Carole- Moving into our first talk I want to say to Ken and Mary from all continents- the North, South and Central Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia representing at my last count 55 countries identified by their codependence on their journey of recovery that will be joining us today. We would like to warmly welcome you with gratitude for CoDA, its foundation and the topics you will share with us today. Ken and Mary. Ken- Thank you Carole and thank you all. We are so grateful for all of you joining us today. My name is Ken and I am a grateful recovering codependent. Mary- My name is Mary and I am also a grateful recovering codependent. Thank you Carole. We want to welcome all of you to this global conversation. We are happy to be here and so grateful to all of the CoDA members who are helping with this event. Carole, you and the world events committee, all the interpreters, and all the behind the scenes CoDA members. This would be impossible without everybody working together and thank you. You are giving a loving service to us and we are so grateful. So let’s begin. Ken is going to start us off with a reading of Chapter 2 out of the Blue Book. Ken- As I read the interpreters are going to be reading at the same time. For many of us fear is our guardian; it helps protect us from harm. As codependents, we habitually use fear to protect ourselves from any opportunity of being shamed by others. Our fear may be cloaked in anger or resentment, rage, pain, or loneliness. Oftentimes our passivity, silence, manipulation,isolation, rage, violence, denial or even deceit are our expressions of fear. Others feelings that show up as fear maybe: concern, anxiety, nervousness, and feeling uptight or scared. In my recovery I have come to learn that there are really only 2 consciousnesses and I believe that those are both love and fear. Interesting enough that fear isn't even real, it is a story that I create in my head about how bad something may be. It is a story that I tell myself about the future, it is never about the here and now. So I scare myself about what may happen in the future, whether that might be about something happening tomorrow, the day after or next week. But it isn’t actually happening. But I still feel the fear that leaves me in the here and now feeling pretty terrible and I’ve come to learn that “you” don’t scare me, I may scare myself about you. In my codependence I would blame others for scaring me. But the fact was that I was scaring myself in response to you. It came from being hurt, shamed and terrified at various times as a child. That fear became normal and I would use it to try to protect myself from bad things happening again. Only I couldn’t really tell anyone that I was afraid, so I covered my fear up with avoidance, and with anger, and with rage in an attempt to not be hurt, abandoned or shamed one more time. It was all about protection. Always on guard, always hypervigilant, always trying to stay one step ahead of ‘you’, so fear became my salvation and I would use it in place of faith. So, rather than trusting in a loving higher power, I would trust in fear and the stories I made up in my head about what you would say or do. But if you asked me how I was doing or feeling, I would say ‘fine’ because telling you I was afraid was way too vulnerable. And so with that I am going to pass onto Mary. Mary- So this next part will be read simultaneously with our interpreters. In Chapter 5 commonly asked questions of the Blue Book. Fear of shame is our fear of being shamed again by our boss, mate, family members, friends or parents. It has much greater control of our lives than shame itself. We may be afraid to hear about our mistakes or shortcomings and, in turn, become defensive or critical, possibly avoiding or lying about a situation. We become terrified of being discounted or abandoned. We control others out of fear of their disappointment or anger with us. The shame we fear mist is the same type of shame we experienced in our childhood. I know for myself the fear of shame would take me into a regressed childhood state. Even as an adult I would live my life as that child or that teen. I would become controlling in my caretaking. Rather than trying to fix your feelings or by fixing your feelings by doing for you. In that fear of shame I would become a chameleon and I would try to be what you wanted me to be. As Ken was saying when we are shamed, or hurt, or abused, or frightened when that happens over and over again, 365 days over 18-19 years of my life, I developed the habit of trying to control the fear of shame. All of our CoDA patterns and characteristics come from fear, come from trying to survive life, not because we were bad people but because we were afraid. So much of my life I medicated my fear through my codependent patterns, through drugs and alcohol, through eating disorders, through lots of addictions and compulsions. All trying to medicate the fear of my codependence. For me that was a painful way to live but it kept me alive, and today my codependence recovery gives me life. So I am going to turn this back over to Ken. Ken- I am still Ken and I am still a grateful codependent. So I am going to read once again from Chapter 2 Our Spiritual Dilemma from the CoDA Blue Book. Our answers to the following questions can help us determine how we have looked to other people or addictions for our emotional well-being. Do I control others to relieve my fears Do I let others control me for fear of their abuse or neglect Do I adapt or change my behavior for others Do I validate my value and worth as a person through them Do I avoid others in order to feel safe In reading through these questions it really gave me time to consider my own codependence recovery and my progress in the healing of fear and fearing in this world. I came to CoDA as a recovering addict, alcoholic and rager. And I recognized early on that fear is the core of all codependence. And even Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous 87 years ago knew this. He understood that fear was the core emotion behind all alcoholism and that our spiritual dilemma was the struggle between faith and fear. So I consider the questions that I just read. Do I control others to relieve my fears? I certainly have much of my life, and as well controlling myself by scaring myself. I have come to believe that fear and powerlessness is the same thing. Fear leaves me powerless and control gives me the illusion of being powerful. If I can control, manage and manipulate or whatever others, maybe I won't be hurt , or shamed, or discounted, or judged one more time. And though I have been addicted to other substances and behaviours, fear was the most difficult and the most powerful of all for me to develop a recovery program for. And obviously that program was CoDA. Each of these questions are about fear. The one that stands out for me is #4. Do I validate my value and worth as a person through them? If I give that power over to you, I am giving you the power to validate my value, my worth, my well-being, my happiness. Which means I give you the power of God. As a recovering addict and alcoholic I gave the power over to drinks and drugs. As a Codependent I gave my power over to fear and shame and transferred it over to you. In my recovery today I give my power, well-being and happiness over to God and not to Mary. It was a difficult situation to learn that Mary is not my happiness. And she is not the source of my fear. My happiness is how I choose to respond to Mary. Back in the day if Mary was upset my fear would kick in. It meant God was not happy with me. So I had to control, manage and manipulate to make her OK. Because if she were OK then I was OK. Which was a terrible burden that I placed on Mary. I would avoid or control because if I avoided you, you could not hurt me. And I would go to great lengths to avoid the hurt let alone let you see it. I had to be powerful and control the circumstances and if I could not then I would run. And with that I am going to pass it back to Mary. Mary- From the CoDA Blue Book. Codependence is a disease that deteriorates our souls. We now know that the journey from fear to love is a spiritual path. What is loveHere are some dictionary definitions. One a profoundly tender, passionate affection. A feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection. The act of being loving is feeling, or showing love or great care. Warmly affectionate. I love these statements from the CoDA Blue Book. That Codependence is a disease that deteriorates our souls. Ken was talking about how he would make me his Higher Power out of fear. I would also do the same with him. Codependence has been referred to as a conflict in Gods. Meaning I will make Ken my God, I will make fear my God, I will make shame my God, I will make everybody and everything my God out of my fear and shame. When that happens my soul does deteriorate. I move into profound self abandonment. And I lose myself over and over again. In CoDA I learn to find myself. I have learned to love myself. I have learned to have a profoundly tender, passionate, affectionation for myself. And