I want to experience it all, the full gamut, the highs and lows, not just the highs, or just not the lows. It's all part of being human and it's all equally beautiful. The pain reminds me who I am, that I come from love, that I love myself, that I am love. If I'm hurt it means I care. But I don't have to feel that if I don't want to. This is what I saw the other night when I was high, and it seemed everything I'd looked at, seen, and heard that day, including a Tony Robbins video I didn't know why I was watching, contributed to this realization: that I'm in control of the dial, and the fun of being here on this earth is that you can feel however you want to. We may not have control over everything. We may not be able to control what comes up or when, but we can control how long we engage with it and we can control what we do about it, that is, we don't have to let it dominate us.
For instance yesterday I was feeling some anxiety and it was taking over, then the cat jumped in my lap and started purring so I focused on petting the cat, and I looked up at the corners of the room and the books on the shelf, and then to the opposite corner of the room, and I was grounded again. For me, when I feel anxiety taking over, I avoid it, and tell myself it's not happening. I don't feel equipped enough to handle it so I pretend it's not, but lately I've been doing the opposite. I tell myself this is happening, I pay attention to what's going on in my body, and often, just paying attention to it is enough to do something about it. I can often feel whatever it is dissolve, and my body feels prickly all over, as if a rainstick has just been turned upside down. I can't always control what's happening but I can work with it. I don't have to let it dominate me. One of the gifts of recovery is the tools I have to work with my feelings and thoughts, and I seem to learn more all the time.
When I got high the other night I could feel my vibration, my frequency rising, I felt close to God, to love. Everything seemed to make sense. I knew why this plant was used in spiritual ceremonies. I felt more connected to everything around me. All the shame, worry, confusion, doubt, insecurity I normally felt was gone. I started to get high and I got scared, and I told myself, this is what you wanted, isn't it? You wanted to get high, so get high. I felt like was going crazy. I went on this insane journey, like being blasted off into a rocket ship, and from space seeing all the ways I see myself and how I could be seen, and seeing that it was all a choice, and that I could experience whatever I wanted to. I could with whatever I wanted as deeply as I wanted to, and I didn't have to be stuck. Life was like walking on a trail, and you can experience the whole feeling of being connected to nature, walking among the trees with sunlight streaming in, and you can enjoy yourself. You can explore and learn about what's around you, take side trips. You can get distracted, confused, lost, scared, but you'll be found again, it won't be forever, nothing is. Anyway, the point is that you can choose your own experience, and it seems like that's what we came here to do: to choose, but we get stuck in this heaviness and these dense feelings like shame - we get lost - and we think we're gonna be lost forever, we start to panic when this is just one of the many things we can experience, and the fact that we CAN experience it, but we don't have to, is a beautiful thing. It's all lovely and it's all really very fun. We can do whatever we want, and we don't have to do what we've done.
There's so many levels to experience and we can choose how much or how little we want to engage with it. We can make life whatever we want it to be. We can make it all about ourselves, or all about others, or somewhere in between. We can listen to others and see that there's universes in their experience, and a near death of ourselves in theirs, and it feels beautiful to dissolve and listen and connect...I saw that when I'm high, I listen and connect better, my heart is more open, and when I'm not high I'm scared, and it's all about me. I'm worried about myself, I'm encumbered, and I saw that that's just how ego works and I don't have to blame myself. I saw that I have a long way to go to "Christ Consciousness" but that it might be fun getting there. I saw that that's an experience that's available to all of us, that that's what we're all after, or really, that's what we all are, and that if we want to, we can work together to achieve it. We think the things we experience - sadness, anxiety, joy, pain, happiness - we think they're real, that we have to experience them because they're based on "real" things but they're not, they're just one of any number of things that we can experience, and it doesn't always feel that way. Our bodies get easily taken over by things like love and grief, but we can do something about them: we can talk about them with others, go to support groups if need be...there are things we can do to help with these feelings so we can get to where we belong: feeling immense love for ourselves and connection to others - peace and well-being.
All of this is possible for us but yesterday I seemed to forget it. I was reveling in some post high feelings: some love, excitement, fear, doubt - still feeling a little unstable, like wasn't quite back in my body, and I was invited to dinner, and I said "yes," because that's what I'm doing now. I know I have to go through the fear if I want to grow beyond it, and I immediately felt anxious. I did what I could but it was taking over, and I reverted back to some old thoughts and feelings to protect myself: "there's something wrong with me," some shame, some paranoia, but I went, and I did my best. I had two other things I did this week that I was afraid, after which I felt confident (after one of them I felt ecstatic), but after this one I felt doubt, insecurity, shame. According to one book that means that I pushed myself too hard. Risk should feel good, it says. So, according to this book I tried and failed, which is ok, it happens. This is a trial and error process. I could have said but I didn't know if I should. I didn't know what to do. My instinct was to say no but I'd already said no and felt obligated to say yes. I chose another person's feelings over my own. But I also didn't want to give into fear, and I can't say that I didn't learn, and I saw this person, and another, and another, in ways I hadn't seen them before, or in a while, and I took risks and said things I normally might not have. I took a shot, and after it didn't feel great, but there's not much about this process that feels comfortable. I have to get out of my comfort zone, and into a new understanding of myself, into a place where I'm not using fear, criticism, shame to control, but rather using boundaries, yes and no, being vulnerable, using self-worth and love to protect myself and get close to others rather than all these other things. I could have said no, but then, what would he think about me? Maybe he wouldn't invite me over ever again...or I could have told him the truth: "hey I got high last night and I'm still not feeling fully back in my body, can I get a rain check?" And that would have been another risk, because maybe he starts worrying about me and so on. But that's just something I would have to deal with. I was afraid they would think something was wrong with me, and I could feel it permeate the atmosphere, or so I thought, and I started to feel guilty and ashamed over this. Natural silences that occurred were about me rather than just that, natural, and I blamed myself and then blamed myself for forcing conversation, and could have fulfilled that prophecy I was afraid of fulfilling had I said no, that I might not get invited over again, and so I should have followed my gut in this case, which told me to say no, and dealt with whatever came up, but I felt like I couldn't when my old sponsor used to tell me "you can always say no." I should have listened to my gut in this case but my gut has always been geared toward fear, trauma, and self protection, and so when I hear my gut it can be hard, or so I think, to know who's speaking. Is it my fearful, traumatized self, or the loving one. But I guess it's ok to listen to to that traumatized voice sometimes, and be patient and gentle with it, I don't have to continue to abandon myself for the sake of others. I have a tendency to push myself too hard and maybe that's why I've been feeling the way I have today, like there's some black hole in my stomach that's pulling sadness through my esophagus. Maybe that's a feeling of abandonment. I'm sorry I did that to you self, please forgive me.
That kid has always been told that he doesn't matter. And he believed it for a long time and of course still does. But I'm trying to tell him the opposite today. Normally I would do my routine. "I have to write," "I have to look for a job," "I have to do my schoolwork." "I don't have time to pay attention to myself." But I'm doing the opposite today. I'm trying something different. I'm paying attention to how I'm feeling and I'm going to try to do something (different) about it. I did some step work which I normally don't do, which worked. I'm going to go for a hike, and get into nature, which I haven't done in months. I'm doing this instead of the things I think other people want or expect me to do. My parents who want me to be successful, or society which says I need to work myself to the bone and be miserable. I'm choosing something different today. I'm taking some time for myself to say I matter, I'm important, and for me now, this is what recovery is all about.
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