Zen is the practice of being. It is about being present in our moment-to-moment experience – resonating and attuning to all the parts of ourselves and the world around us without judgment or criticism. This acceptance of the flow of life — the acknow-ledgement that what is, is — takes us beyond words into experience. Zen is at once the study of self and the letting go of our conditioned self. Zen is like a pure stream of consciousness taking us to the heart of clear seeing in reality — no filters, assumption, expectations, censors, or interpretations. A Zen approach naturally opens people to the full landscape of their inner world of emotions, feelings, beliefs, values, and the full breadth of humane experience. This, in turn, leads to creative ways of perceiving and solving problems, of being alive to our own experience. This ability is at the heart of overcoming addiction.
One day I walked into a 12-step group and said, “Hi I’m Charlotte and I’m feeling good. Life is going well, I’m excited about getting my first book contract, and I’ll probably taper off coming to this group.” What was the standard 12-step response? “You’ve lost your humility, you’re too excited…You should calm down…You’ll probably relapse any minute.” The obvious question that follows is, “What is a ‘recovered’ person?”
A search of approved addiction literature of A.A. and Al-Anon provided me with no definition of a healthy, mature,” recovered” person. One is always an addict, dependent on groups. and always at the brink of relapse if he or she doesn’t follow certain directives and trust external authority. It is heresy to say I am recovered, I don’t need a group. Personal power, competence, self-reliance, intellect, and happiness are also suspect. Most of all there is no room for questioning — the bedrock of expanding one’s mind and developing a set of internalized values that provide an inner sanctuary of personal strength.
How is Zen related to Feminism and Empowerment? Because Zen censors nothing and encourages people to know themselves completely, it is inherently empowering. Zen teaches us that we exist beyond the mind as pure essence, as part of the one universal energy. Instead of identifying with our minds, we observe them.
Feminism uses the concept of internalized oppression to help people realize the stereotypes, rules, and inhibitions that have been taught to us or implanted in our minds by social institutions, including our families. These intruders are not our essential self.
Both Zen and Feminism provide the freedom to explore our vast potential for human experience, emotion, work, play, expression, and creativity. We define ourselves from the inside out by asking, “What feels right to me? What fits with my perceptions, experience, and values? What are my talents and strengths? Who am I underneath all the rules, roles, stereotypes, and fears that have been implanted in my mind in an effort to keep me subservient or afraid?” Feminism is also about supporting equality and justice, thereby giving people equal opportunities to develop their potential.
Accepting all human qualities
Understanding internalized oppression can be a powerful aspect of reducing feelings of shame, alienation, and hopelessness, which undermine our sense of competence and put people at high risk for many addictions. When human qualities such as strength, courage, kindness, intelligence, competence, warmth, self-expression, nurturance, and assertiveness are separated out and assigned to fit with gender and racial stereotypes, everyone becomes crippled or limited. When we assimilate negative beliefs about ourselves and numb our capacity for expansiveness and joy, the resulting emptiness, alienation, and self-hatred often fuels anxiety and depression — which puts us at risk for addictive behavior. Being lost in an addiction sometimes feels preferable to feeling unloved, ashamed, rejected, or without hope. Naming and externalizing the oppressive beliefs can point the way toward freeing our minds. Exploring internalized oppression is best done with others who share our histories.
While it is critical to take responsibility for our lives and avoid using blame as an excuse for not taking action, it can be powerfully affirming to have the support of a peer group that shares our cultural and historical experiences. Some examples from my interviews: An indigenous Maui group in New Zealand was learning their native language, dances, and songs as part of treatment. One program for African-Americans had discussions on the legacy of pain descending from people brought to this country as slaves who were being totally alienated from their families and culture. A Native American group incorporated sweat lodges and other rituals reflecting their indigenous heritage. Gay and lesbian programs provided a safe place to talk about the difficulties of living in a homophobic culture. Women’s programs talked about female oppression, sexual abuse, as well as the need to stay out of violent or dependent relationships.
To bring a Feminist-Zen concept to the addiction field would mean to fit our programs to the needs of people, not fit people into fixed programs. This does not preclude organization and structure, rather it reflects counselors with open, undefended minds who are comfortable with differences — people who do not need to hide behind the role of wise one, teacher, or authority — people who are not afraid of true human contact associated with asking who are you? What do you believe? As a counselor, client, or peers in a recovery group, we often come together to explore the many aspects of addiction including the survival purpose our addiction had once served.
In an empowerment model, addiction is not seen as the enemy, rather as a survival mechanism that was often triggered in childhood. People use addictive behavior to ease pain or to calm down and relax. Neglected? Eat for comfort. Abused or battered? Use drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. Want to feel important? Deal drugs or seduce someone. Afraid you can’t survive without a partner? Hide your power and acquiesce to dull or painful sex. The task of healing from addiction is to validate the positive survival goals of wanting meaning, relatedness, love, and power, then find non-addictive ways to meet those needs. To do this we take the focus off the addictive substance and address the underlying anxiety, depression, abuse, feelings of powerlessness, poverty, and oppression that fuel addictive behavior.
What are we aiming for in recovery?
