John Du Cane

John Du Cane

Disappointment

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“How disappointment tracks the steps of hope”—Letitia Elizabeth Landon

We step our way through the world with hope, on hope, on hope. As one hope falters and falls, the next hope gathers itself, strides out—then stumbles to its knees. Never mind: the next hope is already born and bracing itself to step over its fallen comrades. Or, so it may certainly have seemed, when we slogged our way through the trials and tribulations of addiction. Our life seemed one long cascade of hopes that were dashed to bits on the reefs of disappointment.

Disappointment

To safeguard our recovery, we can use a simple technique to reframe the disappointments that follow our broken hopes and expectations. We can simply let go of the expectation. That hope has served its purpose. It gave us energy for a while. But now, the shattered hope is mere debris. We need to move on. Let go. And paddle out into the new flow. Let’s float on the swell, rather than fight a rip-tide. We can ride the highpoints and the low points with equal equanimity.

The power of hope is to push us forward, to excite us, to keep us motivated. But by its very nature, hope has a short shelf life. We restock hope as fast as the cans fly off the shelves… The trick for those of us in recovery who wish to retain our sanity, is to modulate the excitement that is hope’s companion. Too much excitement, too fast—with too rapid a fizzle after the fact—is a risky way to conduct ourselves in recovery. Nice to get fired up, but let’s turn down the burners to a simmer, so we can hang in for the long haul…

Today, let’s practice a calming movement that can help us regain our peace of mind after a temporary tumble into disappointment:

Stand with your heels together, feet angled out at 45 degrees, knees slightly bent. Hold the hands at groin level just off the body, palms facing up, in a cup-like position. Inhale as you slowly raise your palms to upper chest level, exhale as you lower your hands back to your starting position.

Further enhance the movement of breath and energy by placing your attention initially at the base of your spine, then running it up to the top of your head on the inhale. On the exhale, run your attention down the front of your body to just below your navel. Do 10 or more repetitions.

I feel calm, energized and relaxed all at the same time—a wonderful combination!

Only The Lonely

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“Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.”—Thomas Wolfe

The popular acronym HALT stands for four important vulnerabilities to guard against: Hunger, Anger, Loneliness, Tiredness. Loneliness is red-flagged in recovery, because it can lead us into fragile territory—despair, depression, a sense of worthlessness and of hopelessness. Today, let’s look at loneliness and how we can be that much better prepared to respond when the iron cage descends upon us…

When we used, our principal relationship was with our chemical of choice. Our white knuckles might be gripping the bars of our cage, but our drugs helped numb the hollow pain within us. However, our drugs finally became fickle in their friendship, did they not?

Perhaps the money ran out—and the apparent support went gurgling down the drain, with not a backward glance. Or the drug of choice grabbed us by the throat and became increasingly abusive in its demands. Our best friend became our best fiend. The protective, numbing, blocking sheath was ripped from our skin—and we cried out as the loneliness ran raw and exposed…

Loneliness

When we entered the fellowship of recovery, we discovered that there was an available salve for that rawness—the salve of like-minded companions who’d suffered in a similar manner and found solace together in sharing their stories. We realized we weren’t, after all, the shipwrecked solitaries we fancied ourselves for… Rather, we had a place in the circle on the beach of friendship. Together, we could watch the flames of the bonfire and celebrate our rescue. And dance around that fire, perhaps, to express the joy of our newfound serenity.

Let’s recognize that we can be alone while still connected in spirit to others. When we feel the pangs of loneliness coming upon us, we have the choice, right now, to reach out, share ourselves, listen and reconnect. And we can tell both ourselves and others that this loneliness is just a passing thing—a reminder not to take for granted the delicate web of friendship that keeps us sane in a sometimes-challenging world.

