312. The rain is everywhere

When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, "Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere." 

~ Shunryu Suzuki

It is day 312 of my sobriety journey. The past few days have been difficult. Dark. Tommy Rosen in his Recovery 2.0 talks about "the darkness of addiction and the light of recovery." I was diving into the darkness also known as social media, spending too much time in the anger and fearfulness of current events. Twitter has become a gloomy replacement for drinking.

I realized yesterday that I was heading towards relapse. All the warming signs were there: anxiety, anger, mood swings galore, consuming large quantities of junk food, ignoring my sources of support, arguing with the internal committee who thinks drinking again would be great. 

Whenever I get close to a big milestone, the committee starts holding loud, boisterous meetings, clamoring for attention, whining and cajoling, wanting to have "just one" drink. I appointed a manager to lead the committee, one who is compassionate yet firm, who reminds the inner voices that it is never just one. She must have been on vacation for a few days or else the committee was louder than usual. I couldn't hear her voice. 

Yesterday I sat outside and let my thoughts drift with the clouds, and as the internal dark clouds began to clear up, the CEO of Teetotaling finally spoke up, calming the committee, working through the fantasy of what it would be like to drink again, to wander down the road of trying to moderate, of hangovers, of blowing up my life.

One of the other warning signs of pending relapse is that I stop doing the things that keep me moving "from the darkness of addiction to the light of recovery." I stop meditating. I stop my yoga practice. I stop exercising, getting outside, eating healthful foods. I am back on track now. I don't know why I derail. Perhaps it's part of the sobriety process, to pull away from all that is good for me. Perhaps I don't think I deserve all that is good for me. 

I do deserve it, though, and if I have to keep reminding myself of that every second of every day, well, I'll do so.

Out of the pain of where we have been, many of us come to the mat in a hurry. Our self-study has revealed a universe of pain and loss, while at the same time it has intimated that there is a better way. Some work on the mat has brought some relief; therefore, we assume, more work on the mat will bring more relief. So we attend workshop after workshop, attempt postures of ever increasing difficulty. We are in a hurry to escape the pain we have been in and are still contending with, but our haste is self-defeating. Do not walk so fast. The pain you wish to escape is everywhere. Do not walk so fast. The grace you seek is everywhere. 

~ Rolf Gates & Katrina Kenison, Meditations From The Mat

I read that this morning and it was the perfect message for me. In addition to social media, I keep signing up for workshop after workshop, overwhelming myself with more, more, more. I cannot possibly listen to all the talks, do all the yoga, read all the books and blogs and emails. Today I will begin to dismantle the chaos I created by unsubscribing, cutting back, simplifying my life and email.

Life is complicated because I make it so. It is time to slow down, to be present, to accept, to stop thinking of myself as separate from life. It is time to live from a place of love.