Clinging to the non-clinging (?!)

This morning I wrote the previous post ‘Dying is not the problem – sort-of= ish‘ And when re-reading it I found what I had noticed earlier that I write about ‘upholding the status of not clinging’ which, in grown up terms would probably refer to non attachment but in my specific issue here it was not ‘just’ attachment, it was clinging. So I call it clinging.

“Now the practise for me is to maintain and uphold the status of ‘not clinging’ insight in daily life. Ghegheghe….. guess that will take some practise since we live in a world where clinging, wanting, striving is very much stimulated as a tool to ‘make you happy’. “

Did anyone notice the strangeness of upholding ‘not clinging’. Contradictio in adjecto much? To really arrive back again (?) at the place where I had this beautiful, freeing insight I guess I should exactly NOT be clinging to the non-clinging. 😀 New Task. Can be done I guess, it is like letting the train of an urge to drink pass by without attaching. And then for every train, no matter what is on it. Hihihihihi…. easy peasy ?????!!!

” Then what would I do in Life?? If I do not cling, if I do not have opinions? What is left of me?” Shouted the caddis I am. A caddis is a larvae of some insect, it lives under water and gathers all kinds of pieces of ‘rubbish’ which get built into a armour to protect its delicate skin, its life. I feel I do that with fears, with experiences, with well, whatever; building an outer armours to fend new experiences off. To not be touched, not be hurt again. My system reacts as if touching, in the sense of being touched equals pain for me. Seems to be an addicty trait. But disconnecting and carrying rubbish around also hurts. 🙂

Things are shifting, things have shifted in the last 3,5 years. Very slowly the armour gets lighter. Sometimes it gets heavier but that also means clearer. The systems that uphold the armour and the systems which are uphelt by the armer get clearer and lose their energetic intensity. Or, when getting more intense, they also get clearer.

I am still reading ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ from Cheri Huber but now 2-4 pages a day. I’m at the part where I need to understand (WTF) I need to do with my life if I do not criticise myself and put me down.

Live without attachment to the outcome. Or so they say. Currently not exactly sure that is what Cheri says. I’m not there yet. I need to practise the feel of that more in order to continue reading. Possibly I need to re-read stuff. How do other people do that? I have friends who read several books a month. I can’t. Too intense. My cells don’t shift so quickly.

A lot of books are written on the subject of not attaching. I have read a few. I am guessing this is one of those experiences I need to feel through in combination with some exploration by the mind. I am thinking today I found a good experience to remember and hopefully to re-experience. My heart however is still shifted into a cramp and I keep on burping.

It is time to go to bed. In addition to writing the above I need to add here that since a few weeks I am taking added Iodine and some Schuessler salts. The salts are specifically for letting go. Some of them help me lose water weight too. Which…..  I am not sure (I am VERY SURE) if I am fooling myself because I eat a bag of chips and some very salty cheese in really hot weather without drinking a lot and then go ‘Whoops, I need to shed waterweight because my feet are swelling up’. Abuse, just comes easy to me. It could be a song. But I am learning. Right now my heart (!!!) softly tells me: you do not have to write that. No need, let go.

I feel my heart is coming alive again. Today I walked up 4 long stairs and I was a little out of breath and my heart was pumping. My first reaction was fear but then I remembered the pride I used to feel as a child in the strength of my body and everything changed. The air I was taking in was not a desperate gasp but life bringing oxygen. The pumping of my heart not a desperate attempt to stay alive but the strong beating of a heart which joins with the body to do work.

Did I tell you the hug-buddy missed me and invited himself back over. Hmmm, it is like an addiction; stop for a while without really pulling out the root of the desire…. the attachment deepens when you re-connect again. And yes, I know, when it comes to man-women things that comparison could be perceived a little awkward…. But I guess that is the revengeful bitch in me speaking. Pulling out roots. Ghegheghe… did not do that.  That sounds weird too. Gonna leave it in here thought because I resorted to a little aggressive behaviour and this comparison is part of that. Same shit as talking about pulling out roots. Not good. Ramadan coming up next Tuesday, no hugging with the hug-buddy so he says. That is good -> talk time.

