Blog Posts from Karen Casey

Circle of Family and Friends - You and Your Personal Community, Reflections in the Mirror - You and Yourself

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December 25, 2014

Defining our boundaries, AND THEN LIVING ACCORDINGLY, cultivates peace of mind.

In a response I received from an earlier post, a request was made for my thoughts on boundaries. This topic has been rolling around in my mind ever since. I've found myself questioning what it is that I really believe. What does my own behavior reflect? It's a word that I use often, particularly when talking to sponsees or other friends. You hear the word in 12 step meetings quite often. Establishing good boundaries, i.e.., lines not to be crossed, when it comes to certain people, subjects or activities, makes for an honest interchange of ideas and mo[...]

Reflections in the Mirror - You and Yourself

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December 9, 2014

I’m in a quandary. Sort of . . .

I have a doggone good life. I have a great profession that has blessed me in so many ways. How many of us actually get to spend our lives doing what brings us pleasure every day? I am one of those individuals. Shortly after finishing my Ph.D. in 1979, my husband and I had dinner with friends who asked me what I hoped to do now that I was done. I had taught at the University of Minnesota throughout the time I was in graduate school, and I was eager for a change. I surprised myself when I said I want to write. Just over three years later I published m[...]

What I Believe - You and Your Higher Power

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November 28, 2014

Every encounter is a Holy encounter.

I love this statement because it leaves no room for hedging your bets. It's a truth that simply is. No one who passes before you does so in a meaningless way. Each person is a blessing. Pure and simple. And we don't have to believe this for it to be true. That's the best part! A great exercise for anyone of us is to take an inventory of all those people we have encountered in the last week. Try to list them all first. Some of course are family members. Some are colleagues at work. Strangers are no doubt the biggest category but try to recall[...]

Circle of Family and Friends - You and Your Personal Community, Reflections in the Mirror - You and Yourself

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November 20, 2014

We get just what we need. Really?

How many times have I repeated this phrase to a friend, a sponsee, a family member? More times than I can count. And I believe it. For them. And occasionally for me too. However, I am struggling with a situation currently that I am not ready to embrace as something I need. I know what I need to do. Darn it! I need to be grateful for it, for the lesson it is offering me, and for the growth that's promised as the result of the situation. But right now, I want to resist. I want to make someone else responsible. I want to say, "Not fair. I don'[...]

Karen's Musings, Reflections in the Mirror - You and Yourself

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November 11, 2014

Resilience is a time honored trait.

Resilience is a compelling trait. It’s standing tall rather than hanging our heads and shuffling away when the invitation to give up beckons. Resilience is saying, “Yes I can,” in the presence of those who doubt us. And it’s never succumbing to the forces of defeat that may be all around us. Being resilient in the face of humiliation, or rage, or degradation, or fear of defeat, or just simply indefinable fear is the fabric of eventual success. Rebounding or recovering from the many personal insults, whether they are large or small, overt or covert[...]

What I Believe - You and Your Higher Power

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November 3, 2014

Step Eleven: a pathway to peace.

Step Eleven softens my heart every time it’s the topic of discussion in one of my meetings. That wasn’t the case when I first got sober however; it wasn’t the case for the first year or two. Not because I didn’t believe in the possibility of the power of prayer or meditation; but because I had never tried it before walking into AA. And then when I did, I simply couldn’t sustain conscious contact when I did try. Nor could I fathom what God’s will for me might be. Actually, I had never ever considered the concept that God might have a plan for[...]

Karen's Musings, Reflections in the Mirror - You and Yourself

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October 27, 2014

Growth requires that we remain teachable.

I have never fallen away from my 12 step meetings. In fact, I go to more meetings a week now than I did when I first came into the program. Because I attend both AA and Al-Anon, I usually get to five meetings a week. Some might think that at 38 years sober, five meetings is overkill. On the contrary, I think that the more we get to, the greater will be our joy and peace of mind. It's joy and peace that call to me, every day. I know how to find it. I know how to help others find it too. I am willing to do whatever I need to do to continue growing.[...]

Karen's Musings, Reflections in the Mirror - You and Yourself

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October 13, 2014

When the unexpected happens. . .

I got an email this morning from one of my frequent blog post readers. She brought to my attention that my website had disappeared. How very fortunate that she and I had written to each other directly on occasion which made it possible for her to reach out to me with this information. You might imagine my first reaction. Yikes. What to do next. What I discovered when I went to the sight was that my domain name had expired thus I had been shut out. How to remedy the situation was above my pay grade. The primary reason this was initially troubling w[...]

Circle of Family and Friends - You and Your Personal Community

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October 8, 2014

Remaining enthusiastic becomes a choice . . . doesn’t it?

I think enthusiasm for some element in our life is the key to having the desire to get up everyday. And as the years pass, particularly as we enter what for me has become the final stage of life, I know I must have passion for doing something not attempted before or working to enhance a skill already present to keep my enthusiasm churning. I can’t simply do over and over again what I have already done so many times before. This doesn’t mean that what I have spent my life doing has lost its value. On the contrary. It only means that at some point, ent[...]

Circle of Family and Friends - You and Your Personal Community

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September 23, 2014

Taking stock, measuring up.

Probably everyone reading this post has made a lot of mistakes over the years. Life isn’t always pretty, at least mine wasn’t. It’s not expected to be, in fact, but far too many of us never quit blaming ourselves for mistakes of the past. For some of us every mistake became a tragedy of epic proportions, even when that wasn’t the case. And most often it wasn’t the case. Many mistakes were simply pebbles on the learning curve of life. Pebbles that might have tripped us, but certainly not big enough pebbles to throw our entire life into a shadow[...]