Changes, changes…

Hi! πŸ™‚ Hope to find you well. I haven’t been feeling like writing and I still don’t but I think that I should try a little just to see what comes up. I never know with me. I might be hiding important stuff from me just because I don’t feel like knowing it.

Yeah. Big things have been happening. Big changes in me but there were so much of them that it was overwhelming and I did not even know where to start so I did not. Going to try now.

The friend I have called the nutritionist friend introduced me to the concept of not using the word ‘should’. Right at that moment I realised how much of my life’s energy is stuck in that concept. It felt like I encase myself in this tremendous wall of things that I should do and don’t do and then berate myself over. It feels like a 30 cm (12 inch) thick wall of heavy fog all around me, almost concrete, that heavy. No wonder I feel stuck. And… with noticing it and realising the construction that keeps it there, I also managed to let go for a tenth of a second…. it gave me an insight in the overwhelmingly big world that lies behind this wall of fog and my need to hide.

I trust biology and our Creators; whatever good or bad we have in ourself, it is there for a reason. Me getting stuck is not good or productive but somewhere there must be a reasonΒ  that I prefer to be stuck or it would not happen. I might not be aware of it but somehow, somewhere I think I win with this behaviour. Being an ex(?)-addict it is probably a quick fix and short time goal I am serving with it, but the idea of the fix is there and I think by now I have learned that I can not leave destructive behaviour if I do not understand what I do when doing it and feel my way through it while understanding it. I learn by reading, thinking, listening, speaking and while doing that feeling my way through. Through actually means ‘out’ in most cases. Feel my way out of the problem into clear living.

I learn best when things change in my cells too. Does that make sense? Do you know an insight in something can be so big that your whole body reacts? Like a reaction is set of in all your cells? Learning in such a way that your whole body understands what is good and what is wrong. Learning in such a way that you never feel like you did before because something has changed at cell level? This has happened in a bad way but lately it is happening in a good way very often and pfiew, it takes time to let things settle. And if anybody knows of a book that can put more scientific words to this process I would really like to know.

About the should word. I did not take time to let it settle in my body which is a shame because I needed that insight. Next time I will take care and say something like ‘I need to sit with this feeling for a while.’ So it can settle better. I should have (hahaha) taken the time to let that realisation settle in my cells.

Other insights? Yes! Every now and then the fog between me and the mess in my house lifts and I really see it for what it is. Quite overwhelming. Have I done anything about it? Not a lot yet, but is really getting on my nerves by now and my body is rebelling against it. I have started cleaning more, still keeping up making the bed in the morning, cleaning the sheets more often, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen more often than I ever did.

I needed to do some tiny admin stuff and suddenly I realised how tiny they were and I just did it. No promises for the future.

There is a thing: I can not deal with pressure and expectations. Or I never could and now I realise it. Any expectation puts an enormous amount of pressure onto me. Like ‘You’ll work it out.’ Or ‘You’ll have a job in no time.’ Or my GP3: ‘If you can’t walk 30 minutes, start with 5 and build it up.’ NOOOOOOOOO!!!! So I am doing an experiment on me. Based on the thought that I know what is good for me AND that nature will provide. The first one is clear all though one could argue that an ex-addict does not know what is good or bad. I’m not going to, because I got into this shit with not listening to me and not aligning myself with whatever my true me is and I am practising not doing that anymore. Actually I have shipped out so much rubbish already that I am not me anymore. THAT is a major change as well. No I’ve not become psychotic or what have you. Last week I had this revelation of realising that becoming sober was not going to feel like ‘me with some changes’. If I want to get sober (am) and clear (am not yet) I need to change. My ideas, my frames, my concepts, my approaches, my intentions and my speed needs to change. I need to clean out the rubbish, mend things, clean things up, heal. And that does not go happen if I hang on to who I was and what I like to feel like.

My ‘preferred’ state of being is anxious, with some kind of doom awaiting me, always. With loads of sadness and loss and happiness that is almost directly smothered in that sadness. Not directly, then there would be no effect, just almost directly so I can still feel the happiness but it is gone in seconds, creating even more sadness. Well. I guess that is not what I want. So me with some changes is not happening, the changes are so big that the me is changing too. Which is good. When getting sober and longing to be clear I never knew it would go so deep.

Also my body does not like fast food anymore. I had a decent pizza from a real Italian today; brrrrrr. My body starts to object. That feeling is 500 years old, no, ok, 20 years old? I am starting to dislike the taste of my favorite chocolate. The ‘what else is left’ (add some drama here….) thought keeps me with it. No coffee, no black or green tea, no soda, no sugar apart from very pure chocolate. I know the key is in the not longing but I can’t get there yet and I don’t think I should practise that now. It’s too early. It takes the brain 4 months to re-route the neural pathways of reward from alcohol to something else. I’ve hooked it to chocolate, watching a movie, sleeping, taking a bath and… being alone. It is actually contact with people that makes me want to drink. So maybe I should be a shepard or a writer or so or a train driver.

