SOW #17 The Gift of Detachment with Special Guest Karen Casey

Today’s Seeds of Wisdom was a full-circle experience for me. As you will watch or listen to in the episode, I was given Karen’s first book, Each Day A New Beginning when I was going through a very dark time in 1990. I was fourteen years old. I didn’t even know it was her book until I was attending a Heart Wisdom Panel somewhere between 2020 and 2022. She was one of the special guests. I turned around and I had two books of hers sitting on my bookshelf. This was a true honor getting to spend this special time with her having a conversation about the very concept that led me to take the path that I’m living now.

Who is Karen Casey?

Karen Casey, Ph.D. has more than 46 years as an active member in Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon. She made a commitment to recovery and this pathway of hope the moment she walked through the doors of her first Al-Anon meeting in 1974. After going to her first AA meeting in May, 1976, she never looked back. The die had been cast.

Her work as a writer and workshop leader has broadened to include books for people on any spiritual path, or none. A Course in Miracles has been an added focus for more than 30 years.

Karen’s first meditation book: Each Day A New Beginning: Daily Meditations For Women, was published in 1982. It has sold more than 4 million copies and has been followed by an additional 29 books. Her recent books have focused on relationships and how to live more peacefully in them. Her most recent book: Each Day A Renewed Beginning: Meditations For A Peaceful Journey, strikes a chord with anyone who wants to walk more quietly through the upheavals of life.

An exciting aspect of Karen’s journey is the 40th Anniversary of her first book: Each Day A New Beginning. The new edition of this book was released in December, 2022. It has a new Foreward by Marianne Willamson and a new Introduction by Karen.

Karen Casey Vision Statement: August 3, 2022

I hunger for peace of mind. And I know it’s always available if I meet others, any others, from a place of loving kindness and with a gentle gesture. Far too many people, worldwide, are caught in the throes of uncertainty and fear and neither of those states need to overwhelm anyone when they remember that there is a Hand available to comfort and guide them.

As a child I lived in perpetual fear. I didn’t expect my state of mind to ever change, but it did. Most unexpectedly to me, I became an alcoholic. It served as a way to escape the fear. Under the influence of alcohol, fear dissipated. Fortunately, my journey with alcohol led me into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous more than 46 years ago and everything in my life changed from that day forward.

Because of my own struggle to connect with a Higher Power, (my companions in AA seemed to so easily connect), I began to write, imagining what I thought the God of my understanding might be saying to me. And 366 meditations later, I had created the first book I was to write. In the process of my listening to God and sharing what I heard, I had a glimmering of peace of mind, a glimmering that I have nurtured through an additional 4 decades and 30 books.

I now see it as my purpose in life to share the words that come to me from my Higher Power, words that comfort me in the moment, and that I simply know are meant to comfort others too. Everyday is filled with a sense of mission. Although I may not be writing everyday, I am greeting others on the path as I take my morning walk, or while I am standing in line behind others at the grocery or elsewhere.

All of these people I see as God-sent. And it’s my assignment to lift their spirits if they need lifting. It’s my assignment to

be helpful however I can and to foster joy and peace of mind in others by serving as an example of the same. Is this a lofty purpose? I think not. In fact, I believe it’s a purpose that is calling to literally millions of others on this journey through life, and any one person that we help to see a more hopeful future, or even moment; that we help to inspire to put their best foot forward as they greet whomever comes their way; we will have pleased God. Many times over. And is there anything more important to accomplish? Any thing at all. . .