I hope you had a peaceful✌🏾and fallish 🍁week as we remembered International Day of Peace on Thursday and welcomed fall yesterday.

International Day of Peace

According to the United Nations, International Day of Peace “is a call to action that recognizes our individual and collective responsibility to foster peace.” Peace begins with me. Peace begins with you. Nothing to politicize. Just…peace. Tranquility. Calm. Serenity. Be still. That simple. Breathe it in. Breathe it back out.

“I begin this important work by searching within myself for simmering resentments, judgments, and unkindness. With compassion, I forgive myself, softening the hardened parts of my heart. From this place, I need not wish for peace because I bring peace.” The DailyWord, September 21, 2023

I will be doing this as I extend and expand peace into October’s National Book Month when I discuss Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu and his book The Book of Forgiving. I look forward to talking more about this next week, next month.

Welcome Fall

And yesterday we welcomed fall. What took so long right? I mean, truly, the heat has been sweltering. I conveniently use this as a legit excuse not to jog in the summer. The truth is, as I get older it’s harder to convince myself to exercise. But…I’ve discovered something really hard and really rewarding that I absolutely love that is helping me reset my mindset regarding staying active. In addition to offering Desmond Tutu’s forgiveness book in October, I will also explore the idea of “falling upward,” a concept that Richard Rohr contemplates. How do we use difficult times, things, situations for our own betterment and for the betterment of all?

Recovery Month

But that’s October. We still have one more week of September, and so to wrap up Recovery Month and truly appreciate what it means to “breathe underwater” as I suggested in my first September post (and by the way, this idea can apply to any difficult situations/seasons), I am super thrilled to introduce you to Heather Ross. 

Heather offers one-to-one and group coaching programs that are family centered, science based, and work during recovery or active substance use. I especially like her “New Perspective on Enabling” resource. “She believes that parents have more power than they realize and the best gift they can give their child is a healthy parent.”

Today’s reading in Courage to Change, an Al-Anon resource, supports what Heather coaches, “I came to this program with a story to tell that seemed to splash across every inch of a very wide screen. I told it and told it, until one day I noticed that I was sitting in a room with others, showing home movies.”

“Today I feel happy to be there as part of the show, but my role has changed. I am no longer the martyr, bravely sacrificing myself to the cold, cruel world of melodrama. Realism has taken over. My role is important, but not unique, and I don’t expect to see it in lights.”

“Al-Anon has given me an opportunity to share my home movies with others. My situation is neither the best nor the worse. Although I am unique in some ways, I am more like others than I ever suspected. I will appreciate the sense of fellowship today.”

“…as we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and our lives.”

Heather’s story took a tragic turn when she lost her beautiful daughter Helanna to substance use. But Helanna’s spirit lives on through Heather’s calling as she offers strategies, solutions, and non-judgment in her podcasts, blog posts, and coaching and support groups. Through Heather’s own inner work and growth, she shifted how she supported her daughter and as a result, she and Helanna had ultimately restored their relationship.

Recovery Month recognizes all the bold people like Heather Ross who are adding new perspectives to the complicated conversations around substance use disorder by replacing unhelpful stigmas with more practical and compassionate strategies.

Peace to all.✌🏾And hello to falling upward. 🍁

Call to Action

Check out Heather’s podcasts. Episode #64 “The Difference between Worry, Stress, Anxiety, and Overwhelm” is her most listened to podcast. And Heather says she has a soft spot for episodes #41 and #77. In episode 41, Heather interviews her daughter, Helanna. And in episode 77 she interviews Dr. Jeffrey Foote, one of the authors of Beyond Addiction.