My Alternative Recovery (very long)
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
My Alternative Recovery (very long)
I know this is long, but I have found that journaling here on SR is almost more beneficial than a more traditional way. Maybe I feel more accountable to my words? Either way, I like being able to recall the posts later when I look back over my progress.
Over the holidays I got an unexpected opportunity to look a little deeper at my own recovery. My boss “gifted” me a surprise week off for the Christmas holiday, which combined with the New Year & weekends, gave me a total of 14 days out of 17 off over those weeks. It was very kind, and since she sprung it on me at the last minute I didn’t have time to obsessively plan every minute. (good thing)
We also took it very easy on the holidays this year, focusing on the kids & spending more family time, letting go of the materialism. We changed some of our Christmas Eve/Day routines because we no longer need to accommodate my Stepdad’s family (he & mom separated over the summer). It’s the first year I was finished with my To Do List well ahead of time AND had gobs of extra time.
It’s also the first time in our lives together that RAH was home at the same time – he is currently unemployed (driving him crazy), struggling to work out a Mr. Mom routine on the home front & still battling all the little demons of his relapse – legal issues, increase in AA meetings/check-ins etc with new sponsor, loss of license for 6 months but trying to grab up small jobs whenever he can to make some cash, rebuilding trust in all of his relationships, depression (which goes back decades), working out, eating & sleeping better than he has in YEARS, etc. It’s good, bad & ugly on any given day.
DD & I baked a ton, we were able to make time for things like driving around looking at everyone’s house lights (& sometimes light shows, omg how cool!) , DD had a couple of sleepovers, RAH & I went out to check out a new band I was interested in (so nice that we can do this now without the ridiculously high bar tabs at the end of the night) and had some really, really amazing conversations where he started opening up more & more about his thoughts & repressed damage. I listened to more conversation in that one night than I have since the early days of our relationship. Some of the stories are old, but a lot of the details are new because he’s finally acknowledging things like his emotions.
But I found myself anxious & getting worse…. unable to JUST sit & relax. I kept thinking, what are we doing, what is next, what should we be doing instead? I paced, I groused, I barked around. When I looked around I had to admit that *I* was the only one struggling. I was the only one who seemed to need to justify doing nothing, even though that was the WHOLE POINT of this time off.
And then I started to hear myself. Starting first thing in the morning – “What are you doing today? What’s on your list? What do you expect to get done? What should I expect about ~xyz~ ?”
So I feel unproductive & I just start pushing & pushing at everyone around me in this kinda passive way, even though I’ve encouraged them to grow at their own pace? Even though I SEE the steps they are taking & know they can’t jump 10 steps ahead just to pacify my anxiety. Even DD – I remind her about her homework assignments with the disclaimer, “I’m not telling you what to do, just reminding you to be aware.” Really, every day she needs this pointed out? And sometimes I even justify it by saying that I NEED to know ~xyz~ because it so directly affects my ~abc~. While that is sometimes true, sometimes I just pull that excuse out & use it instead of examining to see if it applies to the situation first.
At one point RAH was like, “Wth is going ON with you & this mood?” Oh, sure buddy, you can act however, whichever, whenever & that’s fine?
He replied, “Yep – you’re right, I do act that way at times. Then you try to nicely call me out on it without starting a fight & I don’t always handle it well… but that’s what I’m trying to do for you right now.”
Huh. Ewww. Time to reassess myself a bit.
I started to realize that my normal routines were gone – my spa has been down because the pump burned out & we hadn’t replaced it yet (had the pump just hadn’t fixed it – I generally use it 4-5 times per week). My reiki night fell on the holiday both weeks so that was obviously cancelled. With everyone home at once my indulgent tv time was shared family time instead & while I could have simply gone to another room I wasn’t prioritizing myself; I was “being there” in even the most inconsequential ways for everyone else whether they liked it, needed it or not.
RAH is now home every single night & I’m not used to that either – he had worked a lot of nights, done late meetings, etc where I always ended up with solo time every few days, even just a couple of hours here & there. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to rely on all of that or how much it really just covered over the underlying feeling of Control. Yep, this is All About Me & My Recovery.
