I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful to have a home to escape the smoke traveling from Canada, I’m grateful for the people who are patient with me and for my service commitments. I’m grateful for willingness, for change, for my sponsor, for yogurt with granola and morning coffee.
Hello my friends!
As always, I have you have been enjoying the week and if you are on the East Coast or in Canada, I hope you have been limiting outdoor activities the best you can…
Yesterday I truly thought that the apocalypse was coming, the smoke from over 400 wildfires (I think it’s 400?) completely engulfed NYC, leaving us with orange haze, smoke in the streets, and to walk only a few blocks left me struggling for breath.
However, despite the spooky conditions taking over the city, I had a lovely epiphany yesterday with my sponsor. I will often call her and say, “I need to tell you something, and I need you to tell me how long you’ve known this about me afterwards.”
To which I let her know that perhaps my constant exhaustion, the grumpiness I can so easily fall into and struggle to comeback out of, my lack of motivation all stems from being completely emotionally over stimulated all.of.the.time.
My sponsor let me know that she has known this about me for a while and is why she is constantly telling me to set boundaries. Really firm and sturdy boundaries. But setting and maintaining boundaries is exhausting in itself.
I don’t really know the solutions right now for curing emotional overstimulation. I do the right things I journal; I do a lot of service; I make a meeting pretty much every day. When I had about 60 days sober, I thought I was ready for the book Emotional Sobriety. That book is still sitting on the shelf untouched, there will be a day when it’s ready to be read but today is not that day.
I think one of the solutions is remembering that my emotions aren’t more powerful than me. That some people will respect your boundaries and other will push them to see how far they can go. Even in this moment, I am in the middle of writing, and I got an email. Immediately I stopped writing and replied to the email. Because if I didn’t my anxiety would start to take over.
I have to do a better job of remembering that my anxiety is just another feeling that can pass if I let it, that just because my email pinged doesn’t mean I have to stop what I’m doing, the world won’t collapse. I’ve focused a lot on filling up my cup and taking time for self-care but what am I doing to help my emotional-self recover?
Trying to figure that out won’t look linear and it will likely take some trial and error but I’m grateful to have at least realized it, at least I can work on it and maybe one day, I’ll be ready to pull Emotional Sobriety off the shelf ;)
Xx
Jane
I’m LOL because Emotional Sobriety is the one remaining conference approved book that I haven’t gotten myself to tackle yet. Next week, I celebrate 29 years … so you’re not procrastinating compared to me! I do love reading your shares. Thanks