I am grateful I do not drink anymore. A few posts ago I wondered about my sobriety. I have reset my wish for sobriety and clarity, newly expressed it to myself and that feels way better. I guess I was taking it for granted like ‘3,5 years no problem, what’s gonna happen to me now’. But that is not sobriety. I need intent to become clear. Move beyond only the not drinking. Not drinking is only a ‘tool’. Or more like an area of destructive behaviour I should not move into when I want to become clear. I guess today the experience of being able to, for a certain amount of time, be conscious of letting go of attachment to my dying brother has helped me with that. Being clear is good.

Thank you for reading. I wish you a good sober day or evening or weekend! Enjoy!

xx, Feeling

Rockbottom 2 – the realisation that I NEED to change and deal

The alcohol rock bottom was a tough one. I’m thinking now that quitting drinking freed up time to confront me with my basic issues I have. Currently these are:

• sadness
• negativity, lacking gratefulness
• lacking direction, goals
• lacking focus, concentration, mindfulness
• serious memory issues
• administrative and financial troubles
• high blood pressure, food and weight issues

I experience myself as being energetically unaligned, not centered and it is getting not only irritating but also eating in on my Life’s energy. If I do not change I will not be able to sustain my life a lot longer. Not so much because I will starve but if I do not get direction I WILL turn depressed as I used to be when drinking and I WILL lose my wish to live. Since several months I have not been really happy or even glad anymore. I do not sleep well, I do not dream a lot, I am stagnating.

Thing is, I don’t know how to do things differently. I am immensely confused by the way this world developes with its Trumps, global warming, environmental issues, health issues due to sickening food habits, sickening health care. And I am very scared of all of that. I go into freeze state whenever I open Facebook or read the news. So I decided to not FB a lot anymore because there is nothing I can do to change it, apart from repost, share and like.

I also realise, and even more so when Trump was elected: if we want to change the world we NEED to change ourselves. I must not keep hanging on to the replacement addictions but to really get clear, which is my Life’s goal. I need to keep that in mind.

So I have set my clock to snooze every 9 minutes to remind me of the following:

• ‘What would a woman who loves herself do?’
• Breathe, relax, drink water
• Act, do, read
• Baby steps, progress, not perfection

These things are on a paper stuck to the timer. It is very confronting to see how often I am not doing what I set out to do. Even within 9 minutes I can change directions 10 times. I want that to change. This butterfly method might be cute when you are a butterfly, the tax office is not interested in cute. Neither is the landlord. The ‘read’ is there as a reminder that I can read instead of FB or Netflix.

Tax check on 2014 will be in 10 days. I need to prep but it scares me like shit. I don’t want to be scared anymore. I want to be able to deal. I am sick and tired of walking about scared. I mean, so many people have it way worse than I and here I am ‘ooh, scared…. ooh’ and hiding from Life. Not fulfilling whatever destiny there is for me. Or maybe I do so with being scared but I DONT WANT THAT! I wonder if I can treat fear the same way as I did alcohol; just block it when the thought comes up. I believe it has worked for unhappy thoughts for a while. Well, let me start with being distracted and go back to what I was doing.

I have had 2 job interviews and have been turned down for the one which had an opening due to me telling them that I might, at the Friday afternoon, after a busy week, have some trouble counting. That is a nasty lesson. Everybody tells me I need to learn to shut up and possibly even lie. By saying “I don’t want that, I do not want to live in a world where that is necessary.” I think I deny actually looking at the world and the way people work. I get onto my high horse and condemn those who do not follow The Rules as I find them to be honourable.

I am happy that I quit. I realise that I would be in an ENORMOUS hell if I had not. So that is good. It also gives me the opportunity to actually become aware that I need to change some of my behaviour in order to live. All this discomfort I have been feeling for a while now, I need to go through it, change the things I can change :-). Hey…. doesn’t that sound familiar?

Funny thing happened on the train: I was reading The Stateless State from Amrut Laya / Shri Siddharameshwar Maharaj when this women sits next to me and asks me what yogi I am reading. I got the book idea from the bookstore man, more than a year ago. Somewhere it says that people who are ill can go to the doctors but the real healing is in finding back your Life’s path yourself. Which I did with drinking and haha, need to continue to do since I’m not there yet. And ooh yeah, thát works out to be a very Dutch thing; ask people what they are reading, lot of foreigners complain about that in The Netherlands. 🙂

Also, I need to tell you: reading is a big word, I read 3 pages and then had to start again because I had forgotten them. Anyhow, we speak and I mention my ‘complaint’ one the ‘theory’ of ‘one-ness’; “Why for X’s name would oneness be logical? If that is so important, why have we not been designed as one biomass instead of all several people, plants, animals? What is the use of thát? If the design is so good, why do we not agree to the results as being separate beings / experiencing separation?”. At which she says: “Funny that you mention that, I have been reading Shri Aurobindo and he is able to answer that question.” Funny meetings in the train. Synchronicity happening again?

