An Open Letter to Those Who Attended My Interview with Dave Potter of Palouse Meditation

Dear Friends, Thank you so much for joining me on Wednesday night for my interview with Dave Potter of Palouse Meditation. That interview was so fulfilling for me as a student of both Be A Loving Mirror (BALM) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). For those of you who are in the BALM, I’m wondering if you got a chance to look at Dave’s website. This morning I went down the left column to the list of meditations. I was feeling wiggly and not much like sitting (yes, that was me I was talking about l when I asked that question about restlessness at the beginning of the call! I have been feeling very wiggly lately) and so today I chose to use the ‘sitting meditation’ recording. Found it very relaxing and helpful. Still felt a bit wiggly, but was able to sit.  I first saw the Palouse Meditation site awhile back and at the time, I was shocked to see MBSR being taught for free online. I had taken a one-on-one eight week class years before and had relied on the personal attention my teacher had given me. One of my students asked if I knew any meditation teachers or programs I could recommend.  Knowing she had just invested heavily in her coach training, I was looking for something meaningful and affordable. So,  I spent more time on Dave’s mindfulness site and wrote him an email to ask if we could meet. His gentle down to earth manner and his empathic way of connecting came through not only in person but on his site and in his course.  And I knew I had found a resource for my students that could work. They already understood online learning and for those with whom MBSR resonated, it could be a fit. I’m so glad we did connect. Meeting his students and feeling the positive energy on the call helped me see the value he  has brought into so many lives.  Thanks Dave for sharing your wisdom with the BALM family! For those of you new to BALM or visiting us that night, may I give you a bit of an introduction to why I believe our programs resonate so strongly with each other, and why, if you have a family member with a use disorder, or care about the field of recovery in general, you may want to know more about us. The BALM (Be A Loving Mirror) Method of Family Recovery is a solution-focused program designed to help family members learn how to lovingly connect with their struggling loved ones in ways that free the family member from anxiety and upset and give the person they are trying to help the best chance of recovering from their use disorder.  Of course, mindfulness is key to our program. We have 7 Steps to Be A Loving Mirror and for people already engaged in a mindfulness program, our program’s guidance can help very quickly as it is founded completely on a foundation of our first step, “Be the Peace You Wish to See in the World.”  What I found as a person in relationship with a struggling loved one is that when I was able to Be the Peace, everything else began to fall into place. But, that in itself was not enough. To help families learn what I learned in order to help my husband get into recovery, I wrote a program that included information to educate the families about Addiction and Recovery (found in the BALM 12 Principles of Family Recovery) and a transformation process to help the transform their inner relationship and their relationships with others (found in the 7 Steps to Be A Loving Mirror). We see all of the pieces of BALM as being designed to teach families how to always be contributing to their loved one’s recovery rather than the substance use disorder (SUD).  After awhile, other life coaches I knew started to ask me how they could help families and they asked me to start a school. So I did. Then, I developed a methodology to train those who wanted more than anything to help those families, whether as a coach or a facilitator of family classes.  The journey has been amazing and part of that is the opportunity to meet others on the path to greater peace, love and joy in their lives…people like Dave Potter and like you.  In the BALM program, we are on a mission to help ALL families find recovery for themselves and their struggling loved ones. Wanted to share that with you in case you know someone who may need our solution-based services. You can just send them to our website to learn more. They can download a free copy of the first chapter of my book BALM The Loving Path to Family Recovery, check out our introductory webinars, Dave’s website, and our call together on our Resources page, or check out our Events Calendar on the home page, where we list upcoming introductory webinars, classes, workshops, and retreats that we offer for families and professionals. If you are a person in recovery with family members having a difficult time handling the problems your addiction once brought them, they may like to have a copy of that book. Or if you have a struggling loved one, there is NO shame in saying, “I need help.”  Now that you have come to one of our calls, you are invited to be one of us. We have plenty of free offerings to partake in and many families do just that! We also have classes, workshops, and highly trained life coaches specializing in family recovery and recovery who make a difference everyday in the lives of those with the challenges that family addiction brings…And who knows, maybe you would like to join our growing cadre of BALM Specialists and Coaches, helping families blaze the trail to recovery in their homes! Thank you again for visiting us!  We hope to see you again!  All the best, Bev Buncher