Stung recently bumped up my first ever post on this forum, it coincided with all this that I was feeling & I found it wonderfully ironic. It was the best kind of reminder for me because that post was all about the positive steps I’d taken in recovery & I’d lost touch with a few since then. Obviously, I needed to return to the basics
so I did the following:
1. Started taking indulgent Epsom salt baths in lieu of my spa time – I had a bunch of salt & sugar scrubs I’d never used & while that’s a physical exfoliation, I tried to think of it in terms of an internal stripping down as well. I set myself up with every luxury doing this – lemon/honey face mask, candles, foot scrubs, you name it. (RAH has since fixed the spa
)
2. Redecorated our (mine & DD's) fairy dollhouse completely – fully decked out for Christmas. Little decorated trees, garlands, tiny ornaments. It was SO much fun to work on that together.
3. I ran across an article about the psoa muscle group & found it fascinating how it affects the lower calf muscles (which RAH has big issues with due to years of double-bass drumming) but it was the spiritual connection that really grabbed my attention. These deeply rooted muscles protect the core around our solar plexus & front of the spine and since they rarely get massaged outside of targeted deep tissue work, they can hold some of our deepest, most repressed memories. I’ve read them referred to as our “Spiritual Muscle” & that it links specifically to our “gut instincts”. There is too much info to share here – but this is a really informative link The Psoas: Muscle of The Soul | body divine yoga I spent some time watching youtube videos of psoa massage & doing some self-massage on that area.
4. I bought myself 3 gifts for Christmas – a new journal & cool pen, a new yoga mat & a pendulum. I’m working on getting back to simple journaling, I was way, way overdue for a new mat (& got a great deal) & I have been wanting a pendulum for a while to work on my balance & bringing my focus to the NOW. I found out later that the pendulum I chose was made from pyrite which is associated with FIRE, the solar plexus healing (psoas!), balance.
5. I worked a lot on self-muscle testing because I think this is the height of getting in touch with my gut instincts. I’ve gotten really good at reading myself & am applying it to things in all areas of my life.
6. I created some music CD’s for my yoga sessions. Often I just watch tv while I stretch at night & when I use a music background it’s meditative sounds like nature or Native American drums, etc. But one of my favorite classes used to be set to a faster paced classic rock theme & while different completely, was also very enjoyable. So I created some themes for myself to be able to use for any given mood – one is all Jack Johnson, another is loud & heavy rock, another pop/dance with a lot of DD’s musical influence like Katy Perry, etc.
7. Every day I tried to do something for someone else, unsolicited. I called an old friend who I hadn’t made time for in a while, took my mom out shopping for no good reason, sent trays of cookies to neighbors that I knew had no family around, shared firewood with our new neighbors for their New Years bonfire.
8. I made sure we were enjoying our holiday indulgences, but were also getting lots of whole, healthy foods as well. I juiced 5 lbs of lemons to have fresh juice on hand & started drinking it again every morning - I know this helps me to control my sugar cravings & it also helped keep my awareness on healthy choices to start my day this way.
9. Shut off the TV & turned on the music - we listened to a LOT of music, each of us sharing from our mp3 players & favorite influences.
The best event happened while I was on the phone with my BFF – she’s a Cherokee Indian by lineage & is an amazing Natural Healer. She is a life-long student of any & all things spiritual; religion, plants & herbs, crystals, chakras, massage & reiki, meditations, yoga, etc. Her knowledge amazes me. While I was standing on my back porch, explaining all of this to her on the phone a woodpecker flew into our yard & landed on the tree directly in front of me making his presence loudly known. She stopped our conversation & got off the phone & said this kind of thing was significant & I should be paying attention to the medicine this animal was here to share with me. Before getting off the phone she grabbed her animal reference book & read me the section pertaining to Woodpecker, specifically (you guessed it) the RedHeaded variety.
