Author: Shirley J. Davis

  Recovery, a very important word. It means many different things to different people. My take on it may or may not agree with what you may define it as, but basically to me it is the ability to overcome some obstacle and live a powerful life. As a...

  “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde   We are all the culmination of our experiences and fears. The experiences that leave us gasping for breath and injured in our souls can damage our ability to enjoy life...

  I once belonged to a twelve-step group trying to come to terms with my mother’s alcoholism when I was growing up and which continued until she died. One of the slogans from this group went as follows, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get...

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  What is inner peace? The dictionary defines it several ways one of which is “freedom of the mind from fear, anxiety and annoyance”. Is there ever a time when our minds aren’t full of one of these things though? Can I have inner peace even in the midst...

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  Overcoming anything, an illness, a financial loss, the loss of someone you love to death, anything is not something that should be attempted alone. This statement is coming from someone who has spent a majority of her life isolating herself from others preferring to deal with her own...

  I have pondered a long time about what it was that made the fifteen years I didn’t have Paula as a therapist so unproductive and difficult and I think I may have finally hit on the key. Validation. When I was seeing Paula she never questioned whether or...

  What is hope? It easier to tell you what it is NOT. It is not an emotion or a feeling. Hope is more of a way of thinking and living. I’ve grown up in a household where there was little hope. We lived from day to day, existing...

My therapist retires Wednesday. I wish I could say I’m her retiring easy and with all the grace that one would expect from someone who has been in therapy for half of her life, but I’m not. I feel such dread and fear. I am faced with the end...

  It may sound like an easy task but making the decision to get well is something that unfortunately many people never do. I’m not sure what helps one person to see they have a problem and become determined to work on it and another to choose to live...

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