Being Healed By Our Compulsions

By Mary O’Malley

Author of The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Acceptance and Healing and Belonging to Life: The Journey of Awakening

What would it be like if your compulsive behaviors were no longer problems that you need to get rid of? What would it be like if they became doorways into the clarity, peace and joy you long for instead? This is entirely possible.

It is possible not only to release yourself from your compulsive urges but also to become free from the core compulsion we all have, the compulsion to struggle with ourselves and with our lives. And we are masters at it. I love to say that we are like little old people endlessly trying to unravel a ball of yarn and all the while we are sitting in paradise.

Your compulsion, rather than being the enemy, can be a guide through the world of struggle and back into a deep and trust filled relationship with yourself and with your life!

It certainly happened for me that way and for many people I have worked with over the years. How did that happen? You may know my story about how I gained 97 pounds in a year and at the same time was washing a lot of that food down with alcohol and taking every kind of pill I could get my hands on.

I tried to stop drugging myself and tried every diet under the sun - only to have them all fail. Was that because I was a weak willed ninny? No! They didn’t work because it is a law of the psyche that what you resist you empower!

But gradually I was taught how to be curious about what I was experiencing rather than always trying to control or change it. And as I learned how to be curious about what was happening within me when I was compulsive, my compulsions calmed down. For it is another law of the psyche that what you embrace ceases to have power over you.

So let’s take a good look at how we have been with our compulsions and recognize that it doesn’t work. 95% of all weight that is lost in the US is gained back plus some within a year and a half. Why is that? Because what we resist we empower, and because how we try to control our compulsions doesn’t work - not in the long run.

There is another way to work with your compulsions, a way that takes you beyond struggle itself. It is what my work and my book, The Gift of Our Compulsions is about. And now I am going to do something that I have never done in these newsletters. I am going to tell you about a CD set I just completed.

I haven’t ever done this because these letters are not about promotion. But these CDs contain a truly life-changing message, a message I want you to hear so that you can move beyond the struggles inside yourself into the joy of truly being fully alive that is your birthright! The CD set is from a workshop I did in DC last spring called, “Being Healed by Our Compulsions,” and it is a window into the incredibly healing experience of moving beyond our core compulsion to struggle with life by being present for what is showing up in our lives.

If it doesn’t call to you, that’s fine, but I invite you to at least contemplate the radical notion that your compulsions are a gift from life to wake you up out of struggle. As Stephen Levine would say, “May you be so blessed to come across something you can’t control.”

Why would he say that? Because control is an endless game of the mind, a game that you will never (thankfully) ever win, and because who you are is so much bigger than the game of control. May we use our compulsions to take us beyond the struggling self so we can discover who we truly are, and in that discovery may our world be healed!

~Mary

The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Acceptance and Healing and Belonging to Life: The Journey of Awakening are both available through Amazon, and are highly recommended at the kitchen table.

Mary’s books are both endorsed by Eckhart Tolle who offered the phenomenally successful web class with Oprah on his book “A New Earth”. You can sign up for her monthly newsletters by going to the home page of her web site. Each month you will receive a letter containing insight and information on how to stay in touch with your peace and joy no matter what is happening in your life.

Dr. Nicole Sundene, NMD is a licensed Naturopathic Medical Doctor at Fountain Hills Naturopathic Medicine 16719 E Palisades Blvd, Suite 205, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268.

She believes we should utilize natural medicines to treat the root cause of disease rather than just treating symptoms, as symptoms are a message of imbalance sent from the body and will persist until they are properly addressed.

For appointments please visit http://FHnaturopathic.com for more information about Naturopathic Medicine services.
©KitchenTableMedicine.com, LLC ™

How to Transform Fear

By Mary O’malley

Author of The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Acceptance and Healing and Belonging to Life: The Journey of Awakening

In his first inaugural speech in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt said “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…”

This was a profound thing to say given the economic climate of that time and was intended to shake people out of their focus on their material losses.

But what if that is not actually true? What if we don’t need to fear fear. In fact, what would our lives look like if the voice of fear inside of us couldn’t catch us in its web?

This is certainly a time on our planet in which fear is up big time - financial fears, terrorist fears, fear for the future. But what would happen if, rather than being seduced by fear, we could frame this time differently?

Rather than seeing it as a time of breakdown, we could see it as a time of break-through.

Yes, it certainly looks as though things are breaking down, but that is true of all breakthroughs. Think of a woman giving birth. It is challenging and it is messy and it is necessary for her body to contract in order for the baby to be born. What would it feel like to see what is happening on this planet as a time of birth, of going through the contraction of the birth passage so that we can emerge into a more aware level of consciousness?

