Ten Things I’ve Learned in Ten Years Sober

I am so small and know so little, and have so far to go. But this I do know- I am a child constantly falling down but who is held lovingly by the Universe, and these ten years of structured recovery, trauma/somatic therapy, and a daily meditation practice have given me the ultimate gifts: spaciousness and stillness in my mind and heart, the practices of surrender and slowness, the chance to experience trust and love, the homecoming into silence. I have been shown so much and taught so much, and here are two handfuls of those things. I do hope that they might be of help to someone in some way.

1. It was never about the drugs or alcohol. They were what I so desperately tried to use to fix a spiritual, emotional, and mental problem. Long term sobriety has also afforded me the gift and foundation to try so many of the other things in the third dimensional world (people, relationships, sex, food, money, fame) to fill the void or fix the disconnection, and to learn that not one of them will work. If anything, they deepen the void if I am using them in a misaligned way.
2. Forgive. Forgive everyone for everything. Its etymology means “to let go”, and its definition is “to completely let go of the desire or power to punish.” When I feel hurt or scared, my mind creates a story which bonds me to that person or situation in a poisonous way. Hurt people hurt people, scared people get scary, and we want to punish through shame, anger, silence. But it is me that feels the most pain when I am holding on to perceived or real harm and grievances. Forgiveness- the ultimate act of letting go- breaks that lethal bond and sets us both free to simply be imperfect human beings. Practicing immediate forgiveness is especially transformative (the longer I let the resentment or desire to punish go on, the stronger that cord becomes). I’ve also learned through experience that it is much harder to forgive someone that is close to your heart, and that the most difficult but necessary one to forgive is myself- but these are the truly transformative experiences. Most times, though, I no longer need or want to punish, because ultimately…
3. What I want to live in, offer, transmit, and be is Unconditional Love and Unity. In other words, there are no conditions I need for a person or situation to meet in order for them to experience this type of Love from and with me. It is true unity and belonging. I fall short of offering this constantly, but it is what I work towards- as it is an act, it is an art, it is a practice to notice when my heart closes off and my mind constricts into story, grasping, clinging, and wanting things or a person to be different than they are out of fear of losing what I have or not getting what I want. Find others who can offer the grace, patience, and space to be oneself completely- mess, mistakes, growth, all of it- and who still love and accept. Find others who want to keep showing up for relationships even when there might be hurt or harm done (so long as there is the desire to repair and amends are made.) Find others that deeply understand we are but small children learning our way, and who can practice forgiveness. Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving and Ram Dass’s speaker tapes have been particuarly helpful in my development in this area.
4. Clear, thorough, and fearless introspection allows me to see the truth about myself and the situation. A practice of self-examination lets me see my behavioral, emotional, and thinking patterns- and after awhile observing and working on these, I get to start peeling back layers to see the deeply rooted causes and conditions (ie: trauma). As I do this internal work, I begin to shed the armor that one time protected me, but now no longer serves me (in fact, it often causes others and myself harm.)
5. Personal accountability and responsibility are direct paths to freedom. Learning to say (and truly meaning) “I was wrong and I am sorry” allows me to move back into a space of Love- and that’s really where I want to be. Seeing it, owning it, and from there growing. Amends are a spiritual experience, and go far beyond “I’m sorry.”
6. It is my mind that causes my pain and suffering today. It is what blocks true unity and connection. It is what robs me of the opportunity to experience belonging and unconditional love. But the body keeps the score, and the somatic work is incredibly necessary. The body holds the ultimate wisdom, while the thinking mind knows so little.
7. Get open. Stay open. Reopen when I close. Open-mindedness and open-heartedness make for a life full of curiosity, wonder, joy, and discovery. Understanding that I close my heart and my mind when I am in fear helps me to see that while I might feel I am protecting myself, I am actually constricting my life.
8. The only way out is in. The obstacle is the journey. Origin story and Jungian imago work will be the most painful yet the most liberating work I will do in this lifetime. To understand that I draw in and recreate situations from a place of wounded longing that stems from childhood and/or intergenerational trauma is so freeing, because it is just asking to be looked at and healed. It can feel brutal while in it, but having gratitude for it and knowing the freedom that waits on the other side of it helps. Today I have the tools and foundation to take an honest and compassionate look at it, to work on it, and to change. When I act from a place of deeply hidden, very old pain, I get curious and ask what it is that it needs in order to be resolved and healed- while also being accountable and trying to make amends, if my unhealed pain harmed someone else or myself. I also learn to quit going to a dry well looking for water (or Autobiography in Five Parts from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.)
9. It is all a gift. It is all teacher. All of it. Every single thing that comes into my life is to serve me so that I may ultimately serve others. Today, I am incredibly grateful for every “mistake”, every bit of pain, every bit of joy, every lesson of clinging and the suffering it creates, every season of grief, every bit of love or connection I experience even if and when it leaves.
10. Stillness and silence are my favorite go-tos today, which is wild for someone who was so highly traumatized from growing up in a violent and chaotic home that I was hardwired for fight/flight/freeze/fawn and urgently needed to move or run away. But today there is deep, abiding peace as a constant background. I am at home within myself. I never knew these were possible. It is like a luminous spaciousness, a radiant emptiness, a mind that is expansive as the sky that can hold all weather as it passes through. It is the seeking that has made this possible, and the seeking has been the greatest joy of this life of mine.
11. One more, for this 11th year of recovery: Because of impermanence, everything is possible. Change is the only constant. I am rooted, yet I flow. Let’s flow and forgive and grow and Love together.

Above all, everyone (including myself) is worthy of love, is lovable, and is capable of loving. But we can only love to the extent we love ourselves, and we must meet people where they are and how they are in this moment without it detracting from the Love we bring. ❤

Makeup-less, flawed and sunspotted, and totally at peace and happy. I love that the tree behind me looks like it is growing out of my shoulder. To live so intimately with nature is a dream!