with Ken I have been able to have a profoundly tender, passionate, affectionation for him. My codependence kept me from being able to truly love. Fear was my God. And in that fear it blocked all love from flowing and coming through me. I can remember way way back before any recovery, reading, not reading, looking at a book called How to be Your Own Best Friend. Before recovery the idea of that terrified me. As much as I wanted it I didn’t believe it was possible. The love that I have found for myself for Ken and for my Higher Power and for you has come from my codependence recovery. Today with a grateful heart I can truly love. Life has changed dramatically since my codependence recovery began and I am not the same person. My soul no longer deteriorates, instead it evolves and flourishes with love. And now I turn it over to Ken . Ken- I am going to read simultaneously with our interpreters from Chapter 2 Our Spiritual Dilemma from our CoDA Blue Book. In CoDA, we learn that our self-worth and well-being come from our Higher Power. We learn to love ourselves as a loving Higher Power loves us, then we can begin to love others. I had heard throughout most of my life that I really can't love others until I learn to love myself. Until CoDA recovery I really did not know what that meant. Early on in our CoDA recovery, before Codependent Anonymous existed, and early on before coming to work in this field, Mary and I had done about 2 and a half years of in depth therapy. Mary’s therapy, my therapy and our therapy every week. And one of the most difficult things that our therapist got me to do was to take my eyes, my focus, my attention off of Mary. She practically yelled at me one day, “She is none of your business!” and Mary lit up. But it left me with the awareness that it’s only me. It’s only me and God. And that I didn’t have really good feelings about me and I really didn’t trust God. And I was left with, umm, let me rephrase this. Without my attention on others I was left with my attention on me and the growing awareness of how much I disliked me, I shamed me and I scared me a lot. I had done some inner child work as part of my own therapy about 40 years ago. Before Inner Child work was a new and popular form of healing and change. So I knew this child was part of who I was but I didn’t know how to love him. Early on in this industry it was popular to put people into visualization of their inner children. But it also left those people with immediately experiencing and going back to their traumas that the child carries. So we had to learn that before experiencing the child’s trauma that we may each carry. I had to develop a loving self parent to be there for that child. Because for that child this loving parent is all I had. And developing a loving relationship with myself has come through the relationship between my child and me, the loving parent. And to begin to love and adore who I am as a beautiful creation of God just like we all are. So I had to learn how to stop the internal critical inner parent who was shaming and judging me. Those voices that say things like “You screwed it up again! What is wrong with you? Are you ever going to get it right? You don’t matter.” Those voices that said “Don’t be yourself. Don’t be authentic.” So through step work I really focussed on growing this self parent. And to practice talking with myself with love and affection, and boundaries and tough love, but loving discipline, not judgment, criticism and shame. I was given an assignment early on, it’s called mirror work and I had to stand in front of the mirror everyday and to talk through my heart and eyes into the heart and eyes of the man who I saw in the mirror with love and care and compassion. It took me about 30 days. I wouldn’t stop long enough to make that connection from my heart through my eyes to the heart and eyes of a man. Because a part of me knew the pain that that would bring. So I’d walk through the bathroom very fast, glance into the mirror and go “I sure love you!” and then run. Until one day I made the connection and the tears started to come. And almost 40 years of tears came. And I got to hold that little boy and love him like no one else had. So today in my recovery it is my ‘parent’ who is responsible for my self-love and self-care and self-esteem, and self-respect, and self-integrity. The key word always being self. As a codependent I always looked to you, and to others, and job and work etc for all those things. Because I am all I have. You can’t give it to me. Self-esteem has to come from self. So today I continue to practice a loving relationship with myself and with God which allows me to love and adore Mary. Which I never thought possible. Let alone being together for 39 years because of codependence recovery. And with that I will pass. Mary- I am going to read this along with the interpreters. What does loving ourselves look like? A conscious relationship with our loving Higher Power. Developing a loving self parent. Loving self-talk. Healthy boundaries that are respectful of ourselves and others. Loving, empowered, compassionate communication. Attending CoDA meetings. Working our 12 steps, service work. Being aware of our feelings and learning the tools of how to communicate them. This is a short list of how to love ourselves. But it is a place to begin. We can be creative in all ways to love ourselves. My sense of love is never ending. And shows us in thousands of ways. One of my favorite ones is a conscious relationship with our loving Higher Power. Conscious being the key word. I, for a long time, had an intellectual relationship with my Higher Power. I intellectually surrendered my life to a Higher Power. But my heart never surrendered. I had to be conscious in my mind, my body and my spirit and know that for me I experienced my Higher Power as a loving oneness. That I am conscious of the majority of time because of my codependence recovery. It’s no longer just an intellectual relationship or an intellectual concept of a Higher Power. It’s a mind, body, spirit consciousness of a Higher Power. Working the steps for me is one of the ways that I put that love into action for myself. I’ve been doing this a long time but currently I am going through my steps again and I am even learning that much more of myself. I don’t think we do the steps just one time. I have done the steps many times in my life. As we say in recovery, “I am always a work in progress.” so there is always room for growth. When I started my recovery I wanted to get a handle on it, control it, make it go away, in about a week or two. It was quite surprising to recognize that it had to do with my humanness and how I was relational through fear. Which is why I am still doing my steps. We are going to be talking about feelings and emotions in the next section so I am not going to talk a lot about that. I think this would probably be a good time to go into the questions and answers. I think we have gone over a bit. Carole- I think we are doing ok. I love the feedback that was coming that the pauses we were giving people gave people time to think, time to write and to process. Thank you all for your patience. So I would suggest that I’m just going to take a moment to find the questions from... Ok so what we are doing now as the questions and answer period so let’s take a moment. It’s a round robin, first come first serve. So the translators are going to take your question and I am going to watch for their translation in the What’s App and I will take it out of there. If you don’t mind, send your question to your interpreter and if you’re English send it to Lorraine. And Lorraine is going to speak it out on the round robin and the others are going to send it into the What’s App as you are all in your channels and I will read out the questions. In regards to subtitles the translation is an automatic feature from the Zoom app and it’s only in English. There is somebody with hearing impairment so it’s for that purpose. Others are using it to write their notes. Here is the first question in Farsi from Iran. How do you manage to leave the shame experienced from childhood? Ken- That could be a whole workshop all by itself. So umm toxic shame are lies we learn to believe were true about who I am. Such as I am not enough, I am less than, I am wrong, I am stupid, I am worthless, I don’t deserve. They’re messages we take on by how we were being treated. So for me disputing the lie or the shame message and staging the truth is one tool I use. For example, the toxic shame message may be that ‘I am wrong’ and the truth is I am never wrong but I do make mistakes. As a matter of fact I have to make some mistakes to grow spiritually. So the truth is I am never wrong and I am free to make mistakes. So listing out the shame messages which are always ‘I am’ statements and then writing the truth in response to each one and using that positive loving list on a daily basis through affirmations help me to make loving parenting language for this child. Because I did not grow up with loving parenting language. There are really helpful books written on toxic shame that are helpful as