Physical and psychological changes

Hi! I’m 6 and a half month sober now and here is another list of things that I notice with getting sober that I actually attribute to not drinking for a longer time. So the natural recovery of the body and mind.

– What worries me is that my addiction to sugar is actually growing, I thought I would just let it go so there would automatically be a turning point somewhere but that did not come and there are so many interesting books to read that I did not yet start in the no sugar book. I need to start thinking about this because I feel after my ‘clean eating’ diet for a little more than a week I am now starting to put on weight due to chocolate. Still eco chocolate and currently 71% but….

– My blood pressure seems to be normal. I have not been to the GP lately. I do not notice changes when I drink tea with licorice in it so I guess I am ok. I did notice changes last when I unknowingly drank a few sips of green tea. Also yesterday I ate these baked sandwiches with loads of cheese and they set my heart pumping like crazy. That was weird.

– I wrote about changes in my attitude towards sex some posts ago. That was an all time low I guess if I check out the ‘likes’ I got so I guess I won’t go there again :-D.

– In between I have used several different Schuessler tissue calts – a sort of mineral pills which are a little different from the standard ones because they actually have very little content and the idea is that you take up the minerals through the skin in your mouth so they go straight in the bloodstream and bypass the food canal. This is helpful when you have food canal problems. :-). Currently I am taking a break from them because I noticed that some ‘complaints’ are leaving but others are getting popping up. So now I wonder whether the uptake of one salt causes, due to chemical reactions and balance and what have you, to lower. I will be looking into that. Currently I have an eyelid that is ‘ticking’

– Tapping: I have listened to the tapping conference and have used it for minor things and of course ‘winning the lottery’.  I have only done any of the subjects once so I am not really noticing change in my behavior I guess but I do notice that my body is relaxing on deeper levels and I sleep better. However, I do not dare to depend on it too much, it still seems like voodoo to me – also because I can’t really feel the tapping points. Or in other words, the points that I feel actually respond to the tapping are not exactly there were the Ortner family said they are. So…. another point to look into. Currently I like the technique as a way to get to know my fears better. They do float to the surface once I get into the process of ‘no matter…… I love and accept myself’ and immediately something inside me says: ‘Pffff, NOOOOO WAY!!! You first have to clean the dishes!!!!’ Blablablabla… so I get to know that negative voice intimately. Sometimes I fall for it and sometimes I look at it and feel like it is not part of me anymore. But it is, it is. Ha, can’t let go of negativity too quickly, it feels like home.

– Falun dafa: I’ve been practising Falun dafa now for several days for about 15 to 20 minutes a day. I do think it helps me. Somehow my lower back pain that was in the background before lowering my blood pressure but immediately popped up after that, has risen to the foreground fully and is now again leaving. I think it is psychosomatic but I don’t know what it is telling me. Well, I actually think… that I think that I need to start living if I don’t have it. So….. I also think / fear I would be free floating into vagueness and anything-alternative-ufo-style-magic-unicorn-solution-to-living if I did not have it. So…. 🙂 I guess there is a good reason to have it.  I don’t have it when I do something interesting. That is interesting in it self. 🙂 Mind-body connections are so interesting.

– I sleep better. FINALLY! That started about 6 months into sobriety and I guess it has to do with 3 things: 1 being invited for the job interview and 2, making to do lists that I could actually finish, 3 going to bed on a reasonable time and waking up with an alarm 8 to 8 1/2 hours later. I’m still keeping that up, no problem. Sometimes I wake up at 8:00, but I’m trying to get to 5:00 or 6:00. Just because I like it and I remember from earlier in my life that I have been most productive in the time that I did that. It does take some planning with food etc.

I fall asleep within 1 to 3 minutes and wake up once or twice a night but mostly that is caused by the cat. We have this routine, she wakes me up, I go to the toilet and pet her. Not sure if she wakes me up to go to the toilet or to pet her. Sometimes I actually thinks she is taking care of me by waking me up. If I forget to feed her before I go to bed she might wake me up a second time. Anyhow, when I wake up now I do not really wake up like I used to, I am in this half slumber mode. NEW!

I have started dreaming again. Amazing dreams. Loads of mythology and beautiful incomprehensible stories which I forget as soon as I wake up. Bummer. I don’t care. Sleep is important and I am happy that it is still improving. When I got sober I thought that getting into dreaming would be my major hobby when sober but the most work goes into actually sleeping :-). Sleeping well is important specifically for people in recovery (I hate that word) because I read once that those who can’t sleep seem to relapse. But that had to do with catching sleep. I can fall asleep easily, it is when I wake up I get in trouble.

Maybe I party a little too early about the job. Today the owner was pissed off with me because I wanted something that we had discussed in writing and added to the contract. Now she changed her mind and is denying me what she allowed earlier. She’s a tough cooky and I’m not playing her well because I am not a player :-(. We shall see where time leads us.

– I do have a big fear that I do not speak about: my breast have sagged loads of centimeters by now, as have other tissues over my body, which is ok. But I can feel so many lumps in my breast that I am sometimes scared to even touch them. But I guess I would be tired and skinny if I had anything serious. And I know that I would not be able to sustain my sobriety yet if I went for research so I’m not going. You please don’t worry, I am guessing it has to do with tissue from my breasts starting to well, become older and loose firmness because I don’t get all that phyto-estrogens from the beer and wine anymore. So I finally feel what other, normal, women have felt all their life.

