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Jane Cornelius posted an update 6 years, 7 months ago
Here are my goals & skills I intend to work on:
GOALS:
1) Connecting Time…
I haven’t been honest with myself that I don’t reach out and ask for help, that even though I have good friends and an active social life, I don’t have any sober connections in real life and I need them. My friends are supportive of my sobriety but I don’t have anyone I can talk to in person or on the phone/texting that really gets it. When I first got sober I went to a few AA meetings and a few months ago I went to a few Refuge Recovery meetings that I liked but I made no attempt to connect with anyone at either of those meetings. I know there are also some sober Meetup groups in Chicago that I can check out. Not sure what this is going to look like, but I do want to connect with sober people in real life.2) Physical Time…
I am so all or nothing with exercise, food, self care. I get so resistant and self sabotage. I’m either running 3-4 miles or I’m not exercising at all for 2 weeks. I’m either eating low carb/super restrictive or I’m eating fast food twice a day. I want to find balance and consistency. I know part of it is a worthiness misunderstanding and part of it is a fear of recovery in a weird way, like I’m uncomfortable with the unknown, which is being a healthy person. I’d like to be able to do something healthy everyday like go for a walk or a run or yoga, not all or nothing, not to extremes. And I want to start working on nourishing myself better by feeding myself one healthy thing a day, which would hopefully replace one unhealthy thing but even if it doesn’t at first, just knowing I deserve to put one nourishing thing in my body each day (Bev and I have talked about this before, but I haven’t done it consistently hardly at all).3)Focus Time/Down Time/Time-In…
I feel like these all blur together and I want to be more intentional with each. I have all these goals of things I want to learn and do and make happen with my career/work but also fun things and instead I waste so much time. I want to be more intentional with my time and I do best when I put blocks of time in my calendar and then use the timer on my phone, whether it’s to let myself have a half hour to read for pleasure uninterrupted or going to a coffee shop for two hours to finish a school project. I’ve definitely noticed that I’ve replaced alcohol with food and technology and am always reaching for one of those to numb, distract, avoid, etc. So I want to work on not wasting so much time scrolling through my phone and be more intentional with the things I spend my time on.The skills I need to work on are:
1) Boundaries…especially with my Mom. I’ve felt responsible for her my whole life and it’s hard for me to let go of that and let her live her own life and put myself first in mine.
2) Self-forgiveness and self-compassion…I think continuing to work on these will help with my urge to use food and technology instead of alcohol. I want to heal the root of my addictions.3)Allowing/Non-judgement of myself and others. I’ve gotten a lot better with this lately, just being aware and then letting go. Especially with others’ political opinions for example. But also with their life choices, etc. All I have to worry about is myself. Trying to continue to live from that belief.
Glad to be in process with you. I understand in our humanness we will move toward or away from some goals. Here’s to self-love and honoring to take up more room in our lives. It helps me when I find others doing their work. Thanks for sharing.
Yes Tami, glad to be doing the work here with you too. 🙂
“How you are relating to yourself” came up for me while reading your goals. Can you make a choice and love yourself through that choice unconditionally? Or can you make choices that you feel good about and support you in loving yourself. That way you can have more of a balance approach to yourself and life and love yourself anyway. Versus this feeling good if you “are being good” and feeling bad if you perceive your choices bad. I appreciate your honesty here, even if you feel you haven’t been being honest with yourself. Great process here!
That’s exactly the message I needed to hear. All of these messages of self-compassion are coming to me and I own that that’s the work for me to do. Loving myself unconditionally through every choice is my new intention. I had a day last week where I woke up with a cold and went to work and was driving between two schools when I thought I feel miserable how am I going to get through this day, and instead of suffering through it, I stopped at CVS and bought myself 3 boxes of kleenex (one for my desk, one for my car, and one for my bedroom) orange juice, and cold medicine. It seems silly, but it was such an act of self compassion and not instinctual that I noticed it and thought wow, this is how I’m supposed to treat myself.