LISTEN: Alan Kaufman ~ A Heartbreakingly Honest Story of Triumph Over Addiction
November 29, 2011 by Life with Direction with Sharon Quirt
Filed under •-Feature, •-VividLife Radio Shows, Addiction, Life with Direction, Personal Growth
Join host Sharon Quirt as she chats with author Alan Kaufman on his story, Drunken Angel from heartbreak to triumph…
Son of a French Holocaust survivor, Alan Kaufman drank to fill the huge hole in his heart, wrecking himself and everyone in his path. In Drunken Angel, the poet and critically acclaimed writer recounts with unvarnished honesty the story of the alcoholism that took him to the brink of death, the PTSD that drove him to the edge of madness, and the love that brought him back. With his estranged daughter as inspiration and two unforgettable mentors for support, Kaufman got into recovery at age 37, taking full responsibility for nearly destroying himself, his work and so many loved ones along the way. Kaufman minces no words as he looks back on a life pickled in self-pity, self-loathing and guilt, delivering a lacerating, cautionary tale of a life wasted and reclaimed.
In league with the handful of gut-wrenching, life-changing, and enduring books about the tortures of addiction, Drunken Angel probes the consciousness of an addict to expose the true horror of alcoholism. Alan Kaufman’s searing memoir is a surreal reading experience full of stylistic acrobatics that speak to the genius of a writer nearly lost.
“With an outsized heart to go with its outsized thirst, Drunken Angel tells the sort of truths that feel like myths and the sort of myths that feel like truth.” —Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs
“A great, amazing and honest book. An interesting life, a shameless sincerity, and the talent to tell a story are the essential ingredients needed to create a captivating memoir and Alan Kaufman’sDrunken Angel has tons of all three.” —Etgar Keret, author of The Girl on the Fridge
“As engrossing, moving and honest a literary memoir as one will ever read, Drunken Angel is that rare combination of aching beauty and haunting truth, all made vivid and alive with a poetry that is both turbulent and profoundly wise. Alan Kaufman takes his readers on a Jewish Huck Finn journey of addiction, regret and rage. With his immense literary gifts as a storyteller, he turns the jagged, jaded tale of his life into a true work of art, and along way finds the reconciliation and peace that made this memoir possible, and for that, we should all be grateful.” —Thane Rosenbaum, author ofThe Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke and Elijah Visible
“Alan Kaufman’s story is riveting: raw in its passion and lacerating in its testimony.” —Oscar Villalon, former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and board member of the National Book Critics Circle
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Metaphysics Meets Recovery from all Addictions
August 27, 2011 by Sherry Gaba
Filed under •-Feature, Addiction, Affirmations, Energy Healing, Forgiveness, Health & Well-being, Holistic Living, Insights, Intuition, Meditation, Personal Growth, Purpose, Reflection
When the movie “The Secret” debuted, it became an instant buzz. Everyone wanted to know more and more about this Law of Attraction concept. The idea is that everything is made up of energy and since energy vibrates, that means everything that exists actually vibrates whether you can view it or not. All thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that you create and put out into the universe is exactly what will be handed back to you on a silver platter.
If you are feeling positive, you will attract back positive feelings and the same goes, if we are vibrating negative feelings that, too, will be attracted back to you. Sound easy? Absolutely.
There is, however, one very important key element missing in all of this and that is action. That’s right, the law of attraction doesn’t state we have to take action, we just have to think about what we want and the universe will manifest that right back to us. Now for an addict or alcoholic, this is definitely the softer and easier way to gain sobriety. You don’t have to go to meetings, get a sponsor, read the big book, or for that matter do any work to become clean and sober. You just think, believe, and feel sobriety, and it will just happen.
This is similar to the instant gratification mentality of an addict or alcoholic, that if you just have this drink or take this drug, you will suddenly feel better. This was intriguing, but I could not fathom how just thinking something would bring it into existence, however, physicists or law of attraction proponents might disagree.
