I began this post in May of this past year. I just finished it, six months later.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter - renewal happens all the time.
In the early days of recovery, everything felt new. My brain was emerging from a quarter century-long alcohol bath. Clarity appeared, through the fog. Everything began to feel raw, and open. I talked about it, sat with it - and later I wrote about it and since the early days I’ve been moving in it, and through it, and a new revelation has set in: Once sober, from everything - all the things that pull us out of center - we’ve nowhere else to go and nowhere to hide, really - certainly not from ourselves, anymore. How do we adjust to this “new normal”?
I was talking with a dear friend yesterday and I heard myself say that once your consciousness expands, it’s never quite the same again. I think this is what Oprah means when she says after exposing inequity: “you’ve seen it now, you are changed, now what are you going to do about it?” and when 12-steppers say AA ruined their drinking. It’s not that I could say I’ll never drink again - it’s always one day at a time - but it would take an awful lot for me to return to the old ways, knowing and feeling what I do now. I heard Tommy Rosen say once “I’ve managed to create a life so full, so rich, in sobriety, that I would not want to give it up for one drop of alcohol, one hit of cocaine, even if I could.” That’s expansion.
That’s not to say that things are always sparkly, sunlit, green.
The next part of this essay contains material that may be difficult for some readers.
On Monday, May 13, I discovered a dead body.
A friend ended his life under an oak tree, in the back yard where he lived.
He had terminal cancer, was alcoholic, nearing homelessness, and had lost all hope. I felt that wave of horror move through me, catch in my chest - and there it stayed, for a long time. It was the horror of seeing myself in another in pain - a trauma response, and a memory of something familiar.
None of us is immune to hopelessness. In that moment, I was both acutely aware that life is a precious gift - and at the same time, that for some, death seems the only possible relief. I can openly admit now that at times I had contemplated ending my life as well- long ago, there were times I could not imagine living a different way, and I suffered under the weight of shame about this. I was stuck: I could not see a way to change, but it felt impossible to go on the way I had been living. In recovery circles we call this a “bottom.” And some of us can live at the bottom for a very, very long time, managing and functioning in a way that to outside appearances looks comparatively normal. Running on and on, in this way, on the fumes of self-will and desperation, exhausts the nervous system and diminishes our usefulness to anyone. As I’ve written before, I surrendered that way of being several years back, and since then I have come to understand that I have choices and supports available to me, should I have the presence of mind to move toward them.
Today.
How things do change. In this past year since finding Jimmy’s tortured body, and before that, after months of processing the grief of Kaity’s passing, I’ve also grieved the sudden loss of our sweet senior pup, Finn, killed by another dog. During that time - just a few weeks after starting this post, in fact - I’ve gained dear relationships that put me in a place to be a friend and support to women like me, just by being myself and sharing both what I know and what I don’t know- and to gratefully receive what they had to offer, too. This is how we recover.
There is a dignity to resilience. And if each of us is lucky we find the communities large and small that make resilience - and renewal - not only possible, but inevitable.
I’m clear that renewal happens when I set my mind and my energy right - when I attune to a power greater than myself, whatever that may be. The best way I’ve found to do this is to spend time with my attention turned inward, listening, through prayer and meditation, away from the buzz of technology and the cultural pressures of productivity at any cost. When I tune in, I can also see and feel it in others - and that power is most available. It supports me. I experience it as unconditional love. It never leaves me - though I do forget it’s there from time to time, and then I feel less resilient. And I can always tune back in.
Prayer and meditation buoy my psyche and my spirit and make resilience attainable. Here’s my personal prescription, simple, accessible, potent, and for me, immediately nourishing:
“Dear beloved spirit, show me the ways you’d have me be most present and useful today.”
Fifteen minutes of breathing in, and breathing out. Being in the body, in the breath.
Five minutes of spiritual reading- anything that serves. (In a future post, I’ll share some fantastic daily readers that pair well with this practice.)
I’m clear also that I was supposed to be there, to be with Kaity. To find Jimmy. To meet those women, in their time of need, and to see my own need for them - to see how our healing could be mutual. To hold my sweet Finn in memory only. What yoga has given me has made it possible for me to stand, softly and steadily, in moments of discomfort without crumbling into dust. To stand in the stream of another without losing myself in the flood. To watch the leaves fall from the trees and know that all is impermanent. To know that relationships renew. That what seems impossible, immovable, can and does shift. Especially when my eyes are open to see it.
All is constantly renewing. All is changing. All will come to pass. All will be reborn. And somehow, all is well, even when it’s not.
Here’s to renewal.
