I never felt comfortable in my own skin. One of the many excuses I used to drink. Sobriety brought me face to face with the actual me…and I like actual sober me
from “The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)” by Pema Chödrön -
“You feel too short, you have indigestion, you’re too fat and too stupid. You say to yourself, “Nobody loves me, I’m always left out. I have no teeth, my hair’s getting gray, I have blotchy skin, my nose runs.” That all comes under the category of defeat, the defeat of ego. We’re always not wanting to be who we are. However, we can never connect with our fundamental wealth as long as we are buying into this advertisement hype that we have to be someone else, that we have to smell different or have to look different.”
I have started the journey. The book, the meetings. Scary, but I like it.
The language of it all really just lands in me the way nothing else has.
I’ve gone back to books I read before too, in healthier times. I’m re-reading “Wherever You Go There You Are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Feels like I’m reading it anew at the same weird time that I recognize it.
This today:
“We tend to be particularly unaware that we are thinking virtually all the time. The incessant stream of thoughts flowing through our minds leaves us very little respite for inner quiet. And we leave precious little room for ourselves anyway just to be, without having to run around doing things all the time. Our actions are all too frequently driven rather than undertaken in awareness, driven by those perfectly ordinary thoughts and impulses that run through the mind like a coursing river, if not a waterfall. We get caught up in the torrent and it winds up submerging our lives as it carries us to places we may not wish to go and may not even realize we are headed for.”
Countless times, my thoughts have taken me to an imaginary place - of fear or stress. or other badness. I’ve ended up submerged in this non-reality, and I’ve reached for a drink (plural) to - get this - escape not even reality, but the imaginary world of worst case scenarios in my mind! Even when life is hard, my mind and thoughts tend to make life harder.
Hey there, mind. Time to take a rest. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s not write stories we don’t want to see happen. Let’s not mitigate bad things that haven’t even happened yet. How about we just…
from “The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)” by Pema Chödrön -
“COULD our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again—to make ourselves or them either right or wrong. But true communication can happen only in that open space.”
I always had an agenda as a drinker, my agenda was I was right you were wrong. You didnt like what I said…that meant there was something wrong with you. I offended you, it was your problem.
The problem with this line of thought for me, there was always turmoil in my head about other people. I pushed the buttons, and I wondered what was wrong with THEM.
Sobriety has brought me, overtime, a little more understanding, a little more perspective. Not everyone sees the world through my eyes…and that is ok. It has given me the tools to be wrong…and not be the end of the world.
I still got work on this. But every time I put my agenda down, view the world through another person…I grow, I learn.
Ah, this is that whole concept of non-dual awareness, right? It’s more than just nonjudgment, I think, but actually being able to not automatically classify things as right or wrong, good or bad, etc. It’s a lot to wrap my head around, let alone practice!
Gems from my Recovery Dharma Meeting last night (via zoom):
May I be at ease with my stress, my fear, my body, my thoughts, my feelings and emotions.
I’m learning this: Ease isn’t the same as denying my stress, fear, etc. It’s not ignoring it or trying to change it. Or drown it in wine. It’s just - ease. Allowing for it without necessarily having to do anything about it.
We don’t always have power over our thoughts and feelings, but we do have power over how we feed them.
I know this: my sober mind already feeds my thoughts and feelings in unhealthy ways, if I let it. When I’m not sober - I have no hope of feeding my thoughts and feelings anything good at all.
Today I will take mini breaks - even 5-10 seconds long - to hop off the treadmill of my mind and watch it while I breathe. To observe how I’m feeding my thoughts and feelings. To sit with discomfort and stress and fear and not try to change it.
At least, I can try.
Just being able to vocalize, “I am stressed, angry, fearful” was huge…normal emotions, that are in life. Acknowledge, doesnt mean I have to run around and change…
I’m also digging this thread, have been going to SMART meetings locally but they seem to be a group share without a lot of methodology/substance to take away. What would you recommend as a good starting point to explore Recovery Dharma? Thanks in advance,
from “The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)” by Pema Chödrön -
“It is good to realize that you will die, that death is right there on your shoulder all the time.”
When I was drinking, this phrase would put me into a tailspin. Morbid, maybe. However, in sobriety…it keeps me sober. Today, this moment is all I have…how do I want to live it:
Sober or drunk?
Accepting or judgmental?
Humble or egotistical
World view or my way or the highway?
Been at work since 10 pm last night. Leaveing today at 3pm…with a possibility of being back at 10 again. Taking a little break. Reflecting and reading. I could be in a foul mood, or I could simply be here. I choose to simply be here. Why waste energy angry.
I’m reading a bit in the book each day, attending 3 mtgs/week, and - I found pocket Pema!
Sorry, Scott @Thirdmonkey , if I’m not working through it in the same order you are (I’m behind!), but there was such a lovely sympatico between my last Dharma mtg and the reading from Pema I did tonight:
“When you wake up in the morning and out of nowhere comes the heartache of alienaton and loneliness, could you use that as a golden opportunity? Rather than persecuting yourself or feeling that something terribly wrong is happening, right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart? The next time you get a chance, experiment with this.”
On Friday, I had a lot of anxiety when I visited Mom in her seniors’ home. At the slightest hint of discomfort, in the past, my impulse has been to flee. That I’m failing, even, if I feel fear or stress or sadness or anxiety. Of course these emotions sometimes require action, but honestly, sometimes, or mostly, they don’t. This had not donned on me. Too often I ran straight to the wine bottle to notice what the hell I was feeling.
Friday was hard. I breathed through it, pushing Mom in her wheelchair for a walk. Didn’t own it or change it or shame it. Yesterday was easier. Probably not because of anything that had anything to do with me.
…right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart?
This book is a very interesting read. Translating it to recovery and relapse prevention, at times is a stretch. However, there are nuggets of gold that make me reflect on myself, and if I can continually read and learn something new, then that growth has the potential to keep a relapse away.
from “Practicing Peace in Times of War: A Buddhist Perspective” by Pema Chödrön -
“that as long as we justify our own hard-heartedness and our own self-righteousness, joy and peace will always elude us. We point our fingers at the wrongdoers, but we ourselves are mirror images; everyone is outraged at everyone else’s wrongness.”
A hard heart…self-righteousness…that was me as a drunk. I was quick to judge, quick to speak my mind…and never in a loving way.
Maybe I was 100% right at times. But the outrage I experienced…never brought peace. How I “stood up” for what was right was wrong. I think it was @Yoda-Stevie who said something like, “a steak on a trash can lid will always taste worse than a steak on a plate”. I was really good at cooking a steak, but I would serve it on a trashcan lid.
The egocentric thinking of “I am right, you will hear I am right” rarely brings about change…just hard feelings. It’s this ego, that I must always keep in balance or it will lead me down the dark rabbit hole.
from “Practicing Peace in Times of War: A Buddhist Perspective” by Pema Chödrön -
“ON A VERY BASIC level all beings think that they should be happy. When life becomes difficult or painful, we feel that something has gone wrong. This wouldn’t be a big problem except for the fact that when we feel something’s gone wrong, we’re willing to do anything to feel okay again. Even start a fight.”