well. OK. Carole- OK. Lorraine - This is one of the first questions I saw from this morning. How important is the no crosstalk, no feedback rules for the meetings? Carole- Thank you. We will take that as the English round robin. Thank you. Mary- So I’ll speak to that. Because so many of us were not heard or listened to as children. It is so important to be able to be in a safe environment in our meetings where we can share our truth, and share our pain and our fears without being fixed, without being told what we are feeling is not important, without a place where we are not going to be judged by out thoughts and our feelings. That simple gift of giving attention to the person who is speaking is not only healing for the person who is speaking but it is also healing for the person who is listening because they are not able to jump in and control the situation. So it becomes a safe as well as a respectful environment for us to share our codependence recovery. Carole- Next question from Portuguese. Some literature to do inner child work could you recommend? Ken- I can but not in this forum because of this forum (it is not CoDA literature). I can if they want to email me. Carole- Umm, OK, so... Lorraine- I have an english question. Carole- No, no more English it’s one per language, sorry. So Spanish. Around our feelings why isn’t it documented? Why is there so little talk of healing our inner child in CoDA? Mary- Um, I don’t quite know how to answer that. In the beginning of CoDA, there was very much focus on healing the inner child. We had written about it in the CoDA Blue book under the Commonly Asked Questions. We personally would like to see more of it. Carole- So Italian. Thank you for keeping track. How do you manage to live all of your life together from a spiritual, material and emotional point of view beside your commitment in your recovery as an individual and as a couple? Ken- I think in some ways for me it is to recognize that we are not attached. We are two separate unique individuals and creations of a loving Higher Power, spiritual beings. So Mary’s style and way of living life may be different and separate from mine. And because of that she had to teach me through discussion about needs and wants. How she wanted to be treated and loved emotionally, physically, sexually, intellectually and spiritually. And I had to teach her as well because no two people love each other the same. And I think that something else that was and has been just as critical to me is that Mary is my dearest and best friend. That somehow being my wife and best friend were somehow separate and different things. We had to learn how to disagree and recognize that if we disagreed that it meant the other was wrong. We had to learn how to deal with anger and other feelings and talk about them. We had to learn how to create space, separateness. It isn’t true for all couples but it was for us because we live together, sleep together, travel together, we own a business together, have a counselling practice together, we serve in CoDA often together, and sometimes our together was way too much of a good thing just like too much chocolate ice cream. So we had to learn how to create space and time apart without the fear of abandonment. Because we both because of our recoveries have got to nurture our relationships with ourselves as well. The quality of my relationship with Mary is directly related to the quality of my relationship with myself and the quality of my relationship with my Higher Power. If something is not right here, most often it is because something is not right here and/or with God. So many of my issues or concerns with Mary have been symptoms of something that's not right with me. I used to say if she would just change I would feel so much better. As she didn’t. Haha. I mean it’s a wonderful question and we could talk about and offer ideas, thoughts and suggestions all day long. It might be a good topic for another workshop. Carole- So a question from Russia. How to serve in CoDA in a way to help CoDA groups in unity while helping them to be independent? Mary- Is that meaning helping the group be independent? Or the individual? Carole- It sounds like groups to me. I’ll just reread it. How to serve in CoDA in a way to help CoDA groups in unity while helping them to be independent? Mary- Um, my first thought is that if all the CoDA groups are following traditions and are exercising the group conscience vote then I believe that will take care of itself. Usually what happens is if a group is not following the traditions and instead of creating something outside of our CoDA traditions that’s where difficulties come in with unity. Unity requires that we are all working from the same set of traditions. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. So that’s great. Um... Lorraine- I have an English question. Carole- Sorry not yet. I have to go through all the languages Lorraine. So from France, from the French language. Is love solely spiritual? Ken- Well that’s a whole other workshop. Carole- Ha ha. Give it a shot or shall we move on. Your choice. Ken- No no. I believe that umm… well a couple of things. I believe love is not a feeling. Love generates all the feelings. That love is action. As a child I heard well you know I love you. But I didn’t see the actions so I learned not to trust the words. So for me love is about matching what I say with my actions. And in my belief system I’ve come to believe over, I don’t know, the last 7 years that my only real major purpose and being in this world is to learn to love and be loved in every circumstance and in every situation. Love doesn’t mean I have to like it. But I have to respect it, which is synonymous with love. For example, for many years I didn’t or love and I judged people's behaviors. But in my journey of recovery and healing, pretty much whatever I judged I found in me. So today in love I respect others' wounds. Because we are not bad people. That’s the lie of shame. And my Higher Power does not create badness or junk. I had someone tell me many years ago that I was complaining about my mother and how she was too. They said to me does God love her exactly as she is? And I knew in my heart the answer was yes so I said “yes”. So he said to me,” why won’t you?” And it was a very powerful epiphany for me, spiritually. Simply put, love is about actions. The actions of loving you and loving myself and loving others. I hope that’s helpful. Carole- OK thank you. So we’ll take another question from English. So Lorraine if you're ready. Lorraine- Ah let’s see. This question came in and said... Please explain what you mean when you say “I am never wrong.”? Mary- I’m going to let Ken answer that one instead of me answering that for him. Haha. Although I could. Haha. Ken- She can tell you why I’m wrong. Haha. Um...Wrong is a judgement and I don’t believe anyone is wrong. I believe that I have been in error. I have made mistakes. I have said things or done things that weren’t accurate. But for me to tell you or myself or anyone else that you’re wrong is a judgement. And judgement for me is always about toxic shame. So, in the past, when people have said well then what’s the difference, you know, if judgement is not healthy then what do we do? And I say, “For myself, assess. I make an assessment about something that doesn’t mean anybody is wrong. Carole- Thank you. Umm...OK question from Portuguese. How to cope with the solitude of recovery? Mary- I guess when I think of coping I think of something I am needing to survive. And I don’t know if that is what the person is meaning or not. So when I think of the solitude in recovery it is something that...I’ll slow down… Solitude in recovery is something that is very precious to me. It allows me that place of knowing where I begin and end. And where you also have that place of beginning and ending for yourself. But I believe that as human beings, we are relational by nature. And so desire relationships with ourselves, with each other, with our earth, with puppy dogs. Haha. In codependence recovery allows me healthy time for all of that. So solitude becomes my friend and something I treasure. