Serenity

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. "

I went to a narcotics anonymous meeting yesterday.
I think part of the love tour is learning empathy for what others go through and being able to start to understand what people go through on their road to recovery is essential to my job at the seed and to my life as a person who loves other people.

It was really intense though for a number of reasons and pretty much the whole time I sat there feeling like I was going to puke, and I like chewed my coffee cup to bits...but alas.

When I sat down a lady asked me if I go to this group often and I responded with "this is my first time" I didn't want to try and draw some sort of line in the sand and say "Ive never used drugs" because this is a safe place with no judgements and I didn't want her to think that I thought I was different or better then her, and she was so lovely! telling me "you are courageous for coming here! we love new people!"

I watched this amazing video this week on vulnerability and life and relationship and it was talking about how "whole hearted people" have 3 things in common, courage to accept who they are and to tell their stories regardless of the pain/success, compassion for themselves because they know you cant be kind to others without being kind to yourself first and believing they are worthy of connection with other people.

The essence of that is what I felt and the NA meeting and processing it now I really think that was a incredibly beautiful experience regardless of the anxiety I felt.

One of the things they value there is the anonymity of the program and I hope by sharing things here I'm not breaking that because I do so respect these people and have gratitude that I was able to see a part of their lives.

One man's sharing really struck me because he said something like "I had just accepted that I was going to be a homeless addict"
It made me wonder how many people I come into contact at the shelter who feel that way. and it also made me think how much more important it is to just pour out love to everyone everywhere I go.

I adore the self aware-ness of recovering addicts and how they fight vigorously to give everything over to God (as they understand Him)...something I strive for.

my therapist would love you guys

So sometimes I deciede that Im not going to tell people stuff and do things secretly but then it turns out Im not very good at secrets so I end up blogging about it.

Tonight I had a very intense experiance at the shelter and it really jarred me but it was so nice to off set that feeling with this lovely project.
I thought of this idea a few days ago and my co-worker Cristina helped me implament it!
We did it in the middle of the night (one of the advantages of night shift!) so the lady guests would find it in the morning. As I was buzzing around the shelter one of the women asked for a moment of my time, she is someone that I find especially intriging and she said to me "I just wanted to let you know what you did in the bathroom was amazing, I literally walked around it at least 4 times just looking at all the notes and my spirits went from here" she motioned to below her knee "to here" and her hand went above her head.

Mittens aka December

Because Brianne was in calgary in December we were able to take our twelve month project picture together!

Eyes Closed Aka November

Fall picture Aka October