Keep It Simple & Sane: Freeing Yourself from Addictive Thinking (For Readers of The Craving Mind and Healing the Shame that Binds You) - Softcover

Rogers, Barb

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573243574 ISBN 13: 9781573243575

Verlag: Conari Press, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Inspired by the 12step saying, "Life is simple, it's people who are complicated," Barb Rogers points out in Keep It Simple and Sane that it's pretty easy to tell ourselves lie upon lie as we explain away bad behavior associated with drugs, alcohol, food, sex, work...whatever, in an attempt to feel better about our complicated lies. And of course, we can't do anything to simplify our lives because we're too busy keeping up with our complicated lives, so we drink, smoke, or shoot, to seek release in inappropriate ways to relieve the complications. But we never do. Through the telling of her own story and those of fellow travelers, Rogers encourages readers to wait, stop, and hold the phone Start with Mentally Simple (the opposite of Stinking Thinking) and just do it. Start small. "Grab a mental flashlight" and follow her lead to discover what you were thinking and how you might think differently. Offering 24 simple ideas in four sections (mind, emotions, spirituality, physicality), along with strategies and exercises to introduce them into your daily life, this book is for people on the simple path to wellness, for people who simply want to take charge -- to change the things they can change, accept the things they cannot change, and learn to know the difference without an operatic, addictive song and dance.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

For a time, Barb Rogers haunted thrift shops, rummage sales, and auctions to find old clothes that could be converted into costumes and sold. Not a seamstress, unable to use a pattern, and without a sewing machine, she developed her unique way of designing costumes. Broadway Bazaar Costumes was born in one upstairs room, on the main street of Mattoon, Illinois, with 130 costumes and Barb's burning desire to succeed. It had grown to fifteen rooms of fun, fabulous, dazzling costumes within five years. A member of the National Costumers Association, Barb attended national conventions, competed with costumers from all over the U.S., and won many awards. But after ten years in business, she was brought down by a severe illness. Always the survivor and eternal optimist but unable to continue running the shop, she leased it out and found her second love: writing. Barb, her husband Junior, and their two dogs, Sammi and Georgie, relocated to a small mountain community in Arizona, where she could heal and write. In addition to her costuming books, Barb published several other books. She always held on to costuming as her first love. Barb died in 2011.

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Keep It Simple & Sane

Freeing Yourself from Addictive Thinking

By Barb Rogers

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2008 Barb Rogers
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-357-5

Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Keep It Mentally Simple
What Were You Thinking?
Don't "Should" on Yourself
Flower Power
Changing Words
Don't Miss Your Ride
Keep It Emotionally Simple
Fight or Flee
Unintended Consequences
Time: The Great Healer?
You and Your Karma
Living Inside Out
Keep It Spiritually Simp
Spiritual Clutter
Awakening
Wandering Spirit
Embrace Uncertainty
Spiritual "Tells"
Jump In
Keep It Physically Simple
Life after Life
Beginner's Mind
The Body
Relationships
Communications
Finances
Living Space
Small Bites
Summary
The Twelve Steps
About the Author

CHAPTER 1

Keep It Mentally Simple

A ring of the bell,A knock at the door,and life can change forever.

—Anonymous

What Were You Thinking?

We are the great thinkers of the world. By that, I don't mean that what we thinkis necessarily great, but that we think a great deal of the time. No matter whatwe are doing, the mind continues to ponder, imagine, ruminate, cogitate,consider, and contemplate. It is one busy little organ. Where do all thesethoughts come from?

As far as anyone knows for certain, you enter this world with a clean slate.However, more recently, I understand there are people experimenting withinfluencing the mind of a baby while it's still in the womb. They talk to thefetus, play specific music, even try to teach it ... as if this little personisn't going to have enough to think about once he or she gets here! I wonder ifthese people consider the fact that if the fetus can hear and learn, then it ishearing and learning all the time, not just when the researcher is speaking toit. There I go thinking again.