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. A question from Iran. How to differentiate between loving and controlling? Ken- That’s a whole other workshop. Haha. My goodness these are great questions but uh...hmmm… I’ll answer that question in a little bit of a different way. Controlling would look like this energetically. Loving looks like this… Carole- So can you describe that for the recording? Your hand gestures. Ken- Yes so controlling means that I have injected my energy into a person, place or situation or all of the above. To try to make them and/or circumstances work out the way I want them to work out. And loving is that I pull my energy back in, into my heart and allow others to be who and what they are. Possibly offer a suggestion. But always practice the first three steps. Rather than controlling the outcome and taking that away from God. I surrender the outcome to the care of God. And when the outcome hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to go or the way I hoped it would go it was almost a matter of time before I could see the wisdom of the outcome. Thank you. Carole- We have a little bit of time. How about a question from the English, Lorraine? Lorraine- How to create a family if I have no example of it? Mary- That is a great question. I’ll answer that one. For myself, even though I was married and had children, had parents, had sisters, had cousins I had to learn to create that family within. My loving self parent was both mother and father within. My inner child showed up at various ages from very small to teenage years. I had the Higher Self who was the Wise Woman inside of me. That was a lot like an inner sponsor. And I had to learn how to integrate with all those parts of me and communicate with all those parts of me. I was not taught about how to have a healthy loving family. But I was taught that I need to learn how to lovingly be there for my inner child and to lovingly teach my inner child the things I never learned, to lovingly show up for my inner child with healthy boundaries before I could ever teach my physical children that. I wanted to make these changes with my physical children early in recovery. I wanted to be this healthy mom for them. Before I knew what any of this was about. I had to create that family within me first. I read lots of books on parenting. Went to therapy to learn how to parent. Talked to friends before I learned how to parent but until I parented myself it was just head knowledge. I had to integrate it into my heart. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. I have a question from the French language. Was it difficult for you to find your Higher Power and surrender to him? Ken- That is a very good question. I have looked to outside sources to understand this is my Higher Power. Religious and church experiences, even what I saw on television. And in my 12 step recovery from alcohol and drugs in NA and AA, I had done the second step but I hadn’t trusted... I believed that my Higher Power could restore me to sanity but didn’t trust my Higher Power would restore me to sanity. In my CoDA second step I started to recognize that I started to attach human characteristics to my Higher Power. And that my Higher Power judged me, shamed me, wanted to punish me and do all the things that my Higher Powers of my childhood did to me. And I had transferred the characteristics of the authorities of my childhood or Gods of my childhood and my young adult life onto God. When I recognized that and I eliminated those characteristics, I was left with just a few characteristics to describe my God. And that was that my Higher Power was pure love. And that my Higher Power absolutely loves and adores me and I had been transferring my fear and shame onto God. So I was able to begin to work with a loving, truly loving Higher Power which today I call love. That is fully absolutely conscious of me, loves me and adores me. Then I was left with the question, “Am I going to trust this Higher Power?” And time and circumstances in life have shown me beyond all question that I absolutely can trust my loving Higher Power. And that Higher Power knows the desires of my heart and truly wants to fulfill them but it may not be in my teenager’s time and the way and how it's supposed to look. That is that inner teenager by the way. And I can say with all sincerity that it has been far greater than I can imagine my life to be. Icould not imagine 20 years ago, 30 years ago, CoDA was young and I could never imagine sitting here talking to all of you today. And that’s all of our Higher Power’s doing. Carole- Great. Thank you. I am going to take another question that I see here. It’s a little personal. I don’t know if you can answer it. This person says that they are visiting with an adult son and his family for three weeks. I see him in active addiction. It is a challenge for me spiritually and emotionally. They are aware of my being in the program. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Mary- God bless you. That is challenging. Taking time for prayer and meditation. Taking time to talk with other CoDA members while you are there. Basically, taking time for you. If someone is in active addiction my experience is that they will not understand any of that. That doesn’t mean we still don’t do our recovery. Also remembering that it’s important not to judge or abandon the addict, instead to lovingly communicate feelings if necessary. When I was in my addiction the only person people were talking to was that inner addict. They weren’t talking to my authentic self. I wish today I could have told them not to take anything personally. That my addiction was about my woundedness. I actually gained inspiration when I was around people in recovery even though I was not. Just watching them do something different that I couldn’t do, planted seeds for me, for when I was ready to surrender to my addiction. Being our authentic selves while in recovery reminds me that we are a program of attraction not promotion. Which is the best way I know to pass on recovery. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. There’s more questions that were coming up for this Q & A part. Thank you for all of these. It’s 12 o’clock, 12:02pm here, so we will resume in 28 minutes. So you can chat amongst yourselves on the chat, so there’s still no access to the main room for chat and talk. The interpreters, maybe they need a break too. So there won’t be any interpretation at this time but if you could work things out between yourselves and the chat. That would be great. The Q&A is there mostly for the questions that would come to the interpreters for this questions session and there will be another one following the talk. So see you in 27 minutes. Carole- Welcome back, here we are with Ken and Mary for the second talk. It escapes me the name of your talk so please introduce your talk. Grateful you are here with us all day. Mary- Thank you, we welcome you all to Feelings and Communication. Thank you. Ken- I am going to start with a reading. Our interpreters will be sharing simultaneously as I read. Feelings are the language of the heart and we only experience life through our feelings. My intellectual mind can not experience feelings, it can only think about them. Therefore feelings are the language that comes from our heart. As they say in recovery the longest distance is the 18” journey from here to here, from our head to our heart. In our codependence, feelings are usually either over expressed, or not expressed, or very seldom authentically expressed. Our childhood experiences programmed how we are going to emotionally respond to our lives. Feelings are as I read are the only way we experience life. If I take feelings out of our life experience I am simply an android, a robot. So when I bring feelings back into my life experience, I experience my truth about my life. And for many years my truth was based in fear and shame. So family systems teach us which feelings are going to be expressed and by who. In my family system, men can do anger. That was the rule. But there were very not nice words to describe women who did anger. So my father passed away when I was 15 months old, so I was raised by two sisters, older than I and my mother. And so they didn’t do anger. They could do the vulnerable feelings, the fear, the shame, the loneliness, the pain. So without boundaries as a child, I took on my mother’s anger and both of my sister’s anger. So I very seldom got angry in a normal fashion. It was always over the top. We know that in dysfunctional families, the family system determines which feelings are going to be expressed and who expresses them and which feelings are not allowed. In functional families, we know that all feelings are allowed and in appropriate and in healthy ways need to be expressed by each and every person. That was absolutely foreign to me. And so I grew up with pretty much as a teenager as a parent, and a critical parent, judging and shaming me. We also know it is the child part of who we are that carries the vulnerable feelings, the shame, the fear, the loneliness, the pain, the guilt. And the teenager carries the anger. So for me, I needed to find someone in a relationship who would do the fear, the pain, the shame, the loneliness and I would do their anger for them because that’s the only thing I knew as normal and familiar. So I had huge amounts of pain, and fear, and loneliness, and shame, and guilt building up, sometimes day by day, week by week, month by month,and year by year. And I had to find something powerful to medicate those feelings. So for the first 28 years of my life I drank, drugged and raged my feelings away. Which drove away just about everyone I cared about, including my children. In recovery I had to identify all of my feelings and to share them in appropriate, healthy and loving ways.And with that I am going to pass to Mary. Mary- Most of us were not taught that there are 7 primary feelings. The 7 primary feelings are fear, anger, shame, guilt, loneliness, pain and joy. And there are healthy ways to experience and express these feelings. There are other words that describe