Finding Joy in the Ordinary

I'm beginning to regret posting Wayne Dyer's advice on coping with Christmas yesterday. Mr SM read it, and whenever I get shirty with anyone for totally messing up the kitchen, for example, he mutters under his breath "relax my expectations of others", or "joyful anticipation and wonder".....

I think I may kill him.

This Christmas is already turning out to be completely different.

#1, #2 and #3 are all on holiday. In the old days I would have created a crazy schedule - determined to make sure that we all had a great time. There would be panto one day, skating the next, soft play, trampolining, bowling.

All fuelled by buckets of Sauvignon Blanc (me) and Haribo gummy bears (them), and costing a fortune.

By Christmas we'd be on our knees.

This year I've planned very little. I've been (as Wayne suggests) letting the holidays flow rather than planning ahead.

I have to confess that this isn't down to suddenly having discovered my inner zen. I've been forced into the laissez faire thing by the fact that 3 hours of every day (at least) is taken up by hospital visits (radiotherapy every day, plus check ups).

This requires a rota of friends and Mr SM covering childcare, and means that I've organised little else.

And you know what? Here's a revelation: it really doesn't matter!

It turns out that #1, 2 and 3 are just completely thrilled to be at home and - with the right attitude - anything can be turned into a 'Christmas activity.'

When I got back from hospital yesterday, 6 eyes turned towards me and I was asked "what's the plan for today, Mummy?' (They know that I usually have a plan. Often with several subsections).

I took a deep breath and said (with manufactured enthusiasm) "we're going to the supermarket!" (It was the last day you could pre-order turkeys).

I expected dissent. Anarchy. But no! We all trooped off happily (to Waitrose, obviously. I may be 'going with the flow', but I'm not letting standards slip completely ;-))

Usually I'd avoid taking three children to the supermarket like the plague - far too stressful, and takes way too long, but yesterday we turned it into a game. We did girls v boy races. I'd give each 'team' a list of items and see who could bring them back to the trolley first.

Then I let them use the self check out machine. Yes, it took hours. There were many 'unexpected items in the bagging area'. But it didn't matter. We didn't have anywhere else to get to!

We ordered the turkey. We bought some extra Christmas decorations which we put up when we got home.

I got my chores done and we had fun. 

I've realised that, with the right attitude, any activity can be festive and Christmassy. It's all about finding the joy in the everyday. Which reminded me of my post on 7 months sober (click here), and this fabulous motto:

Make the ordinary come alive, and the extraordinary will take care of itself.

Tomorrow's 'Christmas activity': taking the dog to the vet for his annual inoculations! (I'm not sure that he's going to be seeing the 'joy and wonder' in that one - he has been known to bite the vet).

Keep going, friends. We'll get there!

SM x

Coping With Christmas Sober (Part 2)

Yesterday, in Coping With Christmas (Part 1) (click here to read), I wrote about limbering up for my first Sober Christmas.

Step 1 of the workout was the, somewhat painful, revisiting of the reality of Christmas Past.

Step 2 (today's post) is about finding another way of celebrating Christmas.

Since this is all new to me, I've enlisted the help of the fabulous Wayne Dyer. Wayne died earlier this year, but, thanks to the wonders of the interweb, his wisdom lives on.

Wayne talks about reclaiming 'what should be a time of appreciation, excitement, joy, and peace'.

That description sounds a million miles away from my usual experience of Christmas! Peace? Appreciation? Excitement?

My feelings about Christmas would usually encompass panic, trepidation, queasiness, exhaustion.... Peace? Definitely not. Apart from a fleeting moment when I'd just poured the first glass of wine of the day. Oh. There's the problem....

Intrigued, I read on. How, oh wonderful-Wayne-guru can Christmas possibly involve appreciation, excitement, joy and peace.....and no alcohol?

Here's Wayne's mantra for 'rekindling the spirit of love, and living life to its fullest' over Christmas:

1. I’ll let the holidays flow, rather than trying to make them fit into a fixed schedule.

2. I’ll remember that people are more important than things.

3. I’ll relax my expectations for myself and others this year.

4. I’m going to live in the present moment and enjoy each activity for itself instead of always thinking about what is ahead of me.

5. I’m going to approach the holidays with a sense of joyful anticipation and wonder, just like I did when I was a child.

All easier said than done, but I've been repeating 1-5 daily, hoping that it'll all sink in. It does rather go against all my natural inclinations. NO FIXED SCHEDULE? Are you kidding? NOT THINKING AHEAD? Nothing will ever get done!

I read Wayne's list out to the family. They snorted with derision. "Doesn't sound like Mummy, does it children?" said Mr SM, staring pointedly at my To Do List and Holiday Planner.

Well, I'm going to prove them wrong.

