One of the reasons I reached for the bottle was this desire for things to be different than they are.

Your nervous system can't tell the difference between a perceived threat and a real one. It responds the same way.

An experience happened. Someone said or did something. You can’t change it. You question it. And then it starts.

The ride has begun. You may or may not be buckled in. If the ride is uncomfortable, it becomes even more so when other thoughts decide out of no where to jump inside and crowd the space, leaving little room to breathe. With little room to breathe it can make even the smallest task seem monumental.

You want this to change. Immediately. You think I shouldn’t feel this way. I didn’t do anything wrong. And so it becomes easy to escape. It becomes the edge softened.

It seemed like a fix, but that’s what kept me drinking for years. I was never addressing the roots.

One of the ways I work with this now is accepting the moment as it is. Accepting that I can’t change what happened. I can recognize if I’m painting the experience in a negative light and question those thoughts, but not stay here because it becomes an infinite loop. I can see what it is and then work with it later. Then I move. My body. And walking has become one of the things I enjoy most each day.

I’ve started to notice too the way I feel at the beginning of the walk has shifted when I get to the end of the walk.

It may not seem like it at the time, but when the desire for things to be different than they are comes up, these moments are providing immense opportunities for growth.