Today I’ve been thinking about perspective, exploring that what we leave out of our lives opens space and time to see what we previously couldn’t. Recovery progressively widens perspective. I was the thing missing from my own life for many years. It truly felt like seeing the world for the first time in some of those early days in sobriety. Before recovery, my life was overcrowded and now its simplicity allows me to act with intention.

I’ve picked up painting in stroke recovery which teaches me to look beyond the surface. I paint the sky behind the tree rather than painting the sky around the tree like I did as a kid. I notice what I can’t see and what’s been intentionally left out. Even the white space on a wall, adds to our perspective of the painting hanging on it.

I get to choose today what I carry and what I intentionally leave out of my life, like resentments, catastrophizing, and self-criticism. I’m no longer the thing missing in my own life.

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#RecoveryDailyPodcast #SoberLiving #StrokeRecovery #EmotionalSobriety #RecoveryJourney #IntentionalLiving #MentalHealthRecovery #MindfulLiving #LettingGoToGrow #NewPerspective

I cursed twice this week, and that’s rare for me. I remember when those feelings would trigger me to escape life when I got overwhelmed. I tried to track down the title to my old car yesterday. The paperwork never got processed correctly because of the chaos around my stroke in 2021. The task instantly became a catastrophic, impossible situation yesterday. Before I even took a simple step, I had blown it into a full-scale mental war. I was convinced it would be a DMV nightmare like the one I went through a few years ago. But the catastrophe wasn’t real, even though the fear was. After sorting out the issue with my BFF, ChattyMcChatterton (ChatGPT), the entire problem was resolved in minutes with a simple phone call.

The same thinking pattern showed up today when I was outside doing yard work. I kept fighting a wet pile of leaves with a leaf vacuum that kept clogging. Instead of stopping, I pushed myself right into frustration and another couple F-bombs. Both situations reminded me how quickly overwhelm turns small tasks into monsters when I start running from the feeling instead of the task itself. When I slow down and take the next right action, everything is simple. My old escape routes only multiplied fear. Showing up is what shrinks it. This week has been a humbling reminder that my serenity depends on facing life as it is, not as I catastrophize it to be.

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#sobrietyjourney #anxietyrecovery #emotionalgrowth #progressnotperfection #recoverydaily #overcomingfear #mindfulnesspractice #strokeSurvivorStrong #livinginserenity #nextRightAction

I’m taking a 60-hour Peer Recovery Support training course which I’m super excited about. I was nervous about whether I could handle it physically, but the instructor reassured me he could accommodate my disability so that I don’t have to look at the screen. What I didn’t anticipate is the extreme cognitive fatigue as well. I constantly over-estimate my capabilities post-stroke.

I slept 11 hours the past two nights after class. It runs all day on Mondays and Tuesdays, and a half day on Fridays. I’ve been pushing myself to my edge. I finally turned my screen brightness down to zero yesterday afternoon for a fully black screen to best to manage the eye pain, headaches, nausea, and cognitive fatigue. It’s stretching me, but it’s also energizing me. I’ve learned far more about mental health and addiction than I expected in just the first two days. It’s giving me deeper insight into how to support others more thoughtfully and compassionately.

Because the course is so demanding, I’m recording fewer podcast episodes over the next few weeks. My energy is limited, and I’m trying to respect my limitations without guilt. I even had a listener reach out to check on me since it’s been a few more days than normal without a podcast. I feel deeply connected to my podcast community, and I’m grateful for those who listen on the days I can show up. 

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#strokeSurvivor #vestibulardisorder #cognitiveFatigue #peerRecoverySupport #mentalHealthJourney #addictionRecovery #emotionalSobriety #chronicIllness #healing#recoveryDailyPodcast

Humility and humiliation are tangled up for me. Practicing healthy thinking when you’re “in the wild” is complicated: “right-sizing myself” vs shrinking myself. It feels safer to live in self-inflicted unworthiness than to risk vulnerability. However, it reinforces my old mindset that pain is inevitable, and I deserve it.

Pain, shame, and humiliation are human experiences and reactions based on trauma, history, fear, expectations, and emotional vulnerability. Once we’re emotionally aware, we choose to either continue carrying those feelings or allow ourselves to heal from them.

When someone offers me a compliment, I get uncomfortable. I brush it off, joke it away, believe the person is wrong about me, and divert the conversation to focus on them. I’m practicing pausing and letting the words land without an immediate response. Believing that someone might be right about my strengths is a spiritual discipline. Accepting praise, not just hearing it, is an act of courage. Believing what others see in me feels like arrogance, but it’s healing to let that truth feel comfortable like home, sitting in it long enough to grow self-esteem.