He spent about 30 minutes going between 3-4 trees in my yard, drumming away & always staying within my vision & hearing. He even waited while I went for my camera & preened a bit while I got closer trying to capture pics of him where he was performing about 30 feet up a tree. We have 8 cats – one of them started to stalk the bird, then backed off almost immediately & they all sat there & just watched him with me. It was like time suspended itself while we sat there, half-hypnotized with this impromptu concert. It was really, really amazing.
Over the holidays I got an unexpected opportunity to look a little deeper at my own recovery. My boss “gifted” me a surprise week off for the Christmas holiday, which combined with the New Year & weekends, gave me a total of 14 days out of 17 off over those weeks. It was very kind, and since she sprung it on me at the last minute I didn’t have time to obsessively plan every minute. (good thing)
We also took it very easy on the holidays this year, focusing on the kids & spending more family time, letting go of the materialism. We changed some of our Christmas Eve/Day routines because we no longer need to accommodate my Stepdad’s family (he & mom separated over the summer). It’s the first year I was finished with my To Do List well ahead of time AND had gobs of extra time.
It’s also the first time in our lives together that RAH was home at the same time – he is currently unemployed (driving him crazy), struggling to work out a Mr. Mom routine on the home front & still battling all the little demons of his relapse – legal issues, increase in AA meetings/check-ins etc with new sponsor, loss of license for 6 months but trying to grab up small jobs whenever he can to make some cash, rebuilding trust in all of his relationships, depression (which goes back decades), working out, eating & sleeping better than he has in YEARS, etc. It’s good, bad & ugly on any given day.
DD & I baked a ton, we were able to make time for things like driving around looking at everyone’s house lights (& sometimes light shows, omg how cool!) , DD had a couple of sleepovers, RAH & I went out to check out a new band I was interested in (so nice that we can do this now without the ridiculously high bar tabs at the end of the night) and had some really, really amazing conversations where he started opening up more & more about his thoughts & repressed damage. I listened to more conversation in that one night than I have since the early days of our relationship. Some of the stories are old, but a lot of the details are new because he’s finally acknowledging things like his emotions.
But I found myself anxious & getting worse…. unable to JUST sit & relax. I kept thinking, what are we doing, what is next, what should we be doing instead? I paced, I groused, I barked around. When I looked around I had to admit that *I* was the only one struggling. I was the only one who seemed to need to justify doing nothing, even though that was the WHOLE POINT of this time off.
And then I started to hear myself. Starting first thing in the morning – “What are you doing today? What’s on your list? What do you expect to get done? What should I expect about ~xyz~ ?”
So I feel unproductive & I just start pushing & pushing at everyone around me in this kinda passive way, even though I’ve encouraged them to grow at their own pace? Even though I SEE the steps they are taking & know they can’t jump 10 steps ahead just to pacify my anxiety. Even DD – I remind her about her homework assignments with the disclaimer, “I’m not telling you what to do, just reminding you to be aware.” Really, every day she needs this pointed out? And sometimes I even justify it by saying that I NEED to know ~xyz~ because it so directly affects my ~abc~. While that is sometimes true, sometimes I just pull that excuse out & use it instead of examining to see if it applies to the situation first.
At one point RAH was like, “Wth is going ON with you & this mood?” Oh, sure buddy, you can act however, whichever, whenever & that’s fine?
He replied, “Yep – you’re right, I do act that way at times. Then you try to nicely call me out on it without starting a fight & I don’t always handle it well… but that’s what I’m trying to do for you right now.”
Huh. Ewww. Time to reassess myself a bit.
I started to realize that my normal routines were gone – my spa has been down because the pump burned out & we hadn’t replaced it yet (had the pump just hadn’t fixed it – I generally use it 4-5 times per week). My reiki night fell on the holiday both weeks so that was obviously cancelled. With everyone home at once my indulgent tv time was shared family time instead & while I could have simply gone to another room I wasn’t prioritizing myself; I was “being there” in even the most inconsequential ways for everyone else whether they liked it, needed it or not.
