Passion of Purpose

Imagine if you had a magic kaleidoscope that allowed you while peering into it and turning slowly the pieces intertwined coming into focus to reveal a look back at your life as a series of moving shapes, and intersecting memories with flashes of lights, colors, and vibrations. As you turn the kaleidoscope, you notice your bodily sensations start reacting, your skin starting to tingle, and goosebumps rise on your arms. The hair on your arms shift, and chill sensations are prompted, as your senses continue to heighten. The more of your life that you see, the greater the depth of your gratitude. You start to actually FEEL the projections that you are viewing from your life and CONNECT with them on a SOUL level so deeply that the experience is intense beyond anything that you have ever known. You get drawn into the kaleidoscope as if you are immersed in it.

The kaleidoscope assigns exploding colors of bright lights for the most spectacular moments, sending wonderful vibrations and waves of love that surround you in warmth, happiness and joy like the softest blanket wrapping you up and filling your heart, the center of your emotions. These projections are so amazing that you have no choice but to open your heart to FEEL everything you have done that is good in your life, and for the world. This Kaleidoscope is the one chance allowing you to understand your impact, the footprint, that you will leave on the earth. The things that you have done in your life that were so incredibly valuable to others that they carried what you said and did for them, and with them in their hearts from that day forward, never forgetting that day, that feeling, or the way that you touched their lives. You would have never known this without it. You have become etched on these people’s hearts, and the kaleidoscope allowed you the pure human experience of witnessing it. All the trivial failures that you have personally perceived as making, you as a less valuable human being and have kept you up nights worrying… fall away and become meaningless.

This magic kaleidoscope is so powerful that the knowledge gained during this experience has the potential to motivate people to be intrinsically so much kinder, loving, and self-aware knowing that what people have done in the world made such an impact. But that it also has the capability to raise the level of the human compassion that has been lost in the world allowing people to feel connected again out of that compassion. Self-judgement, self-doubt and self-acceptance change in importance when you know what you will leave as a legacy. Incredible possibility…

I have this guilty pleasure for my Facebook page and web site that brings me the greatest joy, much like the magic kaleidoscope. I always look at the people who read my latest blog and click on their profile. I get overjoyed seeing that someone has read multiple entries because not only do they get me, and what I am putting out into the universe, but they get that message, and I am so proud that they had my message at that moment to offer them support. I feel connected to them as a person of humanity, and I want to make better posts for them so that they have the connection that I feel to the world, and the healing that they are in search of. There is nothing better than feeling connection to the world after you have lived your life in the dark.

I also like to know who is reading “my stuff”. A weird possessiveness for someone who writes blogs and spits them out into a void of blank internet silence. There have been times that I write and hear crickets so loud, that I check my computer connections for connectivity, and think…fuck…I suck so bad! But as I have gotten better, and applied more heart, and soul into my writing, people have connected with me, and the crickets have gotten little quieter. You just never know what might interrupt a person in the middle of scrolling to make them stop… take note of what you have to say and feel that blog in their soul enough to go to your page, and make a comment, or like your site. God bless Facebook advertising, or I’d be a 10 like page forever.

It’s never enough for me though. I want to know why they connected to that particular piece not just why they clicked the “like button”. I am often surprised by people’s comments themselves, sometimes just based on where they live because I don’t expect that from someone living “there” per se. Missouri, Alabama, or Mississippi?

What shocks me more than the people themselves is the judgement that I have made prior to even knowing who they are because I looked at a profile picture. I might not expect a black man to react to something that sensitive, or a white man to read that particular post at all. We as people all make so many assumptions based on pictures or ideas that we base on assumptions that we have from preconceived notions that we carry within ourselves. What we fail to do is recognize that our words in blogs are blind and transcend those barriers that people who stand face to face often hold against one another, out of fear and cultural biases. We often deny prejudice, even though we all have them-even if it is as simple as not thinking that someone has the ability to relate to something with a particular sensitivity. I try to imagine who the customer is prior to looking at the profile, to see if their words match what their profile is. It really never does for me. So, assumptions about people are just that…assumptions and are best left out.

