LOVE all this Allison! All your reflections and insights. And YES to embracing our whole selves and showing up as our whole selves. I am on a loooong journey with that - reclaiming the shadow parts I've exiled. A lifelong journey I imagine. I'm coming up to 4.5 years sober. I also lost my mum young - I was 14, she was 50. (And my dad died aged 69 when I was 31) It meant I have absolute clarity around how short life is. And sobriety has given me endless gratitude for just being alive... I am also, like you, highly sensitive and find life very often feels very intense and it gives me a huge sense of their being something 'wrong' with me that needs to be fixed (you should see my book shelf full of self-help books!!) But again, that brings me back to what you share here, about embracing all of ourselves.
That was great!! Thanks for having the courage to be vulnerable and honest. Not many people can or will get near that. I too, see the trap of false story lines about the identity society wants…..and a big absolute YES, society teaches us to do it and supports the lie UNTIL we can’t stand the internal conflict anymore, the tension of two selves competing for our consciousness and we cross some imaginary line of behavior. Then we become the scapegoats of the big lie and beaten and told “YOU can’t play anymore because you’re an addict!!”
Courage to walk in reality my friend. The reward is freedom from the big lie. 🙏
LOVE all this Allison! All your reflections and insights. And YES to embracing our whole selves and showing up as our whole selves. I am on a loooong journey with that - reclaiming the shadow parts I've exiled. A lifelong journey I imagine. I'm coming up to 4.5 years sober. I also lost my mum young - I was 14, she was 50. (And my dad died aged 69 when I was 31) It meant I have absolute clarity around how short life is. And sobriety has given me endless gratitude for just being alive... I am also, like you, highly sensitive and find life very often feels very intense and it gives me a huge sense of their being something 'wrong' with me that needs to be fixed (you should see my book shelf full of self-help books!!) But again, that brings me back to what you share here, about embracing all of ourselves.
Beautiful Allison. We want the whole you 🙏 The journey continues apace!
That was great!! Thanks for having the courage to be vulnerable and honest. Not many people can or will get near that. I too, see the trap of false story lines about the identity society wants…..and a big absolute YES, society teaches us to do it and supports the lie UNTIL we can’t stand the internal conflict anymore, the tension of two selves competing for our consciousness and we cross some imaginary line of behavior. Then we become the scapegoats of the big lie and beaten and told “YOU can’t play anymore because you’re an addict!!”
Courage to walk in reality my friend. The reward is freedom from the big lie. 🙏