Dry January is over, now it is Find it February!
Find what… find your fun, find your groove, find your tribe, find IT! The IT factor in your sobriety.
Whether you are sober curious, newly sober, or well into your tracks, there are always going to be challenging moments. For these, we need our IT factor or the factor/s that keep us inspired on this path. Let’s find what inspires you this February.
I don’t know about you but for me dry January has bought increased clarity, but I am sure there are some of you reading this that might be swaying on the fence or wondering a little bit “will I ever have fun again?” Wherever you are, hopefully this blog post inspires you.
If you were doing the Best Life Dry January Challenge, it has been a month of mindfulness, fitness, nourishment, wellness, and reflection. For others I am sure you have had your routine. Now we are moving into Find It February, let’s take what worked and leave the rest behind. What recently have you found inspiring?
Before you answer that, I want to touch on the conversation of fun. Certainly, one of the hardest parts of being sober is rewriting the book on “fun” and having a community that supports this pure unadulterated (sober) fun can be a challenge of its own. It certainly requires a very active relationship on your behalf, making meaningful connections with people requires your mental attention and some vulnerability.
Let’s just take a moment to honour that and to give space to the fact that this can be scary, but I do promise you, the “fun” you will find on the other side of this will be sweet as honey!
Find it February is all about finding the magic, be it small or large, magic is everywhere! As a mindfulness teacher, I guess you could say this is what I teach. There is a certain magic in connection, and don’t just take my word for it: we are mammals and mammals thrive on connection. We are not islands!
As I mentioned the biggest benefit of dry January for me has been clarity. I realised that everything that my mind says is real but not always true! I have found asking myself “is that fact or fiction?” to be helpful and exploring that a bit. Nurturing a time for mindfulness has added another dimension to my thoughts or time spent in my mind. We spend a lot of time with ourselves, ha! Creating and nurturing another dimension to that relationship is, frankly, quite dynamic, and exciting to me.
It is so easy to move into disconnection when we feel uncomfortable and replace meaningful connection with the distraction of “fun” but is that true fun? I think we live in a world where FUN has been marketed incorrectly. Being mammals, we want to “pod”, we thrive on meaningful connection and to get that we will naturally gravitate towards a space where we can have meaningful connections. You must be proactive to curate a world of connection around you, proactive to find your fun, proactive to find your groove, proactive to find your tribe, proactive to FIND IT!
What did I find inspiring: I have found that I now have new ways of being with my thoughts, or my stories from a non-narrative self-observing perspective. Somewhere in between emotion and logic/reason is this space of awareness or wisdom, and sobriety provided that opportunity. Or should I say mindfulness in sobriety provided that opportunity because you are clear of mind to spend time there.
Top Tips for Find it February:
· Find a good therapist! Someone to help you navigate through the marshy bog that can be the mind. It should be someone removed from “your story”. Talking helps!
· Find your tribe! Whether that is going to meetings or joining a sober community of some kind. Being in a community will give you strength and help you find your fun.
· Find time to practice mindfulness. This develops your space of awareness and wisdom.
· Find your (new) fun! Find what inspires you this February. Having community and a good dose of curiosity helps with this. Use this as a space to explore all those possibilities you never had time for in disconnection.
· Find your empathetic self! This is harder than it sounds because most of us are quite used to being hard on ourselves. POST-IT note it if you must, but a large dose of empathy helps you curate this space of awareness, clarity and ultimately your fun.
· Finally… it’s hard to be fearful when you are curios! In this case curiosity did not kill the cat, never stop being curious about how much better life can be!
Remember it is also a leap year, so you get one more day this month to “find it”!
What else will I be finding this month? I will be finding my groove as a mother. With the birth of my first child this February, you will hear a little less from me for a while, but I will be back. In the meantime, go out there and FIND IT. Reach out to those around you, find your tribe, explore new horizons, find your groove! Feel free to reach out to me as well, lord knows I will appreciate the connection!
Blog post written for the sobriety community within Best Life - Sobriety through connection and featured in the Mindfulness and Meditation Group within the App. Download the app here: https://app.yourbest-life.com/
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