Getting High & Avoiding Sinkholes
Why I almost Quit Blogging
Okay folks, it’s been a minute and you asked for a long one. So go to the bathroom, mute your TV, eliminate all distractions like your kids, and change into your Netflix pants because I’m about to drop some unapologetic realness.
When I first embarked on my blog journey, I was on a serious, organic, “life is fucking awesome, I am manic with creative ideas,” high. I was also reading some bomb ass self-help and inspirational books. I was also starting up another summer grad school class and continuing to work three jobs however I was making a priority out of reading, writing, and running, because I noticed after just a few days that it was setting my soul and brain on fire.
Fast forward after my third blog post and impending deadlines for summer class assignments, I finished reading the book I proclaimed and promoted as a game changer, and allowed the new books I bought to collect dust. I turned on the Netflix, filled my brain with reruns of the Sopranos, sat around and procrastinated homework, and BOOM, just like that, creativity fucking gone.
I began to question if I had Bipolar Disorder (as therapists, we’re always diagnosing). For a strong few weeks, I felt I was on a creative cloud. The writing ideas were just flowing into my brain without any apparent conscious effort. I was motivated. I felt energized and like that happy annoying person we all know and loathe. Then *poof* it disappeared…. Suddenly all I wanted to do was sleep (which realistically isn’t that abnormal for me and my ever changing work schedule). However I started to wonder if it was just a pink cloud. My fearful, subconscious self started to question if that is all I had. Could I keep creating awesome writing content that I had received so much positive feedback about or had I drained my mental tank and that’s all she wrote.
Now I will say that besides being resilient, I do have some critical skills between being in recovery, and being a therapist, that definitely help me get out of this stinking thinking. I thought to myself “I need to practice what I preach.”
As a therapist, when we have clients in front of us who have historically managed to propel themselves through traumatic situations and excel despite adversity, we typically guide them with what is called a “strengths-based approach.” This is a clinical way to say “well you’ve done it before, so what did you do back then to help you get through it that you can do again now?”
Exhibit A:
Therapist: “Okay so you had a relapse. You didn’t erase all that experience, strength and hope though! You said you’ve had five years of sobriety before. So what were you doing to stay sober back then?”
Client: “Yeah, well, I had a sponsor back then and I was going to 12 step meetings. I was really into Church and working out. I was loving life.”
Therapist: “Okay so do that shit again.”
Okay so hopefully your therapist wouldn’t phrase it like that (unless you’re my client and I’ve been working with you for 2+ years) but you get the point.
Consider another scenario…
Exhibit B:
Trainer: “So I understand your goal is to lose 30 pounds. You mentioned after your pregnancy, you lost 58 pounds. What method did you do back then?”
Client: “Well I woke up every morning and drank my lemon tea instead of my Starbucks Caramel Cosmic Frappuccino with extra sugar, espresso, and heavy on the creamer. (Can you tell I can’t afford Starbucks?) I also joined a Zumba class and drank a gallon of water a day.”
Trainer: “That’s great! It sounds like changing your liquid diet to healthier alternatives and joining a group exercise class really helped you. Would you be willing to do some of those things again since it has proven to help you in the past?”
This is also where we as professionals, *mic drop*
So considering these very realistic scenarios, I used the power of thinking about my thinking (aka meta-cognition, it’s awesome, freaking google it) to approach myself with this strengths-based thingy.
“Okay bitch, you know you wrote some fire blog posts in the past month and all the people loved it. Shit, your fellow therapist friends were even using them as group topics. Some of your high school friends said it reminded them of the self-help books that you just finished reading that inspired you to write in the first place! So rewind to last month. What month am I in? Oh August that’s right, still COVID season. Okay so July… wtf was I doing in July. Oh that’s right. Reading, writing, and running.”
Insert self-revelation.
The second I stopped feeding my high, I started to come down. The second I stopped doing what was helping me do what I wanted to do, I quit doing it. The second I stopped reading, I quit writing.
Prior to this self-reflection, those false beliefs and fear started creeping in. I had put myself out there in a major way and now I was just going to ghost on y’all. I had created this expectation of my writing and now fear and lack of mental exercise was telling me I couldn’t live up to the expectation I had set for myself and my readers.
Can you relate? We dive in headfirst, excited, liberated, all giggly like when we’re crushing on someone and we’re high on life. Then, the high and excitement wears off. The “new” feeling fades away. The lust and allure disappear. You’re no longer entranced and mesmerized by your new exciting goal that you were kicking ass at. It’s like when you first start dating someone and you’re all goo-goo-ga-ga over them like they’re the 8th world wonder and then you get comfortable, realize they’re human, and discover that they eat, sleep, poop, and pick their nose and you’re like “oh okay, you’re not that captivating anymore..”
