Tag: you are enough

“Change your behavior and your thinking changes”

Belle 14 Comments

I’m reading a book about addiction, and I keep thinking “i should put this quote or that quote on the blog and see what you-all think…”

I will share more ideas later, and i think i’ll even have a contest to give away a copy of this mystery book … but for now, what do you think about these statements?  here you go…

A Few Inconvenient Truths About Dependency
• Addiction is a brain illness, not simply a failure of willpower or morals … Addiction is about the reward center of the brain. It’s a maladaptive response to trauma and stress.
• Change your behavior and your thinking changes.
• A new “brain model” of addiction is emerging that shows a close link between the symptoms of attention deficit disorder and those of an addicted brain.
• Express self-compassion and you begin to shed feelings of shame, which is at the root of depression and substance abuse.

Are you like me, jumping up and down, saying “YES YES, that’s exactly what I think!” or maybe you’re more relaxed than I am tonight 🙂  Or maybe you disagree entirely … In which case, Cool! More debate!

dental extraction of attitude

Belle 8 Comments

new sober blogger you should check out … Doc Drying Out. I was making a comment over there and thought i could put it here, too:

There should be a new category [when defining alcoholism]:
“Do you regularly drink more than you want to,
do you think about drinking more than most people,
and have you thought about quitting but can’t quite seem to do it.”
If that was a box, I’d check it : ).

I got soooo hung up on the definition of alcoholic when i was first quitting (and even beforehand).  Am I or aren’t I.  Should I be in AA or not.  I felt that there just weren’t enough boxes to check (on all those checklists) for those of us who are high-bottom boozers.

How about just this: “life is better without booze, give it a try. oh, you find it hard to try quitting even just for a while? then you will enjoy a life without booze even MORE than you think!”

And in follow-up to yesterday’s stupid/overwhelmed post, husband has a dentist appointment tomorrow (may they extract his attitude while in the dentist’s chair).  And right after I posted about scaling back, I cancelled one of the things I do for Job #2.  There weren’t many people using the service, but i was clenched against one or two emails saying “oh, i’m so sad you won’t be doing this any more, i love this …”

what did i get?

crickets. not one single email saying anything. Clearly i need to cut out more stuff, cuz what I think the universe needs is not what it needs right now! what a relief.  i’m not in charge of the universe : )

people just want oreos

Belle 6 Comments

Who would you be if you were already ‘enough’? what would you do if money and talent were not an obstacle?

The big contract for my third job/passion thingy has begun. i worked hard yesterday to be ready and just delivered the first installment this morning. I will go by the space later this afternoon to see how it’s looking, and to be onsite for questions, instruction, and brainstorming. Yes, i did work a long day yesterday, but i also ran, read, and ate relatively healthy food including homemade vegetable soup. in fact, on my tuesday weigh-in, i am down 2.2 lbs from July 1st, so that’s not too shabby. It means that the reliance on cake is waning somewhat. I was also in bed last night by 9:30 pm, asleep by 10 pm. My life is much improved by getting enough sleep. this might be the key to all of life’s problems… at least for me, at least for today.

if i was already enough, i’d (honestly) stop (entirely) one of my three jobs … job #2.  My work there is fragmented, clients never hear from me unless i’m trying to sell them something, and i don’t know what i’m delivering half the time, it’s not a good match of my skills + their needs. it’s like i have to keep convincing them that they need me. instead of finding people who ‘do’ need my services, and selling to them instead.

this is a light bulb moment.

forgive me if i stop here. for a moment.

god, this is why i continue to blog. so that i can explain things TO MYSELF. (It’s great if someone else is aided by my ramblings, but please forgive the gigantic belly-button-gazing-self-centered nature of today’s post.)

here it is:  stop trying to convince the world that they need bandaids for their worms (they don’t, and you’ll spend such a long time trying to convince them that they DO). stop trying to convince the world that they need a new pink handbag (they don’t, and stop buying so much fucking stuff anyway).  stop trying to convince the world that they should pay you to help them get up off the couch (whey they’re ready to get off the couch, they’ll find YOU). stop trying to convince people to buy this broccoli instead of that broccoli (because really, they just want oreos; find a way to sell healthy homemade-with-love oreos and just be done with it).

i would never have figured this out if i wasn’t sober. when drinking, i was on a treadmill of job 1, job 2. i was just getting through the day. now there’s actually time and energy to THINK about things.

now that i’ve mixed metaphors so much that you can’t follow me at all, let me say this:

Dear Belle.  As of today, stop wasting energy trying to sell things to people who don’t want them. Stop trying to convince anyone of anything. If they want oreos instead of carrots, then sell them oreos. And if you find oreos personally repelling, then just look away and do something else.

Business advice often heard:  “Where should you set up a hotdog stand? In front of a bunch of hungry hotdog eaters.” i never really understood this it until today. until right now, this minute. i’ve just delivered a big job to my job #3/passion/thingy and i realize that it’s the easiest work i’ve ever done. there’s a huge market for it and i can barely keep up. {DUH! WAKE UP CHICKY BABY}

Note to self. Try again. Dear Belle. You’re getting distracted. Listen here:

Sell to people who WANT to buy your stuff.  Stop trying to convince anyone of anything.

(the parallels with *real* life, of course, are evident. stop trying to convince people that they need to change, just be you.  be you as much as you can. do your thing with love and care. oh my god i know understand the fucking 1970s touchy-feely-hippie book title: do what you love and the money will follow … oh. my. god.)