Like a misty fog...

Sometimes I get melancholy. It just arrives slowly like a misty fog and sits for a bit and no amount of 'thinking' my way out of it can shift it. I just try to be with it (I don't have any choice actually!), keep myself grounded in the moment and not over-ruminate about why I'm in this state ... I know that soon it will shift.

Someone asked a question after my last post: "What do you mean by 'grounding yourself in the moment' throughout the day?" I mean literally taking myself out of my head (thinking) and down into my body/the earth. So I look at my hands and think about what they're doing (washing dishes, holding the steering wheel). I look at what is in front of me and make myself focus on that (the droplets running down the shower wall, the trees outside the window, the clouds in the sky, the dog on the path). I focus on what is happening for my physical body on the earth right now. Grounding myself. Not thinking about anything except what is happening right now in this very moment.

Anyway...I'm lucky that my melancholy phases don't tend to last for long.. maybe a day or two.. and they are usually to be expected. They come after I've had a very busy time or a gritty time or some such phase that has taken it out of me, i.e. they're the low after the storm.

So that's me today. I'm just in a low key mood. It's ok. I'm ok.

I wrote in the Members Feed at Living Sober the other day that sometimes I think I’ve forgotten what a big deal it is getting used to living raw all the time. I’m so used to it now it’s my norm.. but when I first stopped drinking it was a bloody shock and not nice at all. Not nice at all. Just a big wide open raw brain 24/7.

That's the thing about being sober, it's not about feeling left out or hankering for booze or worrying what others think of you or regretting the past (although all of those things crop up from time to time).. it's just the relentless nature of being raw 100% of the time.

Raw. Sober. Wide-open brain. No escape. Sober. Sober. Sober.

I love it. Even when I'm a bit melancholy like now.. because what is the alternative? Having some alcohol which will have some sort of impact on my brain which will take me away from my natural ebbs and flows? No thanks. I don't do that any more. That shit has no place in my life.

Just writing this out has made me feel better. Externalising my internal processes always frees me up. That's why I blog. Thanks blog!

Love, Mrs D xxx