An empowering treatment program or recovery group would make available all models of recovery, encourage people to define their sobriety, and develop positive coping skills for living in the world. This could be anything from needing physical repair of the body, help with nutrition, healing from childhood trauma, exercise, education or solving economic problems. We would help people develop a discerning mind that asks the questions: Does this work for me? Is it helping me gain a sense of internal strength? Am I becoming more and more able to remain steadfast to my values and beliefs, even in the face of differences? Am I developing skills for living and for authentic relationships? In short, am I developing into a mature human being?
This leads to the questions: What are we aiming for in recovery? To achieve sobriety or to heal a human being? The two are intertwined. If we don’t want to trade in one addiction for another, then we need to move toward becoming a healthy, functioning adult. An evolved person will be uninterested in addictions because she has a broad repertoire of more interesting, sustaining, pleasurable solutions to life’s challenges.
On the right path.
Here are some fundamental characteristics of human development that lead to resilience, vitality, inner stability, and peace of mind:
1. We move from reliance on external authority to an internal center of resonance and wisdom based on observation, experimentation, and experience.
2. We bring fascination, curiosity, and interest to all aspects of our lives and to relationships. We are comfortable with differences, and are able to reflect on our own feelings, thoughts, and emotional reactions.
3. We take personal responsibility for our internal experience – we realize we create our own feelings of anger, contempt, and judgments with our demands that situations and people be difference than they are. We cease blaming or making p excuses for our problems.
4. We see situations and people as they truly are and make our decisions based on current reality, not our hopes that people will change.
5. We become increasingly able to attune and resonate with our internal world – including our thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
6. We realize that we are not our “minds,” we are not all the teachings that have been put there. We are essence.
7. We develop the will to do the things we know will help us feel stronger, healthier, more alive, and connected to others.
8. We develop the ability to sooth and calm ourselves when we are alone or with other people.
9. Our living becomes more congruent with our beliefs.
10. Our relationships become more authentic, trusting, open, and valued.
11. We are able to give and receive care, friendship, and support.
12. We accept the ever-changing nature of life.
The challenge of empowerment.
Living without a fixed belief system, goal, or agenda is terrifying to the ego-conditioned mind that equates thoughts with Self. “If I recovered using the 12 steps then it should work for everyone….and if it doesn’t, something is wrong…but certainly not me.” The ego wants to anchor itself to rules, beliefs, concepts, and expectations, then measures others by its standards. This keeps life simple – we fit people into boxes then relate to them from a one-up or distant position. Yet the freedom to truly know and connect with each other comes when we give up any fixed beliefs of what should happen. The primary question to ask is, “Does it work? When, how, and for whom?” This introduces elements of inquisitiveness, fascination, experimentation, and reflection which bring vitality, color, and expressiveness to life. We need to open ourselves to the breadth of human emotions, play with ideas, experiment, and discard whatever doesn’t work. This gives us a powerful antidote to addiction, which thrives on emptiness, anxiety, fear, boredom, and restlessness. Our inner world becomes dynamic and alive – we become friends with all parts of ourselves.
Developing a richer inner landscape
I have heard many addictions counselors say that when someone is coming into recovery, they must be told what to do because they are so distraught they cannot think for themselves. However, people can and do think for themselves when someone believes they can. It is a process that takes time, but it is the direction we need to take. When we ask, “What do you think?” or “What feels right to you?” we help a person develop a richer inner landscape that is at the heart of recovery.
Authentic relationships are a powerful antidote to addiction because they are a primary healer of anxiety. They sooth, nurture, and bridge feelings of alienation and separateness, thereby offering us a profound means to lower uneasiness and stress. When we create a deep level of resonance with another human being, something deep within us is eased and comforted. Empowerment and feminism are based on love, not fear, expansiveness, not contraction. While fear may jump-start people into recovery, only love has the power to heal.
The path of empowerment is not one of quick fixes, pat statements, and simple solutions, but rather it is a process that involves attunement to self, openness to change, and re-evaluation of one’s way of being in the world.
Trauma often leads to concrete, all-or-nothing thinking with a limited range of responses to stress — usually frustration, anger, withdrawal, and helplessness. The inner world of feelings and affect have been disowned, denied, diminished, or disconnected. We often have distorted reactions to current situations. Thus it is crucial that any model of recovery and anyone working with addicted people help facilitate the development of self-reflection, the capacity to tolerate a wide range of emotions, and the ability to bring themselves into current reality. We ask the questions “Have you thought about ways to solve the problem? What helps you to calm yourself down? What will it take to motivate you to do what you need to do?” People who are habituated to accepting the dictums of authoritarian parents and teachers may resist thinking for themselves, but it is a necessary step if they are to cease their dependant behavior, feel safe within themselves, and develop a capacity for handling life’s challenges.
From hundreds of my interviews it became clear a thousand times over: people develop addictions for many reasons and heal in different ways. The models and concepts are just models and concepts. They are words and ideas but they are not truths, or fixed objects. Just as the menu is not the meal, the 12 steps are not recovery, neither are the thirteen steps of Women for Sobriety, or the 16 empowerment steps I have put together. They are ideas about recovery. They are words written by people reflecting on their observations and experiences. So take these 16 steps, experiment with them, change them, skip them, or even write your own. Live in the heart in your own life.
*Charlotte Kasl will be leading a workshop Feb 16-18, 2007.
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