A woman who loves herself would continue to do the egg-timer trick untill she is on her feet again. And she would NOT continuously criticize herself for getting of track because criticizing makes her freeze and compassion makes her able to understand and learn.

Hey! No Facebook for 4 hours! 🙂 GOOD!

I wish you a nice sober day / evening, doing what a men/woman who loves herself would do. ❤

xx, Feeling

Epiphany

I woke up last night and had this epiphany (had to look that word up) about my food intake. My nutritionist and I had worked out that I need to take a look at doing 10.001 things at the same time. I did. And I do do 10.001 things at the same time and have difficulty focussing on anything but typing. It is irritating because I get to nothing and my rice always burns. It’s another addiction. It’s funny to realise through this process of getting sober and, well, working towards my goal of getting ‘clear’ and aligned with my spirit it that I am sort of running in circles – but at every turn spiralling inward a little. So step by step, turn by turn, day by day things that are unreal get chipped away from me. Like the tiny pieces of the caddis larvae leaving me. The pieces are about ‘opinions’ – all these opinions, pffff. The are about fear of not being seen and they are about fear of being seen. Fear of being loved and fear of not being loved. About bullshitting myself – loads of that going on. 🙂

Here is the larvae of a cadis, it has a soft outer skin so in order to survive it builds a little case around itself to protect itself against predators. There is also an art project where the artist gave the larvae tiny jewels to build the case with. 🙂 Lovely. Well, that is not me. I’ve build the case with angry and confused defense reactions to painful situations. So I guess it would be wise to let some of it go.

And now I guess I have walked into another addiction and I guess I will call it ‘diversion’. Had to look that up too, not sure if I chose the right word but I notice now that I get diverted easily and I LIKE IT. And it is not getting me anywhere. So…. things about diversion and how I deal with it pop up. As last night…

Not sure since when, but it must be YEARS, I have this constant intake of food and drink. Constantly stuffing my face as in a not wanting to feel what is actually going on – being with discomfort. And now, after about 5,5 months not drinking, it suddenly bothers me – at night of course, what other moment would me suitable for that?

So I lay in my bed and I probed towards the usual foods that I take and I got a no on most of them. So…. gonna do a 2 weeks of brown eco rice, vegetables, little fruit, fish, herb tea and hot water. Let’s see how that will work out. No promises. The conversation I had with me said 2 weeks because of something that did not become clear, but was somehow important. Yes, vague, I know. Just noting it down for my own check-back thingy. But hey, why not give it a shot. Guessing it is worth it. Again, no promises. 🙂

Have a nice day! 🙂

Still reading and psychological changes

Still reading Tommy Rosen’s ‘Recovery 2.0’. By now I guess you must be thinking that I read rather slowly. I do, I do. I want to know for sure that I did not read past sentences because I know me: resistance is big 🙂 and because of the denial I never know when it pops up. I have a highly developed capacity for looking away so… keeping me on a leash here and reading slowly and for the first time in my life actually marking sentences in a book! Well, in pencil. The book makes me happy and things fall into place. Up to now he describes his journey and his methode to feel his way back into life. I was already doing a some of the stuff which is why I am so happy I am reading this book: obviously my ‘feeling my way back method’ does somehow make sense. 🙂 And thankful that somebody went the road before me and puts things into place.

Suddenly I am very much drawn to mandalas. Not sure how this mandala fits in here but to me it does. To me it feels as what I am doing and how that relates to the universe.

Funny changes: since I started reading this book I am behind the screen a lot less. I just don’t like it anymore, it feels wrong. Rosen speaks of the ‘frequency of addiction’ –  I know exactly what he means and how it feels, I just did not know it had a name. It is what I dislike VERY MUCH and I guess it is my biggest motivation for wanting to be clear. And now I know why my goal is not ‘not drinking’ my goal has always been ‘being clear’, not drinking is part of that.