The trick, I think, is in the line 'just like I did when I was a child.' #1, #2 and #3 do all of the above naturally (apart from number 2, obvs!). So I'm just going to try copying them.

No more blurring off all the edges. No more wading through the days numb or hungover. Just joy, anticipation and wonder in glorious technicolour.

Bring it on!

Love SM x

Visualisation

I'm a huge believer in the power of visualisation, and it can be a fabulous tool to help you get sober.

If you're in the early days of quitting, you'll find that instead of the voice in your head (the one that keeps persuading you to drink, even when you really, really don't want to) getting quieter, it gets louder and louder.

I find it really helps to visualise the voice. It's important to remember that it's not part of you. It's a separate thing that can be beaten and banished, leaving you free.

I call the voice the Wine Witch.

Imagine that there is a witch curled around your back, her arms around your throat, her talons clutching your collar bone.

She's really heavy, dragging you down and making you exhausted. And she's constantly whispering in your ear, causing you to behave in ways you don't like, making you hate yourself.

(Heroin addicts know this feeling too - it's why they talk about 'the monkey on their back').

Now, here's the truth: the only thing keeping the witch alive is alcohol.

Every day you refuse to give her what she wants, she gets weaker.

BUT BEWARE! The weaker she gets, the more cunning she gets about trying to get her fix.

DO NOT GIVE IN! Feeding the witch will keep her happy for a short while - she'll shut up, seem lighter and less intrusive. But you'll make her stronger, and she'll only come back with a vengeance the minute you start depriving her again.

Slowly, slowly, without alcohol, the witch gets weaker, quieter and lighter. Then one day you turn around and realise that she's no longer there! You are free, light and unburdened. There's no-one dripping poison in your ear. It's just you, as you're meant to be, as you used to be.

Another way visualisation can help is when you need some extra strength. The clock strikes wine o'clock, and you're literally grinding your teeth and sitting on your hands.

I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan, so at this point I would imagine I was Kalheesi, and would unleash my dragons and army of the unsullied at the Wine Witch, which would usually do the trick (see I am Kalheesi).

The third way to use visualisation is to picture yourself where you want to be.

Many people (including the fabulous Wayne Dyer - see my post Change the Way You Look at Things) believe in the Power of Attraction: that if you can really see the result you want, you can make it happen. This is also the essence of the global bestseller The Secret.

So, picture yourself sober, happy, healthy, free. If you can see it, you can be it.

I'm using visualisation right now. I'm imaging that all the toxins and the bad stuff that I've done in my life has been concentrated in the little malignant lump in my left boob, which after my operation tomorrow will be all gone.

So it's like a brand new start, all clean and cancer free. A new chapter in the novel of my life.

And, just in case it gets a bit rocky for a while, I have some great guys on standby to help me through. I'm imagining them facing off any stray cancer cells, and I'm offering them to you, too, to help you whenever you need them.

CLICK HERE!

Love to you all!

SM x

Related Posts: Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Procrastination

CONGRATS to Kags on six months sober! Kags has been with me since the early days. She's got a new life, and a new puppy (see Dogs: A Sober Girl's Best Friend), and she rocks.

I don't regret many of the things I did in the drinking years.

For a start, a lot of it was - at the time - a great deal of fun. It was only the last two or three years that became dark.

I met some great people. I had some wonderful times. I got it all out of my system. Now I feel able to say "Been there. Done that. Time to move on."

I think - I hope - that I quit before I did too much damage. To myself, or to anyone else.  I know that was in the post. Had I carried on the way I was I'd have a lot more mess to clear up now.

Plus, crucially, if I hadn't lived through the darkest of the drinking years, then I wouldn't be here now.

I would have totally skipped over the need to do any self analysis (I would have carried on assuming that only Americans did that kind of stuff!). I'd still be viewing the world, and myself, from my narrow little box.

BUT, what I have realised is that it's not the things you do that you regret, it's the things you didn't do.

And this is the one that punches me in the stomach on a regular basis. I never, ever considered the missed opportunities while I was drinking, but now they haunt me.

What might I have done with my life if I hadn't lived so much of it anaesthetised?

I loved my years at University. But one moment still bugs me. It was the end of my first year. I had Part One exams coming up. I was loitering in the quad, probably with a cigarette in one hand (I was always smoking in those days), and plastic cup in the other (ditto, dinking).

A couple of my fellow students turned to me and said "Hey SM, it's all kicking off in Berlin. They're tearing the wall down - piece by piece. We've found cheap tickets and we're going to join in. You coming?"

I was tempted, but I was broke. I had work to do. I said no. I missed the chance to take part in a seminal moment of history.

I swore after that day, when I watched the television footage of the people destroying that hated monument, that I would never again fail to seize the day. And yet I've done it over and over and over again.