The key to this birth is a different relationship with fear itself.

Let us go back to the butterfly story we explored last year because it holds the keys to the evolutionary shift we are currently undergoing. For our purposes, the caterpillar represents the old level of consciousness this planet has been living in which is based in fear and reaction.

The caterpillar is, for its size, one of the most destructive beings on our planet, and if you recognize that human beings in the last century killed over 100 million of their fellow human beings in the name of war, it is reasonable to say that we have been in our caterpillar phase.

As the caterpillar’s time comes to an end, it creates a cocoon, and in its dark embrace, the caterpillar turns into goo. Out of that goo comes a wave of what they call imaginal cells - the first appearance of the butterfly. The amazing thing is that the goo kills this first wave of cells! In other words, the old tries to kill the new. Such chaos! And if we looked at all the great evolutionary shifts on this planet, we would see that there is always chaos as the old phase is dying out and the new is being born.

This chaos of the goo killing the new cells of the butterfly causes these imaginal cells to come together into communities that begin to differentiate into the butterfly. This is the place where breakdown (the caterpillar turning into goo) becomes the breakthrough into the new expression of life called a butterfly. The butterfly is life transforming itself as it has done billions upon billions of times as evolution has progressed on this planet. The butterfly is a completely different kind of being than the caterpillar. Rather than being destructive, this new being gives to the world, both beauty and pollination.

I believe that the butterfly of human consciousness is being born - a much wiser, more loving consciousness - and fear is the birth contraction. We are in the “goo phase” where our fear-based perspective on the world is now coming to an end, and more of us are beginning to see the possibility of living from a level of consciousness that is as transformative as the shift from caterpillar to butterfly. This level of consciousness doesn’t divide us like fear does.

Instead it unites.

And at its core it deeply trusts life, so rather than living through fear and all of its reactions (that cause so much devastation on this planet), it lives from wisdom and heart. This allows us to live from the level of consciousness that recognizes we are all in this together and each person is a necessary and integral part of the human family that we are.

You are the place where this evolutionary shift is happening - right there inside of your own mind and heart. Life is asking you to relate to fear rather than believing what it is saying. It is asking you to move from “I am afraid!” to “That is the voice of fear inside of me.”

What would it be like in your life if every time you noticed fear showing up in your mind, you took a breath and came back fully to life right here, right now and said, “I choose to trust life.”

Is this a lot to ask our fear based consciousness? Yes! But fearing life comes from a misunderstanding of life. And trusting life comes from the truth. Life is in charge of life and it is much smarter than our little egos. It has created stars and planets and galaxies and waterfalls and ladybugs and you and me from light, of all things!

To trust life is to step off the cliff of fear and, rather than falling to our death, discover that it is our nature to fly!

~Mary

The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Acceptance and Healing and Belonging to Life: The Journey of Awakening are both available through Amazon, and are highly recommended at the kitchen table.

Mary O’Malley, author of “Belonging to Life” and “The Gift of Our Compulsions”, is offering a retreat February 21st – 27th on the beautiful Hawaiian Island of Molokai.

For our readers she is offering a $200 discount on this nourishing retreat that restores your joy, your trust in yourself, and your connection with life. Visit MaryOmalley.com for more information on Mary, and visit the following link for more information on the Hawaiian retreat Waking Up in Paradise Residential Retreat in Hawaii.

Mary’s books are both endorsed by Eckhart Tolle who offered the phenomenally successful web class with Oprah on his book “A New Earth”. You can sign up for her monthly newsletters by going to the home page of her web site. Each month you will receive a letter containing insight and information on how to stay in touch with your peace and joy no matter what is happening in your life.

Dr. Nicole Sundene, NMD is a licensed Naturopathic Medical Doctor at Fountain Hills Naturopathic Medicine 16719 E Palisades Blvd, Suite 205, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268.

She believes we should utilize natural medicines to treat the root cause of disease rather than just treating symptoms, as symptoms are a message of imbalance sent from the body and will persist until they are properly addressed.

For appointments please visit http://FHnaturopathic.com for more information about Naturopathic Medicine services.
©KitchenTableMedicine.com, LLC ™

An Interview with a Heroin Addict turned Psychologist

Everyone loves a poignant rags to riches tale.

We all want good to triumph over evil.

We all pray for those struggling through life that they eventually find their way. Struggling past insurmountable obstacles towards achievement is the all American dream.

