stop living in the past - healing happens in the present
Hello,
"Focusing on the past keeps us stuck exactly where we are in the present. In order for real healing to happen in the present, we must accept and connect to the past without letting it define us."
Every month we invite a different expert to share their knowledge with our Be More Membership group.
This month's guest expert was Marine Selenée, a psychologist and family constellations practitioner whom I met last time I was in NYC.
The call was so packed with useful insights that I took pages of notes!
Marine reminded us that it was our inner child who suffered, not us as adults, yet when we don't recognize the experience of the inner child, we unconsciously react as she would. When we can help our inner child feel at peace and soothed, we become able to control our reactions as adults instead of as a wounded child desperately looking for love (and doing whatever she can do avoid the loss of it).
Marine suggested a daily practice of 5 minutes spent writing or talking to your inner child to reminder her that she is love and appreciated for everything she did to get you to where you are today. Thank you and I've got this from here on in.
I asked my mom to send me pictures of myself at the age where I believe I really started to fear the loss of love and experience the effects of abandonment by my father. I've been looking at this picture and sending love to this innocent girl who so desperately wanted to be "enough" so that her father would stick around and really want to know her (not just her cute exterior). I've been telling her that I understand why for so many years after she kept resorting to physical attention as a substitute for self-love, and why she sought out codependent relationships from fear of being left.
We also learned of a powerful exercise in which we can give the family dynamics back to our ancestors. By starting a letter to our ancestors with the theme of "Today I give it back to you..." means you are acknowledging and affirming that family patterns did not start with your, but they can end with you.
There were so many more amazing and insightful topics we covered in terms of family systems and how to navigate the complex relationships we have within our families.
If you'd like to learn more about Marine and her work, please visit her website. She has an upcoming course all about family constellations and a great book called The Movement, which I am gifting to all of our current Be More Be Members.
If YOU would like to hear the entire replay for of her call with us, as well as the other guest expert calls AND monthly coaching call, join the Be More Membership for only $47/month. If you join this week, I'll send you a copy of Marine's book too! More info on how to join below.
xoxo
I haven't been drunk 4 YEARS!?! (what do YOU want to know?!)
Hello ,
September 18th will mark the last day I got drunk.
I woke up the next morning thinking "never again" and I meant it.
Even though I'd said this to myself before, countless times, this time something shifted deep inside of me. Never again (up until now anyway) stuck.
No more blackouts.
No more letting myself down.
No more days wasted hungover.
No more soul-crushing self-criticism and shame.
No more numbing. No more hiding.
No more taking the easy way out (aka the bandaid solution that allows the wounds underneath to continue to fester)
No more losing my grip on reality.
No more straying from my best yes in any given situation.
No more ignoring my intuition.
No more denying my healthiest self. No more abusing my body and mind.
No more feeling like alcohol controlled me instead of the other way around.
No more wondering if moderation was possible for me or just a pipe dream (believe me, I've had more than enough people tell me that once you have a problem with alcohol, it's impossible to moderate).
I could go on and on. But you get the point.
If you'd like to say "no more" to the damaging effects of alcohol in your life, you know that I'm here to support you in any way I can.
That's why I'm recording a very special 4 year not-drunk-iversary video for you.
I'd love to answer your questions. If there is anything you'd like to know about my 4-year journey, I'd love to know.
It takes a lot of courage to step into the unknown.
I didn't have many role models when I started out, and still don't. To be honest, it took me a few years to really truly feel confident in what my intuition was telling me - that it IS possible to control your relationship to alcohol without cutting out alcohol completely (if you don't want to).
So tell me, is there anything you worry about? Feel confused or doubtful about? Any nagging curiosity? As we used to say in the sexual health workshops I facilitate 20+ years ago (!!) - there are no stupid questions, no questions too big or too small.
I can't wait to hear from you.
(the video will be sent Friday, so don't delay!)
xoxo
Flashback Friday and special invitation for September
Hello and welcome to September!
Since landing in Canada just over 3 weeks ago, I’ve experienced a series of flashbacks that have brought perspective to just how far I’ve come in this journey of self-re-discovery and healing.
Flashback to Trashy Tuesdays (7 years ago) when it was a source of pride to get drunk mid-week.
I somehow felt more at home with the misfits who were also out drinking on a Tuesday night. Looking back, the biggest common denominator we shared was a need to escape reality for on a weeknight using alcohol. We were at the local bar sucking back two-dollar highballs like there was no tomorrow. When tomorrow did of course arrive replete with a pounding headache and a stomach heavy with remorse, hump day was even more of a mountain to climb. This flashback hit me as I was dancing at the same bar at the unofficial after-party for our town’s Pride celebrations. I was sober and having a blast dancing in the middle of 6 foot tall drag queens and a medley of the town’s queer folk and allies, without a care of what anymore “else” (ie the bar’s very straight-seeming regular clientele) thought.