these feelings but most often they are describing the emotional intensity of the feeling. For example, there are several words that describe the intensity of fear, those are worry, anxious, nervous, scared, afraid, paranoid, panicked, or terrified, all these words are various emotional intensities of fear. A helpful way to gauge our emotional intensity is looking at a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is the least intense expression and 10 is the greatest intensity. Anything over 4 on a 10 point scale of intensity is considered an emotional reaction, as opposed to an emotional responding. One of the things that I have learned for myself in recovery is that when I was responding with my feelings I was in my healthy adult. And when I was reacting with my feelings I was in my child or that teenager. The steps helped me to learn how to emotionally regulate. My Fourth step showed me all the ways I was being reactive. My Sixth and Seventh Step helped me begin to rebuild and learn ways to respond from a healthy adult. My prayer meditation helped me stay centered in who was in charge, which was my Higher Power. The more I began to learn about my feelings, the more I learned that there were gifts with each one of them. I was able to learn that with fear, with healthy fear, that even though fear is always about the future, the healthy use of fear between that one and that four on the ten point scale of intensity gets me into problem solving and solutions and asking questions that I need to ask in my life. Out of that I gained the gift of wisdom. With pain the gift that I realized was that every time I could breathe into my pain. To really feel it and experience it I would gain the gift of healing. Now if I added shame to that that said i was being a cry-baby or I was overly sensitive or that something was wrong with me for having pain that healing would get lost and I would just move into suffering. There is a great spiritual teacher out there that said pain is a part of life but suffering is optional. Ken was talking that I don’t do anger, of course that has since changed. The gift that I found with anger, assertive anger where I can stand up for myself and speak my truth is that I would become empowered, the inner strength of knowing that I can take care of myself. When I didn’t do my anger and instead suppressed it because I was afraid of it and I would add shame to that. My mom was a rager and I didn’t want to be like my mom. My anger would turn into rage only I did it passive aggressively. So I would shut down, go away. I would be quiet, I would avoid. I would become needless and wantless. And I would push Ken away, or I’d push my kids away, or I’d push my friends away, I would push everybody away from that place. Instead of having that inner strength I would become weak with my inner rage. Feelings are so important to learn how to identify them and learn how to express them in healthy ways. As I shared earlier I had many ways that I would medicate those feelings and I would lose out on the many gifts those feelings were teaching me. So I had to learn that when I was over that four on that ten point scale of intensity I basically had one foot back in my childhood and one foot in today. And I was bringing all that emotional energy from my childhood and projecting it into my today. So I had to begin to use that emotional reaction as a red flag to let me know that my inner child was needing something from me. When I addressed that with my inner child I could then respond to Ken. Thank you, I am going to turn it over to Ken again. Ken- The interpreters are going to read simultaneously with me. Healthy parenting and communication, Chapter 5 Commonly Asked Questions Parenting or reparenting ourselves means recognizing we are capable human beings who are choosing to become fully-functioning, emotionally healthy adults. Parenting ourselves means reflecting on and responding to situations rather than reacting. We know today that recovery, roughly 80% of recovery, and including the steps and traditions are really designed to help us grow an internal parent. We made connections many, many, many years ago, about we talk in recovery about the spiritual principles of our program. We began to understand the psychological principles found in the twelve steps and the twelve traditions are really found in just about every parenting book written. So the steps and the traditions force us to grow into our self parent and to give us some focus as to how to relate to our power, to ourselves, and to others. With that in mind we really have to take a serious honest look at where are our models for parenting. Ideally they are our sponsors. Our sponsors are simply guides along a path that have been down that path longer than we have. And have developed an internal parent to ourselves and modeled that to us. There may be other sources as well, Therapists, coaches or good friends. I’ve learned much about parenting simply by being in a meeting and listening to others share. One of my jobs as a parent is to create a safe world for this child and this teen to come out and be who they truly are, be authentic. We know that it is the child part of who we are that carries the spontaneity, the creativity, the play, the laughter, the fun, the humour, the hopes and the dreams. They also carry all the memories of what has happened, good and bad, and the feelings about it all. So part of my job as a parent of this child and teen is to create a safe world and safe people to be with and let that child and teen out to simply be spontaneous, playful, fun, hopeful, to dream and to enjoy other folks’ children. Some of the richest experiences I have had with Mary are with this little girl and this little boy. But if I take them out it I am simply an intellectual adult kind of doing life sort of boring. It’s true. Ha ha. So we play a lot because of that. Because of recovery we hear the worst of the world and some of the most painful circumstances so we balance it with play, fun, laughter and we kind of have to back the teenagers off because we don’t want to have too much sugar and caffeine and all that other stuff. I believe wholeheartedly it is my child that carries the spirit of who I am. It was a wake up call for me to see That the most natural, spirited and alive real beings in all the world were the children. And many philosophies teach that we need to become far more like them than ever try to make them like us. And I think I will pass here. Mary- So I will read this next section simultaneously with the interpreters. In my recovery it is through our experiencing and sharing our feelings that creates emotional intimacy. We remember that feelings and the healthy communication of feelings is when we allow others to know us. When we listen to anothers’ healthy sharing of feelings we are acknowledging they are risking sharing a part of themselves. If someone is sharing their feelings in a reactive manner then we are able to practice self parenting and healthy boundary setting that we have learned in our CoDA program. I was always taught that there are 5 intimacies in a relationship. They are physical, sexual, spiritual, intellectual and emotional. And that emotional intimacy is by far the hardest to create. Ken and I both share the unhealthy ways that feelings get created. And in healthy ways the feelings are dictated or not allowed in our families. To create true emotional intimacy where there is loving allowance for both people to have their feelings. Loving allowance for the healthy sharing and feeling of feelings, that creates true emotional intimacy. That way of sharing heart to heart. Just in the title of the workshop that feelings are the language of the heart. I had to also learn with this that no one had to agree with my feelings. That my thoughts and perceptions created my feelings. Ken shared that there’s no wrong feelings. Because my feelings are a response or a reaction to what I am thinking, they just are. There’s no right or wrong with them. My thoughts can be really unhealthy. How I share my feelings can be really unhealthy, but my feelings just are. What I was taught was that my feelings are a response to the stimulus of thought. So I am going to pass this over to Ken. Ken- The interpreters are going to join me in reading from Chapter 5 Commonly Asked Questions from the CoDA Blue Book. When we have healthy internal boundary systems we recognize that each individual is responsible for his or her emotional, mental, and spiritual boundaries. We allow ourselves and others to have their own thoughts, feelings, opinions, behaviors, beliefs, and spirituality. With functional boundaries we are able to meet our needs without infringing on others’ abilities to meet their needs. All feelings are shared with boundaries and without expectation of outcome. We trust the outcome to our Higher Power. I could give you many, many examples of boundaries, internal and external, but there’s a couple that really stand out and are essential in the theme that we’ve been sharing this morning or this evening depending on where you are in the world. And that is by what i already shared that