Celebrating the small moments

At the end of each year, Gary and I pull out our calendars and review the events of the past months. I remember the big things: the vacation adventures, visits with our adult children/grandchildren, holiday gatherings. The calendar review reminds me of the smaller things: dinner dates, the overnight visits, day to day time with friends etc that would otherwise go unnoticed. We set intentions for 2024. Sort of like goals, but held lightly so that there isn't any pass/fail part of it like resolutions. I choose a " feeling for the year" that I hold before me as a guiding star (Last year it was "Trust". This year it is "Courage". ) I feel grateful and wonder what's ahead.  

When I first started looking at my relationship with alcohol I didn't even know what I was looking for. I knew I WASN'T interested in a meeting in a church basement that started with "I am an alcoholic". I wasn't sure WHAT fit but that one came with too many rules, statements of powerlessness and a perspective that there is something inherently wrong with the PEOPLE who drink more than they want to. AND that I would never ever be ABLE to drink again. None of that worked for me.

AND I also knew that what I WAS doing with drinking daily wasn't working for me and, if continued unchanged, would be bad for my body, and a continuation of the battle inside my head between the 2 voices: It's FINE to drink, EVERYBODY feels better VS Somethings gottta change.

And so my investigation began. First keeping a log: how many drinks/day. WOW! That alone was interesting and I was terrified someone else would see it. (hmmm some shame here huh?)

I kept track of daily exercise, daily meditation, and rate my stress level 1-5 to see if it influenced my intake. I saw a scary trend. Instead of having days of 0-1 drinks on my chart, it was consistently more than 2. (somewhere in my head I thought 2 drinks/day was a healthy, socially acceptable "norm". I now know even 3 drinks/WEEK increases breast cancer by 15%).

I thought by simply being truthful with myself, that's all I would need to make the changes I wanted to feel better and drink less. This went on for some years. Times of cutting back: taking up a LOT of inner dialogue, brain space, and willpower which would revert to over drinking, beat myself up, start again the next morning. As the hamster wheel got more and more repeated, my fear of WHAT AM I DOING TO MY BODY increased. I totally underestimated that alcohol, by its very nature is addictive. Drinking more than I wanted to: I was addicted to my lovely red wine. Holy shit. I thought this was just a "habit" I did at the end of the day making dinner. NOW what??? I've been all about EMPOWERING women and families during their lifetimes. HOW DO I EMPOWER MYSELF???

But still, the True self, the seeking self, the one that emerges during meditation, kept on. In a quiet, underground, drip of love in the midst of darkness.

For me, I KNEW it had to lean towards learning from this, finding acceptance/inner peace. NOT fear based, shove things down, wrestle it to the ground and shame it into submission. I had tried that one enough and knew it made me feel like shit and just drink MORE.

Empowered Birth unfolds with loving. Holding their strength. Seeing their innate capability. Allowing them to be real. Midwives learn to meet people where they are with kindness, not expectation. I somehow needed to do that for myself. The medical model dictates The midwifery model holds space/allows. Both can be useful. But what is needed???

Like giving birth, we need others to hold our innate goodness before us when doubting, unsure, and entering new territory. We need others to hold our innate goodness before us when challenging powerful networks of misinformation we've ingested for years.

I think because my Inner Knowing self was longing for SOMETHING, Annie Grace's work came forward. Empowering. Compassionate. Encouraging curiosity. Offering content of the latest research. Coaching/Connection that made me find the doorway with kindness back to trusting myself.

Change like this is inner work. Its connection work.

As I look back. There weren't BIG events that led me here. I can reflect on the year: family wedding, travel, a fancy dinner out, the holidays etc and see how much more coherence there is in me without the fog of alcohol.

But mostly, mostly, I am drawn to celebrating/honoring the small day to day moments when I notice the 10 emotions of happiness: Joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love. They are often in the tiny moments. The present moment. These are the things that bring me back to myself. Hold the trickier emotions too, of course. All are allowed here.