I love this. Thanks! 
Life is the dancer and you are the dance. (Eckhart Tolle)
I love this image of surrender. I was reminded of it in my reflections tonight when I was struggling to let go of my worry. I’m worrying because I’m trying to be the dancer. That’s not what I am. I am the dance. When I accept that, when I surrender my idea that I am / should be the dancer, that’s when I start to get free.
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Surrendering the obsession (the obsession and “romanticizing” my addiction, like it’s something I should go back to) -
I am grappling with the obsession today (and have been for a few days). It’s like a squeaky wheel, it keeps making noise while I’m trying to move through my life:
squeak (‘just a little bit would be fine, c’mon’)
squeak (‘it’ll only be a few minutes’)
squeak (‘you’re already obsessing over it now, the only way to make it go away is to do it’)
Bullshit! I call bullshit.
I’m sharing about it here to get it out of my head. For me this is one of the more challenging parts of surrender. That “squeaky wheel” of obsession lingers. (I should probably figure out what’s making the wheel squeak, and then fix that. I’ll reflect on that )
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Squeak squeak squeak…
Fuck you, addiction. Not today.
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Another thing I’m holding on to:
Helplessness and self-pity (because those were the mindsets that gave my addiction a perfect place to live).
Business is picking up for the summer: good. I have projects ready to go.
I haven’t organized my schedule. Not the end of the world, but it means I’ve got projects up in the air and I’m not sure when they’re starting. I’ve got clients contacting me and I am wincing, thinking, ‘I should have organized this last week!’ (or two weeks ago)
Part of me burns with embarrassment. That part of me wants to hide.
I can’t hide and I won’t hide. I will make some calls this afternoon to organize things, set up what I can, make a few calls and some apologies, and get things moving. I feel the sting of dropping the ball but that’s ok. What matters is I’m working with what I have today; I’m not avoiding and escaping.
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Borrowing from my own well-being (my healthy self-care) to care for others / perform tasks for others.
I surrender that. I give it up.
I had a late night working yesterday (estimates, project planning / management) and slept in later than normal this morning. By the time I was up with my clothes on, it was my typical time to go to work.
Does this mean I cancel my morning exercise? My step 4 reflections / journaling?
No.
To be present with myself and to be caring for myself (nutrition, physical motion / activity, etc) is a requirement, for me to be present and constructive in projects with others. My clients and my staff gain nothing from having me neglect my health.
The only thing that benefits from me neglecting my health is my misaligned sense of duty. Duty - if it is healthy presence and constructive growth - is never at the expense of one’s own health. Since I am part of a community, taking care of my health (even during the work day, by going to the gym now, before lunch) is part of my service, my duty, my healthy presence.
I’m going to the gym! 
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Self-compensation.
I am giving up self-compensation: for example, impulsively buying and eating junk food - not just a little, but actually really big quantities - alone in the car, in the afternoons.
What is it about that behaviour that makes it “fit” in my life? The only way that fits - that kind of solo-snacking, sneaking snacks before getting him one for dinner - the only way that fits is if I’m “getting away with something”.
Like my addiction. Something I hide; something that keeps me distracted and off track (in the same way bingeing before dinner keeps my body’s nutrition off track).
Is it wrong to have treats? No. This isn’t about right and wrong. This is about living vs escaping from life.
Living is about being present and savouring. So enjoying a fresh baked pie with my wife is living.
Escaping from life is eating 2.5 large bags of licorice in the car, solo, on the way home after a long day of work. Why am I eating that licorice? I’m not savouring it; instead, I’m shovelling it into my mouth. Where’s the savouring (or the living) in that?
Self-compensating like that feels like a kind of self-pity for me: at least I get to do this after scrambling all day “doing things for other people” (which itself is a mindset that emerges from my misaligned sense of duty, but that’s a separate reflection).
I surrender this self-compensation. I’m not a pity case. I’m a human. I have space to be: to live, to breathe, to savour my life; I don’t have to bury myself in something distracting.