the rules about emotions in my family that men could get angry and have joy and women have the rest of the feelings and that was normal. So I have to go out into the world and turn on the radar and find women who didn’t do anger but would do all the other feelings. So we were emotionally a perfect match. And between us all the feelings were expressed. Because we know that all feelings demand to be expressed and if I am not expressing mine I will find somebody to do it for me. So with the help of a very good therapist, many years ago, Mary was sharing a story that encompassed a great deal of anger. Only she wasn’t expressing the anger. And I was on the couch fussing and fussing and moving around and fussing. And the therapist looked at me and said ‘Ken!” and I said “Well Mary and this story and the anger and all this anger!” And she said “Ken stop!” So I did and looked at her and she said “As long as you continue to do her anger for her she will never learn to do it herself and you will rob her of the gift of the power and the strength associated with her own anger.” And I was like, oh relief. Mary- And I was terrified. Ken- And Mary was terrified because she knew she was going to have to start doing her own anger. And not very long after, that same therapist, I am telling a story of pain and trauma and abuse and Mary’s on the other end of the couch crying, I have no emotional affect and Donna looked at her and said, “Mary what?” Mary said “Well his pain and saying everything that happened, oh poor him!” Donna said, “Mary stop! If you continue to do his pain for him you will rob him of the true gift of healing.” And she was absolutely relieved and I was terrified. Ha ha. Because I knew I was going to have to do my own fear, pain, loneliness, shame and guilt. So I had to learn how to assert my own boundaries and not take it on and simply allow her to have her anger. And she was going to have to learn to have boundaries with me and allow me to have my own fear, pain, shame, loneliness and guilt and not take it on. So we began to grow true emotional intimacy because we were both sharing feelings with each other consistently. But it required parenting boundaries and for us to allow each other to allow and respect each other to have our own feelings. And I had to learn to allow all the rest of the world to have their feelings and to let the world be what it is. In my codependence my well-being was based on what you thought and felt. In my recovery, my well-being is not based on Mary or you or anyone but my Higher Power. And I am going to pass it on to you. Mary- Thank you. Well I will be reading this simultaneously with our interpreters. Our thoughts,our perceptions and our beliefs create our feelings therefore sharing feelings in ”I” statements is so important. No one can make me feel anything. It is how I am perceiving that is going to determine how I am feeling about it. We found it helpful in the determination and communicating of our feelings in any situation to use the list of the 7 primary feelings. There are many communication guides but a simple way to communicate our feelings are, this is healthy emotional communication examples: What I heard you say is...and I feel (feeling word)...is that what you meant to say? When I saw you … I felt (feeling word) What I experienced was… when you… and I feel (feeling word) All statements are said without any shame, blame, judgement, criticism, sarcasm and without any expectation of outcome. Many times in the sharing of feelings because again feelings need to be in I statements, there can be a tendency to want the other person to understand our feelings and agree with them. And somehow if the other person doesn’t agree with our feelings there is something wrong with us. Because our thoughts, our perceptions and our feelings Ken and I have experienced the same thing but perceived it totaly differently. An example of that is with abandonment. For Ken, abandonment meant somebody leaving or sending him away. For me, abandonment meant that somebody was raging at me and not seeing me as a person. So while I was learning how to do my anger and Ken was doing some of my anger for me, when he would become angry I would feel abandoned and go away, when I went away Ken felt abandoned. We had to learn to talk about our perceptions and our feelings and to share what we were feeling and experiencing without any expectation that the other person would understand it. Our job was to simply to communicate in a healthy emotional way. So we use this form of communication and practice and practice and practice over and over. We did it until it became natural.Today we do that without even thinking about it, without expectation of outcome, with healthy boundaries, probably about 80-85% of the time. The 10-15% keeps us humble. With that I’ll turn it back to Ken. Ken- I just want to close this workshop portion with a brief reading. Though this can seem overwhelming at times, it simply takes practice. As with so many aspects of our recovery, if we are diligent in these efforts we will experience a new love and acceptance of ourselves and others. We will become capable of developing and maintaining healthy and loving relationships and we will learn to see ourselves as equal to others. Which brings us now I think to our Q&A questions and answers. Carole- Thank you so much. You guys are right on target. And it will be first come, first serve, round robin. We will go with the first one that comes my way and interpreters please put it in the group chat. There’s some coming already. Here’s an English one. How do you communicate with your Higher Power and know the answers are from your Higher Power? Mary- So I’ll speak for myself for how I know it is that I’m talking to my Higher Power. I allow time for meditation and silence so that what I hear in that is inspiration from my Higher Power. The way I tell the difference between my voice and my Higher Power’s voice is that my voice will tend to scare me, warn me, be angry at me. And my Higher Power’s voice will be loving, wise and strong. Ken- For me, I had to create a place in my mind for my Higher Power to talk to me. It started with prayer and meditation and then I had to...Oops I’ll slow down… And I believe the imagination is the workshop of the spirit. So I imagine conversations with my Higher Power. And pretty soon I could distinctly hear my Higher Power’s voice and I was not schizophrenic. My Higher Power’s voice was amazingly loving and warm and powerful. And because of that dialogue with my Higher Power CoDA came about. I drove an hour to and an hour from where I worked outside of... and we were at a place with our therapist that we were paying her to be our sponsor and we tried sharing about codependency in AA meetings and NA meetings and were told not to share about that stuff here. And so for a few months at least once or twice a week I would hear this voice of my Higher Power say ”Ken, start a meeting.” And I would say, ‘No, I can’t do that. No, that’s for people like Bill W. and Dr. Bob of AA “ And the fear and shame came up and said, “ What will others say.” And finally after about two months I said OK. I’ll talk to Mary and here we are. So for me it’s a clear dialogue consistently with my Higher Power. Thank you. Carole- Thank you, we have this question from Spanish. I have heard that no one can make you feel anything, how is that achieved? Mary- Because our thoughts create our feelings, so if there were, an old analogy is - If there were 10 people who witnessed a car accident. There will be 10 different sets of thoughts and feelings of that car accident. All depending on the perceptions of each individual. My perceptions were developed during the first 18-19 years of my life. Or I should say most of my perceptions developed during that time. So how I perceive something or think about something is going to be unique to me. And my thoughts create my feelings. So no one can make me angry, it’s how I am perceiving what is being said or done that I will choose to be angry. If I am in a movie and there’s a sad movie and I am crying it’s how I am perceiving the movie that will determine my feelings about it. So no one has the power to make me feel anything. