Tag: boundaries

Posted in acceptance, motivation, recovery, self-care

Being Judgmental

Posted on by New and Shiny

Good morning everyone! Is it possible to meditate TOO early? I swear, I was practically falling back asleep during my meditation this morning. Today’s meditation was all about being non-judgemental. Is it ironic that it is also the meditation I could barely stay on track on, and I so much wanted to judge it poorly lol.

This topic reminds me of one of the mantras from sobriety school…”I am not here to judge other people’s process. I am driving my own bus”. That mantra is such a good reminder. (It comes from Byron Katie’s “Loving What Is” – which I will add to my ever growing list of what one day I should read but will probably only buy and then never actually read…because that’s what I do…collect unread Kindle books).

We all have so much going on in our lives. Honestly, we don’t have time to judge everyone else. All the time and effort spent thinking about other people’s situations, what they should or shouldn’t do, how I would do it differently…it is all a waste of time. During that time, I could be focusing on my own improvements. I could be using that energy for good. Spending time judging others, is stealing time from myself. Plus how many times have I judged something I’ve never even been through…only later to go through it and totally understand what I judged? Too many times. Honestly, we are all just trying to do the best we can, with what we know at that time.

Have you ever noticed how judging others really makes you feel shitty inside? Sure, sometimes it makes you feel good temporarily…a fake good…like, “oh I’m so much better at xyz” … That’s really just some sort of fake self-approval. I quit drinking to stop all the fake in my life. Ya know…the fake fun, fake social, fake relaxation that we think alcohol gives us. So that includes giving myself quick-fixes of self righteousness. Although man, can that be a hard habit to break -especially when I’m over here self-improving my ass off. It’s hard not to compare and fall into that trap of suddenly knowing it all and being better.

While on the other hand, being proud of others or being loving and compassionate – now that is a real dose of goodness. If I’m taking the focus off of myself and my self-improvement – then that is where I should be…in that sweet spot of love and compassion. Where being judgemental is a quick fix for me and nothing good for you, being loving and compassionate is hands down a win-win for us both!

I guess where I am going with all of this…is that we are all on these journeys…trying new things, learning from mistakes, and we should give each other a break. We have our own busses to drive…and if everyone keeps getting out of their bus to try and drive other people’s busses… well that’s just a massive accident waiting to happen! We need to remember that the important part of life is living it…and if we are judging others, we aren’t living our own life. And if we are trying to intervene in others’ lives – telling them what to do or how to do it – we aren’t letting them live theirs either.

Posted in self-care, sobriety, social anxiety

Two Social Weekends Over!

Posted on by New and Shiny

Good morning, everyone! It’s 8am and hubby has left to go fishing. I am sitting in my happy place with a lap full of dog and one of my favorite views. The minute we stepped in the cabin yesterday, I could feel all of the icky, stressful week just melt off of me. This is totally my sanctuary.

The last two weekends, we had visitors. The first weekend was Jan and Bob (who I wrote about last time) and then the next weekend were two important friends of my husband (who I had never met).

I went back and forth about how I felt about having visitors at the cabin. This cabin is half paid for with the money I use to spend on wine & vodka. This cabin represents so much about my sobriety and my new focus on self care. Did I really want to share it with family that stresses me out or with strangers? And what about alcohol? This cabin has never had a drop of alcohol in it (at least since we bought it). Its never had a hangover in it. Would someone drinking in my sober sanctuary ruin it? Some friends counseled me to forbid alcohol in the cabin, but then I’d have to tell them about my reasons for not drinking – and tbh, that is not something I share with just anyone. Some friends said we should just skip the cabin, and I considered that too, but even though Jan and Bob drive me insane…I also really wanted them to see the cabin. For some reason, I am forever trying to show them I turned out an ok adult.

