The thing about me is that I am always climbing. I have big dreams and set big goals and once I know what direction I want to go, I work hard to get there expeditiously. That is how I’ve always been and I honestly wouldn’t want it any other way. While I often reach certain points of overwhelm, and that in itself can be emotionally taxing, the payoff is always worth it. Once I reach a place where I feel like I’ve achieved what I set out to do, my brain starts itching for the next BIG thing. I have lived this enough times to know that my intuition will tell me when it’s time to pivot. The more I follow my inside voice, the more I am certain that it is never wrong. I have also learned that I cannot turn it off. It starts with a whisper, and the more I try to bury it or procrastinate, the voice just gets louder and louder until I finally listen.
My intuition is loud these days, but it’s not telling me where to go.
The last time I felt this uncertain about my direction was when I decided to address my alcohol problem. Like, truly face it for real. I knew that the issues were not ONLY alcohol. But the alcohol was no longer enough to numb the pain I was feeling every minute of every day. One idea would be to just drink more often, but I knew that would lead me down the rabbit hole even further. I could already look back on the path I took to get to this place, and could see the damage it had already caused. I couldn’t bear to live this way anymore. I had the hard conversation with myself and considered what was it that I wanted to keep living for? Why do I want to be alive? This is a conversation I had many times with my mother when she was suffering severe depression in her final years, but this time I turned it on myself. I clearly remember the exact moment I decided. I was sitting in my kitchen staring at the refrigerator. Scared as fuck. The fact that I was scared told me something. In order to go on I had to make some hard changes. It was obvious. The alcohol had to go. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain the treacherous journey ahead of me with alcohol clouding my reality. Clouding my reality is what I had been using it for up until that point and it was time to try a new way.
Now, it’s important to note that when I set out to do this, I had never intended to give up alcohol forever. I’d been here before. I had multiple times in my life where I gave it up for long stints - once for 18 months when I was trying to prove I was not an “alcoholic”. At that time, I thought if it was possible for me to live for 18 months without drinking then I didn’t have”the gene”. During that time I was healing from the loss of my first pregnancy and struggling with infertility. I took a break from drinking, worked through a lot of junk in therapy, ran my 2nd marathon and was pretty happy overall. When I decided to pick up again in 2009 on a family cruise, it was a very careful and calculated move. I journaled about what it might feel like to drink again. I had conditions. I had questions. And I was thrilled to report back to my journal the next day that I did not FEEL addicted to it. I honestly felt like a normal drinker. Such a huge relief. I guess I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. That’s how it started.
Shortly after that, I was pregnant, and went back to the sober life. And once I was a mother of twins, there was no time for partying, so the alcohol took a back seat on my priority list. This worked great until 2013 when my Mom had a stroke and I became her full time parent. I was in my late 30s, moving up the ladder in my career, getting settled in the new house that I had designed and managed the build, raising two 3-year-olds, and keeping up an active social life. That is the time when the switch flipped. I didn’t notice it back then, but looking back it is clear as day. That year was super traumatic for me on so many levels and each year following seemed to get worse. I needed somewhere to escape once in a while. Alcohol mixed with work and friends became my distraction and my medicine. I would not have survived it otherwise.
So my drinking ramped up again slow and steady from 2013 to 2021. EIGHT YEARS before it became enough of a problem for me to make an adjustment. It is also important to note that this appeared completely normal for the most part - a woman who had a lot going on and needed to let loose once in a while. So what if she got a little out-of-control drunk sometimes… it seemed harmless. I see now that I was really good at hiding it. But by 2019 after my mother died, my hiding skills had significantly diminished. I started getting sloppy and careless with it, and it was starting to bleed into all other compartments of my life. It was starting to get more dangerous. I was worried that other people would take notice, and I could see it was beginning to cause harm beyond just horrible hangovers. I was waking up in the middle of the night with crippling anxiety. I was depressed and irritable all the time. I looked forward to drinking more than any other activity and started brining alcohol into any type of social gathering, avoiding activities that did not include alcohol. Then it got to the point where once I started I did not have an OFF switch. This is how alcohol addiction progresses. Sneakily in the background - slow and steady. Seemingly harmless. It works until it doesn’t.