My assumptions say quite a bit about me as far as my lack of understanding of different types of people overall. I lack a deeper understanding of culturally different people to some respect, but not for a lack of trying. I just have not had that exposure in my work or in my life to different cultures, even though I have studied culture, religions and sexuality in my advanced degrees. Studying them and having a greater understanding of them are not mutually exclusive. Although, ironically, what I write resonates with a lot of black males, and they appear to be very sensitive indeed. This was a true awakening for me during my blog, because I had in fact written my blog to cater to issues that I had only thought were problematic to women. My blog and site were started as a women’s recovery site and most of the people reading my blog were men. I knew my blog needed to change in focus because narrowing the narrative only decreases my chances of getting people who are invested in Recovery.

When I say women- I imagine middle-aged white women because that is the frame I write from. I had never imagined even the depths of my wildest imagination in pounding out those blogs on my keyboard and releasing them with all hope that they would in fact travel through the DSL lines at top speed screeching to a resounding halt and making such an impact to Dave Bob, or Louis. I just hadn’t…I’m really not quite sure that I had thought that out at all. I had been the only person who was limiting my capabilities.

As we grow with technology, we are coming closer and closer to achieving this magic kaleidoscope I speak of in our very own web sites that we develop by looking at a person’s personal memories or postings. Just as I pour over my reader’s comments like magic candy that I can’t stop eating, there is so much more I can learn about client interactions than just being a creeper on their page. I can click on their profiles to see where they are from, if they are married, have children, and other personal data that can be valuable to me as business owner if I ever have any intention of attracting advertising or selling merchandise that is appropriate on my pages. I can see where their friends live, how social they are and often now what political party they engage in, and even if they are Vaxers or anti-vaxers. If you want to dig you can certainly do that. Do you want to? How much data do you need to identify your consumer? New privacy settings on the iPhone may have sites doing the very things I’m suggesting because Facebook has done all of this from your profiles at a cost to the businesses wanting the data.

Some users post memories from 5,10, 15 and 20 years previous that Facebook offers as a way to cherish old memories that they have posted in the past , like a giant time machine of memories, it’s all there. The same can be said of your own website if you maintain those things. That is a wonderful way to appreciate all of your successes as a business.

I’m able to maintain patrons’ comments about my posts, and direct my traffic based on which posts are more popular and which are not so much. I can analyze their language about my posts and determine what they really feel about the content of the posts and if what they feel about the content is pertinent within the posts that they are posting. The comments about my posts have been incredibly positive, with people openly supporting one another and showing each other love. They have opened my heart and filled it when I have needed it the most during the pandemic, which I have found to be life affirming. It makes me understand that this is what I should be doing. I belong in this field, and no matter what happens, I have always done things for the right reason. People.

The other data that I gobble up like a Pac man machine on a dot fest is the data from the demographic that is from the regular users to my site and Facebook page. This data is valuable because they are the people who are becoming my regular fan base, and they like the blogs that I am offering. I am connecting with that group on a different level because they like to come to the site and read all of my posts, not just a daily story or a singular small daily saying. It is this group I want to build more of standing with so that they recommend others read and repost my materials that I offer because they like it so much. I want to build on this group so I can continue to have daily readers and followers. I need to continue building in that area just like all websites do because having a following is how you build a reputation, and how your business develops on the internet.

Their comments offer me hope for a future of what I am doing in the world because they are my fan base and seem committed to hearing the message I offer. Having people that come back again and again is rewarding and like the Kaleidoscope it fulfills me in my heart to see that the messages I put out come back with such rewarding comments. To me that is life altering when someone tells you that what you said has helped them gain the strength to start recovery, or to stay clean one more day. That is what it means to those who have decided to pick me now. The gratitude is instantaneous. Ironically, these are all women and have similar characteristics as me. They are middle age white females like me as a demographic. This, however, is not surprising because- that’s who I am. It’s not hard to write about yourself, or to yourself, is it? My challenge will continue to be reaching people who aren’t me, like the people who surprise me on my blog, or the people I have not reached yet. I know in order to do that I have to expand my mind, and my topic range in Recovery, and get outside of my comfort zone.

