Life or death times
How to live the way I want to die?
Over in the SELF MADE community, we’ve exploring different approaches to changing our thoughts. The next two weeks are devoted to all things SELF COMPASSION. What is it? How do we do it? How do we offer ourselves care and kindness in a way that lands authentically in our systems and doesn’t feel cheesy or ridiculous? What are some practical ways we can get started?
🌀 If you’re curious about what we’re up to, I invite you to click the button 👇🏽 below to subscribe to our SELF MADE community and/or you can read more about what we’re up to here.
❤️🔥 I have FOUR 1:1 coaching spots available open this fall. Click here to learn more or here to schedule a free Alignment Session with moi. THERE IS NO PRESSURE TO WORK TOGETHER. Sign up! I am here to support you which might be a little chitty-chat and resource suggestions, etc.
✍🏽 September Writing Workshop is live! Grab your spot here (Sunday, September 25, 10am - 12pm PST). I’ve reduced capacity to make it more intimate so please be sure to sign up in advance.
❓Questions? Ask. I’m here and I’d love to hear from you.
The following was originally posted on September 7th, 2021.
September is my favorite month. The days are finally more blue sky than fog, perfect for Saturday afternoon's spent reading and napping on the couch, looking out the bay windows of the treehouse. The energy of “back to school” is wired in my brain and this season is always one of focus and clearing, honing in on all I want to complete by year end. This was also the first Labor Day in memory that I truly had off, and I spent the three-day weekend almost entirely away from my computer, a true joy and luxury.
On Saturday afternoon a friend and I drove down the peninsula to the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford University campus. To stroll around a museum was a dream. It was the perfect sized museum - I think it took about ninety minutes to make our way through all the exhibits - and then we spent some time out in the sculpture garden basking in the sun and watching other museum goers take silly photos amongst all the melty-looking Rodin peppered about the lawn (including The Gates of Hell - so extra).
At one point, we turned a corner into a room, walking through the same entryway where you see the people standing in the photo below. As my eyes fell upon the backside of the familiar figure of the Buddha in repose, some feeling that I can only describe as recognition whirred to life in the space behind my solar plexus. Rest. What would it be like to be able to take rest that looked, and felt, like the representation before me? I picked up my pace and as I made my away around to face the Buddha I said “this is how I want to die,” and then I burst out laughing the next second when my eyes fell on the name of the sculpture:
Death of the Buddha.
A closer look:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, or truly, since the beginning of the previous presidential administration, I have been in conversation with chaos. This has been a process of learning, discovering, staying stubbornly curious. Figuring out how to live in a way that holds possibility and potential at the center—not of just my own little life, but for every single last one of our lives, and the life of the planet—despite all the breakdown and despair and constant death all around.
This requires discipline. It is not an easy practice, and I lose myself often.
I go on Instagram and I see the outrage. I understand. I too am outraged. I am human, I fall in, I am bandied about amongst the infinite reposts, my ears ring inside the reverb of the echo chamber. I track my nervous system: Cortisol! Cortisol! I look at my bank account and I know there’s no way in hell I can take care of myself and my dog and donate to every.single.cause that needs care. I delete Instagram off my phone, I eat a whole bag of popcorn, I stare at the wall. On cue: thirty-seconds of violent spurt-crying. I push so hard at the gym I can’t form sentences after. I futz with my calendar to optimize every last minute. I buzz my head, exfoliate my face, pluck and press and poke and preen. I take work into my dreams, sleep is fitful, can someone help me with some boundaries? Where is the line? How do I stay here, how do I not float away into cyberspace, into the virtual realm that is increasingly hijacking my most precious resource - my attention?
I do not want this to be how I live.
*
If chaos is reality, how can I live in a way that would have me die peacefully, satisfied, ready?
Or/and: If this is the way I want to die, what does it offer about how I must live?
*
By the end of my drinking, absolutely no one on the outside looking in would have said that I had a “problem.” While I still had epic binge episodes multiple times a year, mostly, I could keep it together. This was “normal.” No one knew that I felt like I was dying most of the time.
I know this sounds dramatic. I know that my “gray area drinking” was not actually killing me, and that so many of us die a physical death due to to alcohol addiction. In no way would I minimize extreme chemical dependency by equating it to my existential angst. And, I hold that while physical death is the most overt, obvious result of alcohol use, that drinking can also cause a spiritual death. I knew that if I didn’t quit that something precious—indeed, the most precious part of me—the part that had me questioning, that was jumping through hoops trying to hook my attention, to have me see that life was so much more than the small, hard thing I’d whittled it down to, would die. And it was this realization—no big story, no rock bottom—that finally terrified me enough to stop. And I’ve spent the past almost four years learning how to live, spurt crying on the daily at how lucky I am, even though life is still really hard more often than not.
My work in the world is on-purpose, and urgent. I train my body so I can carry us across the river when the time comes. I train my mind to push back on the narrative that would have me believe that I am anything other than free. I know what I’m doing. I spent my whole life seeking meaning and now I have it and the stakes are higher than ever. I want to protect all of us. I want water for my beloved home state, an end to the burning. I want everyone to be fed, watered, vaccinated. I want us to put our trash in the proper receptacles. I want us to look to each other rather than the people we “elected.” I want co-living and mutual aid. Free healthcare. Prison reform and abolition. I want long, leisurely dinners around abundant dinner tables with the people I love most in the world, and I want all of these things right now.
I’ve learned how to live as a joyful, non-drinking person. I am learning to live joyfully inside of chaos. I return to the language of chaos over and over, for it gives me words to continue to hone my vision of how this might (must) be possible.
Increasingly, and with a statue’s help, I’m understanding that there must be a partner to chaos, which is rest. Stillness. Spaciousness and quiet. Simple words, and my nervous system downshifts. I imagine what might be possible if I went a step further, and practiced rest, stillness, spaciousness and quiet in practice.
If this is the way I want to die, what does it offer about how I must live? Right now?
And this is the inquiry I’m carrying into the fall. Hope to see you there.
SELF MADE is a rebellious recovery community that empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and boldly step into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, founder, writer, coach, and recovery advocate based in San Francisco, CA.
Click here to learn about working with me 1:1. Check out the “About” page for more information about our online community and click any of the “Subscribe Now” buttons to become a subscriber👇🏽
You can also support this work by pressing the little heart button on these posts, sharing this newsletter with others, and letting me know how this newsletter helps you.
Thank you.
So powerful. I am moved. Thank you Dani.