Introduction

If 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 fix—scratched the itch—but if you are still searching, you probably did not experience the healing you seek. Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag isn't about fixing or scratching; it's 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 another—managing, 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 heal—to feel whole—is 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 don't 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 you're 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 go—on a journey toward wholeness.

Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag launches you on this journey. Part One contains Lee's 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 another's point of view is helpful for discovering what resonates with you and what you might like to try for yourself. Lee's 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 we're 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 aren't new. They take you into the ancient world of the artist and the shaman where you can tap into the innate creativity of imagination—of dreaming. What's 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. It's already within you, and your Inner Healer knows what you need and how to find it. Your Inner Healer isn't limited by the constrictions of time and place. It is nonlinear—-living 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 vision—rather 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 life—and 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 'I'm not good enough,' 'I don't deserve that,' 'I'm not worthy,' or 'Yes, but it's too late . . .' isn't the point. They are all variations on the theme: I'm 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 drugs—both 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 don't usually realize at this point and what we are about to discover is that wrapped in that perfect storm is our perfect wholeness.

We are born whole and perfect spirits on this human journey. We are curious, imaginative, and brave—perfect even in our imperfection. Life can take a chunk (or more) out of us, or at least it appears to do that. However, in the face of overwhelming circumstances—both self-inflicted mistreatment and that which we receive from others—part of our spirit shuts down. It hides out and stays hidden until we get to a time in our life when we can heal from whatever has gotten us off course. The real gift of recovery is in discovering that your spirit has survived intact, whole, and perfect. As we come to this awareness, our hopes and dreams are energized and we are comforted in our serenity.

You Are What You Believe You Are

Most recovery programs spend a lot of time focused on the broken parts. After the initial healing, this focus tends to reinforce the problem. We need information to help us understand what we are facing and develop helpful strategies on how to do 'it' differently ('it' being life as we are meant to live it). We need help in discovering who we are—really are—beneath all the programming and adaptations we have used to get where we are.

Abstaining from our substance or behavior is the essential first layer in a successful recovery, but we can't live life from not doing something. Life draws us forward, and it works best when we are moving toward something that grabs our attention, speaks our language, and calls our name. Stopping short of finding our dream and pursuing it jeopardizes our attempts at sobriety, and, all too often, our best efforts only result in more best efforts. That's why Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag encourages you to find your thing—whatever that might mean for you—and go for it. It offers insightful information and practices for awakening the happy, joyous, and free life inside you. They are offered in the spirit of suggestions with the recovery axiom 'Take what you like and leave the rest.' As you will see, we believe in choice and responsibility for your choices as a principle of life. Now on with the story.

©2014 Lee McCormick and Mary Faulkner. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Spirit Recovery Medicine Bag: A Transformational Guide for Living Happy, Joyous, and Free. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.