On the morning of May 30th, 2021, while staring at the refrigerator, with a splitting headache and severe anxiety about what I said in front of my kids the night before, I decided to set out on a new journey. I knew that I had some deep issues to look into. I knew I needed help from a therapist. I had no idea how long it was going to take to feel OK and I knew there would be very difficult consequences. I knew that I would alienate those closest to me. I knew it was going to get ugly and maybe feel worse before it felt better. But it was not going to be forever. For me, I was only able to embark on this journey if I didn’t look too far ahead. One day at a time is really what ended up working and still works every day I wake up and choose to keep this streak going.
There is much more to the story, but the point for today is that my intuition knows when I am ready to pivot even when I don’t have a known projected outcome. And lately it has been nagging at me more and more. It keeps saying that I’ve reached a point in my healing journey where it is time to move to the next thing. But what is the next thing? My intuition is talking to me and I am listening and open and ready to hear whatever it wants to tell me. And as usual it is giving me direction that I don’t like. HAH. “Be still”, it says. What? I don’t know how to be still! I know how to take action and go somewhere! I know how to form a strategic plan and execute. I know how to be open and learn new things and practice and rest and practice more until I hone my new skills and get to the next level. I do not know how to be still.
Aaaaaaaahhhhhh. OK there’s the lesson. Yuck. OK. This is the way my new sober life started. Alrightie then!
I’ve been trying to be still for the past 6 months. I am getting impatient but reminding myself to stick with it. I am constantly fighting my old behavioral pattern to take action. BE STILL. It’s really been an amazing challenge. BE STILL doesn’t mean stay in bed all day and hide under the covers. I still have to show up for life each day. So one of the tricks that worked for me in early recovery was through my daily writing practice. To satisfy my hunger to take action, while “remaining still” in my current situation, I have been exploring my creative side. This feels like too small of an action, but at least it gives me something to focus on. while I am not planning my next big move.
About 7 weeks ago, I attended a writing retreat in Santa Fe, NM. It was a place on the map I had never visited, and an experience I had never felt worthy of before. It was a bit scary but it felt like something I was meant to experience. I also remember thinking that it seemed frivolous. Who was I to think I could go spend a whole weekend writing? I was not a writer. I wrote in my journal every single morning for the preceding 12 months. I have journaled consistently ever since 2nd grade. But I was not a writer. Pssshh. Nope. That’s silly. But my intuition kept getting louder. I had a lot going on with work and wasn’t sure if I had the mental stamina to take on another commitment. It wouldn’t go away. I thought about this retreat over and over and over. And then one day my favorite author/teacher, Laura McKowen, announced to her newsletter subscribers that she had been invited to speak that weekend.1 I had just completed her online course called The Practice, and recently came back from her “Push Off from Here” weekend retreat in Boone, NC. Both experiences were LIFE CHANGING and she has become a secret mentor for me, expanding my self exploration this past year, and being a role-model for what is possible when we follow our truth. I took her announcement as my sign to pursue it. When I was on the signup page getting ready to enter my credit card details and click “Register”, my relentless inner critic said to me, “are you sure you really need to do this?”, and I paused again. I quickly opened another tab in the browser and found a podcast with Anne Lamott (main headliner for the event) on The Tim Ferriss Show . I watched the whole two hour exchange in one sitting feeling so charmed by her - I knew I had to get there and so I went back to the sign up tab and registered right then and there.
What happened that weekend was life changing, but not in the way that I had envisioned. On the second night, I ran into Laura McKowen in the lobby as I stepped off the elevator. I felt the need to gush and fan-girl and tell her how much I enjoyed her presentation and the retreat. She was, after all, the push that got me there in the first place. I also expressed that I was still feeling unsure about what I am meant to do with all of this, concerned that I didn’t yet know what is the best container for my creative work. I will always remember the next moment as she replied with the BEST wise mentor smile, “That’s OK. You don’t have to know”. It was a very brief exchange, and I walked away thinking maybe she had asked herself that question once upon a time and wanted to assure me that I will figure it out eventually - as she did. I filed it away as a special moment I knew I would access again. And I have several times.