So anyways, we did the cabin thing with both sets of visitors. With Bob and Jan, it was really tight quarters. They brought SO MUCH STUFF to a 700 square foot cabin! That’s totally “them”…go visit people and be as inconsiderate as possible. They didn’t drink at all the entire weekend, though. It was a surprise to me because literally every photo they post is a photo of alcohol. Alcohol is heavily intertwined in their reality. I don’t know if they just don’t enjoy drinking around non-drinkers or if they are trying to be respectful. They just know we don’t drink, not my situation. Honestly, most people think we don’t drink because hubby can’t drink on his medication. And while that’s true that he can’t – the reality is…I don’t drink because me and alcohol have had a 20 year abusive relationship, and hubby doesn’t drink because he is supporting me. The weekend with Bob and Jan was tough. I was pretty tired and was happy to reenergize after they left.

The next weekend with hubby’s friends – let’s call them Mike and Wendy – was AMAZING. I thought it would be difficult. I was going to be alone with Wendy the entire day while hubby and Mike went fishing. I imagined my social anxiety running the entire day. I thought of every single way I could fuck up the day. I imagined saying all the wrong things – or even worse – sitting around in that horribly uncomfortable silence that always leads me to bring up the strangest topics out of desperation. “Isnt it weird how socks have such an annoying hem right on the toe”? Seriously – 42 years and I haven’t come up with a list of NORMAL topics for this situation yet?!

All that worry and stress and yet the day was perfect! Me and Wendy went to the spa, then shopped, and then talked for hours. And we talked about politics, race, immigration – any “off topic” topic for talking to strangers…we talked about it! It felt so good to have a conversation with someone I was aligned with. That’s rare where I live. But get this…Wendy brought wine to the cabin! Fucking wine! Ugh! But honestly, it was fine. Since I told her I didnt drink, she just put it away until dinner time. At dinner, her and her hubby killed the bottle pretty fast. I could see her eyes glaze over just halfway into her first glass. I saw the fast drinking and the heavy pour…and I wondered if she doesn’t have even more in common with me…but who knows.

It’s funny how different the two weekends were. I had family with me one weekend – and I was stressed, tired, and felt tortured. Then I had perfect strangers with me another weekend and had the best time. We didn’t feel crowded in the small cabin and it just felt relaxing and good. That’s the thing about social anxiety – you prepare for all the potential terrors, but rarely do they come true. I almost always come out feeling completely different than I go into it. I wish I could get my logical self to explain that to my irrational self!

Happy Fall! It is really beautiful today, and I have two dreaded social weekends over and behind me!

Posted in Uncategorized

Self-Care has Many Faces

Posted on by New and Shiny

I am feeling burned out. Last week’s political topics had me exhausted, and I am a member of several sobriety-related groups that were filled with tons of “oops day 1 again” posts that left me feeling like I just can’t possibly help. Exhaustion is my absolute biggest threat to sobriety, but here’s the thing… it’s something I can completely control. I can set appropriate boundaries, arrange my time within them, and limit my exposure to things that drain me quickly. That’s something I use to think was out of my control, but thanks to Holly and HSS, I now know that it is absolutely in my control. So, I spent the weekend off of news and Facebook, I said “No” to hubby when he wanted to go out and invite friends along, I canceled a baseball game with neighbors, and I downloaded some Facebook apps that filter out political posts and sponsored ads (all my sponsored ads are always alcohol products -no matter how many times I say they aren’t relevant to me). I’m not going to “hide from the world” forever, but I love the idea of being able to filter out content when I’m not up for seeing it. When I’m having a conversation and a hot topic comes up, I can say “I don’t want to get into that right now”… so why shouldn’t I be able to tell Facebook the same thing?

I was watching a show the other day that triggered me. I was caught SO off guard. I don’t really think about drinking much, and I can’t think of the last time I was triggered. That’s a beautiful place to be in sobriety, but also a scary place to be when a trigger DOES come up. That night, I had a drinking dream (which I haven’t had in months). I’ve had several dreams about drinking since then, and I keep having this random fear come up “what if I forget that I’m sober and accidentally drink”. It seems RIDICULOUS. How do you forget that you’re sober? But maybe that fear is really telling me that even though I feel stable in my alcohol-free ways, I shouldn’t get too confident about it.

What are you guys doing to keep your energy balanced and sobriety strong as time goes on?