilling and meaningful. I’m never sick with a hangover. I also get to regularly share my experience, strength and hope with other just as that friend I reached out to did with me.  Mine is a good life filled with Love. 💕

Milk’s Legacy

/ fearsomebeard / 4 Comments

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The phrase is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

Harvey Milk will never be erased as long as I’m able to speak.

 

The Real World / Pedro Zamora

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I was a young buck back in 1994 who lost many friends and lovers to AIDS. Pedro became a hero for me then and he still is today. He’s one of the many talented bright spots we lost before there was a drug cocktail that made a long life possible for HIV positive persons.
This is not short video, but a video that was worth every minute of my time. So much so I’m about to watch it again. I find its message vitally important given today’s political climate. Thus I share it here in hopes that not only will you watch it, but also share it with others too.
Oh, and have a tissue handy as I needed one a couple times while watching.

Happy New Year!

/ fearsomebeard / 12 Comments

I want to pause and wish everyone here a Happy New Year!

The year ahead will definitely bring a challenge or three, or even more. I pause to remind myself that no matter how challenged I may become in a situation, there is always something I can do. What can I do? I can choose how I react, how I perceive, how I move forward, how may overcome, how I can grow and what I can learn.

I can also choose to look for beauty in my surroundings and beauty in the people I interact with. I can choose to share good, to focus on positive and to not dwell on things that do not help me nor those around me. I can let fear pass though me, feel it then recognize it for what it is and let go of it. I can do my best to understand, to love, to share and to give.

These are the things I wish to strive for in my New year.

Oh and to dance, I wish to dance. Will you join me?

Scissor Sisters – Let’s Have A Kiki – Custom Videodrome Discothéque Video Edit 2012

The Sistah Shop

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Someone who gives to her community by creating space and opportunity for others is given a boost by her community. Humanity at its best. People helping people.

Truly  heartwarming, I needed this today.
Visit the Sistah Shop online –    HERE     – A shop where over 100 Black Women entrepreneurs can market their products giving them a hand up towards success.

This holiday season I’m going to remember to visit the small businesses in my community and give them my support. Together we can make our communities and the world a better place.

Heroes

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I believe it’s important to surround myself with good, inspiration and hope. Therefore I must focus on finding good stories, positive messages and inspiring people.
Today I found this heartwarming video. May it warm your heart as it did mine.

Thank you Emmy Lou. You give me hope in humanity.

While we have Emmy Lou Harris here on the blog, I’ll add one of my favorite tunes she has released…

Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton – My Dear Companion – 2007 re-master

My meditation for today

/ fearsomebeard / 4 Comments

Today I will be grateful for just being me. I choose to find good, find beauty in what is around me and for what I have.
From my gratitude, I will see and attract more I can be grateful for.

No matter the circumstance, there is always something I can be grateful for or something I can appreciate in some way. I’ll start with one thing and from that one thing, I will find more. I just have to be open and be willing.