Dear Readers,
Welcome back to my blog. Thanks for taking the time to be here with me. You can follow this link to hear me reading this blog instead. I am feeling grateful that I have this link to you as I know that you share some of my experiences in what often feels like a difficult world to navigate.
This year has been exceptionally challenging for me at an emotional level. It isn’t because awful things have happened to me personally. I have been quite distressed by what’s been happening in Gaza, but I know there’s not a lot I can do about that. It’s the isolation and disconnection from people in my sober life that has wreaked the most havoc on me. If it weren’t for the loving relationships that I have with my husband, children, and dog, I would feel very lost indeed. In my last blog, I wrote about the importance of self-compassion and self-love and how the relationship that we have with ourselves impacts those that we have with others. I am a work in progress which means that I am learning as I go along how to be a better version of myself. The problem is this: I know in my heart that my best self is only visible when it’s reflected back to me through my interactions with others. I love how my smile can bring a smile to someone else’s face. I love how my words can elicit a feeling of hope from someone who might be in pain. I love how my walking alongside someone can make them feel supported.
no man is an island
I need to feel a connection with others if I’m to feel alive and to thrive. The line ‘no man is an island’ from the John Donne poem written over 400 years ago captures this sentiment and reminds us that we need one another to survive and thrive. And it will come as no surprise to know that what matters to most people at the end of their lives is the relationships that they have had with others, not their material gains and achievements. I am grateful for the close relationship that I enjoy with my husband and my children. But it isn’t enough because they spend more time away from me, living their lives, than they do with me. I am a social creature, and it doesn’t suit me to be isolated for so many hours of the day.
I need to belong
I dropped out of choir this year because I wasn’t all that keen on the repertoire that they selected for 2024 – I’m just not a fan of musicals like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and such like. I also wanted to release myself from what was beginning to feel like a huge undertaking. While it is a community choir, it often felt as though it was semi-professional and demanded a lot of me. But the price I have had to pay for pulling out has taken its toll on me. It has shown me that I need to belong outside of my little family, and I need to build meaningful relationships with others. I will re-join the choir next year and go with the flow because it feels so good to sing with others.
a bolt of lightning
A post popped into my Facebook feed recently from my old group of Perth friends who were out celebrating a birthday. I felt the sharp pangs of isolation knowing that I hadn’t been invited. I made a comment about how I missed them and the response I got was bloody laughable. One of the girls said, ‘well you don’t drink anymore’. I could read into that and allow my mean self-critic to remind me that that’s just a lame excuse for not liking me. Whatever the reason might be, rejection still hurts. As part of my commitment to be better than I have been, I have had to reflect on what it is about me that people don’t like. It struck me like a bolt of lightning the other day that my deep lack of self-belief has meant that I have lacked belief in others too because, like it or not, we are all one. It sounds weird to say it I know, but it makes sense to me at a deep level. When I am willing to embrace the goodness that is in me, I can also embrace the goodness that is in you. Fostering resentment towards others only backfires on us as the resentment is in us. It’s the same with anger; harbouring anger for another person is like drinking poison hoping that it will hurt the other person. I have come to see myself as a misfit, probably because I’ve always been headstrong and sensitive. These conflicting qualities demonstrate just how unstraightforward humans are. We are all a mix of lots of things. I can see why drinking and smoking weed became such an attractive proposition for me in how they numbed the feelings of not belonging.
What counts is how I am today
I have just reached the five year and three-month mark in my sober life and I’m even more a misfit now than I ever was. I am learning to accept myself and be OK with the mess that I’ve made of things over the years. What counts is how I am today. I feel lucky to have my little family and to be able to do the things I do to make the world around them better. I still feel the cold rejection of broader family who refuse to accept me as I am and prefer to block me out of their lives as if I’ve committed some heinous crimes over the years. The worst thing I ever did was to speak the truth. I console myself when I’m feeling sad with the fact that I care and that says a lot about me.
I listen more to my heart
I often hear people say, ‘ah sure, focus on the positive,’ or ‘don’t dwell on what you don’t have’ and you know what, I find this kind of advice quite toxic. I think it’s OK to review where we’re at, to assess what’s working and what’s not, take a compassionate look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out what we are doing and how we can do better. I believe that we have a responsibility to adjust our thinking and our actions if we are to leave this world a better place for the next generation. I certainly want my kids to have learnt from my actions that it’s more important to improve as a person than to keep on doing the same thing, especially when the same thing is just causing suffering. I listen more to my heart now than I ever did and it means that I feel more joy, but I also feel more sadness. I can handle that. I accept that you can’t have one without the other.
I hold no grudges
This blog was never meant to be about pink fluffy clouds and how giving up the booze made all my problems disappear. I would go so far as to say that giving up the booze has made my life more challenging in some ways, but the one brilliant thing it has done is it has removed the shame that kept me living a lie. I still have much to learn about myself and how I can best live this one amazing life that I have been given, but I am honest and not afraid to be my authentic self anymore. If people don’t like that, then I am OK with it. I hold no grudges. I accept that we are all different, all coming to the party with our different experiences that often involves emotional baggage that many people aren’t even aware they are carrying. One thing is for sure: people who are courageous enough to make changes to their behaviour so that they can be better people will know what it feels like to step out of the herd, stand on the edge, and not be afraid to do things differently. I celebrate that. I celebrate you. Keep on being true to you. As Paulo Coelho said in the beautiful book that is The Alchemist, ‘You will never be able to escape from your heart. So, it is better to listen to what it has to say.’
I look forward to keeping you all apprised of the progress I make with my novel over the coming months. I have passed the half-way mark in my first draft – that’s 43,560 words to be precise! My goal is for it to be published in the next 12 months. It’s a slow, laborious process, but it will be worth it. I hope you will agree when you read it.
Be courageous. Be Kind. And take good care of yourself. Love, Gill x
