I think there’s this belief in recovery that we always have to be moving forward, propelled by a combination of serenity and energy and maybe some desperation too. When I don’t have all those elements in right measure, I feel off and not as happy with the routines that have worked for me in the past.
NERD ALERT: Every morning I get up really early (how early? fucking early) to write in my journal and then I feed the cat and go for a run or a walk and take in the wildlife and feel as close to how Snow White feels when birds alight on her arm as anyone could feel, I’m sure. I do all this because my family is still sleeping like normal people and because I’ve lost the ability to sleep in, probably because my brain knows this is the only time I get true peace and quiet. I’m an introvert in a family of extroverts.
The past couple mornings I got up as usual, but I just wasn’t feeling it in the same way as before. I wrote, but I’m pretty sure I repeated myself a lot and was too bored to look in past entries to confirm this. I ran, and it was exhausting and sweaty and therefore good, but I skipped through at least half the songs on my playlist because I am tired of them. In short, I am in a slump and I hate slumps because I never see them coming and I’m not sure how to get out.
I know slumps are normal. Being sober doesn’t preclude me from having them. It’s a little scary to have one in recovery because part of me wonders if this is how relapse begins. If I stop bettering myself in these small ways, will I worsen instead? If I don’t journal, will I bottle up my angst? If I lose interest in running, how will I be able to keep up my oreo habit? I fear my natural inclination is to revert back to old, self-destructive ways, and I don’t want this to be true and I know I can fight it and I will fight it. Maybe a slump serves to remind me of all I have to lose.
It’s likely I need to try something new for growth. Yesterday I was feeling all anxious and got an emailed post on anxiety from The Act of Returning to Normal. She mentioned running to tire the mind and how that is different from meditation, which helps train our mind to think differently in the first place. I’ve been hearing people talk-up meditation since I got sober and still haven’t looked into it (do you take a class? do you need to sit indian-style? do they still call it indian-style?), but I needed to hear that yesterday.
I got another post in my inbox recently from My Life: Act 2 about how addiction works tirelessly to keep us from feeling the stress and anxiety we’ve already been feeling. Turns out we need to learn to feel our way through and not just around uncomfortable things. Who knew? Not me.
I’ve learned a few things from all of this:
1) I need to sign up for a meditation class once I find out if they have a meditation class.
2) I need to learn to sit with uncomfortable feelings and pain. I am starting to do this, but I need to do it more.
3) Email delivery of blog posts is right up there with viral videos of people falling off treadmills, and both are reasons why the internet is more good than bad.
I get so much out of blogs and blogging and other blog related words. I know we won’t all be doing this forever, but I feel all warm and fuzzy and it’s a good thing, though the fuzzy part doesn’t sound like it would be.
I’m feeling less slumpy than before.