Start now. Start imperfectly. I know a lot of folks use January 1st as the kicking off point for positive changes. Last year, I started Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way in December. As we close out 2023, I’m starting a new spiritual book this week and making a little bit of effort on some of my new habits (eating carrots for my eyeballs, etc.). It feels really good to start the new year with a little momentum.
We are a culture of over-thinkers who have elevated our thoughts to the status of gods. And if our over-thinking habit was like Spotify Unwrapped, I would be ranked in the top 1%. The more I’ve been meditating (and treating my anxiety with medication), the more I’ve realized how utterly ridiculous, useless, and harmful my thoughts are. I’m pretty sure that thoughts are to the mind as farts are to the digestive system, but many of us turn our entire day and mood around at the whim of our thoughts. Imagine every time you passed gas that you stopped to listen to what it had to tell you. I’m working on being like “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bye,” at my thoughts, and just doing the next best thing I want and need to do. “Do” came in second play for my word of the year selection. Less thinking, more experience.
Speaking of WOTY, I picked “incremental” as my word of the year. I’m sure many of you find WOTY stuff cheesy, and tbh, so do I. But I also love words. Incremental is coming to me from the words of Sage Crump in adrienne maree brown’s book, Holding Change. Crump writes: “Emergent strategy is amplifying the importance of the incremental to impact the monumental.” That’s going to be my practice this year. I want to amplify the importance of the incremental in my life. My new motto is “Do small things in loving community.” If I get lost, that’s the next best thing. Find something small that I can do with other humans. By the end of the year, I know those small actions will have added up to something great.
It feels good to laugh. After finishing Suits, which I was both consumed by and constantly annoyed by, I started Firefly Lane, because I needed some more Katherine Heigl in my life. Oh yeah, Karen, definitely watch a show about childhood trauma and addiction. Why not? I came to my senses and switched over to Platonic on Apple TV, and I’m loving it. I think I’ve forgotten to watch comedies or maybe felt guilty about watching them? But my god, we need to laugh to survive. I’ve started a watchlist on Rotten Tomatoes and am adding comedies to my list. If you have any funny shows or movies in mind, send them my way?
This is an old lesson, but I always need the reminder. Holidays are just days, not a prison sentence. You don’t have to buy the gift. You don’t have to invite them. You don’t have to go to the party. You don’t have to celebrate. You don’t have to celebrate the way you’ve always celebrated. You get to wake up and live each day, including holidays, with grace and dignity.
Seven years ago, on December 22nd, I took my last drink. On December 23rd, I chose sobriety, and I’ve been choosing it every day since for the past seven years. Miracles exist, but most often, they are a hidden, incremental process. That I am alive to write this is a miracle. That I quit drinking is a miracle. I started abusing prescription pills when I was ten years old and alcohol when I was thirteen. My memory of that is that I was some sort of ten or thirteen year old adult, but now, as a parent myself, I know that’s not true. I was a scared kid without the support and protections that kids deserve. That I started drinking and drugging so young means that statistically, the odds were not in my favor. For a couple of decades, I didn’t even consider quitting. Addiction wouldn’t let that thought even enter my mind. That I have now gone seven years without a drink and that I have no desire to drink or drug, well, I don’t know what else to call that but a miracle. I also know that I was doing harm reduction, lowering my usage, for years leading up to getting sober. I know that I’ve done hundreds of hours of recovery meetings, therapy, deep spiritual work, and sat with excruciating emotional pain that was used to getting numbed by alcohol. So yeah, sobriety is a miracle, and it’s also the result of my daily commitment to choose to stay alive. As they say in program, one day at a time. Recovery happens, and it happens one day at a time.
There are dreams I didn’t know I could dream for myself. I submitted to two art exhibitions this year after many years of not even considering myself an artist. But I am, and it feels really good to realize new dreams in mid-life. I have a lot to look forward to, and after an incredibly dark and difficult year, it feels really good to feel like I can say that I’m actually thriving on a regular basis, rather than just surviving. I am proud of myself for fighting to get the help I needed, and incredibly grateful to my rock star care team trio. I highly recommend the impeccable combo of a psychiatrist, primary care physician, and therapist. 10/10. No notes. If you are struggling, suffering, and wondering why you should even bother fighting for yourself, I hope you’ll reach out for correct care and treatment. There is a light at the end of that tunnel where dreams still live.
Wishing you all whatever you most want and need for your holiday season. I’ll see you back here next week to share a bit about my 2024 goal-setting.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me. ❤️
2 Comments
No posts
Loved reading this!! I miss connecting on Twitter, but I’m glad you shared these thoughts. Also...I’ll have been sober for 10 years in March and while it was a surprisingly easy choice for me, and one that I rarely think about...I always feel less alone when people I admire and feel kismet with share their own sobriety stories. So thank you! 💞🎄🥳
Oh thank you for this! It was such a gift to read this tonight, worn out from the holidays and a little anxious about doing “enough” in the upcoming year. I hope you are keeping well.