Well, the other thing that happens spontaneously is that I am (yes, up front very sorry to say this but I promised myself not to edit and I would edit if I would leave this out) not interested anymore in sober blog reading or writing for that matter. My ayahuasca spirit has revisited and repeats back from years ago: ‘All these opinions, don’t go there, it is not important.’  Which is what she said to me when doing my first or second ayahuasca sessions years ago. Guessing she is right. I am starting to want to listen to this internal voice more and more and make time for it. Hope is it not a ‘wandering off in seclusion thing’. Let’s see how this develops and how I will continue to develop if I don’t write stuff down. (There’s this voice saying: you might want to start connecting with people in real life….) Odd…. 😀

Next: I am starting to really see the clutter in my house and really notice how this system of looking away from it works. I am trying to keep my attention there where it hurts but that does not work yet. Not going to force it (ghegheghe) I am cleaning way more than I have don over the last, say 2 years? And not only ‘because someone is coming’.

Important questions these days: ‘What is your favorite way to spend time?’

Answer at any moment: ‘So why are you in front of the computer now?’

I am not sure anymore if I am happy that I quit because the big negatives are sort of disappearing out of sight. However, last night I dreamed that I forgot I had quit and drank a glass of wine at a party and WHAAAAA I wanted the whole bottle and remembered: O yeah, that’s what it was like…. let’s not do that.

That’s were I am sometimes: either in mandala land happily learning stuff or in purgatory, in the hell that is not hell but deals an eternal suffering because there is time but no movement. So time passes but nothing happens, no consequences but no growth and improvements either. Guessing that is where I weigh my actions, systems, blockages, all that what keeps me away from living. Sometimes it irritates me, sometimes I am ok with my stalling. I’m going fast enough as it is. Purgatory does have a function. The path is the destination even though it sometimes looks like this:

Well, if that is what it is, that is what it is.

Post Scriptum: Looked up the person in the mandala online. Wiki says: She is an Anuttarayoga Tantra iṣṭadevatā and her practice includes methods for preventing ordinary death, intermediate state (bardo) and rebirth (by transforming them into paths to enlightenment), and for transforming all mundane daily experiences into higher spiritual paths^.

Preventing ordinary death by quitting drinking – check!

In bardo – check! It’s funny that I write about purgatory which well, could be seen as the Christian name for bardo in the one post with the mandala that I know shit about. The Universe is amazing now I quit drinking :-).

Transforming mundane experiences into higher spiritual paths – check! The path is the destination. All what comes is what should be.

Feeling cocky

Yes. That’s it, I have come to another stage in dealing with my addiction and this time it is about feeling cocky.  Thinking: if it is this easy I might as well have another sip – see if it really is that bad. No fuss, just drink like a normie and get on with my life.

Not good. I know it is a Big Trap. Happy secretangel got to the subject before I was even aware I had it. 🙂

I am getting curious. Or lazy, or bored, or tired. I feel I put more control on my intentions than needed to, I don’t know, prevent cravings? Suppress drink think? I don’t know. I do something, I call it vigilance, and I use it not to drink. It is a continuous scanning of intentions, thoughts, feelings, wants, likes, dislikes, cravings and actions. I am getting tired of it.

I would like to relax without having the feeling that I relapse in seconds. I fear addiction is this time bomb inside me so parts of me still can’t relax. And because I get tired of that I am trying to diminish the drinking ‘Maybe I was not addicted, maybe I was just a heavy abuser. Didn’t that doctor in the movie say that real addicts only ‘think drink’?’ This is trap 512: how to mis-use knowledge to diminish ones drinking. In combination with trap 45: not realising that these thought only come up because the whole drinking thing is an addiction. I don’t have this thoughts about bell peppers and I have not eaten bell peppers since I quit. So ha! Uncovered those traps.

Shit. I am addicted.

Well, happy that I quit. Proud because of quitting has gone out of the equation a little while ago and has not returned yet. Thinking again that learning to relax is an important thing. And again: learning to trust me. But how can I trust me if I am addicted? Addiction is cunning. I think it is smarter than I am. Look it in the eye I guess, that will show its true character.

And while I try to focus my internal eye on the addicted life I lead I want to turn away. Sad now. The loneliness of it, the sadness, the prison, despair, meaninglessness, emptiness, the illusion, the trap, the drowning of feelings. 🙂 Ghegheghe, I chose my name well. Feelings should not be drowned. Trust my feelings. Aah, again, the focus should not be on ‘not drinking’, the focus should be on living clear. 🙂 That’s it.

Why don’t I trust myself?