Ooh, and another big thing on Perfection. I always thought perfection was about doing stuff perfect or not doing them (I do the last… ). But it is about WANTING them and specifically me TO BE PERFECT and NEEDING things to be FIXED, preferably in NO TIME. And the struggling I did with that: ‘Not being able to be perfect is ok, in itself, for others….’ πŸ˜€ I always thought that I, well still think, that I am living to be perfect later. And in light of that image it is no use to do anything actually. Why bother? Not going to be enough anyhow. Well, that is a bit of a downer but I was in a very good mood when I discovered that is how I actually think. NOT a constructive concept. I need to fix that immediately….. πŸ˜‰ I am guessing I will have to learn something about the subject of perfection but that can wait till I have a library card I guess.

I am amazed how many subjects I encounter in my life automatically, or ‘naturally’ that are standard addict issues.

And of course there was the singing lesson. It was wonderful again. There was an excercise where one person stood behind the other. The first had her hands crossed over her heart and the person standing closely behind had her hands in a supporting way under the elbows of the person in front. Both would sing their own tune (made up tones, notes, rhythms) and pay attention to what was happening. The funny thing is that the singing of a pair aligns pretty quickly and becomes a harmony and…. the arms of the person in front open up. I ended up being so grateful that I had my hands stretched out, palms up in a gesture that is both giving and receiving.

During the excercise I had some floating issues with the intimacy (it is actually pretty close and intimate) but I was able to let that be and enjoy the excercise and really experience, well, it sounds funny, but the power of love. My heart opened up and it felt like there was this beautiful white light beaming through our hearts, so peaceful and loving. The room changed into a forest and my hands opened up and it felt like a flower unfolding.

Then we shared and the person I did the excercise with said: it felt like we were in a forest, and it was beautiful and light and then when her arms opened it felt like a flower unfolding.

Isn’t that amazing? I cried happy tears when I heard that. There is so much more in the contact between people than is commonly known or spoken about. I’ve experienced before that feelings, dreams and even thoughts communicate without words through senses that I do not know the name of. Is it me? No, I am guessing this happens to everybody but I think not everybody is aware of it or comes in situations where they are able to experience it.

What was big for me is that my heart worked. My heart chakra (?) has been stuck for years and now it opened up and flowed and that was good. Thankful and happy. So many good things happening. Also: I only once of twice did a tiny leap into sadness or blocking the happiness with sad thoughts. I did do a little blocking with being uncomfortable but that washed away in the happiness too.

I go to bed earlier. Because I want it. And even if there’s part of me whining on wanting to finish this movie or that episode. But possibly also because I do not blog in the evening anymore. I’ve set my alarm again. I’ve biked in the nasty weather today for 15 km while I could have easily cancelled.

One thing I am not so proud of: I can not stand to be with certain people anymore. People that I perceive as having a negative energy. Don’t know how to keep it outside me and it scares me. And I can’t read anything that I perceive as whining and moaning or not searching for truth. Not sure if this is another phase in having to deal with projecting my own dark side on others or that I am choosing to live healthier and therefore want to stay away from ‘bad’ people. Or both. If you have an inkling as to how this might work I am happy to hear from you. Happy to hear from you anyway but I still do not imagine people actually read entries that are this long. πŸ˜€

Happy that I quit, although the happy is now moving towards happy that I experience things differently now I quit so the enormously-relieved-that-I-quit feeling is slowly being replaced by the results of the quitting. And so does the pride. Pride comes up ever so now and then when I get an insight in stuff that I knew I would never have been be able to deal with when drinking. And when I get a compliment about having quit.

And before I push the send button just a quick Ctrl-F on the world ‘should’. I counted 9 in total of which 3 unconsciously / outside the ‘should’ paragraphs.

8 thoughts on “Changes, changes…

  1. Haha. I battle with ‘should’ also!
    A couple years ago when I was talking with a therapist I went on this rant about how I should be do this and that and everything. She stopped me and had the ‘should’ discussion and although I sometimes forget it’s the truth!!

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  2. There’s so much in this post that inspires me, feeling, thank you! Especially the realisation you referred to again that sobriety is more than just ‘me with some changes’; the ‘me’ part is changing too.
    It reminds me of that phrase, ‘if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting’. I will have to learn to change my responses and my attitudes in certain situations, in order to feel the way I want to feel in my life. Its easier said than done but I’ll try…its great to hear about your experiences of letting go of the ‘shoulds’ too xx

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    • Yeah, isn’t it exciting how much things ‘just’ happen when we quit drinking? And yes, it sometimes is very difficult. I believe I struggle with ‘putting sadness between me and the world’ for about 4 or 5 years now. And it is only now that I’m starting to understand how it works and feels.
      On the positive side (not adding in the sadness….) I am startind to understand and that is great, there is a whole world opening up that I never knew existed. πŸ™‚
      xx, Feeling

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