For our movement today, let’s dance to the beat of our friendships. Over time, that beat has become tribal and somewhat hypnotic, reassuring us with its steady rhythms that we are part of a greater whole…

Alone or with friends, engage in a few minutes of spontaneous movement. Stand still for a few moments, feeling your body. Then start gently moving around as the mood takes you. Let it happen in whatever way it wants to show up. The body knows what it wants to do—all you have to do is get out of its way and let it celebrate…

I dance with ease and grace, as I celebrate the healing power of friendship.

The Gratitude Attitude

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“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”—A.A. Milne

When we hit a patch of road construction, do we protest the inconvenience—or do we find it pleasing to contemplate the smoother rides ahead? Can we be thankful—grateful—for whatever we are confronted by? After all, this is the hand we’ve been dealt to deal with… We always have the choice to transform that moment, with an attitude of gratitude—or to resist that moment and suffer accordingly…

In our using days, it would have seemed preposterous to be grateful for every single moment of our unfolding lives. We were in way too much pain, much too guarded, to open ourselves to the attitude of gratitude. However, as we entered the gates of recovery, we came to believe that to be grateful in attitude was to stimulate an immediate response from the world around us. Be grateful to the world and it will shower its grace back at you. We discovered that our leap of faith into gratitude was quickly rewarded in kind.

For today then, let’s welcome whatever we have in front of us with this greeting: “Pleased to meet you. How can I help?” In recovery, we learn to offer help and accept help as the currency of a healthy spirit. The butterfly sips from the plant. Pollinated, the plant spreads its seed… That’s the natural way—and the natural way is a profoundly perfect way for those of us in recovery, is it not?

Gratitude Butterfly

When we broadcast gratitude, life transforms before our eyes. What’s magical is the speed with which this transformation happens—because it happens with the speed of light.

The gratitude choice is triggered from the mind—but its current comes from the heart. In our using days it was hard for us to love—to come from the heart—when all we were really thinking about was ourselves and our next chemical hit.

The arrival of love in our hearts was one of the nice surprises for many of us when we began our recovery. “Love exists! Who knew?” we exclaimed in wonder to ourselves—as our wounded souls bathed in the love we could not formerly feel or give… To nurture this heart energy is to nurture our recovery—big time.

With today’s internal movement method let’s be grateful for our bodies, just as we find them in this moment… And let’s in the process send our bodies some loving attention.

Lie down on a comfortable surface. Put your right palm over your heart area. Take a long, slow inhale through the nose. Sense the breath penetrating with the help of your attention deep into your beating heart. Hold your breath for about five seconds, feeling your heart. Exhale slowly. Smile gently while you send the energy out from your heart to every cell in your body. That would be the energy of love, the energy of gratitude… Hold your breath after the exhale for about another five seconds, feeling your entire body. Repeat for a total of ten cycles.

It’s empowering to acknowledge that I can transform each moment of my life by simply switching on the attitude of gratitude.

Fear of Failure

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“There’s no success like failure and failure’s no success at all.”—Bob Dylan

Success is a leaf blown hither and thither by the gusts of opinion and belief. Success is a shape-shifter. Success is the canny chameleon, changing colors to match the melting rainbow of our desires. Ever-elusive, success mocks our vain attempts to possess her. One fleeting gasp, it seems, before she slides away again, beyond our grasp…

And failure, by its nature, is always yelping at the heels of success. Failure dogs and mocks our hopes. In our dreams, we can feel the fingers of failure falling on our shoulder—just waiting for us to stumble…

For those of us in recovery, it’s important to recognize the elastic relativity of success and failure. And we need to protect ourselves from getting too caught up with either the allure of success or the perceived ignominy of failure. For our sanity and our serenity’s sake, let’s stay modest in what we define as success and failure. Our overarching need is to protect ourselves and our recovery from undue vulnerability. The irony is that our fear of failing can make us more vulnerable—which can put our recovery at further risk.