The days just slipped though my fingers like gains of sand.

When you're drinking, you don't realise that you're missing all the opportunities, because it's usually not big things you're turning down, they don't even come knocking. The issue is the endless procrastination.

It's the myriad of small things that you put off doing today in favour of having a drink instead. They wake you up again in the night, taunting you, but by the next day it's so easy to delay again.

Then, one day, you realise that all those little things put off have added up to whole years of life wasted. Procrastination really is the thief of time.

Here's a quote from Wayne Dyer: Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases, and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.

So, as of yesterday all the children are back at school - yay! No more excuses.

Every day I am going to write a list of things I have to get done. The List will include some easy stuff (like planning and preparing the meals for the day), some horrible, annoying stuff (like paying some bills), some BIG stuff (like editing the first 3 chapters of the novel), and something for someone else (like sending a present to a friend who's unwell).

By the end of my first year sober I really want to get a publishing contract, I want to have #1's bedroom re-decorated and the cellar cleared, and I want to have helped #2 get up to speed with his school work.

Then who knows what I can do with Year 2......

I'll leave you with a Craig Brown (the Private Eye satirist, not the footballer) quote:

There's nothing wrong with procrastination. Or is there? I'll leave it to you to decide, but only if you have time...

SM x

The Road Not Taken

I used to greet Monday mornings with despair (see Tell Me Why I Don't Like Mondays), so it's a testament to how far I've come that now I can think of few better ways to start a new week than with a poem.

Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken, was Wayne Dyer's favourite (For more on Wayne read Change the Way You Look at Things), so seems like a great choice.

So, whether you've already chosen the road less travelled, or whether you're still standing at the point where the paths diverge, this is for you:

The Road Not Taken

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

Most people focus on the wonderful final lines of this poem. They see it as an anthem to independent thought, to not following the crowd, to taking the hard way, not just the obvious way.

 

And that is a great rallying cry for us. The sober road is, without doubt, the road less travelled by. And the one that makes all the difference.

 

But, Frost's poem is, arguably, one of the most widely misinterpreted poems of all time. Whole books have been written about the true meaning of The Road Not Taken.

 

Frost spent the years from 1912-1915 in England, where he took long walks with his writer friend, Edward Thomas. It's believed that this poem was intended by Frost as a gentle mocking of indecision, as shown by Edwards on their walks.

 

If you read it more closely, you'll see that Frost says that the two roads are, in actual fact, almost identical. Yet the poem's narrator agonises over the choice, and then wastes time and energy thinking back wistfully to the path he'd rejected, kidding himself that he may still return to it.

 

He then, as we so often do, re-writes history by looking back and attributing far more meaning to the fork in the road than it ever truly deserved.

 

Therefore, you could read the poem as being about the futility of indecision and regret. About not looking back. About how our memories can deceive us. About how we take ourselves, and our decisions, too seriously. About the danger of procrastination, and the need to just take a road and stick to it, whichever road it is.

 

What I've learned along this road less travelled by, is that the world is filled with meaning, with lessons and with answers. We'll find the ones we need when we need them.

 

All we need to do is to keep our eyes open, and see the poetry. And for a long time I couldn't do that.

 

So, whatever meaning you take from The Road Not Taken will be the right one for you, right now. Then come back to it in a few months time, and it might tell you something else....

 

Happy Monday!

 

Love SM



Change the Way You Look at Things

Wayne Dyer is dead.

For years I've been obsessed by The Times's obituaries. Not only are they beautifully written, but they tell stories of incredibly varied and inspirational lives. Whenever I want to motivate myself to get off my arse, I make myself think "what would they write in my obituary?"

I stopped reading the obituaries in the last few years of drinking. I now know why. Because I knew it would make me realise that my obituary would read something like this:

She had huge promise. A privileged upbringing and an amazing education. She went to Oxford and travelled the world. Her early career was stellar. She had 3 lovely children. But by the age of about 30 she stopped. Nothing much more to say after that. She drank. Full stop.

That's not what they're saying about Wayne Dyer. He was a man - a self-help guru - who changed people's lives. Even if he didn't change your life, he at least made you think. When he spoke he held people in the palm of his hand....then he'd let them go and watch them fly.

I only came across Wayne Dyer a few months ago when www.ainsobriety.wordpress.com mentioned him in a post. She'd been to see him talk and she quoted something he said that had a huge impact on me.

He said that the strange thing about 'recovery' is that, at the end of our journey we'll recognise it as the place where we started (see my post Full Circle).

That was the incredible thing about Wayne Dyer. Even second or third hand, his quotes had the power to change lives.

So, in honour of Wayne, I watched his full speech yesterday on The Power of Intention. Here's one of his most famous quotes from that talk:

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Wayne talks about Albert Einstein, who observed that the most fundamental decision you have to make in life is Do I live in a friendly or a hostile universe?

