Day: March 17, 2019

Posted in gratitude, motivation, recovery, self-care

Mornings, Meditation, and Moods

Posted on by New and Shiny

Good morning everyone! I’m here at the cabin with my sweet pups, watching the sunrise in the woods, in front of a fire. I am forever grateful to have quiet and peaceful moments like this – time to appreciate the present.

I just completed a 10 minute gratitude meditation. I’m always so amazed at how far meditation goes to restore my calmness, appreciation, and overall wellbeing. 10 little minutes, and my entire morning has changed. 10 minutes, and my day has a renewed spirit.

It is so inspiring to know that I have complete control over my mood, and at any moment I can stop, take a few minutes, and redirect my energy.

I am forever grateful for my teacher in sobriety school for introducing meditation and the concept of slowing down and starting the morning off right. I really did a disservice to myself when I woke up, grabbed my devices, and jumped into the world. Just a half hour or even ten minutes …to be present and set an intention for my day – is a game changer for me.

Of course, you learn things when you’re ready. You just can’t absorb everything all the time. I wouldn’t have been able to absorb this concept 2 years ago. I would have been too tired, too hungover, too worried about whether I was going to drink again or not. There’s no time for present in that environment. There’s no capacity for appreciation- it’s just…survival.

In two days, it will be 18 months since I cut alcohol out of my life. 18 months of learning who I am, facing my past, and learning to appreciate all those beautiful details in life that I use to mute and dull.

In some ways, it feels like I have a ton of experience under my belt, and in other ways I have just touched the surface. I know I have a lot more to learn in life, and the only way I’m going to is if I am clear minded and present.

Posted in Uncategorized

Alcohol & It’s Lies

Posted on by New and Shiny
I use to wake up, exhausted, run down, emotionally beat up, ashamed, and anxious. The birds chirping and the sun rising were just a headache-inducing reminder that another day was starting that I needed to drag myself through. I couldn’t appreciate the day. I couldn’t appreciate what I had. I couldn’t be anything other than a girl…who drank too much at night…regretted it all day the next day…and drank again later.

Oh, the hell I was in for so long. Oh, how scared I was. And I couldn’t understand how I got there, how to get out, and I was so embarassed. I was so ashamed. How could I be like this? How could someone with so much talent and ability have fallen into this trap? Everyone drinks to relax, to have fun, to unwind. Why did it go wrong for me?

Well, now I see things differently. I don’t think all those people around me are ALL drinking “just fine” anymore, and I hope that they get out before they get where I was. I don’t see it as ME being unable to “drink responsibly”. I now recognize it as me consuming an addictive substance and eventually becoming addicted.

We are told that “alcoholics” are people who just can’t control their liquor…that only “some people” will ever become like that…that it is their fault for not consuming the product correctly. When in reality, anyone can become addicted to addictive substances, but most of us don’t view alcohol as an addictive drug. We are marketed to, instead of educated. We learn slogans, instead of facts.

If we don’t view it as potentially dangerous, how can we use it safely? And by the way – why do we NEED to use it to begin with? Why do we need to escape, not feel, miss out on the present, mute the world, dull the details? Isn’t THAT the true tragedy? That we all grow up believing that we need that in our lives?