This is my story

To top it all off it feels like summer with a hi of 47 today!

I was originally going to share this with only my nearest and dearest then I thought why? What do I have to hide? In my think tank (aka the shower) I realized my addiction no longer has a hold of me. It’s as though a scab has formed over the memories and I no longer get any joy from them. I have no desire to rip it off and experience any of the exhilarating pain from that wound. It isn’t in the least bit tempting. The life I have now, the place where magic is growing, is so much more than that vice ever provided! Furthermore, it is not accompanied by regret, shame or injury to others. This is an amazing place to be, truly a place of healing. I also commented last night to a friend that my feelings about motherhood have shifted to a more positive space. I testify it is from reading Big Magic (Gilbert) and committing to a daily yoga practice that my heart has changed. Yoga with Adriene daily works on opening your heart space and I know this exercise, this practice is working amazing things in me.

That is all.

The church kept me sober

In my younger years, I could be quoted as saying, “If it weren’t for the church I would be a lesbian prostitute living in San Francisco.” I think the reference to lesbian would be acknowledging my love for other people regardless of gender and the idea of freedom without boundaries. Prostitute because it’s probably the position that would require the least morals (obviously without the church I would be plum out of morals!) and San Francisco because I loved that city. I should have added “and drunk”.

I count myself lucky that addiction didn’t completely ruin me. It is a lifelong struggle but our minds are so incredibly powerful. I am healing and find no need for my vice going forward. 

As I work on relinquishing all anger toward my 25 years of servitude to the Mormon church I find I am very blessed to have started my responsibilities before I was even of legal age to consume alcohol. Drinking has always had to be a recreational sport. When you have four children under the age of five you might not have much else but you sure have a healthy serving of purpose. I never had the luxury of day drinking and for that, I sing praises to the Word of Wisdom. That set of guidelines I took for truth. That book of rules that sets Latter Day Saints apart even though the clergy varies so vastly with consequences for any infractions. (From probation to denying re-entry to BYU to “We all make mistakes”.) Upon making my transition out of the fold it was one of the things many active members confessed they bent every now and then. Hell, some of them take full weekends off annually. Or consider vacations somehow exempt from the no alcohol guideline- among others.What a fool I was. I honestly believed if I drank or smoked I would be denied serious blessings like admittance to the Celestial Kingdom or the ability to hear the “Holy Ghost” (aka my conscience).

Before I left at age 35 I could count the number of times I had been intoxicated on ONE hand! Anyway, I now indulge responsibly on occasion, always with a plan of how we’ll get home safely. I am thankful I lived blindly for awhile because that’s probably the only reason I survived without some kind of drug addiction. I’m not being sarcastic, I was just struck by this silver lining as I showered and wondered how I could help those around me who haven’t been so lucky.

Big magic comes from the littlest moments

I only wrote three posts last year.

Recently, I have been absorbing so much information but concurrently I've experienced a loss for words. I have been in different situations, studying a language and concepts that were previously foreign to me, and it has been so difficult to form eloquent sentences or even find the vocabulary to coherently convey what I'm thinking.

Two weeks is a long vacation from school. Yes, I enjoy sleeping in and am dreading the 6am alarm that will wake me up on Monday morning but, I could do without days on end of restless boredom. Fortunately, I found the key to a happier existence this week and even though I'll be wrapping up winter break with hours at work I feel better prepared for future holidays and virtually every day actually.

I started to read a book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of  Eat, Pray, Love. (Side Note: One of my very best friends picked up the audio version of the book and we had such an inspiring, connected conversation. It was so cool that she listened when I told her what I was reading and then joined the club. That is the good kind of surprise!) It is life changing. Along with my daily, at home yoga practice I think I've really unlocked a secret. Her whole book is about living a creative life. So, since I'm a doer I put that into practice and I kicked ass on Tuesday. I used my mundane tasks as canvases/challenges to see my world in a new way. I made my bed differently, hung a tapestry on one wall in our room, made lunch for the kids and used the antique red glass plates, wore my hair in two buns as opposed to one, took my time and had fun wrapping some belated Christmas gifts, and instead of yelling I yodeled to the 14-year-old. And you know what? I got a yodel back!

Then today Louie wanted to paint the top of the pineapple after I cut it all up. Sure why the hell not?! We were born to create things, beauty, joy. We were born to LIVE.

Over the past few months, I have been listening, eagerly for messages from the universe/God. (I like universe some of you may prefer God.) I have been open to finding answers about my future, career path, how to best parent our teens, what my talents are, how to live life to the fullest, what makes me happy, how to show love the way others want to be loved and all the other questions that float through my consciousness.

And I am getting answers every day in some of the most unusual ways. And the answers aren't: go back to church, search the scriptures, pray about it, pay your tithing, stop seeking secular knowledge. The answers are: keep doing yoga it's how your tummy will feel better, add coconut oil to your coffee, invite your son's boyfriend over, learn to organize the marginalized so they can empower themselves, add 1/2 a tsp of baking powder to the eggs to make the shells come off easily, go to Viewpoints on Saturday, tell your friends when they come up in your dreams, read more, learn more, do more of what feels good.

I absolutely love repetition. You know when you see something or learn something and then it reappears and you can say "Oh yes, I know about that" or when a coincidence happens and you feel like the universe is watching out for you because you hadn't told a single soul but somehow somebody knows anyway.

I feel like I'm living in a magical world. Because I am. We are- all of us.