I’ve been out in the sober world for about 2 weeks now and I’m still sort of hiding in my home, curtains closed, not doing stuff. Why don’t I trust myself? If I read other bloggers about their first days it has been agony and that they have been white knuckling it. I don’t even know the meaning of those words. No agony here, pain about old stuff, but no booze agony, 3-5 Half thoughts about alcohol intake a day max. I think it has a lot to do with my eating pattern and the time that I have to sort myself out, and probably also the homeopathic stuff and Bach remedies I take. But still I don’t trust myself, think I am ‘in repair’. Why? Well I need repairing, but I always have been in need of repairing. I’m in a better place than I have been for years. What’s wrong?

AA and all kinds of programs tell you (me!) that addiction is a disease that can not be cured and that thought leaves me limp. I am still fighting with that idea because I very much dislike it.  One can call that ‘power issue’ and ‘not willing to be powerless’ but the guy thinking up the ‘you should be powerless’ is the same guy that did the 13th step over and over again on new female recruits. So how much am I going to trust a fruit from his tree?

For those readers that are at the tip of their chair going: she is slipping, not following the path…. I don’t think I am. Alcohol is a poison. People that voluntarily drink are either misinformed or very stupid. (Hear, hear 🙂 ) Not going back there. I keep having the feeling that I need to prove stuff. I’m ok. I’m ok-er than I have ever been in my life.

So I Googled for alternatives some and I found this: http://www.alternatives-for-alcoholism.com/  They say alcoholism is (also) a brain disease and can be cured by eating healthy. Somehow I have difficulty trusting this, but that is the part that says I’m gonna be sick forever and dangerous and whoohooooo. I don’t want that. And I have experienced that eating healthy helps me fantastically so I’m gonna sleep on it and tomorrow I’ll check out if I want to buy her book. Also, the physical aspects that she mentions coincide with my history of diseases. On the other hand: who in this world is not addicted to sugar and caffeine (FYI I’m not anymore) She talks of child abuse as a factor that damages childrens brains.

About the book; I’ve been saving the non-drinking money to spend on me.  Actually I think that books on recovery should be coming from my normal account, not from my little special savings account. But since I do not trust it a 100% yet I think it is frivolous to buy these. 🙂 Spoken like a true, true, yeah, I know where the gene is coming from. 😉

Inconspicious jump: Did I tell you I stopped on the 7th ‘anniversary’ of my mothers dying day? Do you call that an anniversary too when somebody died? It sounds way more festive than it was. She asked me on her deathbed to ‘go easy on the beer’. It was her dying wish. I said;  ‘That will work itself out.’

A few days before, on her birthday I had lost it completely and drank like 6 pints on my own, in their house, while they suddenly ran of to the hospital for an emergency. I made photo’s of the whole house and garden because I felt that all of it would be gone soon. Also, I thought  they would be staying at the hospital. I just could not handle any of it anymore. And than they came back and I did not want to look drunk of course. So I geared myself up internally and think I managed to get by. Apart from the fact that I drank the whole stock of beer and they will have noticed that afterwards.

During that evening I massaged my mothers feet and discovered on feel every place on her feet where the chemo had killed her nerves. Those places felt dead, dead as in really dead, part of her body already was dead tissue but I do not know if that counted for the nerves as well, the skin ‘did not respond’ to my touch. I did not know it is possible to feel the difference between dead and alive because I have never touched a dead person. I had touched dead animals but those are in another ‘box’ in my head. I had never thought that dead is so, universal.

She actually already had a lot of dead tissue inside her but I’m not sure if this can count for nerves as well. By the time that they found out I had drunk the whole stock of beer I must have scared the shit out of them, being wasted, still talking ok, walking ok and feeling things nobody should be able to feel even if they were sober. I was very ashamed. Still do. We never spoke about it but 10 days later I got asked to ‘take it easy on the beer’. Well, I think I know she knew that I was addicted. BS. She knew. And as you might have noticed I did not promise her anything. Didn’t want her to rule over her grave. YES!!! YES!!! Sorry to say so. 😦 I thought: ‘I agree. And you should have ruled before you died, don’t come after me now.’

And this people, is how to end a story on a low. 🙂

But hey, I am happy that I quit and reminding me of that thought makes me all happy inside, confident of the fact that I do know what is good for me, that, now I finally live by my own judgement, I am doing well. In fact that is the only change that I made, finally trusting in my own judgement. The rest is just, practise in doing that. I will practise. I do trust myself.