I became interested in the Law of Attraction and how it might help addicts and alcoholics while working at a famous Malibu Treatment Center. I noticed after the clients viewed the movie, there was this complete silence in the room and the energy of the environment completely shifted. There was this transformation that permeated the rehab and suddenly clients who had been depressed, un-motivated, and detached suddenly became hopeful, inspired, and suddenly eager to soak up everything their treatment program was providing them. How could this be?
In recovery, the belief is that there must be a complete makeover of your life, if sobriety is to be achieved. The law of attraction did not provide these tools, however what it did offer was the idea that if you live on purpose and if you have meaning in your life, you are aligning yourself with what the universe wants for you. Whether you call it God, universe, source, higher power, Buddha, or Jesus, everyone has a calling and a greater purpose. This idea of purpose and meaning in one’s life seemed to be the catalyst that was energizing these clients.
It was at this point, I was determined to find a way to integrate the law of attraction into these recovering alcoholics and addicts’ lives, and that is where the Law of Sobriety was incubated.
Addicts and alcoholics in many ways are looking for a transcendent experience when they use and drink to transport them out of the intolerable reality in which they are living. They are already on a spiritual quest of sorts by using mind altering substances to gain relief and to escape their very existence.
Some call it emptiness, a soul sickness, a bottomless pit, but whatever it is, addicts and alcoholics are missing out on any sort of joy and will go to great lengths to find it. Alcohol and drugs may provide them with a temporary reprieve, but it is certainly not the long term answer to the pain and emptiness most addicts and alcoholics feel on a daily basis.
Happiness is something we seek outside of us, but joy is already within us. If an individual is living a life of purpose and meaningfulness, then joy is possible. Once the addict aligns its energy with their calling and takes certain action steps to get there, then the universe allows the addict access to a deeper form of satisfaction that is un-available with the self destructive behavior that comes from alcoholism and drug addiction. This is when the addict connects with a universal life force and it is here that space opens up creating a life that is filled with harmony and peace.
This is the serenity the addict was so desperately searching for but always looking for it in the wrong places. All along, the answers could be found inside the addict’s being. He just did not know how to access it because the drugs and alcohol got in the way.
The action steps in creating a joyful life for the addict consists of living on purpose and with intention, living a life of value and authenticity, learning to live in appreciation and compassion for oneself and others, living a life of right action and the power to chose the right path, living with profound awareness and mindfulness, and learning to let go of resistance and attachments.
The Gift of Peace
August 25, 2011 by Tony Samara
Filed under •-Feature, Addiction, Energy Healing, Health & Well-being, Holistic Living, Motivation, Spiritual Guidance
“Many people have asked me for the meaning of Peace and how Peace can be put into practise in daily life.
I would like to share with you that Peace is often thought of as a state of non-violence. That it can only be reached through political means or by changing what seems to be the source of conflict outside of ourselves. I highly commend the wonderful people in the world that have made a difference in bringing Peace to the conflicts of the world but I believe that Peace comes from inside.
When we understand that Peace is a state of mind then we understand true Peace.
A good starting point for our state of mind to understand Peace – a state of mind that is often used to the turmoil and chaos that we are faced with, through the infliction of pain and suffering that we perceive as agitating the serenity of our essence – is to remember to nourish the body by not inflicting this turmoil and chaos onto it.
When we are conscious of what we do to our body, when we are conscious that every action that we take creates a momentum that moves through the body, then we understand that simple actions such as eating, drinking, walking, working, what we read, what we listen to, what we entertain ourselves with, creates a momentum that effects the body and hence the mind.
If we inflict pain onto our body by unconscious actions that violate the harmony of the body, that violate the temple that is our body, then we move away from the serenity that is our essence, the serenity that is peace, into a state of turbulence. This then becomes apparent and manifest in the world as a state of non-peace.
In this way, each individual has a great capacity to be mindful of every action that they are part of.
