Introduction

Blogs About My Struggles With Alcohol

• Mystic Order – Reiki Level IIIA – 21 Day Cleanse – A Miracle Has Happened
• Spiritual Discipline – My Alcohol Addiction – My Story Now
• Personal Development – Cutting the Ties That Bind – Saying Goodbye to Alcohol
• Is Too Much a Choice or Addiction?
• Personal Development – A Wild Woman’s Journey With Drinking and Hedonism While Walking the Spiritual Path
• Personal Development – A Wild Woman’s Slow Transformation Towards Her Best Self
• OYNB – One Year No Beer – This Wild Woman’s Successful Journey of the 28 Day Challenge and Beyond!
• Personal Development – A Wild Woman Walking the Spiritual Path – A Wild Woman Redefined? Absolutely!
• Personal Development – Living Alcohol Free – Musings During Day 78
• Just For Today – I Will Do My Work Honestly
• Just For Today – I Will Do My Work Honestly
• Personal Development – Living An Alcohol Free Life – Year One
• Borderline Personality Disorder & Histrionic Personality Disorder – EMDR and Inner Resources
• Another Layer

Time on My Hands

My OYNB blog talks about drinking wine after work and on the weekends. I had an itch after I published that blog, that I had left something out – something was missing. It was later in the day I realized what it was.

I became very aware of the time drinking used up in day. Now that I wasn’t drinking, I had this extra time on my hands to fill. This left me in quite an unusual conundrum as I became very aware of how bored I was during this extra time, especially when I was tired, and wanted to zone out.

Boredom – Now What Do I Do?

This is difficult to explain. I’ll try my best.

Where Focus Goes Energy Flows

OYNB says to stop focusing my energy on trying not to drink and focus my energy on a goal for a better life. Where focus goes, energy flows.

To move my energy away from the belief that alcohol brings benefit into my life towards achieving goals that improve the quality of my life.

My goals and hobbies are exercise that helps me train towards running a half marathon, blogging, snowboarding lessons, and Reiki. I have very specific times scheduled when I engage in these hobbies, as I know I have the energy to do them.

It is when I am lacking energy, such as after a full work day of supporting special needs students in the classroom, or on the weekend when I just want to relax and do nothing after housework, groceries and cooking, that I am acutely aware of how bored I am.

Sitting there, tired out, just wanting to do nothing brought instant, INSTANT boredom.

What to do with myself?

This was a scary place for me, because boredom is a trigger to drink.

I also noticed an internal resistance to make a healthy choice for personal fulfillment when I was tired and bored, because I missed the ease of drinking to fill the boredom gap.

The Complexity of Making Better Choices For Myself

I started to think, why is feeling happy – when it requires an extra effort to engage in an activity that would make me feel better about myself – a struggle?

It is an odd thing…the complexity of making better choices for myself. The choice to either feel better about myself or drink wine and feel worse about myself. Why would I want to feel worse about myself? Am I conditioned to feel worse about myself? Why would I want to feel worse when I can feel better? Why would I choose worse?

Am I Conditioned To Feel Worse About Myself?

After years of peeling back the layers of PTSD to the journey of my authentic self – I started to notice that feeling good about myself sometimes feels uncomfortable like wearing an itchy wool sweater, while feeling fearful and unsettled feels more like cotton – a comfort zone.

Has living in fear for so long conditioned me to feel worse about myself?

Self- Worth Shines a Light on This Dichotomy

Being alcohol free and making healthy choices for myself has increased my self-worth. The flow of my growing self-worth shines a light on the ebb of feeling uncomfortable with feeling comfortable with myself.

I am starting to believe that I can apply, I don’t know what I don’t know to moving out of feeling worse about myself to feeling better about myself. If I am accustomed to self-doubt and low-self worth and have not truly experienced feelings of self-worth and self-confidence, then I stay stuck feeling bad about myself because I don’t know how wonderful it is to feel authentically better about myself.

I don’t agree with Fake it Till You Make It. I’ve tried that. During my recent experiences of accumulating alcohol free fulfilling moments, there has been no need to fake feeling better about myself until I make it, because I am actually feeling better about myself. It is the ACTION of accumulating personally fulfilling moments towards a happy life that has helped me achieve feeling better about myself.

This creates a deeper, knowing self-confidence, that, for me, felt weird. It was like I had this new super power and didn’t know how to wield it; this reality being the “feeling uncomfortable with feeling comfortable with myself” I was talking about.

Relieving Boredom

Wayne Dyer’s concept of boredom is a perfect description of my struggle with it.

I’m presently working on discovering what is personally fulfilling for me, at this second stage of my life.

I’ve been thinking back to when I was a child, and what interests I had then that I could invest my time in now! I’ll have more motivation to engage in these activities because I was truly interested in them when I was a child!

Playing the flute is one of them! I played the flute in my junior high’s school band! I’d like to revisit playing the flute, and give it a go!

There are many activities I enjoy! Dancing, singing, cooking, baking, gardening, reading, horseback riding, kayaking… all to be revisited with a new, alcohol free outlook!

Zoning out when I’m tired robs me of the present moment. I don’t have to write a symphony after a long day at work. I can, however take 10 minutes to practice a few new notes on the flute before a hot bath and bed…

What Does Any of This Have To Do With Redefining The Wild Woman?

Everything.

As my self-confidence grows, I realize my wild woman is evolving along her spiritual path.

Next month I’ll be 51 years old. By virtue of age I believe that drinking, partying and hedonistic pleasures are a younger woman’s game. I don’t feel like I’m giving anything up, as I am entering, transitioning into a new stage of my life and making a conscious choice to change.

A change to a stage in my life where I want to slow down and deepen my roots as I take the time to blossom even further into my greatest potential…

Wild is Wild is Alcohol Free

This wild woman walking a spiritual path has redefined her wild.

Her wild is that of an ancient tree, rooted deep within the earth…

Her wild is…

Spirited

Soulful

Loving

Strong

Kind

Gentle

Playful

Rooted in calm (learning to be!)

With untamed hair

Joyful laughter

Natural beauty

Dynamic energy

Her wild, is a woman moving in harmony with her true self….

S, 💛