I realize that there are so many people who want the same thing that I do at this moment, because that is the current trend to own a home-based internet business, making millions!! (OK six figures). Who wouldn’t want that? It made me want that, but I also wondered if that was even possible when everyone else wanted that too. After taking an online class about building an online business I learned something invaluable. There are enough people as customers out there for everyone. So why my site? People are only going to want my site if I offer something that other people aren’t going to offer. That alone is a really huge challenge because there are literally thousands of websites, and they all have their own unique products. Most people sell services, products or items. I really knew I was going to have to work hard to get something worthwhile. I have a Passion that you don’t sell or can’t really buy…I help people with addiction, but I am not a counselor, so, you don’t want to falsely advertise something that you aren’t. I am in this weird space that I am an expert, but…I’m not…

Last July I started a website and a Facebook page because I was feeling what so many other people were feeling in the pandemic: ISOLATION. I am a very social person and have worked as a nurse for thirty-three years. There is nothing that can diminish a nurse more in the middle of a pandemic than the thought of feeling helplessness overtake you and swallow you whole. I have moderate to severe asthma and have not been permitted to wear a respirator safely in my job for the past few years. This was devastating during this time, because I wanted to HELP, but I also had to remember the seriousness of the pandemic and the fact that I could lose my own life. I have family at home that depends on me. Never did I ever imagine that this would extend into a fifteen-month stint of an inability to find employment because so many other nurses wanted out of healthcare and into at home positions to save their lives and accommodate their families. Every job application has been met or matched by hundreds of other applicants. I have felt diminished, depleted, and if the truth be told worthless.

Cleanlivinginrecovery.com saved my soul. Starting my website and writing again saved me. The void that I had thought was healed and I had recovered from was now gaping wide open. My life had again become unmanageable, and I went through a depression. I was never a full-blown alcoholic, but I did damage when I was younger as a binge drinker. I have toggled between being a food addict, work-aholic, shop-aholic, spend-aholic and self-destructive self-imploding enemy of me for years between counselors, school, life and raising my daughter.

The isolation triggered all of those bad behaviors, feelings and insecurities in me, so I knew that people with severe addiction issues like substance abuse, alcohol, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl had to be struggling. I thought starting a web site would offer the opportunity for people to journal, attend Zoom AA meetings, connect, and conversate in private areas to alleviate some of these same isolation feelings that they had to be feeling would be an incredible opportunity for them to do so.

All in all, I was correct. Addicts were struggling, not just because of the pandemic and isolation but because they had only learned one way to maintain sobriety – in my assessment. The addiction and recovery communities had failed people. In teaching people to connect strictly through in person AA, NA and IOP we failed to help them connect on more interpersonal levels, or even offer more technology-based programming. When the pandemic began there was a significant lack of alternative programming available, and people had to scramble to make it available for them to attend online programming which took time. There is nothing quick about IT. Everyone in America was trying to make a shift from in office to at home and it was the biggest paradigm shift in modern American history. We were not prepared by any means to make a shift that quickly in our infrastructure, or our mentality. For people who had issues with impulse control, and with those meetings barred in the pandemic, addicts relapsed in massive numbers. Not only did they relapse, but they overdosed, and they died. It was not fast enough. This was a devastating blow in the recovery field, and a setback to me personally in my heart as an addiction nurse in the recovery field.

People in recovery are searching for connection so badly that they thrive on those meetings, the handshakes, hugs and people. Connection takes so much longer for an addict, or people who have addiction issues because they have a void the addiction has always attempted to fill. A big empty gaping hole that they have inside that no matter how much food, sex, money, work, drugs or alcohol they shovel into it; when they wake up it remains and takes more and more to try to bury that emptiness. Once an addict quits using- that emptiness is more pronounced. Like a white tiger in the room that they can’t escape, no matter how they try. Thus, the saying, “fake it til you make it.” That’s an attempt to get past being a shell of a human to becoming a person again. Staying busy is one attempt to avoid addiction and emptiness. At least they don’t have to think about the hollow person they are, or the rotten shit that got them here.