How do we stay high? Well take it from a recovering drug addict:
YOU STAY LIT!
To put this in a healthier, more productive perspective: How do we stay motivated for our passion and goals?
You have to keep feeding it.
You have to take a moment to pause and analyze the baby steps you are doing that make you feel good.
For me, that was replacing Netflix with reading self-help books to fall asleep (I fall asleep much easier, quicker, and naturally by reading vs. scrolling through Facebook or watching Tony Soprano whack somebody by the way).
- I was getting outside for physical exercise on an almost daily basis. I was getting that endorphin release.
- I was putting Post-It notes up on my bathroom mirror telling myself that “I am worthy. I am capable. I am intelligent. I am fucking awesome.”
- I was saying these affirmations in my head and out loud, all throughout my day, especially when I noticed my behavior in direct conflict of those affirmations.
- I was spreading good vibes instead of gossip.
I was feeding my mind, body, and soul.
It’s amazing how quickly us humans can fall out of a routine and practice of doing things that nourish our foundation of mind, body, and soul. We start freaking out when we receive a high electricity bill and next thing we know, we’re signing up for overtime and our new workout program we were so excited to start goes out the window because we’re working too much and weeks later, we find ourselves binge watching “My 1,000 Pound Life,” elbow deep in a bag of Doritos, hating on ourselves for being a fat man bear pig and wondering why we can’t lose weight and where the hell our motivation for that workout program went.
This is one of the scenarios I envision when I talk about the “rabbit hole.” (Shout out to Alice in Wonderland). Essentially, “the rabbit hole” refers to that sinkhole of negative thought patterns and self-defeating behaviors that us humans are so vulnerable to fall into when we’re not being mindful about our thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
Now there’s this human that I absolutely fucking adore. He’s perfect in my eyes and I did put him on such a pedestal in the beginning (and sometimes still do). Let me tell you a little, itty bit about my awesome fiance.
First of all, he’s a fucking warrior. This man should not be alive by any logic or actions of his own in the past. Which is why he has made it a part of his daily morning routine to thank a God of his understanding every morning for simply being alive.
How many of us wake up and thank whatever the hell is out there that keeps this Earth spinning on its’ axis, for simply being alive?
Umm.. I’ll admit. When I’m not staying in the present moment and being mindful, I don’t.
This is frowned upon in the 12 step community but spirituality is something I super struggle with. However I am willing to continue to explore it because any mind-blowing transformation story or self-help book I’ve read, ALWAYS talks about the necessity for it. How spirituality is the cornerstone of a successful, healthy, and happy life. Shit, I most definitely should not be alive given the stuff I’ve put myself through in my lifetime, so there HAS to be some entity out there that has my back.
But let’s get back to the hot piece of ass I’m lined up to marry.
So he does this thing, where he wakes up at least 1-2 hours before he starts a workday ranging from 10-14 hours. Which that in itself blows my mind. Me, I roll over, hit snooze about 3-5x, reluctantly get up, stumble to the coffee machine aka my lifeline, and even if I’m early I still manage to be late or just on time. This guy’s philosophy is if you’re on time you’re already late. Oh! And he also wakes up to one alarm at about 3am every morning. What kind of alien creature am I committing to? #OppositesAttract
But see.. His motive in getting up that early is demonstrative of his dedication to his morning routine that he wholeheartedly attributes to staying sober and motivated. He has his coffee, reading, and morning meditation ritual. I have been living with this superhuman for almost two years now and there has not been a day he has swayed from this routine. Yes, I have questioned if he is a robot. No, it doesn’t appear he is. But he even sticks to this morning ritual on his days off and the days where he plans to lounge around and watch ghost documentaries (that’s a whole other blog post).
I share that with you to illustrate that this mythical creature has discovered what keeps him reaching his goal of staying sober, present, successful, grateful, and motivated, and he has never stopped doing it. No surprise, he continues to excel in his career, stay sober, come up with new goals, and currently mow the lawn at 8:30 am which is causing me to make a lot of typos.
The key to success and in maintaining our success, motivation, and passion, is in our daily habits. I can’t reiterate it enough, the secret equation to life that most of us spend our whole life searching for is: thoughts = beliefs = actions = habits. If we think about how, hey, getting up early and reading some kick ass morning motivation helps me believe that I’m fucking awesome, seems to help me go out and do awesome things, and oh shit! Look at the past year! I’ve bought a house, got a promotion at work, lost those 20 pounds and just been awesome-ing on the regular! Being awesome is all I know how to do now!
I’m grateful that I surround myself with dedicated and disciplined people, as well as having the life experience and education that I do so that when I fall down the rabbit hole, I can practice the pause and mentally retrace my steps of wtf I was doing prior to falling into the sinkhole where motivation goes to die.