Be aware that what is not healthy for your body is not healthy for your mind. Be aware that if you are addicted to watching conflict outside of yourself such as the negativities that the media, films, radio and other entertainments often “thrill” the mind with, then it takes a lot for the mind to remember the serenity that is its essence as it spends time digesting through the many layers of forgetfulness that is caused by such actions.
It is our quest to honour our beings by nourishing body, mind and spirit with the purest nourishment that we know of so that we can cultivate, and not only talk about, Peace from within.
Now there is a new, amazing paradigm shift happening whereby the old sense of treating the temple (meaning ourselves) harshly and with a lack of consciousness, that our ancestors and culture in the past condoned as necessary, is shifting and shifting rapidly.
This means that what we bring to ourselves and to our consciousness such as foods and drinks, tv programmes, magazines, books, films, conversations and other such things no longer need to contain intoxicants that keep us separate from pure consciousness.
Please be aware that if these intoxicating aspects are used in a way that poison or damage your body or consciousness that you harm not only yourself but also future generations. Interestingly you also negate your possibility to understand that fear, anger and confusion are not eradicated through numbing oneself and that by nourishing yourself purely from a conscious space you help yourself to become more alive and create an alive sense of Peace deep inside.
It is time now to let go of any diet or other nourishment that brings fear, anger, confusion or violence into our body, mind or emotions by consuming only those things which bring Peace to ourselves and other living beings rather than continuing to cultivate the old paradigm within our bodies, minds and emotions.
I believe that Peace is generosity. It is learning to cultivate a loving kindness that brings well-being to our body, mind and emotions as well as to people, animals, plants, the earth, the universe – everything that shares this beautiful world with us.
When we consciously share our time, our energy, our money, our resources, in a way that is conscious then we respect others and ourselves and this respect prevents what feeds disharmony and conflict.
All these conscious actions accumulate so many beneficial and beautiful manifestations.
Embrace conscious actions.
Be generous to yourself and others.
Live a simpler, healthier, more compassionate and peaceful lifestyle for the benefit of all.
Allow yourself to share this Peace with humanity.”
Celebrity Rehab’s coach Sherry Gaba on Inspired Business
August 7, 2011 by Inspired Business with Michele Molitor
Filed under •-Feature, Addiction, Inspired Business, Purpose
Inspired Business host Michele Molitor chats with celebrity rehab’s Sherry Gaba on what Inspires her to be doing the work she is doing!
Sherry Gaba, LCSW, is a licensed psychotherapist and life coach who has helped hundreds of people cope with lifelong addictions, including substance abuse, shopping, gambling, food, sex and love, co-dependency, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, single parenting and divorce.
To listen to on demand episodes of Inspired Business, click herehttp://vividlife.me/ultimate/category/arts-entertainment/vividlife-radio/inspired-business-vividlife-radio/
Guru, Healer, Therapist or Movie Star – Are You Addicted?
June 20, 2011 by Ed and Deb Shapiro
Filed under •-Feature, Addiction, Insights, Meditation, Meditation, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Guidance, Spirituality
Rely on the teachings to evaluate a guru: Do not have blind faith, but also no blind criticism. His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The power of faith is amazing. Some years ago we were teaching a workshop in Plymouth, England, when a student eagerly told us that Deepak Chopra had ‘renounced the world’ and was teaching at the local Heart and Soul Healing Center. He was holding gatherings each night and participants were experiencing profound healings and personal transformations. When we went to meet the so-called ‘Deepak’ we discovered him to be an artful imposter. With his exposure, his followers lost faith and the healings and transformations stopped. This was a classic example of when belief in a guru / healer supersedes our own intelligence, due to the faith and longing to be ‘saved’. The real Deepak Chopra later thanked us!
In yogic terms the word guru means ‘remover of darkness or ignorance’. One of India’s greatest holy men, Ramana Maharshi, often said that the role of the guru was to push the student inside in order to see the guru within– as the true guru is within each and every one of us.