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. You have been talking a lot about inner child. If I understand that we have all been a child at some point, we shall have evolved, grown and changed. It is a good thing to continuously talk about our childhood, how to move on from our childhood then and become parents? Ken- I think there is a big difference between talking about our childhood and talking about our child. For myself, in my recovery, I don’t talk much about my childhood anymore, other than in certain events or shares, but I do talk about my child. And you have all had a chance to see him and her today. In my perspective the child part of me is the most real authentic part of who I am and carries my spirit. I never want to lose sight of him. And when I do today he lets me know pretty quickly. There’s an old saying, as without, so within. My inner relationship with my child self and teen self is no different than a relationship I would have with a child and teen living with me. His story is today just a story because I resolved my feelings about all the traumas he carried. Thank you. Carole- OK, thank you. Next question is from Portuguese. Can you explain the phrase, imagination is the workshop of the spirit? How can I do that? I’ll read it again. Can you explain the phrase, imagination is the workshop of the spirit? How can I do that? Mary- When I look at imagination and knowing that that comes from my child’s spirit, my connection with my Higher Power, it is different than fantasy. Fantasy is there to fix my feelings. Where the imagination of my spirit is there to enhance me. Ken- Imagination for me, comes from a different part of my brain, we call the Higher Self. And I know today it is directly linked to my heart and not my brain. And when I am operating from that part of my brain I am operating from what I call the 4 “ins”, insight, intuition, inspiration, which literally means in spirit, and instinct. They are all experienced in the heart and not in the brain. It’s a portal that I go to through conscious choice, prayer and meditation that allows for the spirit my Higher Power to talk with me and give me insight, inspiration, intuition, instinct. And I believe it takes practice through prayer and meditation to open that part of the brain. OK, thank you. Carole- Maybe Lorraine has an English question. Lorraine- OK this one says... How do I, as a parent, communicate with my qualifier who does not know how to live and love himself, is not willing to forgive and be forgiven, although he is sober he is still trying to manipulate and force us to support him financially. Mary- so this is one of my times that I have to take my therapist hat off and speak from recovery. One is this may be an area to seek out therapy on. Sometimes we need outside help. From a recovery place, and I can only talk as if this were me so I am not advice giving, if it were me I would talk about my boundaries, my limits and my needs and to share if that person unwilling to honour those whatI would need to do to take care of myself, to share without any expectation of outcome and be willing to do whatever it is that I said I was going to do to take care of myself. Even if that meant not financially supporting the person. Now that's what I would do. I think every situation is different and there's some areas that I do believe that would need therapeutic help to resolve it. I know I did throughout my recovery. Thank you. Carole- I have a question, it's a little bit long from Iran. First of all, I appreciate you who are spreading love with your soul. Secondly, about my question, there are several lovely values in CoDA, which are acceptable with heart but there is a real conflict between these values and the real values of our community which we live in. For instance, the community says the real value about esteem is money, work, etc . Also in the real world money is usable in a moment but my mind and CoDA mention that self-esteem is not about having money. How do I cope with the conflict between CoDA values and real world values Ken- I could answer that in a number of ways but...I think it's easiest understood for me, in something called loving allowance. We live in a community with nice people and good neighbours. Our values are in many ways very different from theirs. And for me, that doesn't mean I judge them. I lovingly allow them to be who they are and know that my well-being is not based on sharing the same values. We talk a bit about a program of acceptance and that acceptance means I have already judged it and now I have to accept it. Loving allowance is an energy, a love, a vibration above acceptance. And in loving allowance I can accept them to be exactly who they are and appreciate our differences. And continue to seek out people of like mind, recovery people, and people who share similar principles. That's all I have. Carole - OK. So I don't have any more questions in my interpreter chat so I'm going to go to the first one I read here. How can you not let others be a wrong Higher Power of you. For example, for not let yourself be frustrated or rewarded by someone's lack of approval or lack thereof. Mary - So for me, because I can sometimes make codependence recovery too complex and I like to keep things simple. I work at not having any expectations of others or of outcomes. I find that the moment I have an expectation of others, or of myself, or of an outcome, I then am making them my Higher Power. So I work consistently at not having any expectations in my life. Keeping it that simple for me keeps me from making my feelings, or Ken, or anybody else, or situations my Higher Power. And it takes me right back into how do I lovingly self parent, how do I need to practice compassionate, empowered communication and as Ken was just talking, how do I need to practice loving allowance for others. It brings it back to me. Thank you. Carole- OK, umm… the question from Portuguese is… How can I repair relationships with people that I don't have contact with, Step 8. OK Thank you. Ken- The simplest answer for me is that a letter can be written to them, heartfelt, sincere, be accountable for my side of the fence not theirs, once again, send the letter and trust the outcome to God. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. Question from Russia. I work consistently at not having any expectations in my life. Keeping that simple for me keeps me from making my feelings or can anybody else be my Higher Power, it takes me right back to how I need to reparent myself, do I need to practice empowered communication? Mary- I think this is a repeat of what I just said. Carole- OK lost in translation I think. It's a repeat of what you just said. A transcript will be good. OK Lorraine, do you have another English question? OK, here's a practical one: Is there a way to get a CoDA blue book index? Mary- I think that would be something to share with your group representative to be taken to the conference to where those things are decided . Carole- Here's another question. Where did the word codependence originate Ken- It originally grew in the 1950s. There was an individual who was involved in the study of what he called the co-alcoholics. His name was Vernon Johnson and he coined the term co-alcoholic. Which in time it expanded into adult children of alcoholics, still considered co-alcoholics. And then about 40 years ago the term codependents emerged and it was based on a psychiatric diagnosis called compulsive dependent personality disorder or someone who compulsively depends on someone else. The same as a drug addict depends on drugs and an alcoholic depends on alcohol and so it caught on pretty quickly. The first book about it was written by a non-professional and was in recovery in NA and she nailed it. And it has been there ever since. I believe it gets misdiagnosed with many other diagnoses. Sometimes it's called chronic anxiety, attachment disorder, avoidant personality, various types of depression, many of them are simply codependence. I believe Al-anons might not want to hear this but I believe that al-anons are codependents codependent on alcoholics and R-anon are people who are codependent on drug addicts, CoSA are people who are codependent on sex addicts. And that these programs really speak to the codependents associated with the culture of the person who we are addicted to. Carole- OK thats good. Oh you are muted Ken. Did you want to finish your thoughts? Ken- It's all codependence. I believe today that everyone is a little codependent. It's the human experience and when it advances and escalates, we need to deal with it like any other compulsion or problem so we have CoDA. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. We have time for one more question. Mary, can you repeat the 8 things you talked about. Oh we said it before the break so I am going to skip this one because it's from the previous time. We are going to attach the transcript to the world announcement that goes out with the recording. Hopefully all interpreters will pass me their translations so that it will go out in that form as well. So I am going to leave that one. So I have another one. Please share your thoughts on the possibility of reconciliation and establishment of a healthy, loving relationship post abuse. Mary- So I can share a little bit from my own experience. One of the abuses I experienced in my childhood was of sexual abuse by my own father. When I started working on that, one of my sisters shared with my father that I was working on that because I am from a dysfunctional family. And my father said that as long as I was talking about that I could no longer be part of the family. My family backed him, agreed with him, so it was about 16-17 years that I was not a part of my family of origin. I continued my feeling work, and my step work and my forgiveness work. I would periodically try to contact them to test the waters. Unfortunately my father and I never resolved anything before he passed but I was resolved within me and i didnt need anything from him. My mother and I had about 6 more years