Sharing our recovery stories is so important. Not only does it give others hope and inspiration, but it educates those who are unaware that Recovery Is Possible! Please consider sharing with others how you found that road and how you stay on that road.
My husband and I live at 2200' on the Big Island of Hawaii. Our couple of acres of forest have been overrun by invasive (non-native) species: strawberry guava, Christmas berry, climbing ferns. In the last few months, I find myself going to the forest a couple of times a week to cut down the invasives and free up the native ohia trees. Probably many of you don't know the ohia tree. It is one of the first plants to grow on a new lava flow, and it grows slowly, in a beautifully twisted manner. Its bark is thick and rugged, its leaves small, gray-green ovals. When it blooms, it creates a brilliant red blossom called lehua, like a three-inch scarlet crown, an explosion of spikes. The Hawaiian legend is that ohia and lehua were lovers who, after a long separation, were reunited by the gods in this plant. If you go online and search for lehua photos, you'll see what this precious tree looks like, and will perhaps understand why I love it so, why it catches my breath with its beauty. On a bright morning, I head up into the forest with my long stick and gloves and handsaw and spend a few hours pulling tough climbing ferns off the ohia. Down they come, old and new, tough and tenacious, showering dirt and debris over me, leaving me panting with the effort. But then comes the payoff. I may spot an apparently dead ohia through the thick ferns; and when I finally free it from its living tomb I'll spy a tender new ohia shoot bursting forth at the base of the tree. The tree is alive! And I have given it another chance to find the light and air it needs to come back.
Isn't that new, striving shoot truly a candle in the darkness? To me, the tree is in recovery: coming back to light and life after a dead, dark time. Gone are the strangling ferns. Now there is hope. As Janet says, I am 'freeing myself by freeing the ohia.' And each saved tree fills my heart with joy and gratitude. This I can do, for myself and for the Earth. - Sally
At one time I was completely embedded in the mental health system. Decisions about how my life would be at that time were made for me. Basically I lived a controlled, regulated existence. The people I spent my hours with were mental health providers and other consumers who were doubly stigmatized as trauma survivors, ex-prisoners and substance abusers. Continue Story
At every Prosumers meeting Janet and Anna share some really powerful stories. Both of them have been where most of us have been and really help us grow and recover. Thanks to both these young ladies they have really help myself and others a lot. They have told us things that we can use. .Because of what they have said to the group I know without a doubt RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE. -Kayla