Yesterday I tried something new. I held a special call to talk about clutter, self-care, and sobriety (yes you can still sign up now, even though the live call has been recorded, i will send you the recording).
And i think I learned something yesterday (or in some way the dots are even closer together than they were before), and that is that one of the biggest challenges in early sobriety is overwhelm. There’s too much to deal with, there’s too much to read, it’s all too hard. There are too many events to navigate sober. The future is too long…
But once we share the journey with someone else, or a group of someones, then man it just gets sooo much easier.
It’s just like having too much stuff in your house, cuz like it’s hard to know where to start. If you face a large mound of stuff, or a long past of mistakes, or a big pile of unopened mail, then maybe you just can’t figure out what the fuck you’re supposed to do about it.
So there’s denial, right? i mean, we’re all masters in denial. i try to be super kind when people are in denial, though, because denial is really just a stage… (and there are other stages that come after denial that are better, oui?)
Here’s an extract from yesterday’s audio:
To be fair, denial is an adequate coping strategy when you’re not ready to deal. It’s what everybody does when they’re not ready to deal. And we do it in our whole life – not just with our clutter — but with our sobriety.
So if denial is what you do when you’re not ready to deal, then when you are ready to deal, you take the lid off the box, and you look in, and you take it out what’s in there a little bit at a time, and you get shit done.
That’s what you’re doing now.”
I know i’ve written before that everything is like everything, but getting shit done is just like sobriety. It’s easier with support and accountability and shared ideas. Facing a messy kitchen (life) alone is depressing. When you’re alone it’s punishment. Facing it with friends is so. much. fucking. easier. i. can’t. tell. you.
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