Discipline vs. Motivation
The other key component to maintaining our motivation and staying lit is discipline. See discipline differs from motivation in the sense that discipline entails doing things that we are not necessarily motivated for at the time but we do it anyways, which ends up making it a habit.
We have to grind even on the days when we don’t feel like grinding.
We have to suit up and show up for ourselves on the daily. By doing this, we condition ourselves and this pattern becomes a healthy habit. Consider those days when you decide “Fuck it. I’m going to work ugly today.” Mistake numero uno, is the negative self-talk. Consider rephrasing it: “I’m going to work au naturel today.”
The second mistake you’re liable to make is to not actually get ready. Now I recognize this looks different for everybody. Some wear makeup, some don’t. Some wear heels, some don’t. But the point is to discipline yourself to still get ready, whatever that looks like for you, even when you don’t feel like it. Because guess what? Chances are by getting ready, whether it’s full-blown glam or just showering your stank ass, you’ll feel an itty-bitty-bit better than if you opted to drag yourself out looking like the Walking Dead. #LookGoodFeelGood
Another simple but totally difficult suggestion is working out when you don’t feel like it. Chances are that the barbell will feel like a two-ton concrete slab but guess what? Afterwards, you’ll be proud of yourself for pushing through and when we’re proud of ourselves, we release positive energy and positive energy is intertwined with increased self-esteem.
Why do we fight ourselves so much about doing stuff that we know makes us feel So good?
Because life. Life is hard. Life happens. But life also keeps moving whether you take time out to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Life was happening the past few weeks when I put down the inspirational books and indirectly put down my creativity and drive to write. Next thing I knew, I wasn’t enjoying life as much. The laptop and book felt like a hundred pounds. Tony Soprano seemed more interesting than myself and my passion. That’s why it is important for us to not only have a dedicated routine that involves the secret life equation of thoughts = beliefs = actions = habits and discipline, but also accountability and to strike while the willingness and motivation is *hawt*
Vulnerability + Accountability
When I hit “share” on my first Facebook post for my blog, I truly had to look on the ground because I thought my stomach had fell out my ass. FEAR. “Will anybody read it? Will they like it? Do they care that I write how I talk? I need to delete it now. This was stupid. I can’t write. This is embarrassing. Let me go front flip into the rabbit/sinkhole before anyone sees me.”
No. No. NO!
Ew Sabrina, stop that shit! You! You stop that shit right now! If I were my parents, you’d be getting the wooden spoon for negative self-talk like that.
The thing was, I effectively made myself vulnerable by sharing my writing.
Fear attempted to consume me.
It had won for over two decades but I knew that by hitting “share” I was going to make myself accountable because once you put something on the internet, it’s always there. I knew that I was launching myself into my dreams and hopes, which parallels with launching ourselves through fear (reference my blog post Free Falling Into Fear).
I also knew that by sharing my writing, there was a likely probability that people would a) want to read and b) want to keep reading. Therefore, I would create this expectation and anticipation of keeping new shit coming.
When we sign ourselves up for something in a public way that involves others, we indirectly commit ourselves, creating accountability. When we say we’re going to meet someone at the gym for Zumba, they are waiting for us. When we say we’re going to bring Grandma’s famous Peanut Butter Pie to Thanksgiving, our family is salivating and expecting this delicious treat.
By signing ourselves up with others, we connect and commit. Oftentimes, it is actually helping us to stay disciplined. So when we fall into that sink hole of self-doubt, other people can help pull us out. Fun fact: this is also the key to staying sober; staying connected.
So this post is dedicated to my readers.
Those of you who have reached out through text, Facebook, and messenger to express what an impact my writing has made on you. To express how you wanted to keep reading and can’t wait for the next blog post. Because it is through you, that I woke up this morning and decided to write this. I decided to be honest about the delay. I decided to be vulnerable about how I too fall into the rabbit/sinkhole of self-doubt, fear, and being unmotivated. It is through others that we stay accountable.
Accountability helps us with self-discipline. Self-discipline helps us stay motivated. Staying motivated and feeding our mind, body, and soul keeps us organically high and chasing our dreams and goals.
We have to keep fueling the fire or else it will go out. We have to give props to whatever it is in the Universe that provides us the opportunity to even wake up and think about our thinking so we can think awesome, believe we’re awesome, do awesome, and progress to habitual awesome-ing.
So put the phone down after this, play some Beyonce or Metallica, and pour some Kerosene on your own fire.
Stay lit my friend.
Until next time..
- Sabrina Leigh
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I read every word. Makes sense….makes life happen vs life of existing. I acquired energy to continue the “to do” list. Amazing blog!
Girl, I love reading your blog and I’m not a reader! You encourage me to continue to love and honor myself. You have a gift and I thank you for ” staying lit “