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#emotionalrecovery #selfesteemjourney #humilitypractice #healingtrauma #selfworthgrowth #mentalhealthrecovery #alcoholismrecovery #spiritualgrowth #innerhealing #selfacceptance

Comparing myself to others without realizing it is one of my character defects. When I judge someone, it feels like I’m trying to pull the covers off them to expose some hidden truth, but really, I’m pulling the covers over myself to hide my own insecurities. My instinct to judge comes from an inferiority complex. I’m bracing myself for imagined failure. A lifetime of experiences set me up to predetermine how interactions with people will go and my mind projects my lack of self-esteem onto them. Judgment is a defense mechanism that keeps me stuck in an old unhealthy mindset.

Self-awareness interrupts my autopilot of comparison and fear. When I recognize mid-thought, “I’m judging this person right now,” everything shifts. Judgment stops being about the other person and becomes a cue to look inward and examine the fear or insecurity underneath. We all act from wounds we didn’t choose, and self-awareness helps me choose humility instead of fear and connect instead of imagine competition. 

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#selfawareness #emotionalrecovery #personalgrowth #soberliving #healingjourney #mentalclarity #mindsetshift #innerwork #fearlessliving #recoverywisdom

After my stroke and medical retirement, I see life from a different perspective. One morning, I noticed half-turned fall leaves still attached to a tree, green shifting into fall colors. I’d seen them countless times before but never looked at them the way I did that day. The beauty had always been there, but life blurred my view. Sobriety brought the same shift in perspective. As fear loosens its grip and acceptance of life as it is comes in to focus, gratitude and beauty does too. This is what I know as emotional sobriety that deepens giving a new lens on life.

Watching newcomers in recovery find their footing helps me always remember when my own veil lifted. Their courage restores my gratitude and helps me stay grounded in my program. As the seasons turn, I try to notice the beauty. It’s always there waiting for me to open my eyes.

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I was afraid of everything for as long as I remember. Late in my drinking career, I woke up with a racing mind and pounding chest, terrified of the day and convinced I needed a drink to relieve the fear. My anxiety was a constant hum beneath my skin. Chardonnay was my solution that quieted the chaos. When I discovered the morning drink, it felt like a breakthrough to steady my trembling morning hands, quiet my ill stomach, and silence the panic attacks. 

I was constructing my prison. Each drink that promised relief deepened my dependence, convincing me I was managing my fear while I was just feeding it. The comfort I found in alcohol was a temporary pause from my fear of living and then magnified it. My life became smaller and darker and revolved entirely around alcohol. I was silencing life itself. Facing it sober was terrifying at first but was the only way to begin living.

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Change starts with willingness to let go of what no longer serves who we’re becoming. My character defects are hidden in plain sight, showing up whenever I am disturbed, frustrated, stressed, or hurt. Each inner disturbance is a cue for change. I’ve noticed that a character defect is always quietly steering my fear, pride, envy, or self-centeredness. Step 6 is a lesson in self-awareness to recognize those defects and find the willingness to release them instead of letting them define who I am.

That willingness takes humility and practice. Pausing long enough to reflect instead of reacting opens the door for growth. Change begins in that stillness. When I back away, mentally or physically, I can better see what’s mine to own. Transformation starts with being ready to change. When I’m ready, I start noticing. When I stop trying to defend myself, I become more aware of my role in my relationships and of the person I was meant to be.

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My obsessive thinking can either defeat me or drive me. My overactive empathizer has been feeling like a burden and handicap lately. After hearing terrible news my thoughts spiral into a very dark place if I don’t make a cognizant effort to distract myself. I was encouraged today that my intensity is a superpower that I use to help others. The trouble is that it can also trap me if I don’t ground myself in the present. I must pause and redirect toward something purposeful rather than attempting to “fix” the unfixable past. If I channel that energy into creating, connecting, or helping someone else, it transforms the torment into service. It’s the same mind with the same fire lighting me up instead of consuming me.

Regret can feel like a life sentence. The hardest memories that filled me with shame are the same ones that show me how far I’ve come. My children saw both my fall and my rise, and that’s part of our shared story. I can’t change the past, but I can change what it means. I’ve stopped letting regret define me and instead, let it remind me that resilience has a beginning.

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Feeling isolated has been a thread running through my life. Upon reflection in early sobriety, I believed I was choosing isolation, but I realized this morning that I had felt isolated by the world, as if life had chosen to leave me out. That early victim mindset began thinking patterns that fueled my addiction. I’ve often heard in recovery that alcohol made folks finally feel like they belonged. That wasn’t the case for me. Alcohol made me care less about not belonging. 

Decades later, the more I drank, the more distant I became, until I was convinced that isolation was my rightful place in the world. It took years of recovery to understand that what I thought was protection was actually deepening my loneliness. My sense of belonging grew from within. I have a new framework for my thoughts that gives me confidence and connection through self-awareness. My reality has caught up to my dreams. Wherever I go, I belong.

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#RecoveryDailyPodcast #SobrietyJourney #HealingIsolation #EmotionalSobriety #BelongingFromWithin #SpiritualAwakening #SelfAwarenessInRecovery #SoberLiving #MindfulRecovery #FromIsolationToConnection