This told me that I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to accomplish what in-person programming wasn’t doing. I needed to help people find that connection that they could not find in a way that they weren’t providing in-person: help people to work through the void with interactive work that will keep peer groups’ attention, and make people feel that they can build bonds with other people, or work on themselves in order to do that more readily. That second task being the most difficult because that void is such a pit of despair that it drives people to believe that their flaws so deep, beyond repair, that they are willing to use again to cover that pain instead of trying to understand why that pain exists or be alone with themselves. Self-hate is part of the emptiness no one wants to look at.

In the process of learning how to write a blog and run the Clean-Living website and Facebook page, I have learned several things. I have gotten better at website design, but my page would fare much better with a professional web page designer. I will use any money for my site in the future towards a consult web design team member through the Wix page I have. It takes me too much money and it’s not worth all my time that I spend ultimately, when I think I could spend a little more to have someone do that professionally and keep up with that for me. It takes me hours to do what it could take someone else an hour to do, and probably much neater for that matter. I need to keep up with blog articles and other items and let them do the web design.

My next pearl of wisdom, people are subscription-ed out. I think if you give people the open website and allow them access you will get more participation. Yes, .99 is too much right now because everyone is .99 cent-ing them to death. I have looked over my site and gotten a ton of email contacts, as well as repeat visits, but people in addiction don’t have cash. They are rebuilding their lives. They have ultimately blown everything they have on drugs, and they are generally in low wage jobs, especially just out of detox. Even counselors don’t earn wages that are wages they can splurge on. They usually work in recovery because, they came from a recovery background and want to give back. I can certainly understand that.

What has been valuable to me in Recovery from addiction are tools to rebuild my life, and tips to do that. In the times when your life is shit, it’s those people who have the pearls of wisdom, and the ability to keep it together, with humor that are the people who are the most respected. So, it would seem to me that my best chances for success are to offer people the best tips that get them through the worst times with grace, and something that they can buy to keep that they would use more than once that they would find exceptionally personalized to them or for them.

That’s when I had a plan come together about personalizing my business plan for my website. I have been investing in getting certified in Hypnosis Therapy. I plan to make personalized Hypnosis tapes, and group Zoom Hypnosis Classes. I also will do meditation and trauma hypnosis tapes that I will offer for individual and group work in house and zoom groups. I am working on the hypnosis scripts and will work to make audio hypnosis for Audible. This way I can have people purchase things that will be individually valuable and personal to them on my site, and more widely available generic versions for wider based audiences. This will include connection hypnosis therapy and addiction hypnosis sessions for smoking, weight, and other addictive behaviors.

I have heard other tapes and understand what is available and know what is incredibly helpful. I have used them myself and lost 65 pounds listening to hypnosis tapes during the pandemic, without exercising. I have tried for years to change my diet and stop eating white sugars, eat more vegetables and leans meats and have finally been accomplishing that as well as overcoming negative self-talk that I have struggled with. I have felt the best that I have ever felt in my entire life. I can actually endorse services that I myself believe in because they work. Working in addiction, I feel that this type of service, meditation, hypnosis, and calming services needs to be available at all treatment centers. So, if I have my wish, my services on CleanLivingInRecovery.com will become the norm in treatment so that people have them readily available to them as they are coming off drugs as a way to help them get through the Detox, progress through the entire thirty-day process and during their aftercare. I have a number of treatment centers in my area and can meet with CEO’s to offer my services as Zoom and in person Meditation and Trauma Hypnosis offerings.