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Worrying.
Worrying is a thing I need to surrender.
I’ve been worrying off and on my whole life, but I’m conscious of it in a different way now. Like this morning:
- 5:30 am, making breakfast, fretting that I’d be late for my appointments this morning (which don’t start until 8:00! I’d already set them up at reasonable times)
- 7:05 am, getting into my car, fretting that I was behind for the day, that I was off to a slow start and everything would be slowed down by my “lateness” (which again, wasn’t true; I was well within my buffer)
The truth is:
I was sober yesterday and used the opportunity to plan my day for today. As a result, I’m not scrambling; I’m ok.
Worrying and crisis thinking. I cling to that because it’s familiar. But I don’t live that way any more. I can and should let that go.
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Thanks for the insight in your process. Luv reading it and can relate to a lot.
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This was me pre-recovery. I so feel you, Matt. And you are doing the work to stop the madness between our two ears and let our HPs’ deal with it.
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How is it going, Matt?
I can relate to the being stressed about being late. My mind is constantly calculating time when how if. Will I have enough time to do this or that. When I leave late for work, I will have to stay longer and can I do what I want and have to do afterwards. All this calculation is tiring and I still have no real tool to say: you know what: stop and shut the fuck up for a second.
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Stop and Shut the Fuck Up for a Second
The self-help book from Diamonster
Seriously though, isn’t that what recovery basically means? Stop and shut up (and listen). Listen to healthy guidance from others. Listen to the rhythms of your body.
Listen.
I need to surrender my attachment to jumping in, my attachment to jumping out at whatever opportunities I find.
I need to seek out advice and I need to listen, before I take an opportunity.
Not every business (or personal) opportunity is the right one for me. Some are beyond my current capabilities, at this stage of my (or my company’s) development. When I (or my wiser advisors) see that the opportunity is beyond my capacity, I need to surrender my attachment to it; I need to let it pass.
I’ve recently had to let go of two opportunities that together would have represented more than 4% of my annual sales. I took both the opportunities because at the time I was excited about the earnings. I didn’t think carefully enough about the projects and what capabilities they required. In both cases I delayed the property owners’ (my intended clients) plans for their properties; in one case I delayed them by more than a month.
I am grateful that the projects were stopped (or not started) before it became expensive. I lost some money but far less than I would have lost had I done both these projects and failed to do them properly in their entirety.
Listen. I need to surrender my greed; my hasty grabbing of what I find. I need to take time to consider. I need to be more humble, and more patient.
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Being given something is not the same as earning it, for me.
Somehow I started believing, deeply, that if I was given something, that was all the was possible; my achievement was what I was given or what I drifted into; my achievement, my growth was not purposeful and directed; instead, it was random, more a product of chance than of purpose.
When I found or was given something (whether it was property, equipment, a job, or an opportunity), I tied my self-worth to that; I fear(ed) losing it, and when I lost that thing, it stung me. It hurt: a combination of shame and embarrassment; I wanted to retreat and hide, as though my humanity and my place and purpose had disappeared.
If I have something and I haven’t earned it, I’ve basically borrowed something, the same as with a bank loan or a credit card. It doesn’t matter if the thing is property (like a piece of equipment) or if it’s trust (like someone gives me when they give me a job). If I’ve borrowed something - if I’ve been given something before I earned it - I will always, always have to pay it back.
Sometimes I am able to pay it back, sometimes I am able to pay back the trust others lend me; but I have also had times - too many times? - where I have not been able to pay it back.
For me, being given something, or finding something, is not the same as earning it (and by thinking that, I have forgotten to build my capacity and my capability to do purposeful work, which I think is part of the problem I’ve created with my addiction).
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Self-pity: the “escape hatch” I try to use to avoid life. I can avoid anything as long as I’m living in self-pity.
I need to surrender self-pity.