Yet invariably the opposite is true, as seen when a guru encourages adoration, dependence and obedience to them and them only. This is known in India as gurudom (as in kingdom) where the guru amasses a big following and sees him/herself as the ultimate authority but does not empower their students. The guru may even call their followers babies or treat them like children, thereby the student feels inferior and the teacher appears all-knowing and superior.
This can lead to an ‘enlightened ego,’ where one experiences all the wonders of enlightenment but the ego snatches the reward: “I am Enlightened!” Yet who or what is enlightened? This is not unusual, as the ego is subtle and seductive, and it is a trap when we believe we are enlightened. Those that say don’t know and those who know don’t say!
Similarly, many people go to every healer that comes to town in their longing to be fixed or healed. They believe every healer will be the one to solve the mystery of whatever is causing their ill health. We also get addicted to movie stars and their seemingly wonderful lives as a way of filling the void in our own lives.
Hence the scenario where we see followers becoming guru junkies, not just dependent but actually addicted to their guru, as if he or she were a therapist or movie star with the follower doing anything to meet them, wearing necklaces with the guru’s photo, and hanging the guru’s picture on their wall, but often only seeing them from a distance and knowing nothing about them. As with therapy where a patient may ‘fall in love’ with their therapist, so the spiritual student can ‘fall in love’ with the guru, although this is more of a strong infatuation. Many times female followers will fall so in love with the guru that they even submit to sexual abuse, and we know of gurus mistreating students in the name of obedience: if you are truly devoted then you will do this or that for me. The innocent student obeys, only to regret it afterwards and in need of therapy to make sense of it.
We have both had personal time experiencing the guru student relationship. In the late 1960’s Ed went through a classic traditional yogic training where obedience was paramount and his devotion was unswerving. “I trusted that whatever I was told without question and that if I surrendered my point of view or whatever I believed to be true then I would be a candidate for self realization. My guru once said: ‘True surrender is when you are right and the guru is wrong and you can surrender being right. At the same time I believed my guru was the incarnation of god. My blind devotion caused me to be too dependent on my guru and left me unable to function as an ordinary person. I even felt I was more special than others who didn’t have this experience, that as I had a yoga name and title I was so superior!”
We worship the guru as god and see them as divine while mistreating or denigrating others. When we were last in India we were visiting the ashram of a guru who hugs each of her thousands of devoted followers. When we arrived the guru was in the middle of a devotional goddess worship, where both she and her many disciples enter into ecstatic states. We noticed a man standing with his young child directly in front of the guru, expressing deep devotion. Soon afterwards we were all in line to catch an elevator to the residential floors. As there was only one elevator there was a long line. Suddenly this man and his child came right to the front. Ed pointed out there was a line of waiting people, at which the man retorted “F…k you!” Aha! The guru is divine; everyone else is not.
This is ironic because in India the most wonderful greeting is Namaste, which means ‘the god in me honors the god in you.’ Unless we see the god or truth in all people we are like a misguided missile. We limit our own growth and chance to be free. As the Dalai Lama said to us when we were with him at his residence in India: “We are all equal here!”
Many people surrender to a guru with a kind of blind faith, or without checking the teacher out first. Yet, would you marry a person as soon as you met them, without knowing them? Wouldn’t you spend as much time as possible so you know they are right for you? The crazy wisdom Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, said we should always be sceptical. Swami Satchidananda said that we should check out a guru just as we would check out a chicken before buying one.
Perhaps we worship a guru so blindly and surrender so willingly due to our own self-doubt, the reluctance to acknowledge our own understanding, insights and wisdom. We make the guru greater than we are, demeaning ourselves in the process. And yet the same truth that is within the guru is within us all. What we learn from the external guru is that just as one person can awaken, so we all can. Perhaps we need help, yes, but only until we stop searching outside ourselves. Then the seeker becomes the seer.
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See our award-winning book: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jane Fonda, Jack Kornfield, Marianne Williamson, Ram Dass, Byron Katie, and many others.
Our 3 meditation CD’s: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation, are available at: www.EdandDebShapiro.com
