Peace be with You
I think peace looks really different when you have to fight so hard for it.
I’m currently experiencing the most peaceful crash out ever. Like everything is falling apart a little. I’m #stressed, #overwhelmed, and slightly losing it .. but also #relaxing, #vibing, and weirdly at peace at the same time.
The first time I really understood “finding peace” was in rehab. I had been running hard my whole life – always doing something, always trying to prove my usefulness, always being future focused and never present in the moment. For me, if I just kept going, I never had to stop and be present, didn’t have time to self-reflect or even minimally assess my decision making.
I committed myself to rehab the night before my 37th birthday. I woke up in a foreign room, foreign bed, with foreign people, and no idea what to expect. I had no access to my cell phone, my computer, my clothes with the exception of 2 sweatshirts, 3 pairs of leggings, and a handful of shirts, and I was severely depressed, very scared, and operating under extreme anxiety.
There was little to do – read a newspaper, stare out the window at the people on the other side who were allowed to walk around, read a book, do a puzzle, watch something bad on television. I was in this part of rehab, otherwise referred to as detox, for 5 days.
I had a shitload of time on my hands all of a sudden – no responsibilities and no distractions. I grappled with the possibility of calling my children because I was ashamed, it was hard to speak at all to anyone without crying, and I didn’t have anything positive to tell them. I just missed them, and wanted to hear their voices and squeeze them and never let go.
But before I ever had the opportunity to do that again, I had to be here, I had to go through treatment, I had to stop moving and start feeling. And that was probably the scariest part. I was terrible at articulating my feelings, never mind letting myself feel them.
As time went on, and I “graduated” to the residential program, I was faced with a real decision – am I going to attend all group sessions, all scheduled appointments, and all meetings OR am I going to sit back, relax and use this as nothing more than a spa retreat?
Considering the cost, the time away from my children, and the time away from work, I (thankfully) made the morally right and responsible, adult, decision. I have to do the work on myself or this is a complete fucking bust.
I watched others not take full advantage of the opportunity at our fingertips to really put in serious effort to begin to heal ourselves, and it made me sad for them. But I wasn’t going to follow suit. I watched others spend their days figuring out how to hook up in the elevator that didn’t have a camera (not sure how that was public knowledge), the gym bathroom (this required a lookout), climbing through windows in the chapel (FOR REAL!) or another patient’s bedroom, OR stay at the one location in the covered outdoor walkway that wasn’t surveilled by a camera (again, how they know, I have no idea). I’m not going to say I didn’t find it entertaining, because I very much did but I needed to pour my energy into myself, not somebody else.
I will be honest though, when you’re practically living with all these people and you’re openly talking about your inner demons, your pain, your experiences, your #shame and #guilt, the result is walls starting to slowly come down. It creates #connections between people, far bigger than any physical connection. I certainly caught feelings, but they were not acted on in any way while I was a resident. I realize this is contradicting the popular opinion of many in my hometown – but my love life isn’t near as exciting as you talk about it being poeple (that said, your stories are rather entertaining themselves, perhaps you should think about becoming smut authors).
Back to the point … peace. See, doing all the work, taking time away from all the social media, not watching television (except UCONN Men’s Basketball), not being sucked in by my phone, focusing on the present, digesting the past, and creating goals for the future, and learning how to socialize as myself, confidently and honestly, inevitably provided me the opportunity to find and FEEL peace.
Today, while I don’t have the luxury of someone preparing my food, cleaning my residence, or creating a routine/schedule for me, I do have the tools to do it for myself without getting carried away (as in reverting back to old habits and acting as the Energizer bunny). I have the a#wareness that I am only able to control myself, so the chaos outside of me no longer results in me spinning out (not most of the time anyway), instead I co
ntrol how I react, if at all.
Peace is less about relaxation for me, and far more about the state of my mind and heart. While life is chaotic generally, inside I have a relatively stable sense of “I got this” … and that’s peace.
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