Flashback to 5 years ago when I heard the following words. “I need naloxone!”
The nurse shouted as he ran down the hall. “Naloxone? Is my mom having an overdose?” I had come back to Canada to support my mom during the recovery of a fairly routine hip surgery. I had called the nurse as my mom’s temperature had dropped and she seemed to be shaking uncontrollably and the became unresponsive. I knew enough about opiates to know this looked like an overdose and that Naloxone was an opiate-blocker given to those experiencing an overdose. Somehow, my mother’s IV had allowed too much morphine to be administered. I’m really good in crisis, and the nurse used me as his aid as he stabilized her condition. Yet I couldn’t emotionally process seeing my mom almost die (I don't know if she actually could have but that's what it felt like). That night I took the Seabus into the city for a get-together at a friend’s house, which turned into going to a dive bar for more drinks, which turned into showing up at a sketchy afterparty. I made it back to another friend’s house only because that friend had a daughter who was going to need to be up in the morning and she remembered to “be responsible” at 4am. I overslept to see messages on my phone from the original friend I was supposed to spend the night with, worried because I never showed up at her house, and from my sister because I was late arriving back to the hospital to help discharge my mom. We missed a ferry back to our hometown and I felt sick with shame for letting my family down. All of this came flooding back to me as we drove around the neighbourhood and my mom pointed out the hospital where she had her surgery.
Flashback to my hometown's Blackberry Street Festival 4 years ago.
I’d been working at my friend’s restaurant and drinking as much tequila as I could sneak in between busily serving beers and margaritas under a tent barely protecting us from the pouring down rain. My cousin and his partner were visiting, and they bravely faced the elements to come have a beer with my mom and keep me company for a bit while I worked. They were only staying for the weekend. Instead of going home to my mom’s after my shift was over, I went to the local bar (yep, same one that I frequented for trashy Tuesdays) to chase down someone I’d had my eye on. He was super drunk and had a coworker of mine hanging all over him. Me, with everything to prove, needed to feel like the chosen one and charmed him accordingly. We ended up stumbling up the hill to his sister’s house (none of us was fit to drive) and continuing the party aka drinking more. We eventually collided and experienced each other in ways that I’m sure neither of us quite remembered the next day. Waking up, still drunk feeling, and realizing I was in my friend’s daughter’s room and all I wanted was to get out of there. Instead, we went to A&W and I ate something that only enhanced my feeling of wanting to vomit. I got dropped off at my mom’s car, drove home slowly, head-swimming and put on a brave face as I sat down shame-filled at the table where my cousins were having a delicious homemade lunch with my mom. I was a few months into my Holistic Health Coach training program and felt, yet again, that I was living a double life. This flashback return as those same cousins came to Blackberry fest again this year. Instead of going out after the street festival, I couldn’t be happier to crawl into bed next to Luna and get up early to take our kids to the farmer’s market. That night I did go to a party and saw the same friend whose house I had said at 4 years ago (and whose little brother I had hooked up with). I danced without needing attention from anyone and was gratefully the designated driver, dropping off a few friends and waking up a little tired but totally clear the next day and able to enjoy time with family.
There are many more flashbacks but these are a few of the most powerful.
It is with immense relief that I can experience these flashbacks without feeling paralyzed by shame or remorse as I did in the past.
Instead I feel gratitude and compassion for that part of me.
That woman who still didn’t understand or love herself enough to choose differently… who often didn’t even know she had a choice.
I also recognize that I can feel this level of compassion and gratitude because I’ve come so far and have done so much work on myself, so much healing, so much forgiving.
I’m at a now safe distance and have no fear of slipping back to that version of me.
You might not be quite there yet. I get that. It took me awhile too.
That’s why it’s so important to me to keep offering the tools and support to help along the way.
September has always been a month that has brought the promise of change for me.
I love the energy shift as we head into the last quarter of the year.
This year I’m offering a 21-day “September Reset” for anyone feeling that they are ready to powerfully shift into the new season. I’ll be sharing all of my best tools and strategies - for free!
We start September 8th and you can sign up here.
Now I'm signing off to enjoy my last weekend in Canada, at the Sunshine Music Fest, before kicking back into gear and getting ready to reset next week.
I hope you have a fabulous weekend of "being present" and soaking it all in, and hope you will consider joining the reset too.
xoxo