Come hang with me:
đľApril writing workshop is live, and the theme is âDesert Rambles.â Prompts include cacti, and a free association exercise to traverse the open plain from there to here. Suggested cost is $20-$50, and, itâs sliding scale, so you get to choose. Iâm particularly excited about this one âď¸ register here.
đđž Register for the next Sober from Bullshit Recovery Club: Storytelling Edition here. May 5th!
#1:
Wake up, go to bed, look in the mirror, exist. Is that me? You ask. Is that me, standing over here, yet again? Ugh! You say. Thatâs it! You say. You make a pact. Step one is to make a pact with yourself, because you canât unring the bell that is reverberating with all your failed attempts at finding someone else to fix you, and honestly? You are tired. You are so tired, which makes you the most important thing: willing.
#2:
Squirm. You want to be a person who meditates, who can see a singular task all the way through, who can sit and listen and pay attention, who can respond to a simple email without buzzing around the twenty-seven open tabs on your browser, but instead, mostly what you do is squirm. You cannot skip the squirm. There is nothing about any of this from which you can opt out. This will feel terrible. This will make your skin itch and slough and creep. This is when you remember the pact, this is when you tattoo it on the palms of your hands.
#3:
Sell out: buy the heaviest weighted blanket available. Lay underneath it, close your eyes, and imagine yourself at the bottom of a clear blue lake. When youâre under the blanket you can breath under water, and so you do, you breathe and stare at the ripples on the surface, the cool fish that flit and shimmer along, the turtle who is your newfound inspiration. Become a stone, sink, sleep. Sleep helps with the squirm, as long as you have a blanket to help you breathe.
#4:
It helps to do something with your hands. You might stir, or sew, or splash, or scribble. You might run into the backyard at first light, and plunge your hands into the worm-filled dirt that you pick out from under your nails for the next three days. You might take clippers to your own skull, you might exfoliate the dirty rings around your ankles, you might tweeze your brows into thin lines like itâs 1997 again. You might dust the pobrecito daddy long legs from the corners of your bedroom. You will definitely have the most vacuumed rugs, the cleanest closets, the shiniest floors. You might feel a little boring, and so you make a mess of something, maybe you smear paint on the walls or throw an old TV off an overpass or leave your dishes in the sink even though you know it will piss off your housemates.
#5:
Cheese, crackers, salami, hummus; rice cakes and almond butter; apples and carrots for crunch; bitter chocolate for perspective; 100% cacao for chalk; a whole bag of Goldfish crackers, cheddar edition; black sesame ice cream and sourdough bread and homemade granola because yes, you are that person; cookies other people bring to you fresh out of the oven; is pizza a snack?; homemade guacamole, like mom used to make and sissy and me would fight over; expensive dips from the fancy market; chips until your lips and fingertips are raw from the salt. Healthy snacks, fatty snacks, equal opportunity snacks, Iâve never met a donut I didnât like snacks. Get you some snacks, is what Iâm saying.
#6:
Iâm sorry, but hey, you knew this was coming: this is the part where I tell you to move. Heave around heavy weights, grunt, growl, keen. Pick a direction and walk. Lay on the floor, shift and slither about like a snake in mid-molt. Jump rope. Jump on a trampoline. Jump off a cliff into the sea, or a diving board into a pool. If you must, do some yoga. Blast something that sounds like a scream, wail your body around the room, shake and spin and sweat. See what you can do to muster up some sweat.
#7:
Speaking of. It helps to have noise in your ears. Make some at-the-ready playlists for all the moments: angry, lonesome, confused, melancholy, joyful, scared, solid, silly, strange, suspicious, centered, sad. Drown out your own dumb thoughts with other peoples maybe more helpful ones: listen to audiobooks, podcasts, recordings from all those online classes you signed up for all excited and then totally half-assed. Number Seven is where I remind you that you are human and yeah, I know you want to be present but sometimes, in order to stay you must distract distract distract. Itâs OK.
#8:
Spritz nice smelling misty things straight into your face. Pour essential oils onto your upraised wrist and sniff, or, if the thought of essential oils baseline annoys you, just cut open a lemon or find a loverâs armpit and stick your nose in it. Slide something unbearably sour under your tongue, or if you are sick of sour, because, you know, life, get some caramels or chocolates or gum or lollypops or those pixie stick looking honey straw things. Be a person who carries crystals in your purse, squeeze squeeze squeeze. Look out the window, stare at the clumsy-ass mourning doves, be amazed by their fumbling, their sad stupid song. Text that friend who always responds on the quick. Be relentless with the present moment; I know I just told you to distract, but sometimes, you have to disrupt disrupt disrupt. Catchphrases help.
#9:
Buy the $20 bag of decaf, the aggressively fizzy water in glass bottles, the fancy powdered chai. Yes you want to stay hydrated but also, you want to enjoy life, and sometimes, what is required are bubbles that make your nose feel like it might combust.
#10:
You didnât think weâd get through this without crying, did you? In order to stay, find yourself some pals. Find yourself some pals to whom you can say the ugliest, most horrible things to out loud, who will respond by wrapping you in their arms or sending you a postcard that makes you smile. Find yourself some pals who will talk you through the squirm, who will remind you when youâve spent enough time under the blanket and itâs time to figure out how to be human again, who know exactly what to say to make you laugh until you piss. Find yourself some friends who will forgive you when you fuck up, who will forgive you until you figure out how to give that to yourself.
#11:
Begin to remember that you have a say. Choose this. Practice feeling good. Fuck perfection, make another mess. Roll around in it, wash your hair in it, rub your kneecaps raw with it. Sit, stay, squirm. Look around. Youâre doing it. This is what it looks like. It is good. Let it be good.
Slow Motion Sober is a newsletter and community for creative types who are sober or curious about sobriety, and all the life-y intersections along the way. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, facilitator and sobriety advocate in San Francisco, CA.Â
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Loved this. I feel very inspired, particularly to go throw a tv off of an overpass and eat snacks. <3