– Liver pain, still experiencing some liver pain so now and then. Do you have that? Still?

Hmmm, this post is usually about the good stuff? Now I’m all complaining? Hmmm. Good stuff:

I have given up believing that I can do things by forcing myself to. NEW! Which gives me a lot of room to either let go (NEW!!) or actually do them (NEW!!!). I also know that I need to indeed delete half of my to-do list for a day and be happy if the things are all done at the end. NEW!

I have grown in professional confidence (NEW!!!) and there is a sense of longing to work and getting started again returning. NEW!!!!! Disclaimer: not sure how much of this newly found confidence will still be there when the job does work.

I am still having trouble trying to focus on stuff but it is not coming to the point where I get really irritated  NEW!!! with my behavior so I actually turn stuff like Facebook and mail off to do other stuff.

NEW also is my now firm, believe that unwelcome feelings have a message too. I have come to believe that feelings can guide us to stay on a track that is natural. That is, when the feelings have developed naturally which is not the case when we have trauma’s or so. Or in other words: feelings that I experience as painful are now guides to changing stuff. That does not happen overnight because it means that I need to look into the darkness and actually CHANGE stuff but the thought is there. I think it is a sustainable thought.

NEW is also my ‘ability’ to let go of irritation and not get wound up in traffic e.g.

NEW is also the growing concept of ‘this too shall pass’. I do not anymore believe that every bad feeling will stay forever. I was not even aware of the fact that I have that. It is funny because that is a concept that humans are supposed to learn after their first year of life. Babies have no concept of time and literally think everything lasts forever. 😦 So, at age 45 I’m starting to learn that it might be possible that things shall pass. 🙂 NEW!!

NEW is also the concept of not having to be engulfed in emotions. I can put emotions aside. I have practised to do so because I had a meeting with the store man and did not want to take my problems into the store because he is so absolutely sensitive. Just flooding my anger through the shop would feel impolite. So I curbed it. And that actually worked. So now I ‘just’ need to learn to do this for myself as well.

NEW is the idea that negativity attracts negativity so I try not to speak or think bad of other people (yeah, not working). Specifically not since I saw the Donna Eden video on YouTube where a women on stage lost her energy because people were staring her down. Ooooh, nasty. On the negativity, which has been a subject all my life: I now get the Tarot cards ‘Fear’ and ‘Negativity’ alternating. Sigh…. And then, when I got fed up with it and asked for a solution it said: ‘Love’. And then I hear myself speaking to the cards; ‘Well, easy for you to say, you don’t have to live this life….’. 🙂 Haven’t learned it yet. 😉

NEW is the idea that I am now leaving an important part of my addicted life behind and preparing myself for society again. I guess that has to do with having to present myself for the job applications.

NEW is getting irritated with my weight. Not sad and with shame but in a way that could stimulate action. NO PROMISES. 🙂 I still have problems with making promises, thinking I might not be able to live up to them. That is something that needs looking into in due time.

NEW is the cat staring above my head and around me as she has never done. So I guess my aura (?) is changing. She has always been pretty to herself and I really like to keep it clear that she is a cat and not a replacement for a baby. She likes licking her butt and I don’t. Different. Clear. But lately she is more interested in being with me. I think it is because the way I feel to her. I am a little more relaxed.

NEW is that I sometimes can align with my memory of my spirit / divine spark. It feels like meditating and letting go of all the things that I felt before give me identity, thoughts, ego things and pain. They are not there in those moments – or I have not recognised them. I am different there. Enjoying it because that is how I assume I need to be but sometimes I get called back by suddenly experiencing vulnerability. I guess I am experiencing here what it is to be human, starting to separate the divine within and without from the human within, without. Not sure how to put that. I should get some schooling somehow, learn to call it like (I want it to be) it is.

NEW is that I am starting to look into some character traits of mine that I guess are related to addiction. The one that pops up mostly is ‘megalomania’. There is no business idea that I have without wanting it to ‘go global’ and ‘immediately’. I am starting to notice this when it happens.

NEW: I spoke with my bowels as part of a tapping on diarrhea. They actually answered that they race my food out of my body because they expect it to hurt because it has been hurting for so many years now. And then I told them that I had seriously stopped drinking and that they do not have to expect alcohol to come in again. They did not believe me at first, they were pretty spooked but then they turned happy. I have been on the border of constipation ever since. 🙂 Oooh, I sooooo would not want to be my doctor. 😀 And I am sooooo happy that I do not have anything serious that actually involves speaking with a doctor who I would be trying to explain all of this. 😀 Gheghegheghe…. impossible. 🙂

On that topic of vagueness: my right foot is hurting in different places. No idea why and the pain wanders.

NEW: the idea that I have with money is not the getting of it, it is the keeping of it. I need to look into that. Brrrrrr..

I am happy that I quit and every day for new reasons that add up to the old reasons. To some this ‘happy that I quit’ might sound stupid or just something I say but I will tell you: whenever I write that down I am THANKFUL BIG TIME to myself – yes I put myself here first, to GP1 who showed me the way and all other people, including you! who have made this possible.

I want: to sleep.

I need: to sleep

I take: Bach rescue remedy once or twice a day against flairs of fear overwhelming me because of things ‘I might have done wrong in the contract negotiations… blablabla…’

Have a good evening, night, day. 🙂 Thanks for reading my post.

xx, Feeling