Trueness and Beauty

This guest post comes from member @djstarheart. It was written as an update in the Members Feed and resonated with so many I thought it worth featuring here. Enjoy!

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I started drinking from the age of 14, gradually progressing to a daily and binging habit until my body was literally screaming at me, “you are killing us!”. I am two years sober now, so in this spirit I was inspired to write about some of my sober gifts. I have learnt:

1. My feelings are strong, sometimes painful to sit with and often difficult to accept. But once they move through me, (and they always move through) I am ok again. Feelings are intuition detectors telling me the truth – in my humble opinion nothing (except for freedom) feels better than truth.

2. In hindsight the first year was difficult and sucked really, but I worked away at it. The second year was easier and bubbled up my traumas I had numbed away, but overall, both years have given me the gift of personal growth and more peaceful life where I can live and love myself.

3. I trust myself more than ever to do what I say I am going to do, the next day promises, I am there. I am showing up and most of the time in a naturally pleasant mood – bonus. I now have an opportunity to be 1% better each day.

4. It was difficult to socialize at first, but as time went on, life naturally became calmer. Now I tend to seek out discomfort and look to push outside my comfort zone. I trust I will be ok, I have got my back. After all I am a thrill seeker at heart – and I can see now mostly in the big scheme of things whatever it is won’t be a big deal.

5. I have become familiar with my brain and how it works, I am most probably on the neurodiverse spectrum, my brain seems to work differently, but now I am able to work with it and mange it rather than try to numb it and shut it down

6. I was able to claim my queerness more fully, and express myself naturally and genuinely

7. My spiritual practices are far more consistent, and have been able to practice reliably for two years

8. Because of all the above, I have learnt, I can be a geeky, a bit woo and unique, and somedays in the right mood I might just be fun to hang with ????

I am an amateur at this, and just starting out on this journey but so far it seems once we stop drinking, over time, we go back to a more natural way of living which leans into the trueness and beauty of being human.

Peace out and keep at it, the treasure is waiting to be found.

@djstarheart