together. And I also didn't need anything from her and I approached her from a place of love and acceptance. Codependence is multi-generational so my mother is a wounded person. Prior to her death she made amends to me. We were able to enjoy her last five years because I didn't need anything from her and I allowed her to be just who she was. I am hoping because of that that gave her a level of safety in her own wounds to be able to make amends to me. My sisters also started doing their own work and healing work and our relationships were able to heal and evolve and get to a loving place with each other. I kept practicing detachment with love. Without any expectations and trusting every single outcome to my Higher Power. I did not need them to heal. Thank you. Carole- Thank you, Ken and Mary, for all the wisdom you spilled out to us and it's kind of sad to be bringing this to a close but that's what we're up to next. So with gratitude the closing remarks will be given by Fernando, the Spanish interpreter. Monica will move to the English interpretation channel to give the interpretation in English thus everybody who's in the main room please press the globe interpretation button and in a moment choose English when I finish speaking and Monica will give Fernando’s closing remarks in English. This will be translated and every other interpreter will have that same copy in their own language to convey it in their own language. So we're all going to be in the channels and we are all going to be in the channels and what another opportunity to be able to everyone to have this world experience. Following Fernandos closing remarks we will have the reading of The Promises and the Serenity Prayer in that channel that you are in before closing the webinar. Thank you for attending and giving Ken and Mary a warm reception. And I'm sure that they would be all wanting to say how much they all as you were saying how we all perceive an accident differently. Well can you imagine all the different perceptions of codependency recovery we would hear today. I think that's beautiful. As mentioned there will be a survey that will be posted and I will put it up again and it will go out with the same world announcement along with the recording, the quotes from the Blue book that Ken and Mary did, and the survey, and as well as the interpretations. So we will all welcome Fernando and everybody in English to switch over. Ken- Carole, thank you so much. You've done such an amazing job and all of the interpreters and all of your committee members, and you guys are such a blessing to us and to all of us. Carole- Thank you. I'd like to reiterate that because of all the hard work everybody has done behind the scenes to bring this together and yours included and so it's such a world effort and so thank you. Monica, we are waiting for you. Carole, it's Lorraine. Carole- I'm sorry to interrupt. Maybe you took me literally. It's the English people who come to the English channel and all interpreters please stay in your own language channel, thank you very much and we will finish the closing remarks. Lorraine if you could read the Promises. Lorraine- Im working on it. I lost the channel for 15 minutes. The Twelve Promises of Co-Dependents Anonymous © I can expect a miraculous change in my life by working the program of Co-Dependents Anonymous. As I make an honest effort to work the Twelve Steps and follow the Twelve Traditions... 1. I know a new sense of belonging. The feeling of emptiness and loneliness will disappear. 2. I am no longer controlled by my fears. I overcome my fears and act with courage, integrity and dignity. 3. I know a new freedom. 4. I release myself from worry, guilt, and regret about my past and present. I am aware enough not to repeat it. 5. I know a new love and acceptance of myself and others. I feel genuinely lovable, loving and loved. 6. I learn to see myself as equal to others. My new and renewed relationships are all with equal partners. 7. I am capable of developing and maintaining healthy and loving relationships. The need to control and manipulate others will disappear as I learn to trust those who are trustworthy. 8. I learn that it is possible to mend - to become more loving, intimate and supportive. I have the choice of communicating with my family in a way which is safe for me and respectful of them. 9. I acknowledge that I am a unique and precious creation. 10. I no longer need to rely solely on others to provide my sense of worth. 11. I trust the guidance I receive from my higher power and come to believe in my own capabilities. 12. I gradually experience serenity, strength, and spiritual growth in my daily life. Carole- Thank you Lorraine. What I think I'm going to do is have everyone come back to the main room and everybody here in the English channel will come back. So I'm going to read, I'm just going to let everybody know I am going to read Fernandos statement again. Hi everyone. I'm so sorry about what happened. I think in all respect and compassion for the meld of languages in the English channel I think that we should read Fernandos statement again. Monica, please read Fernandos statement again. Monica- Her reading was not included in the recording. (Events includes it here: CLOSURE STATEMENT My name is Fernando, from the Spanish community of CoDA. I would like to thank the co-founders, Ken and Mary, for their inspiring and beautiful sharing. Also, I would like to thank the Events Committee for its devotion and commitment in achieving the goal of gathering us in this unforgettable global conversation with the co-founders of Codependents Anonymous. I expect for the topic From Fear to Love not only be just another topic, but a path to recovery in our lives, taking it one day at a time. In addition, with regard to the second topic that was addressed today, From feelings to Communication to help us to communicate every day with our loved ones, close friends, acquaintances, colleagues and managers in a clearest way and let us be more honest with our feelings with the people we relate to. We hope this meeting filled the hearts of each member of Codependents Anonymous worldwide and that we can bring the message of Codependents Anonymous to the co-dependent who still suffers. God bless you all and your families. Reading of the Promises) Carole- Lorraine lets say the serenity prayer together. The Serenity Prayer God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference Carole- Thank you. Keep coming back. I'm going to come out back to the main room. Just click on ‘off’ at the top of the list of languages. OK we are back in the main room or all those who can. Thank you everyone. It's been an exceptional, exceptional time and I'm super super happy with... the feedback that this has come together as well as it has. Thank you again for your understanding and patience and having this great experience to just pause and think particularly for all of us , especially us in the English world, but I think it happened in all of the channels. Everybody had to pause, and think, and just take it in. And so I think we've all taken something away from this. Thank You all the Interpreters, thank you everybody behind the scenes and that have come from across the world. Maybe we will do this again. I look forward to hearing your responses from the survey that is now posted in the chat. I wish you well, give you hugs and I like this one that's gone around and lots of love. Lorraine- Thanks so much Carole and Shaf and everyone else behind the scenes. I really appreciate being part of this incredible event and thank you Ken and Mary, it was a pleasure to meet you. From here in Atlanta. And thank you for joining us and being a tremendous help to so many people. Thank you for everything. Ken- Thank you. Carole- Thank you to Lorraine and Shaf. Sorry Shaf you... Shaf- Thank you so much Ken and Mary for this amazing workshop and for all of your wisdom and sharing. It's been such a blessing and an honour to have you here. And to share space with you. Ken- The honour is ours. Mary- Yes very much. Shaf- Carole all your work to setting up this presentation. I know how challenging it's been, just all my gratitude for you doing all that. It's been going very well. It's been slowing down and letting Ken and Marys words sink in for me have been very touching and slowing down helps the message sink in. Lorraine, thank you for helping out with the questions and setting up the event. Much much gratitude to you. And to all who attend; it's been an honour to have all of you here and thank you for signing up and showing up. Thank you. Carole- Thank you. Shaf you lead the way very well. I can't speak the gratitude I have for all the people supporting us and help to bring all this together, bringing this event together. The Panelists have this opportunity to speak directly to you and the attendees behind the scenes. I think that each person here is one representation of the 900 people, nearly 900 people which is the largest number that was here at one time. So we've had a wonderful turn out and we've had this opportunity. Carole- Gave opportunity for all translators to give their thanks too.