Bipolar Wake Up Meditation

When I got diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, my parents bought me a cool book called "An Unquiet Mind." I immediately recognized my own jumbled thoughts and emotions. I felt an instant affinity for the author. I've since learned that 70% of alcoholics are bipolar. Makes perfect sense to me. When your moods are in constant flux, and your brain is run by a raucous, unruly committee, you'll do anything possible to impose some semblance of order. Even if the quiet is short-lived, alcohol does drown out the thoughts -- temporarily.

That is, until the day it stops working, turns on you, and leaves you more moody and miserable than ever.

That's how it happened for me. Self-medicating no longer made me well. It made me sicker. So I quit.

At about a year sober I asked my psychiatrist to retest me. I thought taking alcohol out of the equation might change my diagnosis. It did not.

During the ensuing years I've learned to recognize and work within (for the most part) my up/down cycles. I still struggle with an overactive brain. But considering the alternative, this isn't such a bad thing!

At the same time, I work a program of recovery. With its goal of peace and serenity, recovery is a godsend to a bipolar like me.

Being bipolar does pose some challenges (minor, and kinda funny) to one of the main components of recovery: morning meditation.

I wrote the following poem to show the humorous difficulties I encounter when trying to work the 11th Step (sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we undertood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out).

I know people in AA who regularly attend 1/2 hour meditation meetings. Others say meditation is one of the easiest parts of the program for them.

Not for me! I've got a ways to go in my spiritual growth. But I'm fortunate to have a God who forgives my short attention span and guides my decisions with a loving hand anyway.

As we say in AA, it's progress, not perfection!

Morning Mind Minute

1. I levitate awake
2. Defying sleep's deep gravity
3. Brain shifts to first
4. To third
5. To overdrive
6. What day is this?
7. Start my day with prayer
8. Our Father who art in Heaven
9. Remember that hellish dream
10. Three striped kittens
11. Lost in the house
12. With 13 bathrooms
13. Two hours till the meeting
14. Time to check emails
15. Damn I hate my sister-in-law
16. Sorry God
17. Grant me the serenity
18. To accept the things
19. I cannot change
20. Or charge
21. Did I pay that Am Ex bill?
22. Shit, not again
23. Meditate, dammit
24. Pray
25. Thy will be done
26. Hail Mary
27. No, not hail
28. It’s raining out
29. Yay!
30. And lead us not into temptation
31. Traffic will be brutal
32. Good morning Gremmie
33. How’s my little man?
34. I know, I know
35. You want your breakfast
36. Almost finished here
37. Where was I?
38. So needing coffee
39. God, grant me the serenity
40. To accept the things
41. That let me focus
42. Forgive us our trespasses
43. As we forgive those who trespass
44. That’s right, you random thoughts
45. Stay out!
46. And the wisdom to know
47. I am soooo sick of this
48. God damn her anyway, the bitch
49. Ah shit
50. Gratitude, gratitude
51. Change your attitude
52. Silence the voices
53. Thoughts tied in knots
54. Relieve me of the bondage of self
55. That I might better do Thy will
56. God, are you hearing this?
57. Fuck, I give up
58. Getting up now
59. Forever and ever
60. Amen

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