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

In addition….

A few days ago I asked you whether or not you encountered funny things by accident that remind you of having been/being addicted. I encounter a shit load of them. Telling me ‘it is not gone yet’.

Just 3 minutes ago I was wondering whether Amsterdam Central station had indeed 15 tracks because I can remember asking ‘do I need to be at 6 on 10 past or on 10 at 6 past? And the reply being: x on x past would not work because that does not exist. So I, while actually playing the new mindfulness summit vid on the background…. ghegheghe…. eh, looked it up. I think to remember there is a track 10 so I Googled  ‘spoor 6 Amsterdam’ (track 6 Amsterdam). It is a rehab.

So no, it is not gone yet. But I could have read that from simultaneously listening to a mindfulness vid and Googling on other subjects. :-D.

I am happy that I quit. And happy that I had/have it easy with the not drinking. I do think my combined physical (nutrients, Bach Remedies, Schuessler cell salts, Ayurveda), mental (books, free online alcohol desensitization training) and ‘spiritual’ (writing, reading, I am thinking, hoping, honest self analyses, setting a goal at wanting clarity, not at ‘ooooh, I should NOT drink, NOT drink’) have helped me here. But hey, everybody goes their own way. My not so very humble opinion on what to do in order to get sober has now (14 months tomorrow) changed to: you need to search and walk the path that is good for you.

I for one think to know for sure now that I could not have survived in a group event. Too many eyes looking at me. I’m en entrepreneur, need to find my own trail. And since I still have difficulty accepting other people near me I think I could not have dealt. Even though I do know that isolation is a addicty thing, I’m thinking I am doing ok with that. Well, let’s see. 🙂

Wwawwlhd?: Right now she would shower and clean up the house because that has been bugging her. Did I say this projection of wwawwlhd? bypasses my self-destruct button which is always between me and the goal. It is like: think/want/need -> plan -> self destruct -> pain. Now I go think/want/need -> plan -> wwawwlhd? -> action. It’s a cool too. So thank you Teal Swan!

I want: ghegheghe, I still want things to be simple. I guess that means that I find that this life over taxes me. I never realised that. Can’t be the work I do, must be the perception or my possibility to cope with things. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Well, live has become a little simpler but the heat is on really now: the tax refund of 2014 came in and I paid of 5 months of what you call that in rent and some other overdue bills. But that is the last reserve, it will last for another few months but not more than 4. I really, really need to get a move on.

And, in that process there is this voice that pops up ‘Well, when you finally have that job you need, you can at least have a drink.’ NO!!! Working hard and drinking have always been connected in my life. It started off at my parents who would, in early years, drink beer at a Friday night, then work hard physically on the Saturday. Since we had a farmhouse (no farming) with an immense vegetable garden there was always loads to do. So on Saturday we would drink beer aswell. That repeated into later behaviour where every act of work needed an alcoholic reward. Brrrrr… turns my stomach to think of it. I think if I get the job next week I need to make sure that I got my dinner in house already so I can look forward to enjoying that.

On discipline: Again, with the question ‘What would a women who loves herself do?’ I think I finally found an entry into living where taking action is not something I do to avoid punishment or ‘not feel guilty’ but I am practising now with doing things out of love for me. Which is how I suddenly was able to do admin. And, on the other hand, not worry when I do not clean the house because obviously I love doing something else better. Teal Swan already said but the nice thing about the wwawwlhd? is that I never go outside of my boundaries, outside what I can carry because I project these answers myself. So when looking at a box of dates I don’t say: a women who loves herself would NOT eat these. I say: ‘A women who loves herself would have 3, with a special cup of herb tea, and then she would add another 2 because she really likes these treats.’

While before I would buy them, feel guilty and think ‘DO NOT EAT THESE!!!’ And end up eating 20 of them while NOT enjoying them and feeling guilty. The dynamics of guilt, they are big.

I take: Ayurvedic pills

3 Things: 1 the realisation that I have it easy not drinking, being happy about that. And hoping I don’t get cocky again. 2 Finding a compilation of interviews of a very outspoken vegan Gary Yourofsky in my news feed. Beautiful. Horrifying. But it gives me food for thought. I noticed in Ayahuasca ceremonies that those who did the clean food diet leading up to the ceremony had more ‘profound’ experiences during the ceremony. If there is such a thing as judging and labelling spiritual experiences. So yes, I do think that eating clean (no additives, no sugar, no, well, no nothing only veggies and fruit) leads me to be a better human and have more clarity. 3 My newly found rest. I just ask, what would a women who loves herself do now and do it. 🙂 Pfiew!

I hope you have a good, loving, compassionate and possibly, maybe hopefully sober weekend.

xx, Feeling

Look and you shall find, ask and you shall be given.

I was wondering when I’d get my ‘magic’ back. Today it did! I biked through the city on my way to the sauna and passed this marvelous second-hand shop. Outside were four crates of 1,5 by 1,5 by 1,0m high filled with books. As I biked past I thought: ‘check out these books because the AA book you are looking for is in there.’ So I turned and started searching. There were a few guys searching too and at a certain moment guy 1 and I got to speak. He spoke and said stuff….  it made no sense to me, his mind looked all over the place and I kept thinking: keep on speaking with the guy because something is coming up. And suddenly he said:

‘I need to clear my mind, let it come to rest.’

‘That is funny, I was thinking of the same thing yesterday. And now I am looking for a book that is connected with the process I am in.’ At which moment I picked up a book called ‘synchronicity’ (not by Jung). I laughed and said: Funny, we think about the same thing and I pick up this book on synchronicity.

‘That is funny, I have heard about synchronicity all my life but only yesterday I learned what it meant. Jung, it is from Jung. At which moment he picks up Jung’s book on dreams and symbols…

I thought that I had misunderstood my earlier message from me to me so I checked internally if this was what I was supposed to pick up or learn and the answer was: ‘No, you need to find the book.’

And at that moment guy 3, a meter away from me, picks up the AA twelve steps book I had searched for -from the bottom of the case where I can’t even reach- and he puts it away…. so I can put it on my pile. 🙂 🙂 🙂

2 Hours later in the sauna I meet a guy who starts talking to me and suddenly says: ‘You have a very clear goal.’ If only he knew… yes, being clear IS the goal. And: ‘You have magic, I can feel that, it is around you.’

Magic, synchronicity, (?pick-up line?) Who knows, but I certainly had a thing today with men that say strange stuff. Just wondering: did you ever walk around naked saying ‘you have magic, I can feel it.’ to somebody? And at the moment itself it seemed PERFECTLY normal, well, maybe a bit strange, but totally in sync with the happenings of the day. 🙂

Important to me: what was lost is back. To me, well these are funny examples, but to me, not drinking is strongly linked to this strange possibility I discovered in my and outside my brain. It diminishes with alcohol and when the addict lying started I lost touch with it. That is the price of addiction. And now I am feeling my way back into life. Or in other words:

Look and you shall find, ask and you shall be given, knock and you shall be opened.

Happy that I quit although tonight was the first moment I had a craving that lasted, well 10 seconds or so but that is big for me. The foundling has got a new home and is leaving tomorrow. Which is good but I cannot appreciate it. 😦 Sad now. One of the neighbours fell in love with him. He needs his own Human but I am sad to see him go because he is such a bundle of joy. Oooh life, all this saying goodbye.