Hypnosis is such a great tool to utilize, and I am convinced that it will be what bring my site the traffic and individuality that it needs to make my home business the success I have sought this past year. This is where the magic kaleidoscope re-enters my story again as my first Hypnosis Track on CleanLivingInRecovery.Com because hypnosis does use one thing to get you to the suggestive state of mind to make positive suggestions and affirmations about the behavior that you want to change and are successfully implemented. It uses vivid imagery. A good hypnosis track gets your mind preoccupied, and really drawn into a scenic, detailed, well-orchestrated scenario that takes you into the vison that you have created. Your consumer must relax, and be able to recreate it, and in their own mind just as vividly as you have described. So, the kaleidoscope is a wonderful way to start…

Today we are going on a journey…

Imagine if you had a magic kaleidoscope that allowed you while peering into it and turning slowly the pieces intertwined coming into focus to reveal a look back at your life as a series of moving shapes, and intersecting memories with flashes of lights, colors, and vibrations. As you turn the kaleidoscope, you notice your bodily sensations start reacting like your skin starting to tingle and goosebumps rise on your arms. The hair on your arms shift, and chill sensations are prompted, as your senses continue to heighten. The more of your life that you see projected, the greater the depth of your gratitude. You start to actually FEEL the projections that you are viewing from your life and CONNECT with them on a SOUL level so deeply that the experience is intense beyond anything that you have ever known. You get drawn into the kaleidoscope as if you are immersed in it.

The kaleidoscope assigns exploding colors of bright lights for the most spectacular moments, sending wonderful vibrations and waves of love that surround you in warmth, happiness and joy like the softest blanket wrapping you up and filling your heart, the center of your emotions. These projections are so amazing that you have no choice but to open your heart to FEEL everything you have done that is good in your life, and for the world. This Kaleidoscope is the one chance allowing you to understand your impact, the footprint that you will leave on the earth. The things that you have done in your life that were so incredibly valuable to others that they carried what you said and did for them, and with them in their hearts from that day forward, never forgetting that day, that feeling, or the way that you touched their lives. You would have never known this without it. You have become etched on these people’s hearts, and the kaleidoscope allowed you the pure human experience of witnessing it. All the trivial failures that you have personally perceived as making you as a less valuable human being and have kept you up nights worrying… fall away and become meaningless.

This magic kaleidoscope is so powerful that the knowledge gained during this experience has the potential to motivate people to be intrinsically so much kinder, loving, and self-aware knowing that what people have done in the world made such an impact. But that it also has the capability to raise the level of the human compassion that has been lost in the world allowing people to feel connected again out of that compassion. Self-judgement, self-doubt and self-acceptance change in importance when you know what you will leave as a legacy.

You have the kaleidoscope in your hands now. Can you feel it? You are able to see your life. You want to look because you want to know your legacy. Holding the kaleidoscope, gently you start to turn the kaleidoscope, and projections of good memories of your life begin to flood the kaleidoscope. A bright white light fills the kaleidoscope, and a baby enters the projection warming your heart, chills start running down your arms, because this is the day you were born and there is love all around you. Love and light fill this room, and you are held and loved by everyone here. You are pure, innocent, and beautiful. You have a beautiful life. Sunshine and laughter follow, children playing, laughing, jumping. You are incredible. Bright magenta and red vibrations of love signify people’s love for the amazing person that you are. YOU are filled with kindness. You see time after time throughout your life the times you put others before yourself and stood up for others when no one else would. You see just how appreciated these small acts of kindness are. You are loved. Warm pinks and whites fill the kaleidoscope. There is nothing that you can do that would make people not love you. You are incredible. You are enough. You are brave and your legacy is being who you are. Repeat after me: I am loved. I am strong, I am worthy. I am enough. Your heart is now open to love bringing in all of this knowledge that the kaleidoscope offers. It knows that your legacy is one that is good, loving, respectable and noble. You are proud of the person you are and will continue to be. You will always look back at the magic of the kaleidoscope and remember how incredible that your life really is. Life is fantastic. You now filled with love and joy as you come to the present time, and the kaleidoscope is filled with bright yellows and blues. You can color your projections whatever you want from here. You are filled with love. You are love. Keep love in your heart, gratitude every day and your legacy will be love. As the sunshine fades you drift off to sleep, warm protected, happy…welcome back, take a deep cleansing breath, and let it out.