I’ve been feeling some self-pity today: “oh man I have so much going on this week and I’m not sure I have everything prepared for tomorrow, blah blah”. The crazy thing is the fact I have a lot of stuff happening is a good thing - it’s the whole point of having a business right? - so I guess I just feel sorry for myself because I am holding on to this negative idea, this “escape”: if I’m incapable of working through these tasks this week then it means I don’t have to try right? And if I don’t try, there’s no risk to my self-worth, because of course things didn’t work out, I wasn’t trying. (That makes sense right? 
)
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Worry. Worries.
Needing to see everything and cover every base at the same time. You can only cover one base (in baseball) at a time.
Needing to monitor everything and be aware of everything, all at once. (Or, put another way: worrying about everything, which distracts me from what I am doing, here, now.)
I have found myself feeling panicked about this week, in which I have a lot of projects scheduled to start (more projects than I’ve had before). Why am I panicking? I’m nervous of course - this is new territory for me as a businessperson - but that frantic feeling, like I’m scrambling to catch everything, see everything, cover everything: that frantic feeling, like if I’m not watching, if I don’t have everything in my gaze, it will fall apart. That’s the feeling.
I’m not 100% sure where that feeling comes from but I am sure that me being aware of everything, monitoring everything, is impossible. Worrying about these things feels like my addict ego (the worrywart obsessive thinker) trying to take over my thinking, but in disguise: he’s pretending to be a legitimate concern (“if you don’t do these things it will be a disaster!” - that’s what he says, and he’s trying to destabilize me, to create chaos, which is where addiction lives).
My addict voice is sneaky and it tries to make chaos in my life. It will disguise itself as a voice asking legitimate questions, but the truth is these questions - these worries that “everything will fall apart” - are not things I can control. There’s a million ways things can fall apart, anytime, anywhere. If I spend my life living in these worries, I’ll be paralyzed, and I’ll be alienated from the people and spaces that keep me going in a healthy ways.
I need to surrender worry. I surrender worry.
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Glad you are checking in, Matt. First things first. Saying stopp. Connecting with what is important right now. Reality check.
I was on a hike yesterday and started off with really no worries. Why even worry. Or thinking. The weather was perfect. I head enough food and set out for a good route. But decided to make it a bit longer as I didn’t want to take the same way back. So now in the uncertainty my mind kept making senseless calculations. No stopp possible. I checked the GPS. All was fine. But my mind kept running in circles. It’s hard to calm it down. I am happy when sometimes I succeed.
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Me too.
You’re absolutely right Franzi. That mindset of being present, if not sinking into aimless speculation - that is so important.
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Self-pity made a strong appearance this morning. (Last night too.)
I asked myself, why does self-pity (and paralyzing worry - which comes with self-pity: “everything will fall apart!”) have such a magnetic relationship with me. (Right now at least, in these early days.) Why is it coming back so consistently?
Yes, I’m an addict, and yes, self-pity is one “escape hatch” for avoiding life. Addiction, for me, always goes with avoidance.
But I want to know more deeply, more personally. What does this self-pity mean for me?
I think it means my self-worth is on the line. Somewhere, at some point, I started tying my self-worth to things that are beyond my control, in particular to the judgments of others (I was very sensitive and defensive about this as a child, still am, too often).
If my self-worth is tied to the judgments of others, then self-pity comes to me, because I am helpless: my whole worth as a human, my value as a person, is not in my hands.
What a weird, backward way to think of it! But that is my habit. I’m going to give this some thought.
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Why not feel a bit of self-pity? I loved what I heard in therapy: shower yes, taking a bath in it no.
I am happy to read your discovery process. And sometimes I think: haaaa, Matt is very very good in analysing everything to it’s horrible, tiniest detail. I am good at it as well. I’d like to develop and excercise a: stop it now. That’s enough of thinking. We got it, inner ensemble of personality parts.
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I just discovered this thread @Matt thank you for putting it out there. Your inner voice seems to speak the same way that mine does. You were the first person to reach out to me when I joined this site snd I will never forget that kindness. Keep up the struggle, you are worth it. 
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