RAH is now home every single night & I’m not used to that either – he had worked a lot of nights, done late meetings, etc where I always ended up with solo time every few days, even just a couple of hours here & there. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to rely on all of that or how much it really just covered over the underlying feeling of Control. Yep, this is All About Me & My Recovery.
Stung recently bumped up my first ever post on this forum, it coincided with all this that I was feeling & I found it wonderfully ironic. It was the best kind of reminder for me because that post was all about the positive steps I’d taken in recovery & I’d lost touch with a few since then. Obviously, I needed to return to the basics
so I did the following:1. Started taking indulgent Epsom salt baths in lieu of my spa time – I had a bunch of salt & sugar scrubs I’d never used & while that’s a physical exfoliation, I tried to think of it in terms of an internal stripping down as well. I set myself up with every luxury doing this – lemon/honey face mask, candles, foot scrubs, you name it. (RAH has since fixed the spa
)2. Redecorated our (mine & DD's) fairy dollhouse completely – fully decked out for Christmas. Little decorated trees, garlands, tiny ornaments. It was SO much fun to work on that together.
3. I ran across an article about the psoa muscle group & found it fascinating how it affects the lower calf muscles (which RAH has big issues with due to years of double-bass drumming) but it was the spiritual connection that really grabbed my attention. These deeply rooted muscles protect the core around our solar plexus & front of the spine and since they rarely get massaged outside of targeted deep tissue work, they can hold some of our deepest, most repressed memories. I’ve read them referred to as our “Spiritual Muscle” & that it links specifically to our “gut instincts”. There is too much info to share here – but this is a really informative link The Psoas: Muscle of The Soul | body divine yoga I spent some time watching youtube videos of psoa massage & doing some self-massage on that area.
4. I bought myself 3 gifts for Christmas – a new journal & cool pen, a new yoga mat & a pendulum. I’m working on getting back to simple journaling, I was way, way overdue for a new mat (& got a great deal) & I have been wanting a pendulum for a while to work on my balance & bringing my focus to the NOW. I found out later that the pendulum I chose was made from pyrite which is associated with FIRE, the solar plexus healing (psoas!), balance.
5. I worked a lot on self-muscle testing because I think this is the height of getting in touch with my gut instincts. I’ve gotten really good at reading myself & am applying it to things in all areas of my life.
6. I created some music CD’s for my yoga sessions. Often I just watch tv while I stretch at night & when I use a music background it’s meditative sounds like nature or Native American drums, etc. But one of my favorite classes used to be set to a faster paced classic rock theme & while different completely, was also very enjoyable. So I created some themes for myself to be able to use for any given mood – one is all Jack Johnson, another is loud & heavy rock, another pop/dance with a lot of DD’s musical influence like Katy Perry, etc.
7. Every day I tried to do something for someone else, unsolicited. I called an old friend who I hadn’t made time for in a while, took my mom out shopping for no good reason, sent trays of cookies to neighbors that I knew had no family around, shared firewood with our new neighbors for their New Years bonfire.
8. I made sure we were enjoying our holiday indulgences, but were also getting lots of whole, healthy foods as well. I juiced 5 lbs of lemons to have fresh juice on hand & started drinking it again every morning - I know this helps me to control my sugar cravings & it also helped keep my awareness on healthy choices to start my day this way.
9. Shut off the TV & turned on the music - we listened to a LOT of music, each of us sharing from our mp3 players & favorite influences.
The best event happened while I was on the phone with my BFF – she’s a Cherokee Indian by lineage & is an amazing Natural Healer. She is a life-long student of any & all things spiritual; religion, plants & herbs, crystals, chakras, massage & reiki, meditations, yoga, etc. Her knowledge amazes me. While I was standing on my back porch, explaining all of this to her on the phone a woodpecker flew into our yard & landed on the tree directly in front of me making his presence loudly known. She stopped our conversation & got off the phone & said this kind of thing was significant & I should be paying attention to the medicine this animal was here to share with me. Before getting off the phone she grabbed her animal reference book & read me the section pertaining to Woodpecker, specifically (you guessed it) the RedHeaded variety.