When we first start out, how we think and what we think about the world,ourselves, and others, is formed by those who are significant in our lives. Theybring with them what they were taught, their life experiences, and theirspecific beliefs. To fit into the community of family, we tend to accept thesetruths as fact. Why wouldn't we believe them, even when they tell us negativethings about ourselves, others, the world around us? These are the people whoare supposed to love us, protect us, nurture us, and prepare us for life asadults.

School begins, and we enter a community of peers, teachers, and discover thatnot everyone thinks like we do, like our family. It can be a time whenconfusion, frustration, and conflict begin.

Having spent a great deal of my pre-school years as a river rat, barefoot andfree, frolicking in the sunshine, splashing in the cold water of centralIllinois's Kaskaskia River, playing on the old covered bridge, it wasdevastating when I began school. I was not prepared. There were rules, so manyrules, and so many strangers. It was the early 1950s, and girls were required towear dresses and act ladylike. I had no idea what that meant. However, theystuffed me into a secondhand dress, white socks, and shoes. Accustomed to biboveralls, shorts, and pants, I ended up tearing every one of the high-waisteddresses at the waist by continually pulling on them. My white socks were alwaysblack because I took my shoes off every chance I got. I was more comfortablewith boys because they didn't mind exploring, defying, or getting dirty.

By the time I entered the third grade, I believed I was a poor, black child. Ididn't know we were poor until we lived in town, on the wrong side of thetracks. If I hadn't been so dark-complected, if my mother hadn't attempted ahome permanent that turned into an afro, if we hadn't lived in an all-blackneighborhood, I could have been white trash. Back then, that was a step up. Butno, I joined my ethnic community. The problem was, I didn't belong to theAfrican American community, and they let me know it. I was a girl, but I didn'tthink like other girls. I was white, but I didn't look white. The conflictbetween what I thought and the reality that was my life grew.

As important as it is to find your place in your family, it is just as importantto have a sense of belonging to your peer community and your ethnic community.When you don't have that, you begin to think something is wrong with you, thatyou are not worthy. From that point on, life becomes very complicated.

At some point we got a television. That was a big deal in the 1950s. Little didI know the impact it would have on my life. I sat mesmerized by the small black-and-whiteshows and the commercials. Fascinated by the products and ideas on thecommercials, I began to think. Who got to have those things? Why weren't we likethe families at the table eating a special breakfast cereal together? Televisionfamilies didn't treat their kids like I was treated. They taught them lessons ina nice way. There was no screaming, no hitting, no being shunned or locked away.They didn't tell them they were lazy, stupid, or ugly, that if they had a brainthey would take it out and play with it.

My mind told me that if we could just return to the river, to the simplicity ofour lives, away from strangers with their different ideas, away fromtelevisions, electricity, running water, flush toilets, I could stop worrying,stop thinking, stop trying to be something or someone that I wasn't. It was myearliest real thought of escape.

I simply wanted to put on my baggy bibs, feel the sun on my face, the sandbetween my toes, and watch the river flow. I wanted to go back to that placewhere I knew I was safe, where I no longer had to think about how I looked, howI acted, what I should be learning, and where I didn't have to care about whatwe had and didn't have compared to others.

I blamed my parents. It wasn't my idea to change our life. I didn't have achoice. They dragged me along with them, and my misery was all their fault. Iwould never forgive them.

It's amazing how you can hold on to a thought or idea for years, and let itcontinue to affect your life, keeping you from the very things you thought youdesired most. If the thought or idea stays in your brain long enough, it beginsto atrophy, becoming a degenerative disease that keeps you sick.

By age 10, the seeds of my degenerative disease of the mind were planted. Ithought all the time, and all I thought about was myself. What was I thinking?That because I was poor, I would never have those things that made other peoplehappy. That because my parents didn't seem to like me, I was unworthy of love.That because of how I looked, I would never fit in with others. That because Iwas stupid, I would never succeed. Any attention I hoped to get would be becauseI did something bad.

The only hope I had was to escape. The...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Conari Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1573243574
• ISBN 13: 9781573243575
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 258
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar