Mary Faulkner - Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag: A Transformational Guide for Living Happy, Joyous, and Free

Health Communications, Inc.

Deerfield Beach, Florida

www.hcibooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available through the Library of Congress

2014 Lee McCormick and Mary Faulkner

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-1794-1 (Paperback)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-1794-4 (Paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-1795-8 (ePub)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-1795-2 (ePub)

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos, and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 334428190

Cover image Heather Muro

Cover design by Dane Wesolko

Interior design by Lawna Patterson Oldfield
Interior formatting by Dawn Von Strolley Grove

ePub created by Dawn Von Strolley Grove

Contents

Conclusion

I f you have more than a few self-help books on your nightstand, why would you want to add Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag to the stack? One reason might have to do with the nature of self-help books. Many of these books have some good ideas, and they work sometimes for some people, at least for a while. Perhaps you got a temporary fixscratched the itchbut if you are still searching, you probably did not experience the healing you seek. Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag isnt about fixing or scratching; its about healing and growing.

Many self-help books, as well as most traditional therapies, operate from a compartmentalized mind-set. They isolate symptoms and treat them as being independent of one anothermanaging, micromanaging, and often overmedicating. They fail to look at a person as a whole human system in relationship with self, in relationship with others, and in relationship with the natural world. Compartmentalized strategies are focused on the problem and are organized around illness. They can be fine for a time for those seeking immediate help, but when the strategies fail to focus on letting go of the illness and old beliefs to make room for expansion and personal truth, their usefulness becomes debatable.

Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag is organized around wellness; it honors the life within you. The varied practices in this book connect you to your inborn desire for wholeness and your amazing ability to find it when you give yourself the right instructions and get out of your own way. Your desire to healto feel wholeis probably why you were willing to buy one more book and try one more time. That desire is your life insisting on being lived.

Put this book down for a moment and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths until you feel yourself settling in. Ask yourself the following three questions:

• What do I want or what am I seeking?
• How will I feel when I get it?
• Where in my body do I feel it?

Once you have answered these three questions, pause and sit with your feelings. Your answers may change down the road, but, for now, accept the answers that come to you. Then, after a few moments, ask yourself the next question, but dont attempt to answer it.

• What needs to transform within me for me to experience the healing and growth I seek?

Hold the question. In other words, simply sit with it in your consciousness without trying to come up with answers. When you move too fast, you rush to fill your own void, and what you end up filling it with may not even skim the surface. This time youre going for something deeper and bigger. It may take a few weeks or even longer to get your internal system hooked up to really be able to answer this question. During this holding period, your internal search engine will be gathering insight. Healing comes as you learn to be comfortable holding the space while an older and wiser part of you begins to build a new neural network that will take you where you want to goon a journey toward wholeness.

Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag launches you on this journey . Part One contains Lees story of transformation, which he wrote ten years ago. His story sheds light on his early recovery process and how his concept of personal growth expanded beyond the traditional models. Exploring recovery from anothers point of view is helpful for discovering what resonates with you and what you might like to try for yourself. Lees story introduces you to some of the practices discussed in the second half of the book.

Part Two offers suggestions for your medicine bag. A medicine bag traditionally holds within it sacred objects that bring about healing, and, while the information and practices were offering may not be sacred according to mainstream understanding, their transformative power is magical when they are approached with honesty and a true desire to change and grow. These practices arent new. They take you into the ancient world of the artist and the shaman where you can tap into the innate creativity of imaginationof dreaming . Whats probably new to you is the concept of dreaming your healing. As you learn to use your imagination in this way, you change your basic assumption from sick and dependent to healthy and free. You give your mind permission to do what it does best: to make something new for you.

We call this power of imagination the Inner Healer in recognition of its instinctive nature. Its already within you, and your Inner Healer knows what you need and how to find it. Your Inner Healer isnt limited by the constrictions of time and place. It is nonlinearliving the past, present, and future all at once. Your Inner Healer moves freely through time and space, healing the past and focusing you in the present where you can create your future with clear visionrather than yet another rerun of your history.

On the Road of Happy Destiny

Spirit Recovery is for people who desire more out of life and are willing to put more of themselves into it and live more fully. It is for people who are willing to say yes to lifeand sink their teeth into that commitment. It is for people who feel blocked by circumstances, substances, behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs and wonder if this is all there is. Your medicine bag will help you move beyond those internal walls and awaken your awareness of possibilities. It will help you uncover and recover your authentic self.

We each put a unique spin on our inner wall. Whether yours says Im not good enough, I dont deserve that, Im not worthy, or Yes, but its too late... isnt the point. They are all variations on the theme: Im not loveable. They stand between you and your celebration of life. When you make the conscious decision to quiet the self-destructive chorus in your head and tune into Spirit, you will discover your innate value and begin living the truth of who you are.

It Takes What It Takes

We each seek help for a variety of reasons. Often it will be one or more of the following conditions that bring us to the brink: intense feelings of emptiness, abandonment, shame, fear, guilt, loss, confusion, anxiety, anger, and depression. In well-meaning, but misguided, attempts to self-correct the conditions, another layer is often added to the perfect storm brewing inside us. We turned to alcohol and drugsboth the prescription kind and the back-alley kind. Or we made our own drug out of compulsive and mindless activities like shopping, eating or not eating, bingeing and purging, gambling, technology, sex, work, or (add your fix to the list). These distractions grow until at some point the cure becomes the cause; we feel lost and hopeless. What we dont usually realize at this point and what we are about to discover is that wrapped in that perfect storm is our perfect wholeness .