In the case of Dr. Melinda Tyler, former heroin addict and sex worker, she has not only proudly triumphed drug addiction, but has become an award winning psychologist and professor, and is now using her personal experience to help drug addicts everywhere.

Every parent fears that their child will end up on drugs someday, and I have invited Dr. Melinda Tyler to the Kitchen Table to share with us the challenges she has proudly overcome. I hope Melinda’s inspiring story will help to create awareness for the signs of drug addiction as well as help everyone understand the true needs of drug addicts and what can and should be done in America to tackle this ever-growing problem.

Melinda, how did you become an addict?

I have thought about that a lot, naturally. My childhood laid a perfect storm for me to become self-destructive. I was sexually abused from the time I can remember until I was approximately 14 years old. I was self-destructive from an early age; I used to cut myself. If I felt physical pain, it helped the emotional pain subside. When I became involved in San Francisco’s punk rock scene and started working as an exotic dancer, I started dabbling in drugs.

I did cocaine for years before my taste in drugs turned to heroin. The first time I did heroin, I remember feeling so warm and secure—it was a feeling I’d always wanted and had never felt before. Although I had seen others become addicted, I was powerless to stop. It was as though I embraced that self-destructive lifestyle. I remember the day I realized I was a heroin addict—I thought it was a normal, natural course for my life—I thought I deserved to be an addict. I even accepted (and hoped) that it would bring me death.

What finally led you towards help for your addiction?

My first husband died of a heroin overdose and I found him dead. Our relationship had been mutually destructive but he had always managed to keep a roof over our heads—he was a functional addict. When Michael (my husband) died, I was devastated. I took on the guilt of being responsible for his death (we’d had an argument before I’d left the house that day). I kept wondering if Michael had really committed suicide and it tore me apart.

Within a few months, I lost everything—our apartment and all our possessions. I became homeless, sleeping with friends (and strangers) from time to time—sometimes even spending nights riding San Francisco’s Muni bus system because I had nowhere to go. I had worked as a high priced call girl earlier in my life—before I met Michael and to support my habit, I started turning tricks on the street. I did this for a year—living an absolute hell of a life.

Finally, one weekend, while I was staying at the apartment of a friend, I decided I’d had enough and tried to commit suicide. These were serious attempts and on the last one, I nearly succeeded and woke up in a hospital room after having been in a coma for the prior three days. While I was in the hospital, I met a man named Tim Callahan, who found a treatment center that was willing to take me with no money or insurance. I stayed there for six months—they saved my life. I have written about this experience on the Melindaville Blog in my blog post, “Courage to Change.”

What was the withdrawal from heroin like?

Heroin withdrawal is like having the worst flu you can imagine and multiply that by ten. One of the reasons why withdrawal is so intense is that through the course of becoming addicted to opiates, one’s body stops producing endorphins, which are our body’s natural painkillers.

These endorphins kick in more during times of exertion (such as when you are exercising) or when you injured yourself but they are always produced, which allows us to deal with the every day pains of life. Heroin is a synthetic painkiller, very similar in structure to endorphins, so your body stops producing endorphins when you become addicted.

Therefore, when you are going through withdrawal, your body has to learn to produce those endorphins all over again, which takes time. I have written more about the terrible effects of withdrawal in my post, “The Hell of Heroin Addiction,” on the Melindaville Blog.

Do you think that if you had earlier intervention for the sexual abuse that you could have avoided becoming a heroin addict?

As a psychologist, I can tell you that children are much more likely to respond to any kind of treatments than adults are because children are more malleable. It is hard to say what type of lasting effects the sexual abuse would have had, even if I had received help earlier. I believe if the problem had been recognized at an earlier time in my life and intervention taken, then I would not have been as self-destructive as I was.

Has heroin use left any lasting effects on your body?

Heroin, luckily, is one of the least damaging drugs on the body. It is not nearly as hard on one’s body as say, methamphetamine or even alcohol. However, the lifestyle is such that it is very damaging. For example, going into dangerous areas to buy drugs, sharing needles, using dirty needles, or overdosing are all more likely to happen if one is addicted to heroin.

For many years, when I was addicted to heroin, I didn’t have proper nutrition, particularly calcium; so as a result, I have had to have almost $40,000 worth of painful dental work. The other problem I am battling today is having degenerative disc disease, herniated discs, and arthritis in my lower back—and I believe both my dental and back conditions were the direct result of doing drugs for so long. I am very lucky, though, that I still have relatively good health and that my mind was not impaired.

What kind of help is available for addicts?