As I was sitting in the wrap up session at the end of the retreat, I dreamed and schemed about how I would come home writing more than I had done in the past. That I would make writing a bigger part of my life and uncover the dormant creative being that always lived within me, and fully embody her. Finally! I was so excited to get home and apply what I had learned about writing and about myself.
That is not what happened. I struggled with the re-entry into regular life, got busy with work and family stuff, and fell out of practice on my self care morning routine. I was feeling down and irritated with things that used to bring me joy. I attended another retreat the following weekend, and the stress of travel and work issues got the best of me. Then I tested positive for COVID. I spent the next 5 days isolated trying not to spread the virus to my family. Oh and by the way this was during my birthday, so I celebrated my 47th in bed alone nursing the virus. Once I was well, we had a family trip followed by a business trip and then Halloween. So it has been an interesting time. Life being lifey, as they say.
Still, I have managed to crank out morning pages fairly consistently as recommended by Julia Cameron (another big headliner at this retreat), clinging to this as the one thing keeping me attached to this new way of life. I have managed to make this Substack come alive - and have about 5-6 drafts in progress, but struggle to finish and publish. I am fighting to get my sleep schedule back on track, so that I can get back to the morning routine of coffee, writing, meditating and more writing. Yet I am sitting here 7 weeks later feeling less creative and less inspired and more insecure about my writing practice. The retreat experience did not bring me the ease and new skills that I had expected, but instead opened a new door into a room of many more doors that I could not see before. A cloud has lifted, and while that is good I am finding it to be a bit overwhelming. I did not expect to feel even more challenged than before the retreat.
I joined the newly formed online community, A Writing Room, as a founding member. Signing up before I even left the retreat, because I know myself. Looking back this makes me smile, because it is another example of me listening to my intuition and going with what felt like the next right thing. Financial investment is a motivator for me, and I knew in that moment that if I left Santa Fe without some sort of hook into this new life, that it could be lost. I knew that I needed something to keep me tied in to a bigger community to hold on to the practice. It was more than just for writing. The people that I had just spent the preceding 3 days gave me a sense of what the world could be like if we were all willing to show compassion, vulnerability and understanding, willing to listen to and empathize with other human beings about their truth. We were asked at the beginning of the retreat to put away our politics and our biases and relate to one another on a human level. We were asked to respect the vulnerability of our fellow writers and in return we could feel safe to be vulnerable ourselves. It felt very similar to my beloved recovery communities that have helped me continue with and learn to LOVE my sobriety (see Recovery Elevator and The Luckiest Club), but this time alcohol was not the main event. I was very much drawn to this as a natural expansion of the work I’ve been doing, even pre-sobriety, since 2019 (more on that in a future newsletter). Over that 3 days, it felt like the beginning of something special that I would like to continue with not just for my writing practice, but to become the best version of myself and contribute to a better world, alongside a group of creative seekers wanting the same.
It has been 7 weeks since the retreat and I have not participated much more than commenting on others’ posts in the community feed. I have not contributed in the way that I had planned to. I keep feeling like I will get around to it when I have time. The main thing keeping me hooked into this community is not wanting that financial commitment to go to waste. As guilty as I feel about not participating as much as I would like, I feel proud that I took an action that is now serving me little snacks of community involvement through app notifications. Each time someone posts on the feed, I get a notification on my phone. A reminder that the community is still there and I am still a part of it. A reminder that I still belong. Every event that is on the calendar, I am invited to participate. I have attempted to mark off time for a few of these, but have not been able to get myself there consistently. Still, I know I am welcome, and I know they will be there to receive me when I am ready.
Again, knowing myself as well as I do, I feel like 7 weeks out without meaningful participation in the community is also a dangerous spot. I could decide to take it as a loss and move on with the “more important” things I have to tend to in life. I find myself rationalizing it as just another passing phase. Another silly dream I had about how life could be different. Another silly wasteful thing that was never meant for me. I can go back to writing in isolation and not worry about the lack of time or commitment to the greater community. I could turn off notifications. I could delete the app. I could delete this Substack account.
