This is my favorite challenge that I've done in a long time, and quite possibly will become my favorite challenge ever.
I've already battled with and overcome addictions, so this challenge feels different.
This one comes from a place of excitement. This one is more about refining habitual patterns.
I noticed the last few months when I was trying to decide what I want to create next in my life I kept coming back to "I have no idea what I even actually want".
As I write this I still have only a vague fuzzy idea of what I want my life to look like a year from now. or 5 years from now. So that's what the sobriety challenge is for. Extreme Mental Clarity.
Could I be content to continue on, doing a life of boring jobs and having beers once in a while and getting stoned to make it seem fun?:
That's what everybody does right?
Ricky is totally on point here.
Get Stoned, It'll Be Fun, Get to Work.
Everybody Does It.
But wait. Do they actually? Or it is just that my friends keep me in conformation bias?
I was talking to a Mom friend the other night about how I notice a lot of facebook meme's perpetuate these ideas that it's totally fine to get by in life on coffee, wine and weed. I think those ideas lower our personal standards. They make it seem like, "Being a Mom is so overwhelming that the only way to deal with Motherhood is to be intoxicated as a coping mechanism."
This is also why I think social media can be an unhealthy addiction, because if one isn't being conscious of which ideas one is ingesting, it's probably easy to believe that Monday's are actually the problem instead of taking responsibility for the unambitious career paths we've chosen.
And no. I've come so far that I will not be content with a satisfactory life experience of boring McJob's and weed to regulate my frustration with the stupidity of our consumer culture and beers once in a while as escapism.
(whoah there! not saying I will never enjoy marijuana and alcoholic libations ever again! that's pretty extreme, and I'm not one for absolutes.)
This 5 year cycle I'm passionate about collaborative community co-housing. With Moms in mind, because it's a tough culture for Moms here right now. So many of us want to eat super healthy, and live in clean minimalist environments, and engage our children in meaningful activities.
but I see so many Mom's settling, because it's difficult to find the existence of what we are seeking.
I'm not good at settling for less than everything I want.
I feel that it's going to take more resources than I have in this moment (like, existentially, as a "being") to get into the vibration state of collaborative community co-housing creation for Moms who want to streamline meal prep and cleaning and maintenance and... all the stuff together.
I feel too cloudy when I try and write about what that would even look like. Henceforth:
Sobriety Challenge Includes:
-no smoking (I already quit cigarettes a long time ago)
-no toking (I already LOVE this choice)
-no drinking like a Pirate (admittedly, the manner in which I tend to drink, and the reason I mostly quit drinking 7 years ago. Thus, since I typically don't have just one beverage and sip it slowly, I shall have none at all.)
-no eating for no reason (I've been super bored lately so I justified eating a ton of crap)
-no caffeine (ahhh! so pervasive its almost inescapable)
-if you don't see it on this list it's probably not even a thing in my life
I know I'm supposed to write all of those as affirmative statements but I'm not in the mood right now.
Lastly, I want to say that I think getting inebriated now and then is healthy, and can actually help people relax and grow as individuals. Intoxication can be super fun and consciousness expanding.
Psychedelics, Shamanic what-have-you's, all the other stuff out there, whatever your pleasure, go for it. I totally recommend experimenting.
My current challenge is with the intent of knowing myself and my mind on a really intimate scale, to be able to design and create my reality with maximum enjoyment and efficiency, install empowering beliefs with ease, & remove mental blockages as though I was taking a bag of old clutter to a donation bin.
So that's why sobriety. What I do with the next 5 years will blow you away.