He spent about 30 minutes going between 3-4 trees in my yard, drumming away & always staying within my vision & hearing. He even waited while I went for my camera & preened a bit while I got closer trying to capture pics of him where he was performing about 30 feet up a tree. We have 8 cats – one of them started to stalk the bird, then backed off almost immediately & they all sat there & just watched him with me. It was like time suspended itself while we sat there, half-hypnotized with this impromptu concert. It was really, really amazing.
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Join Date: May 2010
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Wow...what an amazing post FS. What a nice gift from your boss, how kind. I am the sort of person who would not know what to do with myself either. Lucikly, some bad weather slowed me down this year and I was forced to spend some time just hanging out and it was very nice indeed.
I think it is great that you are this self aware. I try to focus what is going on with me, however it is so easy to get caught up in herding everyone else around the way I think it should be done. Really I need to see what I should be doing for me. It's hard when your family does run you to death it seems. I have to learn to say NO more than I do now. School will be back in session soon and that will definitely help.
It sounds like you did some great things over the holidays. I have to be honest, I am glad the holidays are over for various reasons. Thank you for the inspiration. I think I am going to try to take a deeper look at what I can do to be a bit kinder and more self aware.
Hugs.
I think it is great that you are this self aware. I try to focus what is going on with me, however it is so easy to get caught up in herding everyone else around the way I think it should be done. Really I need to see what I should be doing for me. It's hard when your family does run you to death it seems. I have to learn to say NO more than I do now. School will be back in session soon and that will definitely help.
It sounds like you did some great things over the holidays. I have to be honest, I am glad the holidays are over for various reasons. Thank you for the inspiration. I think I am going to try to take a deeper look at what I can do to be a bit kinder and more self aware.
Hugs.
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Join Date: May 2012
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Originally Posted by hopeful4 
I try to focus what is going on with me, however it is so easy to get caught up in herding everyone else around the way I think it should be done.
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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I love your posts! Your original post was such an inspiration for me because you really focus on yourself physically and that's how I too feel really centered.
I'm trying to do a better job of keeping AH and his issues entirely out of my mind and I find that when I start my day with running or Pilates (like I used to before things got so crazy) that I start my day feeling good and happy and focused and I can see the huge impact that that has on my kids as well.
I will definitely check out that link regarding calf muscles too. Very interesting!
I'm trying to do a better job of keeping AH and his issues entirely out of my mind and I find that when I start my day with running or Pilates (like I used to before things got so crazy) that I start my day feeling good and happy and focused and I can see the huge impact that that has on my kids as well.
I will definitely check out that link regarding calf muscles too. Very interesting!
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
O yes...this is something I am actively working on, and it is hard. As my counselor said, when you have driven the ship for a very long time, it is hard to let another person take the wheel...ever. It is hard to see their driving habits could ever compare to yours. LOL...I totally get that. There are things I spend hours doing because I think I can do it better than anyone else. Or I think my solution is the only one that is right....because I think it, it must be so, type of thing..ha!
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing!
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Originally Posted by Stung
I will definitely check out that link regarding calf muscles too. Very interesting!
One article I read said you'll know when you find the right muscle because it doesn't feel good, lol. Instinctively it tightens & tries to avoid contact - it is tied to our "fight or flight" instincts & connects around the diaphragm to a nerve center that is a direct link to our Reptilian Brain. Totally fascinating.
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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FS, I love this post! I'm so glad you're doing well and enjoyed your time off. I just read that piece on the psoas and am going to be more aware of that area in my yoga practice. My hips and lower back are super tight and hurt A LOT. It makes sense now.
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I am a psoas junky!
The type of body work I do is called Rolfing (deep tissue work).
I love it when I get my psoas worked on.....though it usually gets me wonky for awhile.
I can't wait to read that article and send it on.
The type of body work I do is called Rolfing (deep tissue work).
I love it when I get my psoas worked on.....though it usually gets me wonky for awhile.
I can't wait to read that article and send it on.
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