If you see the universe as filled with hostility and anger then that is what you will experience. Likewise, if you see the universe as fundamentally loving and beautiful, it will be.

Scientists have proven the power of perception, of the subconscious, over and over again. For example, think about the use of placebos in medicine. I love the fact that if I say to my children Mummy will kiss it better, and I kiss the 'ouch', it really does get better. Because they believe it will be so.

(N.B if they actually manage to chop off the end of a finger, this will not work. Go to A&E).

So, according to Wayne, you will never be happy if you look for happiness outside yourself, in possessions, appearance, reputation, money, etcetera, because happiness comes from within. It is about the way you look at things.

In essence, quoting Wayne again: There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

I believe that what makes the difference, when you quit drinking, between being happy and sober or miserable and sober is to change the way you look at things.

Stop seeing alcohol as the thing that's making the fun. See it as a destructive, addictive poison that's gradually pulling more and more people into its web.

Stop seeing 'sober' as dull and boring. See it as a huge opportunity to live life the way it was intended, and to fulfil your potential.

Funnily enough, when Wayne talks about harnessing the 'power of intention', he says that one of the first things you should do (everyone, not just addicts) is to stop drinking.

Wayne, by the way, was sanguine about death.

He said that it's about going from nowhere to now here to nowhere. Purely a matter of emphasis. Of spacing. (I don't think that works in Chinese).

Farewell then, Wayne Dyer, and thank you. I'll leave the final words of this post to you:

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.

SM x

Full Circle

Day 80! There's something beautiful about round numbers. This one reminds me of one of the children's jokes. Q: "What did the zero say to the eight?" A: "Nice belt!

Appropriately, given that I'm already on the topic of zeros and circles, this post is about coming full circle.

This is my 68th post. Eighty days ago I never would have imagined that I'd be able to find so many topics to ramble on about. I keep a list on my iPhone called 'blog posts', and whenever a relevant thought pops into my head I stick it on the list.

The list items are a bit like fish in an aquarium (spoiler alert: another analogy approaching). They swim around for a bit. Some of them get bigger and stronger and more acrobatic. Some die, end up floating belly up and have to be fished out. Some cannibalise  friends who are just a bit too similar to them, and end up an amalgamation of two or three different fish.

Each morning I open up the aquarium, peer in and see which fish is throwing itself out of the water with enthusiasm, and that's the one I write about.

About three weeks ago I wrote 'full circle' on the list. I wasn't sure quite what that fish was all about yet, but I thought I'd let it swim around and see what happened to it. That fish kept bugging me. I knew it was important, but couldn't quite work out why.

Then I read one of Anne's brilliant posts (see Ainsobriety). Anne had taken my tiny little common old garden goldfish and turned it into a gorgeous, tropical Angel fish! Suddenly the 'full circle' thought made sense!

The reason I'd become interested in the full circle idea was that, yet again, I'd been thinking back to my pre drinking days. I remembered that when I was at boarding school I started THE DIARY.

THE DIARY (that's a JOURNAL in American) was a huge lever arch file into which I wrote religiously every day. I added photos, letters and news clippings.

THE DIARY wasn't private. I let all my friends read it. I also encouraged them to add their own news and comments. In fact, it was - in those pre-interweb days - a rudimentary blog! And I loved it. We would all gather round it reading back over our antics from the previous year "Weren't we all so immature and pathetic!" we'd shriek about our antics in the lower sixth.

Not only did I have THE DIARY, but I was constantly writing. I wrote most of the end of year comedy skits, taking the mickey out of all the staff. I wrote 'odes' for all my friends - long, comic poetry - on birthdays and for other significant events.

Over the years I stopped doing all of that. Until about 6 months ago (when I started writing a book) I hadn't written a thing except e-mails, thank you letters and work stuff for twenty years. In fact, it was probably starting the novel that got me thinking about quitting the drink.

So, here I am, full circle. Back to writing THE DIARY every day, and sharing it with my friends, encouraging them to add their comments.

Here's what Anne wrote on her blog a couple of days ago. She'd heard Wayne Dyer, self help guru, speak at a conference, and she said: "What stayed with me from his talk was the idea that at the end of our journey we will recognize it as the place we started. The circular path of life. The returning to source."

She, and Wayne Dyer, had blinged up my little fish!

Then I thought, if I've come totally full circle, does that mean the last twenty years were a complete waste? Where would I have been if I'd gone in a straight line???

But, you know what? I reckon that everyone comes full circle eventually. It wasn't the drinking that created the circularity. It's the self analysis caused by the stopping drinking that allows you to see it.

Big, circular, hugs to you all. SM x