Two Weeks....Fourteen Days....I'm changing for the better.....In so many ways!

Today is the two week mark. I am sitting here smiling as I type because truly it has been so much easier than last time. I look around this cosy little  home I am making for myself and smile again. Okay this is partly because it is freezing and drizzling rain outside and I am here in the warm, but I can feel a greater heat coming from inside me.

I am liking who I am becoming. I mean if I bumped into me while out, as a stranger and started up a conversation. I believe I would recognise a person who has had many experiences and has a really secure hold on reality. I would like this person and want to get to know them better.

I have read pages and pages of inspirational writings, sat through hours and hours of discussion with psychologists over the years. Sometimes for help with personal problems and sometimes to learn how to understand successful management techniques when I was working. I have been bombarded with cliches by my Mother, Sister and many many friends, and must confess I have jumped on invisible soapboxes and quoted many  myself.

However, if I push all the 'talk' aside, and truly acknowledge my feelings, beliefs and actions, it seems that there has been a massive shift of gears in my mind, heart and soul. It's not unsettling this change, in fact it is comforting.

This time the fearful fog of doubt is missing from my way of thinking. The 'but what if's' are gone. For example, if I go out where alcohol is being served, I just don't want any. I don't care what other people do in their lives, that is their choice and I am under no obligation whatsoever to comply with anyone else's decisions or choices. Only my own and I like it. In fact I love it.

But it goes far deeper than just alcohol. It permeates throughout all of me. All of my choices are just that, mine and I recognise now that the exact second I consider obliging others in their choices, I can actually feel it. I can actually feel the change within me and I know now, where that can lead. It leads me away from myself and I don't want to do that, because I know I would miss me. I don't need to 'fit in' to other's worlds, I need only to be at peace in my own.

The 10th Day.....going well....feeling good

I decided to write today...instead of tomorrow. Tomorrow I have my first session with a grief counselor to address the upcoming anniversary of Dad's death.

It's been 4 years, and in that time I seem to have buried dealing with it fully in the day to day living experience. In hindsight, and this is purely conjecture on my part at this time, I stuck with living with 'familiar' things rather than totally confronting the newness and sadness of him no longer being alive.

I nearly wrote 'with me' then, but changed it because he will always be with me :)

This anniversary is actually one of the reasons I decided to stop drinking. I can remember how proud he was when I made my first attempt. Now I want to feel my own pride to honor his memory.

Strangely though, I am not feeling the 'sting' of needing a drink this time. 5 years ago it was soooo hard. This time it just feels more 'normal'. I feel more comfortable despite everything that is happening around me.

Rather than question this, I choose to just live it. I choose to enjoy it.

So.....I lost my temper.....but didn't weaken.

Day 8....yayyyy.

Went shopping today and accepted the thought of buying a bottle of wine.....but didn't.

The post title says I lost my temper....this happened yesterday. I was angry....so I raised my voice. The target of my anger was a person I am trying to excise from my life, however they keep trying to worm their way back in.

I admit some of the anger I felt was directed at myself for continuing to pander to the seemingly never-ending attempts by this person to stay in my life. However I am sick of trying to reason and also defend my personal position. It just isn't working. Sooo....I opened the door of my anger room and for a couple of minutes let the contents fall out....I slammed it shut as soon as I heard him say...."ahh now you are angry you have played straight into my hands."

Now rather than belt myself up for displaying anger, I accept that I did it. It is done. After all, anger is a valid emotion. It's how you deal with it that counts.

Over the weekend I spent time reading back over all of my old blog posts from 2011. If you too have read them you will have seen that there was a person back then who had piqued my female interest. It was strange reading how I  described my feelings back then. Fast forward to now and that same person is the one I am removing from my life.

This blog is about me...so I am not going to list grievances about wrong doings by others towards me, instead I am writing my lessons learned and challenges met.

This is what I have learned so far.

*For some reason I have lived most of my life believing that I am somehow 'faulty'...I am not faulty, just human with emotions that sometimes get the better of me. This puts me in the same category as everyone else. This is good.

*I am tired of living to other people's standards, only because I have chosen many times, to surround myself with those who have low ones. Mine are higher it turns out. Thank goodness I have learned this finally.

*Mistakes are steps to improvement, not a flaw. Insanity is making the same mistake over and over again and expecting a different result. I am not insane.

*Change is not easy. It is a challenge that I have met before and will continue to meet until my end. It is up to me whether to meet it head on or make a sideways attack as some changes need a different approach to others. Whichever method I choose, I will make any change that will bring me a healthier, happier life.

This is a healthy fear...a valid fear...one to be acknowledged and one to be faced...and I am putting my inner guard dog on patrol for my future. Nothing and nobody will stand between me and my life of peace again.:)

This includes all my addictions, my harming habits and the inertia of denial.

Robert the Bruce and the Spider..."If at first you don't succeed"...

For those that aren't familiar with this story...

It is said that in the early days of  Robert the Bruce's reign, he was defeated by the English and driven into exile. He was on the run, a hunted man. He sought refuge in a dark small cave and sat and watched a little spider trying to make a web.

Time and time again the spider would fall, only to climb back up to try again.

Finally, as Bruce looked on, the spider managed to stick a strand of silk to the cave wall and began to weave a web. Robert the Bruce was inspired by the spider and went on to defeat the English at the 'Battle of Bannockburn'.

I was first told this story by a doctor at the Princess Alexander Hospital in Brisbane, Australia during 1991.

I had been admitted with severe pneumonia complicated by Legionella bacteria. My lungs were a total mess, however each day I diligently blew into the Spirometer machine and did the 'puff tests' that charted my recovery. I became frustrated because I wanted to go home, but the Doc' said not until I could sustain a certain measurement for 3 days in a row. I would watch the stupid needle and will it to get to the mark as I expelled air as hard as I could. The first day I hit it I said to him " look I hit it!", with great delight. He said great, now do it again. The second test failed. The third worse still.

He looked at me as tears welled in my eyes, and then quietly told me the story of Robert the Bruce. I got the message. And now all these years later, I am facing a similar situation again.

Now as it has been 5 years since my last post, and for those who know me, yes I did start drinking again. HOWEVER, not as uncontrollably as before, but yes I would have a couple of Chardonnay's here and there. A beer maybe after a hard day's effort in the sun, and a few times enough to wipe out the facts of life that were surrounding me.

This brings me to now. Day 5 of my second attempt to 'weave my web'.

My starting point isn't as low down as last time, for which I give myself some credit. But I am standing now at the peak of a small mountain and can see another one in the distance which is higher. I want to climb that one now. I want to see the view from there. I am carrying extra years of age now and physical limitations from injuries caused during my tumble off the path. But now I have a stronger psychological set of tools to use and my internal compass is not as rusty as before.

So here we go again.....eye on the target....deep breaths...focus.....