Thanks for Sharing Jackie Pack

In this episode, Jackie assembles her fellow female colleagues at Healing Paths for a book club.  They are talking about the book Burnout: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski.  This will be a 3 part series talking about each of the three sections of the book and how it is important information and applicable if you are a woman or if you know a woman.  
 

Before we began recovery, many of us had little experience of being part of a healthy family, of fitting into a functional community, or of living in a climate of trust. Often, from a very young age, we were denied the opportunity to bond with other people. These experiences carry with us into our adult relationships and cause us to close off or isolate.  The process of opening and bonding is a powerful step in our healing journey.  

In this episode, Jackie talks about the important role that responsibility plays in recovery and in our personal healing journey.  In recovery, we stop hiding from ourselves.  We understand the importance of examining our life, and we accept responsibility for everything in it.  We realize that a deeply painful past does not let u off the hook.  Nothing lets us off the hook.  We are always responsible for what we do and what we decide and the impact that has. 

Across world religions and throughout the history of human experience with the Divine, we find certain universally recognized strategies to nourishing spirituality.  While each person experience is unique, there are ways of approaching life that maximize our availability to spiritual presence. In this episode Jackie talks about some of the things we can do to increase our spiritual practice and to connect to something Higher around us.  Perhaps the real challenge in life is learning to love and to let.  

Each of us has the capacity to pay attention to our senses, emotions, impulses, thoughts, and actions.  We also have the capacity to observe the world around us: its beauty, its danger, its design. When we make an internal commitment to reality, we naturally want to become more aware.  Change can come about dramatically by paying attention and having the awareness of what goes on inside and outside us.   

In this episode, Jackie talks about principle one which is acceptance. A common struggle felt by most individuals who enter a recovery program or start a process of personal healing is learning how to reframe their life and give it harmony and balance. We have to learn how to dialogue with ourselves about past and present events in a way that brings freedom and meaning.  We have to wrestle with what is real and we have to make the choice to accept what is.