Fear of Failure

We have seen how our fear of failure is a brilliant recipe for just one thing: more failure. So, let’s choose to face our fear of failure in the same way we’d eat an elephant—one bite at a time. Let’s face our fear in manageable increments. What we imagined to be a looming shadow of disappointment, then disappears when looked at in the light.

Over time—and taking it gently—we can recalibrate our definitions of success and failure. We can measure success and failure against our core recovery values and priorities. We save what protects us and exalt it. We discard what is destructive and stick it with a warning label.

Let’s take a minute today to reflect on a failure we are fearing for ourselves. Could we be giving this fear some undue power?

The movement for today is an old stand by for strength building—and is also a movement that lends itself to fear of failure. That movement would be the push-up. Any way you cut it, the push-up eventually becomes a toughie… The push-up dares you to succeed—while it waits to envelop you in a cloak of failure. The answer today, is to come close to the precipice of failure without making the leap.

Here’s the success strategy we will employ: determine the number of good-form push-ups you can perform with significant effort. Aim to hit that mark. However, give yourself permission to recalibrate success, by stopping one rep before you would utterly fail to perform that extra rep. Voila, you have succeeded in the teeth of failure…

Kneel on the ground. Place your hands on the floor at shoulder’s width. Raise your knees up and extend your legs until your whole body is in a plank-like posture. Keep your butt in line with your spine. Tighten your abs. Take about two seconds to gently lower yourself down until your chest almost touches the floor. Push up into your original position. Inhale and hold your breath on the way down. Exhale when you push up. If the full push-up is initially too challenging for you, perform the movement while resting on your knees.

It’s exhilarating to face a fear of failure—and win the face-off!

Quick Fixes and The Perils of Hacking

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“In the soil of the quick fix is the seed of a new problem, because our quiet wisdom is unavailable”—Wayne Muller

The notion that we can hack our way to faster physical transformation has gained widespread currency in our modern Want It Now culture. But, while there are undoubtedly effective hacks to be had, is the hacking mindset a safe one for those of us in recovery?

In our using days, we were bedeviled by our hunger for the quick fix. To lurch back onto the path of instant gratification—physically, spiritually or emotionally—could set us up for disappointment, impatience, frustration or irritation. None of these emotions are exactly supportive of our serenity!

The urge to hack for quick results is essentially immature—a product of the teenage impulse. We are creatures of the natural order—much as we try to wriggle and scam our way out of it… The natural order dictates a path for growth which, across nature’s board, is slow and deliberate. Consider how plants grow over time. Consider animals in the wild. Consider our own kind, in the earlier years. We see a gradual growth, a gradual maturing, a gradual strengthening.

Many of us, though, remained stuck in the house arrest of teenage impulsivity. We kept on punching and punching the quick-fix buttons in our play box. We stubbornly continued to trick and trigger our way into pleasure hit after pleasure hit after pleasure hit.

Perils Of Hacking

The hacking mindset tends to deny the need for consistent effort over the long haul to reach our goals. And yet, the Way of Resilience and of Stable Strength—be it of body, mind or spirit—is the deliberate application of time-tested wisdom on a daily basis. Let’s seek that resilience and stability and maturity of outlook, to better safeguard our recovery!

There is finally no magic fix to getting and staying stronger and more resilient. But, there is a secret: persistent, consistent effort. Regular, daily movement—however minimal—is a sure-fire way to maintain that all-important, multi-dimensional resilience.

Let’s buttress our recovery today, then, with some sweet and sweaty effort:

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Cross your arms over your chest and squat down as low as you can, preferably below parallel and eventually with your thighs touching your calves. Keep your knees from bowing in by aligning them with your feet. Keep your back as straight as possible. Come back up and lock out your legs and hips completely. Squeeze the muscles in your legs as tightly as possible for a second, relax and repeat the squat. Inhale and hold the breath as you descend. Exhale as you ascend. Do three sets of twelve repetitions. Rest at least a minute between each set.

It feels so good to be making steady progress with my health and strength, by committing to consistent, daily movement.