And then my intuition speaks up. Softly, in its way…
You don’t really want to go back, you want to move forward. Don’t throw this out again. You really blossomed during that retreat. Remember how energized you felt on day 1? Remember how on day 2 you were mentally and emotionally exhausted and then you went back to your room and rested and built up the energy to keep at it? Remember you recognized that you needed to have some time alone to recharge and you honored that? Remember how day 3 was one of the most life-changing experiences of your whole life? When you discovered that the “good girl” was a role you had been playing to protect your heart and you realized also in that moment that she was no longer serving you? Do you remember taking the mic and speaking your truth in front of the whole room? Do you remember when you sent her away? That was brave. Be brave. Find your way forward.
I remember the women I shared dinner with on the first night of the retreat. The ones who assured me my story was worth telling and encouraged me to publish my first post here. They have been checking in. They want to read more. I remember the women I sat with on day 3 who I had laughed and danced and cheered with while we encouraged each others’ budding projects. We are keeping in touch and they are also invested in this new journey with me, working on their own writing journeys as well. I remember I felt compelled to attend the pop-up 12 step meeting at the retreat, which was a huge deal for me since it was my first ever in person meeting. I have since connected with other women who are also writers in recovery, which is special because we have two things we can bond over. We are checking in and sharing our progress and struggles. So even if I am not taking full advantage of the paid community resources, I still HAVE community. Community is another significant and joyful tool that I believe to be essential in recovery and reminds me that I do not have to do anything alone. We are never alone. There are always out there who can relate with what we are going through. We simply have to find them.
I love the act of writing even when I am not sharing it. Writing is my 2nd favorite way to process my thoughts and feelings and one I have mostly kept private. So this urge to share it is really scary. I have learned to share openly with others through verbal processing in my online recovery meetings. Over the course of this 2.5 years of recovery work, I have learned the importance of community and have since expanded my circle of trust quite a bit. The retreat took this trust circle to another level as I found myself surrounded by hundreds of people, both in person and online, who were sensitive creatives like me. Over the course of those 3 days I became someone who felt safe opening up to a wider audience. I had never experienced that feeling of belonging outside of recovery circles. I had no idea this was possible. I had no idea how much it would inspire me to take that even further.
My lack of participation in the writing community or the number and frequency of newsletters I publish is not a reflection of how much I love writing, how much I long to do more of it, or how much I want to grow in the creative direction. I see now that it is more about my fear of connecting with others. If I connect with others in a public space like this one, I know that I want to be damn sure I am connected with myself. I know what it feels like to play a role that does not match what is inside, and I know now that it doesn’t serve me. Truth and authenticity are my priorities now. In everything I do. This is new and uncharted journey that I know in my bones will be an exciting and vulnerable adventure. This is very similar to how I felt on May 30th, 2021 when I decided to try living alcohol free. That has worked out pretty well so far.
Putting this all down for the record in Substack seems like the next right thing. I’ve spent many hours crafting this particular piece and I am finally feeling pretty good about it. I think it’s ready. I think I’ll stop pruning and editing and just hit the “Publish” button. This one has been fun. I have been motivated by my intuition to keep coming back to it and have been encouraged by my new writer friends not to abandon ship. This is a practice and a labor of love.
As much as my inner critic has tried to kill it, this writing and sharing it thing isn’t going away. AND I give myself permission to let it unfold on an unspecified timeline based on feeling. That alone sparks joy. I feel so very grateful.
If you read Laura McKowen’s newsletter, Love Story, you might recognize my subtitle as a nod to another heroine in my story. IYKYK.
Stillness can be scary, especially for do-ers like us. There’s something so quietly damaging about the notion that productivity is worthy and stillness is waste. Was at a author talk recently and Jedidiah Jenkins said (paraphrasing here), “that thing that is most uncomfortable? That place in your heart you keep avoiding? THAT is what you’re meant to write about.” So many of us feel the same worries and use similar distraction strategies, without even realizing it. It helps to see you name it out loud so the rest of us can see it for what it is.
Amy - there is so much here in this post. Every paragraph makes me stop and wonder. Thank you for your courage in sharing your life journey.
And I do believe that the universe is a friendly place and it always looks after us.
Lots of love