One of the biggest reasons I am writing my book is to increase awareness that about the need for free and available treatment—because so very few options exist today for those who don’t have money or insurance. And many insurance policies don’t pay for treatment at all. There are limited options in urban areas, such as drug detoxification or community daycare, but they are unfunded and inadequate. Recently, there has been a huge influx of heroin in rural areas of our country, which I wrote about in a recent post, “The Hell of Heroin Addiction.”

What kind of help do addicts really need?

It should be as easy to get into treatment as it is to buy a drug on the street—and that is the bottom line. Addicts need to have comprehensive treatment that addresses the root causes of addiction, which are multifactorial and complex. I was in treatment for nearly six months and I needed every minute of that time. Through the course of my treatment, I started cognitive behavioral therapy, group therapy, job and life skill training, and learned to understand my addiction. Thirty days and then back to the same old neighborhood is not enough to produce lasting change, in my opinion.

It would really be better for our country financially to address treatment rather than simply locking addicts up. The great majority of inmates of non-violent crimes have an underlying substance abuse problem that is the real root of their criminal behavior yet only about 10% of the time is treatment even offered. If we can offer comprehensive and truly rehabilitative treatment, we can go a long way in addressing overcrowding in jails.

What can you teach children and teenagers now to prevent them from becoming addicted to drugs?

I strongly feel that many cases of addictions are genetically driven; therefore, I feel it is so important for parents who know of addiction in their immediate or extended family to talk about those dangers with their kids. At some point, we will probably be able to have DNA testing to determine if people have an addiction gene (we know that genes are implicated in addiction). Early communication and prevention are key; this should to start in the home, and then be reinforced in school and in communities.

What kinds of signs should parents watch out for that may indicate their children are on drugs?

Disorganized behavior, drastic changes in mood or friends, problems at school, or children isolating, or stopping to enjoy things they used to like, such as extracurricular activities at school.

What can parents do to prevent their children from using drugs?

Communication is the best key there is. Parents are too often afraid to speak to their kids about these kinds of issues but this is so important. And again, parents should let children know about addiction or alcoholism in their family so children know they are at high risk for developing a problem themselves. Knowledge is the best defense, in my opinion.

What can President Elect Barack Obama do to fix the drug crisis in America?

Acknowledge that it exists and that it is worsening. And it will likely become even worse with the state of world affairs and the economy. One of the biggest reasons why people want to do drugs is to escape—and these are times that make people want to escape. President Obama needs to not only address universal health care, but have treatment be part of that care. There were so many times I had a moment of clarity and wanted to stop using—but I would become so frustrated at not being to find help—and after a time, those moments of clarity pass. In my Melindaville post, “The Woman in the Satchel.” I wrote about how my mother had saved this large bag of old poems, lyrics, letters, and artwork that I had written during my addict year. I came across letters I had completely forgotten I had even written in which I just begged her to get me into treatment.

How has this experience shaped your life?

In just about every way possible. Because of wasting so many years in addiction, I am extremely driven today. I feel like a woman who was on death row and who is now on parole. I want to take advantage of every second of life. I want to experience all the joy that had been missing from my life for so many years.

The biggest way in which my life has been shaped is in my commitment to my cause, which is to start The Melindaville Foundation, which will help addicts in the sex industry get into comprehensive treatment and from there, help them pay for college or job training of their choice. I am committed to the belief that anyone can change as I did if he or she is given access to the resources and help that I was so lucky to receive.

Thank you Melinda for sharing your empowering story at the kitchen table. It truly takes tremendous courage and compassion to share your story in order to help other addicts. I look forward to sharing your book with my readers when it comes out and working with you in the future to further raise awareness about drug addiction through prevention.

To follow The Melindaville Blog and read more amazing stories about Melinda Tyler’s challenges around overcoming heroin addiction, stop by her website and subscribe. The most important thing parents can do NOW is focus on prevention and early recognition of the signs and symptoms of substance abuse.

Related Reading: “How to Keep Kids off Drugs,” “Natural Healing from Meth Abuse.”

Dr. Nicole Sundene, NMD is a licensed Naturopathic Medical Doctor at Fountain Hills Naturopathic Medicine 16719 E Palisades Blvd, Suite 205, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268.

She believes we should utilize natural medicines to treat the root cause of disease rather than just treating symptoms, as symptoms are a message of imbalance sent from the body and will persist until they are properly addressed.

For appointments please visit http://FHnaturopathic.com for more information about Naturopathic Medicine services.
©KitchenTableMedicine.com, LLC ™